Today we have shelled out the spondoolicks to get our new demesne properly insulated against the grim cold depths of Winter. The amount of stuff left behind in the attic by previous owners has been quite amazing. Old Christmas decorations, games, Tractor Porn and videos of same and doors for heavens sake, a dozen or more full size internal room doors. All flat plywood panel unfortunately, but still more than there are doorways in the entire house. I expect that it’s one of those cumulative things. Everything gets shoved in the loft and never taken down until fifty years later. I expect I’ll find a use for it all.
However, the insulation guys were finished within a day, my pocket is a bit lighter but goodness gracious me, what a difference a foot of rockwool insulation makes. No changes to heating but the temperature and humidity upstairs have gone from 65-67 Fahrenheit and 59-63% humidity to 70-72 Fahrenheit and 48-49% humidity inside two hours. Which is quite a dramatic shift within a very short time frame. The boiler isn’t kicking in every half hour either, which will spare my wallet on the heating bill.
Having lived in older properties for most of my youth, I’ve long appreciated how much difference good loft insulation makes. It does save money, and in our case the payback period, the point at which we would have spent more on fuel for a given period, purely on the back of a fag packet calculation, should be just under eighteen months. Maybe much sooner.
Notwithstanding, none of the above gives me any sympathy with those ‘Insulate Britain’ nutcases. They want the taxpayer to foot the bill for other people’s lack of financial judgement. Indeed they seem to have little idea what they were ranting about because one of their ‘leaders’ hadn’t had his own loft insulated before his bunch of gibbering fools started blocking UK roads. Had these people had any integrity they would have led by example, but no, with them like so many others protesting about atmospheric trace gases, it’s all “Do as I say, not as I do.”
There’s a word for people like that, now what is it?
Or to put it in supervillain speak; “No meestair Bond.” or rather “Yes!” another step on the path to my next evil plan. Tomorrow the world. Well after I’ve tasted a small libation of Jamesons Gold.
We have completion. Repeat, we have completion on the new place. Talk about taking it down to the wire. We were thinking we’d have to postpone our move date because things were dragging on so long.
After a flurry of phone calls and emails, our movers are confirmed for next week and we get to take possession of our own piece of Ireland tomorrow. Or as our estate agent said “We have white smoke.” to which I responded “Habemus Papum.” and I’m not even a Catholic. I thought I heard him chuckle with relief. As well he might, it’s been almost six months from first offer to completion, and from what I hear that might be something of a speed record in Irish property law. At least out here in the wilder west of Ireland.
Now we’re busy packing and the house currently looks like a series of very tidy bombs have just hit it, ripped up huge amounts of packing paper and made most of the contents of my kitchen disappear. The books are all in boxes, well, most of them are. By the time we’re done next week this old place will just be a very tidy shell.
Then the shit is really going to hit the fan. I’m going to be really busy for a while.
Don’t care what anyone else thinks, but moving money, especially my own and paying large amounts of it to someone else is always stressful. Especially when the other party has all the get up and go of roadkill. Fortunately the people I’ve chosen to do the job are heads up and on the bounce.
Right. My part in the house and land purchase is done. All I have to do is oversee getting the Interweb connected and arrange to fill up the oil tank so we can warm our new place up before the movers do their stuff. The worst is all over bar the shouting, and arrangements are made for the last of the vendors rubbish to be removed, accounts for water and leccy sorted. So, all I have to do is turn up on time to oversee works and stand there looking masterful. All right, stop laughing. I can look masterful when required. Allegedly.
Frankly I’ve begun tuning out all the panicky hand waving COVID stuff. If anyone tries to use it as an excuse not to do things I contract for they won’t get paid, simple as that.
Any whining noises won’t be coming from this end of the house. For my part, recently I’ve had a headache, a minor cough, sense of smell a bit off kilter and felt a bit snotty, but you know what I’m going to do? That’s right. Ignore it. Just like I ignore all minor symptoms. What am I saying?
OH MY GOD! I’VE GOT THE DREADED LURGI! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Full Hazmat everyone! Distribute testing kits! Bill’s got the plague!!!! Emergency! Emergency! AWOOGA! AWOOGA! We’re all DOOOOOMED!!!
Sorry, no idea what came over me there. Take a breath everyone. Panic over. As you were. I’m perfectly fine. A paracetamol took care of the headache, I caught a nap to catch up on the old Z’s and the snottiness and cough disappeared by ten am after a large mug of tea and a couple of biscuits. I’m a great believer in the healing power of a cuppa.
Anyway, there is whiskey, lots of wine and beer left over from crimble, so we’re all good. Apart from Mrs S turning round three or four times a day to say “Bill… have you thought about?” you can hear my eyeballs rolling from over the interweb, can’t you?
That said, there’ll be plenty to do over the next week, but I’m all geared up and as ready as I can be. My office is packed up and ready to go, has been for weeks. As has Mrs S’s. We’ve both been working off the kitchen table, and you know what’s really great? No-one died.
They say there’s no rest for the wicked. Hi ho. If that is true then I must have negative Karma coming out of every orifice because there’s always something clamouring for my immediate, repeat immediate, like do it this minute Bill, attention. It is all, as they say, part of life’s rich tapestry.
So. Here it is. 2022. ‘North’ goes back to jolly old Londinium shortly to resume her frenetic pace of life. We hope we haven’t bored her while she’s been with us. She has been spending a good deal of her time asleep. Maybe she’s just playing catch up. I just keep the fires stoked and make sure everyone has a full glass available.
Happy to report that ‘South’ is out of restrictions and back out with her mates again in the fabled land of Oz. During this mornings video conference she looked much happier and not in the least bit snotty. Funny though, she did test positive for the dreaded lurgi despite being double jabbed with a top up.
I’m still on tenterhooks awaiting completion on our new domicile in the next few days. Which is getting far too close to the wire for my liking. If we have to reschedule moving and connections, which will cost me extra money, I will be looking for someone to sue for breach of contract. Or strangle and provide future archaeologists with a little mystery to solve. Either will do.
Anyway, despite all the hype I’m not very impressed with these vaccines. They only give you partial immunity for less than five months from what I can see, which doesn’t sound like they’re much good. And the ‘breakthrough infection’ rate (i.e. getting the disease even after the ‘vaccine’) is far too high for my liking, so what’s the point of these constant top ups? Israel, with one of the highest percentage of vaccinated has been talking about mandating a fourth or even fifth jab. Then there’s the adverse reactions, which though ‘rare’ are still significant.
Considering that Sarf Efrica only had at the last count only 24% of population vaccinated, they didn’t lock down or similar despite being the source for the heavy cold now masquerading as the Moronic Pandemic. Indeed, the chief medical honcho down there has repeatedly said that the Moronic variant is nothing to worry about.
Yet the powers that be this side of the equator and their pet media (or should that be the other way around?) are all losing their collective shit despite a relative lack of people snuffing it, and the complete failure of the Moronic Variant to overwhelm health services all around the world. But no, they keep mandating masks and lockdowns, then when that fails yet again, more masks and lockdowns. It’s like being on some sort of a dystopian merry go round. Frankly me deario’s I think they’d have done less harm if they’d done nothing. Or just issued standard colds and flu advice and put the Army medical corps on standby to staff overflow units like the ‘Nightingale’ hospitals that never really got used.
Across the pond, Florida man (to be more specific his press secretary) is having a giggle over all those privileged New Yawk hypocrites like Occasional Cortex who have left their home city with all it’s curfews and mandatory masks and been seen in various Floridian locations sipping the local beverages, pandering to the only demographic who believe in her.
Likewise a lot of ‘red’ states have simply dispensed with all the Hoo-Haw and simply got on with life as normal. Even that Brandon old fool masquerading as their illustrious leader has thrown up his hands and said that it’s all down to the individual states. Not that he’s really in charge. Any more than Bojo the clown in the UK is. Who they’re in hock to, no one’s quite sure, but they’re not doing sense and logic, that’s for sure. Don’t even mention the fop allegedly in charge of Canada, because it will call you an ‘ist’ if you disagree. There, that’s you told. So there!
Then there have been the protests against all the continual restrictions across Europe, where the politicians keep on doing more of the same to the point where their respective populations are kicking off at various protests. Even normally docile Germans are going off on one. Now they have around twenty million jab refuseniks. Smart people the Germans, pity about the 1930’s and 40’s. And the whole of the 19th and early 20th century. Who do they think they are? English?
Back over here in the Wilder West we’ve not been going out as much as we normally would because everywhere shuts down by gubbermint edict at eight pee em. As if any disease was that time sensitive. Even in daytime nowhere has been very crowded, except Dunnes, the local equivalent of Marcus Expensius in the week before Christmas. The hospitality business must be almost dead on it’s feet.
Strikes me that the lockdown lobby must be stuffed with the ‘no-one must have any fun at any time any where’ faction. I remember people like that from school. They were miserable bossy little tossers back then and I don’t think they’ve changed much since.
Anyway. Here’s hoping for a better year. The wind is howling outside and I hope to lessen my own inner howl by getting extra busy in the next couple of days. Good luck everyone, I have a feeling we’re going to need it.
Ah, this is one of those “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be” situations. Now we’re told that those who refuse a third, fourth or possibly fifth and sixth jab of vaccine against the fairly harmless Omicron variant of SARS/COV-2 are now going to be ‘unclean’ and their ‘vaccination certificates’ revoked until they submit to the next experimental vaccine booster.
Back in medieval times when Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy), which is a moderately rare condition now curable by a course of antibiotics was ‘treated’ by turning the sufferer into a pariah, an outcast, doomed to wander from hospice to hospice in search of shelter and food, forever denied the right of simple labour to fill their bellies, warning any who might get close to them with a bell or clapper and the cry of “Unclean!”
Now I’ve heard of old treatments being resurrected like maggots used to clean wounds and packing with honey or sugar, as opposed to the more modern practice of debridement (Removal of non-viable tissue) and packing with Magnesium Disulphate (Epsom salts) to kill an infection. Both work quite well, so I am informed, although I have never seen the former in action. But bringing back the practice of exiling, how very retro.
Yet this is the very thing modern politicians are proposing with their eternally upgrading ‘vaccine passports’. To be honest I’m not going to be pressured into getting a booster jab just to be allowed into some second class eatery. I did the first two vaccinations, had some minor reactions and there my participation in the current round of uncontrolled mass clinical trials ends. You can ban me from restaurants, clubs and pubs. Don’t care. Don’t go to mass sport events and my travel plans are restricted anyway because I have other things to spend my money on. Bitterly pissed off because family members are not able to come and visit, but when panic is the norm, as with Hansens, all logic and sense go out of the window.
“It’s only a little prick.” I can hear the compliant whining already. “It’s for everyone’s safety.” No it isn’t. The “OHMYGAWD!” variant has mutated into a bad cold, the hospitalisation and death rates do not lie. Indeed I would argue that the testing, vaccines, masks and lockdowns have extended SARS/COV-2 from a nasty one season bug into a multi-year phenomenon with no end in sight. Despite all the hype it has failed to live up to expectations.
If we were to do the same for any of the multiple other Corona, Adeno and Rhinoviruses out there, you know, the ones responsible for everyday colds and flu, the whole world would really grind to a complete halt. And it will never end. And it’s not just me saying this (See below).
I’ve done the whole reductio ad absurdam thing and arrived at the only possible conclusion; all these nonsensical restrictions, the bad science, the control freakery.
Look, it makes perfect sense. They’re the most unpleasant race in the galaxy, mean, officious and bureaucratic, it has to be them behind all these irrational restrictions, overblown tests and nonsensical political shenanigans. There’s nothing else that makes sense.
All our political leaders, SAGE, NPHET and the like must be absolutely crowded with the slimy green sods. I think the whole Dial is infected, as is the UK cabinet. They’re all under the thrall of Vogons. I mean you only have to look at Boris Johnsons lack of a hairdo. Who else in the galaxy would be that untidy on purpose?
Am I right? Have we been invaded and our institutions undermined? Comments below please..
Update: In the dear old Speccie, Fraser Nelson may have just busted the whole thing wide open. Longrider discusses in more detail and provides the link. This twitter exchange between Professor Medley and Fraser shows why policy happens as it does and why the worst case scenario is always the model most touted. (If the Spectator link doesn’t work, try this one for the Daily Sceptic)
If you can’t be bothered to pick your way through the twitter thread, have a listen to Mahyar Tousi’s examination in the video below.
The worst case scenario’s on anything appear to be the only ones the ‘policy directors’ ask for. Ergo that’s what SAGE modellers deliver and what gets into the mainstream. I completely agree with (corrected, my bad) Fraser Reg@ratboy101203. It is ‘fucking scandalous’.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a Vogon in there somewhere though.
Nope, not talking about a bit of a chilly wind, but the unfolding economic collapse in mainland China. Another eight big property companies have gone bankrupt and the fallout is spreading like spilt ink. The IT and Entertainment sectors have been hit with massive layoffs and redundancies and I’m hearing tales of 40%+ unemployment in places, as well as half of this years tranche of Chinese graduates unable to find meaningful work.
Never mind the massive demographic problem caused by the notorious ‘one child’ policy which has led to an oversupply of men in the population, with not enough women of child bearing age. As well as going broke, to add insult to injury, the average Chinese male looks like going short on nookie.
Language schools have been laying off foreign teaching staff and the whole pack of cards underpinning the Chinese Communist Party and it’s great experiment in state-run capitalism seems to be coming undone. Rolling power outages are common, and the Chinese are unlikely to follow all the western nations in their green economic suicide pact.
Those of us who follow the markets have always been aware of the great imbalances in the mainland Chinese economy. Nor will the effects be local. The sound of this balloon going ‘pop’ will be a little loud. Markets all over the place have been pulling out of the Middle Kingdom for several years now, because if the western mainstream media can’t see what’s coming, the countries that the Chinese have pissed off (Anyone with a common border with them), can.
Now western car manufacturers, long dependent on the Chinese electronic supply chain for microchips have run short, meaning new cars aren’t zipping off the production line quite so fast. Never mind those fancy ‘green-mobiles’ powered by electrickery. Second hand vehicles are, by the laws of economics over here, going up in price.
The global supply chains are still tied in knots and will take quite a while before they straighten and shorten back to a semblance of normality. So if you were wondering what will happen when your old diesel jalopy is due for scrappage by diktat in 2030, I’d hang on to it if I were you. I’ll probably be investing in restorable motorcycles and cars now I’m getting the workshop room.
Mrs S and I have one diesel each and will be keeping them up to snuff because these ‘green dreams’ the current crop of western politicians have said they will foist upon us are just that; dreams. And you know what happens to those come the cold light of day.
With luck we’ll all forget these delusions when we have to face the real challenges of the world. Which is what happens when people wake up. But that ain’t going to happen until everything goes south. And maybe not even then. Most will just mill about in a daze until the next seemingly easy answer comes about. They may be waiting some time.
We have contingency plans in place for everything up to and including a major asteroid strike, even if it is only, “Bend over as far as you can and try to kiss your own arse goodbye.” I didn’t say that they were good plans, or that they guaranteed our survival now did I?
Anyway, to end on a lighter note; here’s a Dad-level joke you can use;
A man walks into a still-open pub. Suddenly stops dead in his tracks and starts looking around wildly, staring in panic all around. “Oh my Gawd!” He shouts. “I can’t smell anything! I’ve lost my sense of smell! The Omicron has got me! I’ve got COVID! I’m going to DIE!”
“Don’t be such an eejit.” says the barman. “You’ve still got your mask over your nose.”
There is a joke so old that my father taught it to me. “The floggings will continue until morale improves. Signed, the Captain.” A real life variant of which was recorded in the 1960’s as “All liberty is cancelled until morale improves.” A more modern (and pertinent) variant might be “The restrictions will continue until our share prices drop.”
But there’s a study (From Harvard, if that impresses you) just out that demonstrates what some of us have been maintaining all along, that natural immunity is far better than the experimental vaccines alone. See below. Dr Syed discusses the study below.
So if what he’s saying is the unvarnished truth, if you’ve had the dreaded lurgi and recovered, then got vaccinated, congratters! Like me, you likely won’t get it again, regardless of ‘variant’. Unlike having the mRNA vaccines alone, where ‘breakthrough infections’ do happen and there is also a documented elevated heart and reinfection risk. Which is why I’m reluctant to get a ‘booster’. The risk / reward equation at this stage of the game does not seem favourable. I’m already immune, with brass knobs on and no returns, so why bother? I can’t catch it and am therefore unlikely to pass it on, Huzzah! World saved, half hols for everyone. Home for tea and medals.
So no more need for tests, masks, or vaccine passports or whatever. We’re all golden. South African sniffles notwithstanding. Herd immunity has been reached. If only the PCR test, which detects both live and dead virus, were replaced with antibody tests, then we would have a clearer picture of how the virus has propagated through the population and who is now immune. But maybe that would have been too easy.
Yet the UK is imposing even more restrictions, fining people two hundred smackers for getting on a bus without a mask. Which makes no sense. As does cancelling the vaccine passports of those who, like me, won’t bother with a vaccine booster. Especially as having the booster will entail entering a known sink of infection. A.k.a. a hospital.
We are immune. Unlike those who have been vaccinated without having caught the dreaded lurgi first, now they may get a dose, but will probably get the milder version, which is what the “OhmyGod” variant will give you anyway. Which is what the South Africans are saying.
Which sends us, in a circuitous manner, back to the beginning of this post. The punishments, because that’s what mask mandates and lockdowns are, will continue until the infections go away. Which will be never at this rate. Even if the measures to mitigate the outbreak don’t really work in the wider population. Because they have obviously failed to do so on the new strain in Scotland. As on the previous bugaboo delta ‘variant’, prompting the comment below;
‘The Scottish and English approach to masking, although formally different since July, has made no meaningful difference to Delta.’
– Professor James Naismith FRS FRSE FMedSci FRSC FRSB. Professor of Structural Biology, Oxford University on England’s new mask rules
In hospitals, or in other natural reservoirs of infection, yes masks and elevated hygiene measures have a mitigating effect, but not outside in the wider world. There you might as well write a cheque to ward off double pneumonia, and continually beating people over the head with these restrictions will do nothing but breed further resentment.
Oh well, I have to pay the deposit on the new place today. The money has been waiting for weeks, so I might as well put it to work.
We’ve done all our Christmas shopping already. There’s only the fresh stuff and some Port and Sherry to get. Christmas cards go winging their way to UK family by Friday, so there’s not much else to do but wait around.
After that we’re packing. It’s going to be another one of those oddball Christmases.
Today I’m going to share something culinary. Simple, delicious and cheap. It’s a little bit involved, but it does fit in with the general ethos of ‘cooking for conspiracy theorists’. However, the results are very comestible. I would have taken some pictures but the produced desserts disappeared before I got round to picking up my camera.
Notwithstanding; here are a couple of sweet recipes which will grace the taste buds with a caress as soft as a lovers sigh, melting like snow in a rainstorm upon the palate. In short, they’re just too yummy.
Now these two dishes share a cheesecake style filling, so you can make up a batch and lob it in the fridge while you decide on how to put it all together.
Sweet chocolate roulade and Ginger chocolate cheesecake.
You will need the following for both recipes; 8oz of Mascarpone cheese. A small pot of whipping cream. The juice of a lemon. Two dessert spoons of granulated sugar. Two dessert spoons of drinking chocolate. Some form of whisk and two mixing bowls. 1 Cup plain flour. 1 medium egg and 1 cup whole milk. Also about 1 cup of crushed ginger biscuits. 3oz of butter. 1 full size frying pan.
Step one; The pancake. This is easy, throw plain flour into a mixing bowl, whisk in egg and add milk. Whisk until smooth. Put pan on med to high heat. Give a swift wipe with a small knob of butter. When pan is hot, add about half the mix and let it solidify. When it starts to brown on the underside, flip it and let that brown a bit. When cooked through, remove pan from heat, or make another pancake. Whatever you choose to do, put them aside to cool.
Step two; the filling. Also easy. Put whipping cream in bowl, whip until stiff (Peaks stay where you put them sort of thing.) Add mascarpone and mix together. Add lemon juice and sugar. Mix. Add drinking chocolate. Mix. You can either choose to stir into a uniform creamy brown, or a white streaked solid (ish) mix. Whatever floats your boat.
Put mix in fridge for half an hour of so. Go play a video game, watch a couple of funny YouTube videos. Do not listen to the news, it’s all drama anyway and is designed to interfere with your karmic self.
Step three; upon your return, crush about half a pack of ginger biscuits (Ginger nuts – English style. Anything else won’t work.) Melt the remaining butter, using some to paint your cooling pancakes. This is to make them supple and prevent them drying out.
Step four; mix the rest of the butter into the crushed ginger nuts and put into a suitable container. I use one of those plastic things the takeaways put your curry in. Washed properly they make very good fridge containers for leftovers. Line container with baking parchment or foil. Press butter and ginger nut mix into a flat even layer on the bottom of whatever container you choose. Put in fridge to cool while you do the next step.
Step five; using a small spatula / spreader / knife spread the mascarpone / whipped cream chocolate mix about a quarter of an inch thick onto the pancakes. Roll tightly (But not too tightly!) so they form a roulade and none of the mix oozes out. If it does, your mix was too runny – too much cream or not whisked enough. Put in fridge to cool.
Step six; get hold of container with layer of crushed ginger nuts and butter in the bottom. Fill with remaining mix. Smooth off top. Put back in fridge.
Wait for it…. About an hour will do. Cut pancake roulades into inch thick slices and serve chilled. These will not last long.
You can keep the Ginger chocolate cheesecake for forty eight hours in the fridge if you cover it with foil. If it lasts that long. This recipe has a habit of suspiciously vanishing very rapidly. Maybe it evaporates. But I’ve never seen anything evaporate in slices before. Or leave crumbs. Should I be worried?
Any old road up. Eat drink and be merry. For tomorrow we may have to diet.
I was idly scanning through some of the links to this blog yesterday when Mrs S, kibitzing over my shoulder as she is sometimes wont to do, said; “What’s that Bill?”
“Oh, just a piece from Small Dead Animals is Saskatchewan.” I replied, switching tabs to Dr Malcolm Kendricks blog.
“Can you send me some links?” She said. I paused in surprise, but then she’s been complaining a bit recently about the PC bullshit she puts up with in her current online role, from which she is retiring soon.
Maybe she’ll be happier helping me plant and prune at the new place when we finally take possession. Which shouldn’t be too long now. The money sits like a coiled spring, the price is set and all I have to do is trip the trigger to send it winging electronically to the vendors.
“Who’s this?” She pointed at Dr Kendrick’s latest post and I handed my tablet across for her to read. For several minutes she maintained a thoughtful silence. “Have you anything else like this?” She asked.
So I sent her ten links from my sidebar of sundry malcontents and science sources via email. Since then it’s gone dreadfully quiet, apart from the odd chuckle of quiet agreement emanating from the kitchen.
I’ve already infected her with my philosophy on how to invest and grow money, which has paid off moderately well. Now she seems to be absorbing the same data sources. Could my evil plan be set to succeed?
On the topic of ‘cancel culture’ and all things ‘woke’. The excellent Dr David Starkey, TV Historian recently cancelled by the woke from Cambridge, has his own, sparkly and brand new YouTube channel. Well worth a view. We wish him every success.
As for the people who got Starkey and so many others ‘cancelled’, really people? Were their ‘crimes’ so heinous that the woke had to go after their livelihoods? In Starkey’s case for a mere figure of speech? How petty. How spiteful. How empty.
Emptiness. That kind of sums up those who follow the precepts of ‘woke’ and those who bow before it. People who live in a spiritual desert, chasing after each mirage of ‘offence’, dying of thirst in a wilderness of their own making. How lonely they must be. Soulless. Living in a purposeless Hell of their own creation staring into the false mirror of cowardice. Thinking that all must be the same. Or else you can’t come out to play.
“Wrong!” cry a chorus of damned woke souls. “Sticker you are so full of it! We are fighting all the horrible isms that plague society. The haters must be cast out whatever the cost! Only we can save the world!” And so on…. Yawn.
Yerrs, fighting. Let’s think about that for a moment. Was there really a problem to fight against in the first place, or is this some kind of self vindication strategy? Something to make the ‘woke’ feel important when there’s this terrible clawing emptiness inside? Part of a perverted search for meaning in a seemingly meaningless world perhaps?
That being said I constantly find myself bewildered as to why anyone pays these self-appointed judges and pundits any attention at all. There’s very few of them. Yet they wield a power way above their pay grade, and it seems most of them are what techie types used to refer to as ‘HR Handbags’.
I see them as poor manipulated pawns fear-programmed and convinced that their way is the only way. Even when recent history is strewn with so many examples of their top-down philosophies failures. Like those implemented by Lenin, Stalin, Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Chavez, Madron and on and on and on. Never mind all the big corporations that got too big and byzantine trying to run their employees lives before needing serious restructuring.
That’s the problem, Socialism, Corporatism, there’s hardly a fag paper between them. They all think they own other people. Frankly I’m led to the conclusion that it’s all about a few chasing unlimited power and influence, funding and grooming the activists with what is for the manipulators, chump change.
It doesn’t matter anyway. There’s a big financial crunch on the way to rival 2008 and then some. The powers that be might manage to kick the can down the road for a year or two longer, but it will happen, the imbalances are there and will only take one dog in the manger to push things over the edge.
This time the Banks that will start the cascade are in China. Because they’re heavily invested in hugely overpriced real estate. (A process, some would argue that has already begun) The rest of the Pacific rim will follow, then a good deal of Africa, the USA and followed by Western Europe as global trade goes into a worse cascade failure than at present. No one will be able to afford anything. And as a Big Chief once said; “You will find that you can’t eat money.” With the end result that big ‘compliance’ departments will find themselves being rapidly downsized into a market that has no need of whatever it is they think passes for their skill set.
Time to start that vegetable patch and plant a few fruit trees methinks. At least you’ll have something to eat if (and perhaps when) it all does go South. In any case, I can vouch for the fact that home grown is, with a little time and effort, better than store bought. The growing process can be fun too.
The powers that be aren’t being very astute either by banning the unvaccinated from various events or places or forcing them out of the workplace, as Biden wants to do in the USA. The truth is the current crop of politicians haven’t a clue, and can’t face the cold hard facts that the mRNA vaccines don’t stop people getting infected, all they do is mitigate some symptoms. Masks don’t work because they can’t stop microdroplet spread and may even act as a catcher and concentrator. Nor do lockdowns as they incarcerate carriers with the uninfected. Like God (to paraphrase a Parachute Regiment song I learned from an old drinking buddy) the virus is airborne and endemic. It’s everywhere. There is no escape. If you’ve had a dose, congrats, you’ve got much better immunity than by mRNA vaccines alone. If not, you might be part of the lucky 20-30% of the population who have a natural immunity.
As to efficacy, might I share this request for clear critical thinking from Dr Peter Doshi, the Assistant editor of the BMJ, an essential reference for medicines and their side effects.
So it doesn’t matter that the UK ‘Conservatives’ are about to foist up to a two year sentence on anyone who disagrees with their online censorship bill or any of Bodge Job the clowns insane ‘Green’ policies. That’s a thought, does the UK have an extradition treaty with Ireland? Hmm. lemme see now; Australia, United States of America and Hong Kong yes. Does that include the EU with the UK? Hmmm again. Maybe not so easy. I might be safe. At least until Twenty Wokety four.
Was that a knock on the door? Is that the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Special Branch? Sod ’em all, they can wait out in the rain. I’ve got a property deal to do.
Apparently arsebook is undergoing a ‘transformation’ to be rebranded with the infinity symbol. Makes no odds to me, I won’t be using the platform. Zuckerberg et al can f**k right off.
In the real world, Mrs S and I stopped off for a light lunch at a café in Galway and overheard the following exchange at the next door table. A well travelled couple were regaling their friends with stories about a Journey through South America and how much they had enjoyed themselves.
“You should put that on Facebook.” Said one of their friends. This statement was met with a mildly derisive chuckle. “Or Twitter.” The chuckle turned into laughter.
The reply came back. “Not on Twitter or Facebook. I have better things to do.”
Yet some people allow some cretins on anti-social media to disrupt their lives because someone posted something they didn’t like? Only one way to play that game is not to play and get on with real life.
Had a nice-ish weekend away. However, returning to my desk I see little has changed. Hi ho.
There’s an old children’s ball game ‘Pig in the middle‘. Used to play it when I was eight or nine years old. There are three players. Two throwers and one who has to catch, the throwers have to throw the ball to each other and the person in the middle has to try and catch it. Played in the right spirit it can be a lot of old fashioned fun.
Not so much fun at present. Continual delays by issues on the side of the property vendors are stressing out Mrs S, she in turn is venting twice daily (at least) in the direction of yours truly. Which is something I really don’t need. This situation is creating disturbed sleep patterns and putting me in my least favourite position, that of a no-win scenario. The vendors are taking their time, however the exchange rates are still relatively favourable but will not stay that way forever. I have people from all quarters coming at me asking why this or that is not happening. All I can do sometimes is bury my head in my hands and point. Because somehow, apparently, this is all my fault.
Normally I can brush most of these delays and general shenanigans off, but right now everyone is losing their shit, which is landing upon my desk to deal with. Thus leaving me with a pile of the wet and smelly stuff, hence the following appeal; send Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Passing thought; I’ve got lawyers and money, not so sure about the guns as I’d be forever in a cleft stick wondering who to shoot first. Please do not let me be so tempted. I have an eccentric and often perverse sense of humour.
In a time when everyone else seems so gosh-darned angry, said sense of humour is an essential psychic survival tool. It helps me get past things which are of such cupidity and foolishness that my haemoglobin does not spontaneously fission.
Still in ‘hurry up and wait’ mode and can’t be bothered any more to comment much on the COVID idiocy that Boris the henpecked clown and cohorts are inflicting on the UK. It’s just a shame there’s no opposition worthy of the name. Labour are so wokely unelectable it’s untrue, and the flaccid Limp Dems and Greens just as bad. Across the political spectrum they’re all heavily invested in the “Carbon Dioxide is evil” meme. Dozy lot.
While we’re waiting for the go from the lawyers, I took some time out to think about heating and lighting, two things I am very much in favour of, having grown up in a series of cold and draughty building sites my parents chose as homes. Ever woken up with ice cubes in your beard? I bloody well have and I’m not in favour of it. Building regs be damned.
It has always created a sense of slack jawed amazement in yours truly about electrickery and the cognitive dissonance surrounding energy policies from all mainstream political factions. The end result of decades of muddled ‘green’ thinking has led to an energy crisis in the offing. Across continental and island Europe (Including Ireland and the UK) we are going to run short of electrickery because we’ll be relying upon big silly propeller driven generators to provide all our energy needs, all the while shutting down working power stations, which will be a bit of an own goal when the wind stops blowing, as it has been known to do during the coldest months of the year. The Russians haven’t stopped laughing at us since 2010.
Frankly, with huge, energy gobbling data centres being planned across the Emerald Isle, this situation promises to create interesting* power shortages, because no-one seems to have done some fairly simple sums or bothered to ask some basic but pertinent questions about power supply.
Here’s a couple of interesting topics to look up; fracking and Small Modular Reactors.
Fracking could provide a quick and dirty interim solution because an area called the Northwest Ireland Carboniferous Basin has been identified as shale rich, this comprises parts of Fermanagh, Cavan, Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal and Roscommon. There are also deposits in the West Limerick and North Kerry areas.
However, the Eejits who think we’ll all burn alive if anyone so much as lights a cigarette have the people in power by the lugholes. Ergo, fracking is currently banned in Ireland.
Small Modular Reactors are based on a simple and very safe nuclear technology, proven in nuclear powered ships for over forty years, which would supply serious baseload electricity supply. Rolls Royce do a good series. Yes, series. Not just one type but several. Not to mention the major players in the global market like NuScale Power (US), Westinghouse Electric (US), General Electric-Hitachi Nuclear Energy (US), Terrestial Energy (Canada), and Moltex Energy (Canada). The projected footprint for such sites is no more than twenty five acres. About half the size of a small family farm. Yet such a reactors output can be as much as the plated capacity of a hundred and fifty 2MW wind turbines, each of which needs 40 to 70 acres of land each. Nor do SMR’s hold any risk for wildlife, unlike wind farms, which are known to kill bats (Many of which are endangered species) and birds (Specifically Hawks and Eagles) alike.
Now consider this; each wind turbine averages an output of between 20-25% of plated capacity output at peak efficiency. So that means for example that a V120 2.2 Megawatt turbine actually outputs around 400 Kilowatts. From over twice the acreage as required for a single SMR that can put out a steady 300 lovely cosy Megawatts. For the hard of arithmetic among you, that’s 750 times more, I repeat, seven hundred and fifty (Thanks Mick) so you will need 750 wind turbines covering 56,250 acres to equal the output of one Small Modular reactor. Erratically. Intermittently. That’s more than 227 Square kilometres. Enough to wipe out several of Ireland’s larger National Parks.
An SMR can generate a steady 300MW for ten years without reload. With a considerably lower environmental footprint one might add, both in terms of materials and local ecological impacts. Zero emissions, steady output of clean baseload supply. Maybe even enough to power all those electrical fantasy batterymobiles the politicians tell us we all have to purchase by 2030, or is that 2040? What we’re going to buy these things with I have no idea as they’re several times the price of cheap and dependable ICE technology.
Then there is the option of Thorium molten salt reactors, in reality actually Uranium 233, a shorter-lived and less dangerous form of Uranium than Uranium-235. Which has been a workable but neglected technology since the 1960’s. Such power generators have two main advantages. First; they cannot be used to create weapons grade fissile material. Second; any shutdown or system failure carries little or no risk of contamination outside of the reactor vessels. They also produce much less toxic waste, and can, I am informed, burn the fuel from older and more toxic leftovers from older generation nuclear power stations such as the old Magnox power plants.
As for fracking, the claimed environmental hazards of this method, contamination of water table etc aren’t real. A properly sleeved bore means that gas cannot leak into the water table and thus any potable aquifer. The only real ‘evidence’ against fracking was highly localised phenomena where gas naturally leaking from the strata in certain areas of Wyoming, Texas and I believe Louisiana had contaminated the local water supply long before any actual fracking took place. As for the claimed risk of ‘Earthquakes’, the worst attributed to fracking so far have been around 2.1-2.3, which are all but invisible except to seismometers.
As for other means of staying warm in the chill of Winter, regrettably, Fusion power will always be twenty years in the future while the current models of reactor are being used. Even the giant ITER under construction in Southern France will never output the promised power. Why? Because it’s a Tokamak, and like so many other methods of nuclear fusion, the physical design of Tokamaks mean they can only ever produce a ‘bang in a bottle’. I would be delighted to be proven wrong, but I won’t be.
Of course when the idiots in power finally get the memo a good many of the population this side of the Irish sea will have gone back to burning dried peat for heating. Because no-one wants to be wet and cold all the time. Maybe all those currently employed as COVID inspectors will find new ways of making people’s lives miserable by being retasked as smoke spotters. Who knows?
When the power outages hit this January and February coming, just think; when you wake up with ice on your lips and that fancy air source heat pump gives out less heat than a wet fart. Then look at your electrickery bill and wonder who will let you take out a third mortgage to pay it. Consider thus; you could have had warmth and light in abundance. Could have had fracked gas. Could have had small nuclear. Might not be scrabbling down the back of the sofa for coins for the leccy meter.
Here’s an energy spokesperson on the matter.
Oh well, I’m off to buy some shares in the companies that produce thermal underwear. If the prognostications are any guide, it’s going to be a cold Winter. Don’t forget to wrap up warm now. I bloody well will do.
*Interesting as in having to warm one’s hands over a candle during the depths of winter. If of course, candles are still ‘allowed’.
The Bill Sticker Alternative 