Redcar Cleveland UK
All animals are equal
but some animals are more equal than others
you can't outrun a radio
less kiss chase and more stinger
hold tight to nurse
for fear of something worse
Too many Chiefs
and
Not enough Indians
Les Deux Gendarmes

We're public guardians bold but wary
and of ourselves we take good care
to risk our precious lives we're chary
when danger threatens we're not there
but when we see a helpless woman
or little boys who do no harm
we run them in, we run them in
to show them we're the beaux gendermes

this is another example of
if a government makes a mistake
'they double down'
scrap these stupid 'green' traffic signs
we expect somebody got a ten million quid contract to
review road signage
and they thought
we have to make at lest one recommendation
let's change
WHEN RED LIGHT SHOWS
WAIT HERE
TO
wait HERE
until green light shows
meaning
like all those cop who leave
FOLLOW ME
showing on the back of their marked cars
and develop a crocodile...
people can be forced to disobey this sign if
the battery goes flat on the traffic signal

this is an attempt to explain why we have
text notices alongside temporary traffic lights
we don't paint a stop line on the road
we put a sign where we want the head of the queue
this may be some distance back from the start of the
alternate direction of travel section
because of
the other sign we see rarely
joining traffic not signal controlled
like a bin wagon backing out of a back alley
the tex tsigns are not a reminder to obey traffic signals
they are an indication as to WHERE - HERE - to stop
and head the queue


Holy Mary - Mother of God
pray for me and our Bob
our Bob is very ill
Holy mary send him a pill

14th March 2025

is finally open and appears to be very busy judging frrom the car park use..
however, glancing in from the lobby - entrance
it has all the appearance of a
posh new visitor centre at a
high security prison
it seems to give an idea of what sort of customer they ae expecting
in Redcar
we wonder whether all their shops are similar
we suppose if you don't like Aldi
you'll hate Lidl


an apology
David barker was
our Ricker's head of department at Duham University
his GP was Keith Barker

13th March 2025

World War 2
Russia service deaths 10,000,000 civilian deaths 14,000,000
UK 383,600 75,000
US 416,800 2,000
Yugoslavia 446,000 540,000
Germany 5,533,000 3,000,000
we could go on
the bottom line is
for decades The Western World thought it owed a debt of gratitude to Russia
for shortening the war
and slipped them plans and blue prints for
nuclear weapons and space rockets and even
Concordeski
partly in gratitude and partly to help all those
berieved mathers, wives and girlfriends...
and by now the gratitude is wearing thin
waffa thin


we will be offering a memorial for the doomed
Landsley reforms of the NHS
take a two handed GP practice
the two partners had very different appoaches to patients
one was described as having a
'great bedside manner'
the other was somewhat more businesslike and
had bloods taken and sent patients for a lot of tests
and gave advice on lifestyle effects on health outcomes
there are two effects of allowing
'spin doctors'
to run the NHS
1 self medication by proxy
as our Ricker's last actual GP David Barker used to say
'what can we do for you today?'
2 people - especially parents and grandparents will
turn up in councillor and MP surgeries and say
you will be building a new hopital hee won't you because
my granddaughter has set her heart on being a doctor
and I don't want her to have to move too far away from home

12th March 2025

sometimes we hear the saying
a solution in seach of a poblem
we also hear
displacement activity
my pink half of the drainpipe
keeps me safe from YOU
when people - be they traders, colonists or tourists
visit a place that is to them a
'foreign land'
they can get into a lot of trouble if they do not
decode the local etiquette - traditions - about things that are
to the outside - the objective observers
fashion statements, traditions
with no elevance to
physical or mental well being
let alone survival
over the past couple of hundred years
steam sh[ps and steam trains
have broken down physical barriers between enclaves of human existence
and contact can lead to conflict
if you honestly believe that...
let's diverge
we forget the details but
say for a Christian man
it would be disespectful to
wear a hat in church
it could be consideed deeply offencive for
somebody who is Sik to refuse to remove their turban
on entering a Chistian Holy place
BUT
Christians are supposed to
'play the white man'
and tollerate the exetricities of the
fuzzy wuzzies
the men with the beards
so for instance
a little while ago a soldier guarding the king was allowed to
were a turban INSTEAD of a bearskin
and no UNDER his beearskin
not to mention dispeansations for
the routine 'cermonial ' wearing of a dagger
in public places
in theoy therefor you can be nicked for
carying an offensive weapon in a public place
but not if you're Sik
thus
we get quite a lot of influence fom the USA in the UK
and that used to include missions from
Evangelical Christians
such as
Billy Graham
some of these people can have quite stict ules
older Brits can perhaps vaguely emember when
pederast was replaced by paedophile in UK parlance
in essence
up until around the late 20th century
little girls in the UK who got into trouble were regarded as
agents of their own downfall and child protection concentrated on preventing
school masters from
'turning little boys gay'
suddenly Evangelicals arrive with their
spreadsheets for immortality
taking their flocks and marrying them off although SouthEast Asia is more the place for
Christain Mass weddings
and there is a creeping concept of
paedophile
litterally someone who likes children
when you ae an Evangelical you are a proponant of
movie reference
Stepford Wives
back in the day boys and young men in the UK were
encouraged to concentrate on their
studies and their careers
working in all male schools and all male workplaces to
'establish themselves'
in their carers and take their female company on a
cash basis in the night time economy
in the mean time
and when they were secure in their bachelor lives to then
socialise and seek a
pretty young thing to
keep house and make babies for him
this is not the American way
in the American way
a couple of similar age join forces and
stake a claim on a
homestead
and begin to farm it and and breed children to help in its
development
the last thing on Earth a homesteader was in search of was
a Trophy Wife
a womb on legs
and so a conflict
a British Tradition of
Male professionals seeking
pretty young things to keep house etc
and Americans
'let us be lovers and marry our fortunes together'
and so
we have the three steps to Heaven Yank style
paedophile not pederast
no 'sex' before 'adulthood'
no age gap in a couple more than 18 months
in other words we are creeping towards
paedophile includes
the elder member of a relationship
if the age gap exceeds 19 months
no matter what the age of the
younger partner
hence the inuendo in the Hackman case
he was 95 but she was only 65!!!!
well it's not surprising they came to a sticky end
there was a concept in Britain of
Derby and Joan
they concept ot a male- female married couple
seeing out their sunset years in tandem
but where are we going in the UK?
approx 27 million homes in the UK
less and less females as full time home-makers
less female home-makers
less likely that granny will be in he son's or daughter's home
in her own home of a cae home
in that sense you may say that dove up demand fo homes from around
27million to around 35 million
the crunch comes
with domestic violence - balooning out into
coercive control
the target on the horizon becomes
a home of their own for every adult
that would mean 60 million homes
building 300 million extra - albiet very small - homes
that would have to be done in stages
the emphasis would have to be on the
enclaves where domestic violence was most prolific
in other words
in some areas
Home of Multiple Occupation would be defined as
any home regularly housing more than one adult
and as we already have by default of the reverse
one occupant discount
moe council tax to be paid if more than one adult lives in the property
on the basis that local authorities provide services to people - not to homes

11th March 2025

so long
it's been good ta know ya
point 1 the missing mariner
may have been rostered to be on board but may not have
taken ship
point 2
the vessel had very very few containers on board and
the owners now say at least some were empty
or at least not in their routine usage
low levels of vigilence may be explained if
the ship was heading for the breakers yard

10th March 2025

w eneed to comment on
the cult of the water cooler
the idea that inspiration strikes in the office
when people chat as the queue fo water
what do people discuss in the queue?
their 'work'
or
the latest blockbuster movie or drama series
if you pitch for funding for a movie or drama series
you are not constrained by reality
reality TV is a distinct category
you ae expected - even in
'unscripted edutainment'
to insert
synthetic jeapordy
and the CoViD 19 debacle was a prime example
it happened but
it was the result of inceasing global travel
allowing a local virus to spread worldwide
to people who had never encountered it before
but in a movie...
it would have to be
a biological weapon
and theefore following water cooler culture
it was assumed to be deadly to everbody and not simply the vulnerable
hence PPE for all
instead of sanctury for the vulnerable
'interesting' doesn't cut it for a blockbuster movie
or a water cooler chat
in a quite reverse reality...
careless talk costs lives
water coolers spread panic

regarding some of those hacks who advocate
not working from home...
yeah they do most of their 'best work' on 'planes
at several thousand feet...
not 'working from home' but not crowding the water cooler in the office either
but we do have a moe impotant issue related...
one of ou Ricker's close relatives works fom home
he woks fom around 2.00 pm to around 8.00 pm GMT
why for?
'cos he lives in Dorsettshire
that means his number one son is presently doing his
first year of difficult sums at Oxford University...
and Pete works for
Modena
remembe CoViD 19 vaccine...
and this is the major point
a very high popotion of
high powered scientists, engineers, technologists
speak English as their first or second language and so
as the Orange Manbaby takes America back to the kindergarten
thee is an oppotunity for the UK to be first in line to host
grown up science

8th March 2025

not so long ago a new business that could be described as a
cocktail bar
in earlier times
was established in Queen Street Redcar
some time last month
as they used to say in Haverton Hill
big explogie in meggie pug
some sort of incident occued as a result of which
three people including a female
were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder
now all the stock and fittings have been stripped out
or the venue
it was called Peggy Junes
we ae a little tickled as they used to say
to read that
Queen Street is described as being in
'Redcar's Northen Quarter'
thta is a little section of Queen Street where
businesses have been shut down by official order in the past
Redcar has a small scale drug problem and
relating to that problem
it was once located in a hiotel on West Terrace called
The Hydro
that is now a block of apartments...
small problem not being tackled but just chased around
there is a case forsectioning and detaining drug adicts
under the mental health acts
this is an example of leftist liberalism
'people have a democratic right to be
smack heads
and roam the streets at will
it appears that there is an ongoing attempt to establish
a nightime economy
in the Station Road are that we are advise to refer to as
Redcar's Northern Quarter
ou interpretation of a nighttime economy is
wine, women and song
we think drug taking and street fighting are
not essential elemants
on the other hand
the council has recntly made an order for
vehicles to be banned from Queen Street at the latter part of the week
essentially to allow market stalls to be set up and dismantled
we are not sure exactly what is intended but we suspect the
the pavemant of the pedestrianised section of the High Street
High Street East, Redcar
is about to be ripped up and re-laid
meaning that the Friday Market will be displaced to Queen Street

we suppose that some final comment about the Hackman family death
is appropriate
the actual events at the vets may be considered confidential but
we see the dog in a dog carier set down inside the home
and the wife going to the bathroom to commune with pills
it is perhaps a confidential matter but we would expect that the sequence of events was
dog ill
dog taken to vets
dog put to sleep
dog returned home
it's the work of seconds to release the dog carrier door
as you set it down before
heading for the bathroom
because if tit were alive it would presumably be
asking to be let out
wife overdid the pills not knowing how sick she was
the husband
demented big time
hungry some snacks available water available from tap etc
two remaining dogs appear to have had
well it was a very wealthy home so
perhaps a dog sized cat flap
perhaps some sort of automated dog food dispenser
perhaps they just found a sack of kibble - dog food
and dogs have no problem
dining out of a toilet or wherever...
one was indoors and one outdoors on discovery??
so they were possibly roaming the propety for a couple of weeks??

7th March 2025

it's 'funny' how concepts of
Left Wing
in politics vary in time and space
at one level we think of
Russia, China those sorts of places as bastians of
people power
but this is really defining left wing as
the politics of Collectivism
whoeve is 'in power' represents the people
and so we have the suppression of debate
no matter how new the problem there will be an instant answer from the
'elected' leadership
like we set out on a journey and
we get a taxi to the airport
and then we insist that the taxi driver
pilots our 'plane
but thee is a different sort of
leftism
it is a eality in eveyday life that
in 'deprived areas'
people operating under a left wing banner such as
the UK Labour Party
are libertarian
to the extent of
expanding
skin, hair or eye colour should not
classify and define a person's life journey to
to
deciding that people who do not follow professional advice
such as keeping their children's teeth clean
having them potty trained before school age
are down to them living in a deprived community
unemployed? time on your hands...
time to do a little housework or child care
not claim
I don't have enough money to pay somebody to come to my home
and wait on me and my family hand and foot
rich people - Jacob Reece-Mogg
may have a 'man' to iron their boxer shorts
but this is a
both ends against the middle
issue
people on sink estates don't aspire to have
a nice little detatched house and a couple of cars in a quiet area
they aspire to have
a manshun in Somerset
and we offer
gambling, football and the entertainment industry as
the one step move from bottom to top
to improve the lives of people in
deprived areas we could
offer them smaller steps to a better life
and stop telling them that it is their
democatic right to
ignore professional advice
and have somebody else
remedy the consequences

6th March 2025

we thought we would add a little local colour to the concept of
water gas
if you can find a pic of
South Bank coke works taken from South Bank railway station
all gone now
we could say there was a
bank or retorts
like a monster version of a row of
sports lockers
and at the end - the Redcar end
there was a wooden structure about the same height as the retorts
this was the
quench tower
it's a bit complicated but coal was tipped into each separate
locker or retort from the top
in a sequence that meant that the cold coal would find itself
sandwitched between too very hot retorts
and get roasted
when all the elements of the coal that were not coke
had been roasted off
a car or skip mounted on a track running along the bank of retorts
would be positioned at the door of that locker and the door would open
and the coke would fall into the skip
the skip would then be moved to under the quench tower
and wate dropped onto the coke - into the skip
and the coke would be cooled
and most people involved would assume that the clouds
rising from the skip were
steam
but if you reference the mothod forproducing
water gas
you will realise that those clouds were of
steam, hydrogen and carbon monoxide


back in the era of Uk Queen Victoia
social anthroploogy
Queen Victoria had loads of kids but she was widowed youngish
in the real world after that she had a series of
Toy Boys
however
thee is this classic quote fom somebody leaning about the social lives of
native people of the far flung edges of the British Empire
'so differnt from the home life of our own Dear Queen
how is a police officer or pison warde supposed to
uphold the eputation of the Service?
be married but have separate beds
and preferably wok nights so she can sleep at night and you sleep in the day
and have kids
but adopt them, don't make them
there is a concept of
snatching defeat fom the jaws of victory
because it is the opposite of the heroic
snatching victory from the jaws of defeat
as it goes, right about now...
Russia is removing military equipment from
Syria
and taking it to a naval base in the north of Russia
hereby hangs the President Trump question
if America is not to help NATO
remove Russia from Ukraine...
where does it stand in 'helping'
Israel to remove Russia from Syria?
how long ago was Morrisons supermaket built in Redcar?
back in aound 1973
one of the gas holders at Redcar Gas Works
exploded
or imploded, lunched itself
do you know where that was?
pretty exactly where Morrisons Redcar public vehicle fuelling station
petrol station
now is
that gas works along with gas works all across the UK
roasted coal to produce Town or Coal Gas
now
when you roast coal...
you get
carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane, cabon dioxide and water vapour
and so..
across the nation
desperate housewives
used to end it all by
putting their heads in the gas oven
because the carbon monoxide was lethal
turns haemoglobin into caboxyhaemoglobin
and heamoglobin transports oxygen in the blood and carboxyhaemoglobin
does not hence the switch to Natural Gas
which contains no carbon monoxide but can be
turned to carbon monoxide if burnt with insufficient oxygen present
thwarted many a suicide bid
what was the trade off of
desperate housewives saved
versus
desperate ex moners condemned
we do not know
you can't make carbon monoxide from hydrogen
sooo
we could call
give us back our hydrogen
we ain't had none since we were switched to
North Sea Gas...
we can offer you a couple of search terms
producer gas
water gas
produce gas was produced by roasting coal in air
water gas was produced by passing steam through the
resulting coke
so the local - municipal - gas works had two processes going on
and town or caol gas was a mixture of
producer gas and water gas
water gas consisted almost entirely of
carbon monoxide and hydogen
cabon monoxide burns carbon dioxide does not
so up the monoxide suppress the dioxide....
and household gas was either a mixture of producer and water gas
blended in the gas holders that were also called
gasometers
because
they spiralled up and down depending on how full they were so
we guess
they knew when to stop adding producer gas
and start adding water gas... a lot of them looked like a chocolate o coffe colourd
birthday cake

3rd March 2025

sometimes we offer hints
sometimes we state the bleedin' obvious
sometimes we don't know the diffeence
we have a world in which we have a
POTUS
Pesident Of The United States
who very recently survived at least
TWO
cedible assassination attempts
Russia would be the best equiped and most likely to
launch a successful attempt
so we would ask
does this disbar Pesident Trump from
'Free World Leadership
when we know he is the achitype of
The Donald Furst: English, First

2nd March 2025

so the little block house in the foreground is
the electricity sub station - RDCAR RACE
the only opening date we have found on line for
the Redcar Racecourse Lidl is
27th February
that has passed
we have two theories
they can't recruit enough staff
they're fixing to sell
if they wait until Easter...
people will think - right or wrong
that they will have to check sell by dates on the stock
very carefully

28th February 2025

we admit that the way this site is put together is pretty slipshod
we don't remember whether we referred to
Russia and President Putin as
guerrilla
or
gorilla
gh#uerrilla fighters - small independent group fighting against larger
regula foces
example the UK SAS
but more nirmally freedom fighters resistance fighter
guerra is Spanish for war
guerilla is Spanish for small war
a gorilla is the largest of the living primates
a big chimp...
a vey big chimpanzee
looking at what we know about the Gene hackman death...
most benigne scenario...
dog dies
wife gets uposet and takes too many pills
husband returns home abd finds dog and wife dead and
dies of shock..
that's what you have to find fault with to make a case for
suspicious cicumstances

why do hacks put
this is a super max prison
it houses murderers and rapists
evey day millions if not billions of people - mostly female - get fucked
or buggered
occassionally they are ungrateful
to put murderers and rapists on a par
it would have to be the case that
every day millions if not billions of people ae killed
occasionally we decide it was an unlawful killing
one is a he said - she said
the other is not
it stems from a pre-contraception ere of the concept
sold to little girls of
a fate worse that death

27th February 2025

as our Ricker moves towards the inevitable
thoughts creep in about the past
there is a 'thing' you have almost certainly never heard of called
The NHS Ambulance Auxiliary
our Ricker's uncle Fred Robson was the
ambulance room superintendent at
at ICI Billingham
and as a result he was
a Serving Brother of the Order of Saint John
he was a St John Ambulance officer
and they are disappearing
and it pains our Ricker to see
caring, skilled and experienced people like
his uncle Fred discredited by
today's exhibitionist paramedics
the other day he head a noise and assumed it was some child
who had been left alone in a car bit when he looked out...
what did he see?
an ambulance
all those things Fred was
physiotherapist to the Teesside Harriers
all sort so genuine skilled hard working people
made a laughing stock by their areas of expetise being
transformed into
university degree courses where
getting the correct socio economic mix'
within a 'profession'
ans especially providing
'sheltered employment for the
mentally ill and vulnerable
are the key tasks
it makes him sad but as they say
nobody here gets out alive
so if you die young and in pain and disability
remember you helped keep a nutter off the dole


these days it is almost imposible the discover
a day
let alone a week or month
when all the children in the country
even SHOULD be in school
what with occasional days, Baker days whateve they are called
and staggered holidays
Mr Baker was a Secretary of Stet fo Education who started
offering school heads the opportunity to
close schools on random days so the teacheers could
develop lesson plans , do marking etc
add to that
decisions are made in London and people in central London
know that most of it is a ghost town every Sunday
and most of it on a Saturday because
nobody lives there, they all commute to work there from
the Home Counties
hence
planners think let's do infrastructue work of a weekend
the whole country - surely - will be dead as a doormouse
not having any conception of
what are the busy days in a shopping centre, high street
seaside resort
we say that because this week was in Redcar half term for some schools in Redcar
the week before contractors turned up at the
Woolies/Markies demolition site on Redcar High Street
and they naffed off this week
leaving a pile of OSB like plywood on site
we suspect that next week they will be back to
move the hoarding outsite the High Street side of the site
nearer to the site
widening the accessible width of the pedestrian precinct
but we may be completely wrong

26th February 2025

some things emain in what is called
living memory
not a lot of people alive now who were aound during the Second Wold War but more will remember
The Troubles
in Ireland and specifically
Northern Ireland
what Pesident Putin's administration is doing
and how it is doing it is very similar
on a large scale
to the activities of the IRA in the 1970s
that's Irish Republican Army
not Inland Revenue
the idea of a sweep to victory in Ukaine ended
very quickly three years ago
and although some may think the war has settled down into a rerun of
Bitish Empie V Germany in the trenches of Northern France
in the First Wold War
it is much more like a guerilla war of IRA style
assasinations, bombings etc
the IRA wanted a united Ireland
essentially the people of Ulster the old name for Northern Ireland
at one time - much nearer to the time of The Troubles
our Ricker knew a guy who was fom a part of
The Irish Republic
that was geographically further noth than any of Ulster
Ulster was Nothern Ireland is
actually north east Ireland
it's the same bloody problem the world over
The Republic of Ireland WAS agricultual
now financial
Republic - argicultural
Ulster - Belfast - industrial
in the USA - Civil War
industrial North V agicultural South
and as it worked out
during the time of the Soviet Union
Ukraine was the industrial bit
it's very easy to see why the
Special Operation - ussia into Ukraine - failed
what is more difficult to understand is why Ukraine didn't wap the whole matter up
before President Trump got back into the White House
Ukraine has all the cards
why didn't it play them?
we suspect that the reason was a leadership in Ukraine that had
a justified fear of assassination
personal risk of attack
rather than an inability to move against Russia as a nation
Nation to Nation
if Ukraine won a conventional war they would be at risk from
leadership churn as a result of
the guerilla warfare that is essentially all that
president Putin knows and he is now at a time of life where he will have a read only memory
ROM
not RAM - the random access memory of youth

25th February 2025

Sir Winston Churchill
died in January 1965
he was UK Prime Minister 1940 to 1945
thee are many famous quotes from what he said
one we sort of remember is
when the history of the Second World War is written
I shall feature prominantly and well
because
I shall write it
History wull be kind to me for I intend to write it
may be a more accurate version
but the histoy of the Second World War in popular culture is
at least somewhat off target
no details in these notes BUT
thee ae a lot of people who assume that the reason the UK
got involved in the Second World War was to
liberate the Jews
just as today journalism in Gaza is difficult...
journalism did not cross battle lines in the Second World War
at the end
and you have to ealise no internet, no satellites
most 'planes doing battle...
what had been happening to the Jews in Nazi Germany
before and during the war came as
a complete surprise to journalism and its readerships
The Second World War as fought was
the UK and Germany
fighting over the colonisation of
France
Chruchill personally belived that the UK and France should become
one integrated empire
and Germany wanted its thousand year empire to include all of
Continental Europe
and
Churchill gained the support of the USA and Russia
but he only wanted France and its colonies
and so to that extent being not of limitless power
he essentially allowed Russia to have
a bit of Germany and a lot of Eastern Europe
but
we don't know what he would have done if he hadn't been
voted out of power immediately after the war
and the Japanese took their opportunity to have a war to distract the USA
Pearl Harbour and that
it's pretty likely that if Churchill had won the 1945 General Election
the UK and France would be back to something like
the boundaries after
The Battle of Hastings
some would say
he may have settled for just Calais and environs
thee was a Queen of England who said
when I die they will find
Calais
engraved on my heart
Queen Mary...
Phillip and calais engraved on my heart
we'e assuming that was Phillip of Spain
in Churchill's day
France didn't belong to Spain
but he would probably have split France with Spain if he could have
thee is a vast amount of land in what we call Russia but
the agricultural land is split between
Russia and Ukraine
it's a bit like..
Russia has a swimming pool and a grouse moor
and Ukraine has a sauna
and the grouse moor isn't bringing in the sheckles
but the swimming pool and the sauna are doing a roaring trade
to Russia wants bothe the swimming pool and the sauna
and to hell with the grouse moor
Russia GROWS food - ceials wheat and such
but it does not have the industry to turn that into
processed food
water water everywhere bit not a drop to drink
drowning in wheat - no bread
and some of the stats add nitrogen fertiliser
as agicultural products
they have natural gas and use it to produce
ammonium nitrate
that is both fertilizer and explosive....
as fertilizer it is often called Nitram
so they can produce vast quantities of
big boy firewaorks
big boy fireworks do not an army make

24th February 2025

any potted history of religion will be inadequate...
but thee is a particular aspect that is quite neat
many religeons are
worrship of many Gods
moe modern religions worship one God
or one God in Three Persons
Father Son and Holy Ghost
but the Roman Catholics tend to backslide into adding Saints
to make up fo the minor Gods
however, today
we are considering what the Jews did around two and a half thousand years ago
up until then they believed that
God
the one true God
was esponsible for the
ceation and management of
everything that is in the Heaven and the Earth
around two and a half thousand years ago the Jews invented
Satan, the Devil
and decided that God was esponsible for the Good in the World
and Satan was responsible for the Bad
and Satan was a
Fallen Angel
so although Jewdeism is a montheistic religeon - one God
Romans - Catholics - had Saints
Jews had Angels
there is a rather pressing issue for the Roman church at the present
it is quite impossible to get yer head around the fact that there are
a Billion Romanists alive on the planet today
at some point in the 20th century
the Romanists abandoned the Latin Mass
they instructed clergy to say mass in the local language of the local people
altogether those two things mean that if is really
quite impracticable to have a
genuinely populist Pope
all things to all women
just as we see the development of
religeon in your own language and religeon in a age appropriate interpretation
a religeon as vast a Romanism
has to be a home for perople of differing
intellectual capacities
it cannot be
believe the mumbo jumbo or leave
science is a part of God's creation
not the work of The Devil
re vaccination, contraception etc etc etc

23rd February 2025

if we start from
what would be Russia's main export be if there was
no market for fossil fuels?
it would as at present be
$30 billion of gold
interesting questions
why are they selling gold?
why are they not stockpilling it as collateral for loans? probably because no matter how much gold they had
nobody wants to leand them money
$240 billion is what they get from exporting fossil fuels at pesent
so the national income if we add abit for food exports...
$300 billion
that's the income of the nation setting aside the
added value of the work of people living there
so as the world decarbonises
Russia stands to loose 90 per cent of its export income
and 40 per cent of its domestic effort - work
is directed to the war effort
a war it never needed to have
not the sharpest knife in the box this
President Putin


we are how going to delve into something like
based on a true story
we are seeing a ise of militarism in Europe... sorta
we understand that it took around 8 years to
convert 28 million town gas customes in the UK to
Natural Gas
what we have just head roumours of is the idea that at least
some of the contractors who visited every home and businees involved were
soldiers in civilian dress
more recently there was the battle o Ogrieve
between miners and police
and that there is now a housing estate on the site of Orgrieve pit
we are wondering about the fifth columnist journalists who battle to
keep Scunthorpe Steel woks open
we wonder
will it take a military intervention to
end coal in the UK
the slgan for natural gas was
heat that obeys you
High Speed Gas
when giving screen time to Scunthorpe steel workers
are the authorities
testing the waters
to see how much public support there is for
the Scunthorpe Living Museum
or is it simply
another human interest story
that's what you are
probe the edges of the bandage or just rip it off?

22nd February 2025

if you ae comfortable as the owner of a
Championship soccer club in the UK
such as Middlesbrough
and you don't want the fuss and expense of
owning a Premiereship club
all you ave to do is tell the playes that they will be
sacked if the club is promoted
the thing is
for the season ticket holders and the town
once the club is safely clear of the risk of promotion
it's only fair to start playing some entertaining matches
a little itty bitty TransPennie train fo scale..
they ae tuning aound at Redcar Central at pesent
everting to Saltburn fo the summer?
inteesting that last time they 'turned around' at Redcar Central
they waited for a while in the goods siding loop
now they just wait at platform 2 - fo less time we suspect

just another shot fom a couple days later..

21st February 2025

there is a sort of measure of the wealth of a nation that is called
gross national income
Russia $18 thousand UK $56,000 USA $80,000
per person
it's just a relative measure not a net worth
the figure for Germany is similar but a bit higher than the UK
thus
the USA is a large and wealthy nation
the problem is
how long could ussia maintain a war with any nation
moe than twice as wealthy as itself
the Russian population is aging 17 per cent children
17 per cent pensioners
most Russian pensiones are female
mostly due to male Russian lifestyles that
affect the health of male Russians of all ages
we do so easily forget that
people who die in war
are often not killed in combat
but through disruption of support for
social and health care
thee was a huge epiphany - wake up call
for the Uk government mid way through the
First World War when
conscription was introduced and
the government got report on the state of health of
the entire nation - not just the volunteer army of 1916 - 18
no NHS at thetime so WW1 consciption was the first time there was a proper audit of the health of the nation
and a similar situation now faces Russia
86 males for every 100 females but
around 50 50
for younger age groups
this is why they go for mercenaries and they are
not getting many takers
beyond get out of jail free cards for Russian nationals
Russia has little to offer
could Europe plus UK defeat Russia without the USA
deffo difinitely
but would they want to
and would they want to reconstruct Russia after a war


we were trying to decide
what would be the most trivial assault a person could accused of
wecame up with making yourself a cup of tea without asking
anybody else want one?
and perhasp more seriously
going through a door and not checking whether you should
or should not
hold the door open for a tailgater
in the modern world
most females in a certain age bracket have to deal with
having periods
we don't have any figures
but of those can we say
half occassionally or regularly
have sex
having sex is - broadly - in most cases
less of a bother than
dealing with a period
in the phrase shit happens
no man ever forced a female to have a period
we came up with a uniquely female sport
stick a dildo up yer chuff and
see how much weight you can hang off it before it slips out
that's an exercise to help little girls
prepare for adult female life
like all those athletics disciplines that
prepae boys and gils for hand to hand combat
what is distressing about the current
sport in Spain debacle people pretending to be helping females to
defend their honour
pure as the driven snow
instead of
defneding a female's right to
delight in being fondled
and that socce player clealy grabbed her boss
as he grabbed her - video

back in the day
off Lord Street in Redcar
thee was a police station and it had a
magistrates' court
all converted to housing now
as a part of the deal
a police office was built next door
that is now closed and up for sale or sold
however
up the way
off the top of Kikleatham Lane
thee is
Cleveland Police
Redcar Divisional Headquaters
it does appear to us
can't be arsed to check
that this divisional heaquarters is somewhat
in search of a purpose
and as a part of quest
Cleveland Police seem to have set up some sort of
driver training and assessment centre in
redundant parts of the estate
hence
police sirens are not heard
caving a route through rush hour traffic
but of a mid morning
whilst apparently quite elderly folk
play dodgems on deserted roads
MAMILS that's what they should be
middle aged men in lycra
in other words on push bikes on sink estates
but instead they are playing out
teenage fantasies of being
motor sports drivers
on public roads
because due to inclusion and
positive discrimination
they ae not allowed to approach fellons
they would otherwise be
putting in their shifts
playing with themselves
play the ball not the man..
becomes
play the vehicle not the man
can't arrest you but we'll impound your vehicle but
only whilst it is moving
bored cop thinks what will I do today
I know
I'll park outside the home of somebody who is
banned from diving and
wait fo him to start up his vehicle so we can have a bit
kiss chase

20th February 2025

for no appaent reason there has been some sort of
press release from the Chancellor of Durham University
the gist seems to be
if I were vice-chancellor and warden of Durham
I'd tour secondary schools in Duham county and fire
Duham University degree certificates out of
t shit canno
into school assemblies
we say
sponsorship (from status)
is the route to
power
not
wisdom
traditionally
high ranking universities such as Oxford and Cambridge
have a concept called
town versus gown
where the dreaming spires of the uni
sit uneasily beside
the belshing chimnies of the local car manufactuary
in Durham the everse seems to apply
a coal mining memorial uni
resisting any sort of engineering aside from
astrophysics
during the second world war
American GIs General Infantrymen
were stationed in the UK
an occupation still not entirely ended
and the were described as
over paid, over sexed, and over here
every man Jack of them and their families with
diplomatic immunity
and this has couloured the view of a
certain generation
of females of UK origin


what do they say?
he's as green as he's
cabbagy looking
President Trump is no living in a
Russian myth
he is a little rusty on geography
by population
the UK is half the size of Russia and twice the size of Ukraine
Russia 134 million Uk 70 million Ukraine 34 million
what Pesident Trump wants the world to say is
Ulraine does not need elections
because it is at war
having set that duck in his row - Blair speak
he cozies up to Russia
and some time in the next three years he
announces to the world that
Russia has betrayed him
and consequently there is a stake of war
between the USA and Russia
and so
the 2028 US Presidential election is cancelled
like wiv Ukraine....
trouble is
Russia
if you wee born in the immediate post first world war era
and clearly you weren't because you'd be
110
if you had been
one of the things that might have tripped off your tongue was
oh! she's in a worse state than Russia
if the US declaed war on Russia in say 2026
they would have really serious dificulty
keeping the conflict going until 2028
mecenaies have withdrawn - for example North Korea
what President Trump's strategy faces a classic
suppose they gave a war
as in gave a party
and nobody came
if the US declares war on Russia...
refeence the classic movie
The Mouse That Roared
Peter Sellers
Hail Hail Freedonia
land of the brave and the free
Marx Brothers
movie - Duck Soup
and not forgetting the man behind the green curtain in and as
Thw Wizard of Oz
we'e off to see the wizard the wonderful wizard of oz
because, becasue because
of the wonderful things he does
or appears to do
so we have two contenders for the title
Wizard of Oz
Pesident Trump and President Putin
which will whimp out first?
even President Trump admits America is not curently Great
MAGA
make America great again
like
let's get Sunderland back in the Premiereship
not the most awe inspiring battle cry
you'll remain in the shit if you don't vote for me
implies
you are in the shit
and speaking of people in the shit...
there's a proposal for
Shell and BP to amalgamate

19th February 2025

Toronto 'plane crash
indications are that starboard - right - undercarriage collapsed
consistent with manufacturer - Mitsubishi?
not attending press conference

short comment on
Animal Aid and the vegan cult
we have reached a point where they say
milk is bad because
we're stealing it from calves
wedo have to point out...
if farmers can't sell milk they can't buy feed for cows
and so nobody would breed cattle
and so there would be no cattle and
so the potential cattle would have
NO life
not a life a little girl wouldn't like to share
a swe say
two swans on Locke Park Lake
all the kids - the six who survived
have left home and mum is making another
Jaffa memorial nest - sorta
for the male it's all about
home not kids
wild animals don't need vets because
they get eaten before they get sick

we do need to comment that
regarding glare of headlights..
it's an MOT fail to have milky headlight lenses
it's probably an offence to dive with a
dirty windscreen
etc etc

this problem of prosecuting over trivialities
candidates of Tees valley major
Tory - I'll create 20,000 jobs
response fom Labour candidate
I'll create 45,000 jobs
if you are an ivory tower politician
you feel the need to offer these kids of numbers in the justice industry
around 100 females get killed in the UK each year
around 10 million people have some form of intimate contact
each week
if you need telephone number promises
you have to criminalise trivialities

we also need to say
lots of motor vehicles are sold from the factory
without fog lights
the ones that are...
the fog lights are fitted at a level in the frontage
just above the front axel
just above mid height on the wheels
they are for illuminating the road not on coming traffic
in fog
you should run fpg lights a running lights - side lights
not head lights - if you have fog lights
if you don't you do need to be careful about
whom you may dazzel with your headlights
as weather conditions change
it may be necessay to legislate for
properly fitten fog lights on all new vehicles
most seem to be designed for easy retrofitting if not standard

18th February 2025

this will not go down well
we know how the issue of glare can get people animated
if you can clain that a laser pointer can
blind
a helicopter pilot flying at
500 feet
it's not surprising that people ae getting excited about
vehicle headlights
let's just define the problem
this a paticular portion of the calendar year is one of the two
early and late winter
when people are driving when
the sun is low in the sky
people diving towards the south will be
dazzled by the sun fom aound 8.00 am to 11.00 am
and in a similar slot in the evening
IF
it is a sunny day
fo as long as there have been moto vehicles
winte has meant
anticyclonic gloom
but it was not just anticyclonic conditions
two things about 20th century atmospheres
pollution and low temperatures
21st century atmospheres are cleaner and warmer
more sunlight gets through and it is moe dispersed because
being warme it contains more water
we have air that is laden with wate that is in doplets that are
smaller than the traditional
mist and fog
and way smaller than smog particles
so although they cause optical disturbances
their effect is not registered as
mist
the autumn - fall - version of this phase
season of mists and mellow fruitfullness
we have a suspicion that something else is going on in
large supermarkets
at one time Morisons used to
mist the fruit and veg
we suspect that to keep produce looking
plump
they may be huminifying the air through supermarket
air conditioning
do you see glae in the larger supermarkets?
you may be experiencing what
motorists are complaining about in terms of
headlight glare
the bottom line is
mist scatters light
light fom headlights can set off from the vehicles heading
in the correct direction
but get spread out across the carriageway into the cabs of oncoming vehicles
our Ricker uns a battered old
ultra smart 'phone
and vey often in camea mode he gets a message
clean lens to improve picture quality
and the lens is clean but the day is misty


we like to tie up loose ends
in the sense of go into more detail on things we have
boldly stated
can't be a social worker if you have a warant card
the thing we NEVER hear in court poceedings
especially in judges summing up and sentencing remarks is
six or one and half a dozen of he other
many court houses have had a sort of weather vane on top
but actually a statue of Justice
she is blindfolded and holding aloft a pair of scales
there is a much moe elaborate version on the gound outside
Teesside Crown Court
of a 'mother' holding up a boy in one hand a nd a girl in the other
both childen bawling and screeming at each other
this vision of the role of justice is now quite out of date but first
the problem with it
the problem is that in a dispute it is assumed that one party is
more to blame than the other and that no matter how slight the
difference in responsibility
the whole of the consequences in law will fall on
the party found to be
more to blame
the divesion into the present is the concept of
expressing a concern for the well being of another
in other words
say
brother and sister have a public spat
and Mrs Higgins calls the police
and either one of the childn will be charged with something
or the mother will be charged with child neglect for
allowing her children to
play out
wheas
in times gone by
Mrs Higgins would have contacted the mother and
all the world would know would be
mother to children
'you just wait 'till I get you home!'
we understand that in Scotland the vedict of
not proven has been abolished in that context
to some extent a jury may be present ed with witness for the prosecution and
witness for the defence
but they are not offered the option of
six of one and half a dozen of the other
they may weigh it up but they can't declare it in a verdict
and so to
estoative justice and mediation
the justice industry is not interested because they have
TARGETS
fo conviction ates
a matter does not go to the criminal court
because it needs to be sorted out
it goes to court because the justice industry sees
an opportunity to
get another notch on its gun

15th February 2025

this is an example of whee a construtor is directed by
Network rail to
get their arses into gear and minimise disruption
they call themselves BRITCON
and they are genuinely worthy of being members of
the Consideate Constructors scheme
progress pic


the Spain women football strip 2025-26
credit BBC Hulton picture collection

14th February 2025

Homes England is a non departmental public body that
funds affordable housing in England
Foxrush Walk
is a project of theirs under which
they ae taking up sections of the
Wilton Industrial site that are
near to industrial land but have been in the past
a buffer between
dangeraous industry are housing
the history...
when the transition from coal to oil and gas happened
there oil refineries were built on the banks of the Tees and in the
Tees Estuary
oil refining in those days entailed separating by distilation the useful fractions of
petroleum - rock oil
and the process yielded
an excess of tar known as olifin 6
to dispose of this olifin 6
a pipeline was driven unde the river Tees to a plot of land
in the middle of the Kirkleatham estate
where it was processed in a rather risky procedure called
thermal cracking
anfd the cracker was called the olifine 6
and the products wee the basis of a
petochemical complex known as
ICI Wilton
and it was because of the danger of explosion etc
that this became a high security site
and now we have Homes England avancing from the east
and the Tees Valley Combined Authority
trying to expand wates incineration from the west
instead of concentrating it
down by the river on former
British Steel - Dormans - land


a solicitor is a solicito
a barrister is a barrister
a solicitor is not a barrister
a social worker with a warrant card
is not a social worker
they are employed to arrest people
and to decide whom to arrest
and whom to charge under instruction from
lawyers fom the Crown Prosecution Service end of
anybody doing their job ...
what fun to be able to settle an arguement or dispute with
an arrest
the cobbler should stick to their last
billions of pounds spent on professionals who ae liable to be
swept aside in their working day by a warrant card


on Teesside - and in many other
deprived aeas...
you car breaks down
do you 'phone a mate, AA RAC recovery, garage? nope
you ing the police
'cos
eveything free on 999

any activity where the police may have
specially trained officers
ceases to be a proper job
definitely no longer a
profession
can't get yer teeth fixed?
the police must be too busy


it appeas that that bunch of jumped up
shop fitters building the Lidl store on
Redcar Racecourse
may finally have given up possession of
the part of West Dyke Road outside...
and so
now, at long last
British Gas Networks can
spend the next three months
digging up the alternative access to the town fom the south
Redcar Lane
we have been making mention of electricity sub stations
the ones with names REDCAR xxxx
well there is an electricity sub station called
REDCAR
and itis fed with 66,000 volts
fom the National grid but mainly from
Hartlepool Nuclear power station
it has seen a little change recently
it used to be fed via pylons and overhead wires
the wires have been moves under ground
so we ae not best pleased when Pc Plod
diverts busses and trucks onto the sidewalk
around a broken down vehicle
instead of pushing it 5 metres backwards onto the central reservation
there's been an ambulance and a cop car parked in
Tees Road for at least 2 hours this moning
the term is
putting your shift in
making sue you ae not available for a fresh job
before this one is closed


you can't outrun a radio
on the one hand
speeding motorists do it for one of three reasons
mainly
on a small but annoying scale...
some motorists when held up
by roadworks or congestion
try to win back the lost time some are in a hurry
but like the shop lifters who
hand their booty in at a charity shop...
the are doing it for the thrill
and a live police chase adds to the thill
strategically
known speeding black spot
do you
locate a traffic car at the beginning of the run
so as to be able to be give chase
or do you set up with a stinger at the predicted
exit point of the fun house?

13th February 2025

we try to avoid commenting on the wok of
President Trump
but at this time a little zoom out commentary may help
we think that at some stage the strategy was along the lines of the
I won, I'm done
we have discussed peviously
I won, I'm done 2.00
would not be followed by resignation but by the establishment of
a Regency
in the person of Elon Musk
in other words
I have got myself re-elected purely to protect myself from
all those legal challenges
but I have not got myself re-elected because
my golf game is faltering
I will have a blitz on many things
a genuine 100 days
and then when everything is fixed
the Musk Corporation will run America
naturally, things have not gone quite so swimmingly
a significant part of the
World Vision
has been distorted by the fact that
not so many countries and organisations around the world
depend of American hand outs as many Americans
including Preseident Trump
thought
and so quite recently
an Arab leader has visited the White House
King of Jodan was it?
to pass on the message
oil rich Arab states payroll the Middle East
not America
so America has not got as much levyridge
in the Middle East as you thought
and that has caused a switch to
Ukraine where there is American Aid
and no
Lend Lease arrangement as in the Second Wold War
has been set up
that is
America has been giving Euope help to defend Ukraine
not selling Europe equipment to fight Russia
though all this
President Putin is set up as a
Straw Man
think of the scarecrow
think of the people of Europe as the crows
and President Putin as the scarecrow
and the ambition is not to prevent Europe from invading Russia
but to spend borrowed money on
enriching the
military-industrial combine
in America and to some extent in
the UK and Europe
and Vice-Roy Musk
is a major part of the American military-industrial combine
with his space rockets and AI to say the least
so if you are Europe and
you don't want to get dagged into enriching
Vice-Roy Musk
what you want in Russia is a
s;ightly mildewed, down at heal
Straw Man Putin
and not to have him repalced by some
bright sparky upstart
who will take us back twenty or thirty years

11th February 2025

we do know that some people who ead these little notes are
quite sensible
and that motivates us to take a little time and trouble with them
wewill step back a little in time at this point
we have suggested that at one time there was a well defined
ownership structure to industry on Teesside
in some ways it was almost as though
people who set up small business that ae now called
the supply chain
should have sold out to the big companies
and that any sort of
trading outside British Steel and ICI or the local authorities was
subversive
in some sense people at large thought that everything on Teesside
belonged to these three Bitish Steel, ICI and 'the council'
withing that structure the general public were broadly unawhare of the
installations of - for instance - BOC
BOC was British Oxygen (Corporation)
it is possible that from the start it was American owned
Coporation beinhg American not British in a name
anyhow
BOC did and under other owneship probably still do on a smaller scale
air factionation
in the broad they had a plant opposite the BOS plant on the
other side of the railway tracks
and big mustard coloured pipes with
OXYGEN
painted on them
the BOS plant - Basic Oxygen Steelmaker
pumped oxygen through
molten iron to turn it into steel
and BOC supplied the oxygen
some with long memories may remembe little trucks
running around the area but not in town that had
spherical tanks on the back - one tank per truck
that looked like a IBM typwriter golf ball
and had pipes covered in ice poking out of the back
these were carting
liquid oxygen
probably not for the BOS plant
you have to get air very very cold to be able to
distil it like whisky but that is what
BOC did and probably still do
removing that amount of heat energy from air
requies a lot of energy
like the drag an aircon system is on a vehicle engine
we make you work hard fo the nugget of knowledge don't we
electrolizers
elecolizers split water into
oxygen and hydrogen
thee can be three possible options
collect the oxgen and throw away the hydrogen
collect the hydrogen and throw away the oxygen
collect and use both
if you take an electric locomotive and run it up a hill
it will use a lot of power
on the flat not so much
on the downhill
to keep speed to a safe level
take the potential energy of the train at the top of the hill
subtract the energy needed to run the tain on the flat
and you have a bunch of energy to dissipate
you can un it through ballast resistors
you can feed it back to the overhead cables
you can 'bun it off' by heating the brakes
so?
when the wind blows and thee isn't much demand for electricity
say a windy Sunday morning
you can take excess power from your wind turbines
and use it to run an electrolizer
not damage to your wind farm
and
free oxygen and hydrogen to do with as you wish
store it for a windless day and bun the hydrogen in the oxygen to
generate electricity
neither hydrogen not oxygen is toxic
harmfull to the environment all that jazz
just
handle with care because
hydrogen burns and explodes and
oxygenmakes that happen
and makes anything that burns
burn faster
the more oxygen there is
under proper conditions people can breath pur oxygen
hydrogen is very light gas
if it escapes it will dift away quickly
not pool on the ground under air

America returns to
plastic drinking straws...
here is a little bit of advice to
men in the UK
who are dragged into Boots to help with a shopping spree
by all means volunteer to cary the swag home
BUT when they load half a tonne of loot into
a paper carrier bag...
don't set it down in a puddle
if you do
the bottom will fall out

9th February 2025

hold tight to nuse
for fear of something wose
power brokers in the UK were raised by
nannies
and essentially
they felt nuse was a softer option than
the horor stoies told by elder brothers and cousins about
Wrackford Squeers
prep school masters
and they see
carbon as nanny and hydogen as school masters
Nicholas Nickleby Dickens?
Wackford Squeers a cruel Yokshire schoolmaster
Dotheboys Hall
a boarding school for unwanted childen
given our Ricker's status as a child...
neither he nor his mother ever decoded the significance of
his dad's constant references to
Dotheboys Hall
we get ever so het up about people who think
paedophilia is the modern day equivalent of what
Wackford Squees got up to
getting at cross puposes with
people who are obsessed with the
change at the stroke of midnight in Cinderella
poor girl - percious until she turns some particular age when
she is instantly transformed into a
Harlott
Helen Mirren movie Hussey
stroke of midnight becomes an adult and so
instantly becomes fair game
not exactly the story line of Hussey
ove protective of females under a certain age
negligent of the care of females a moment over that age


each month for aound 18 months - we loose track of time
around 160 megawatts of installed capacity
for wind powered electricity generation is
has been shipped out of Hartlepool and installed on
The Dogger Bank
Drax is a coal fired electricity generating station near
Selby in North Yourshire
that has four steam turbines each capable of generating
645 mega watts
that has for some time now had massive government subsidies to
run on wood pellets
instead of coal
the planned extent of Dogger bank C is 87 turbines
that's 1,400 megawatts if we're doing 12 a month and we're doing 87
the project will last
8 months
shoorly schum mishtake
in other words
Dogger Bank appears even if A plus B plus c
is somewhat
larger than advertised
and way lager than Drax
the UK government plans to use
to have installed capacity to..
use 10,000 meagawatte of electricity
to generate hydrogen by
2030
in 2023 there was 216 meagwatt installed capacity
throughout Europe
so hence etc
what glorious fuckwits we do have in charge in the Tees Valley that
they ae clamouring for
carbon capture and storage
and not
water electrolyzer plant
a study in stupidity?


we have discovered that as of today
thee are no shelves in the Redcar racecourse Lidl
so the good news... we stand a good chance there will be no more
MUD ON ROAD
from this project
the bad news
we have an empty shed
and we will have
'security'
trying to let in the workers and
keep out people who are
looking for a parking place
and there is no barrier as such
so Smokey Joe will be shunting his motor around
the car park entrance trying to
sort the workers from the (futue) customers

8th February 2025

we have some confusing information - conflicting
if you are involved you should ely on the government web site etc
not this...
since aound 1998
grants for undergraduate courses in the UK
have been very rare
the confusing thing is
we hea about people who have multiple degee in diffeent subjects
to step back a little
in the medical realm people studing nursing and medical laboratory science
could get bursaies so they studied fo free but
most of that went at a later date
so at one extreme the impession is that you can
pile up as much debt with the Student Loan Company
which is government owned but perhaps the money does not cound as
govenment expenditure or borrowing
at the other extreme we wee told - perhaps ealy in the svheme?
that the purpose of the scheme was to make as many people in the population 'graduates' as possible
the implication at that time was
no student loans for graduates because from the government perspective
job done for that individual
we did get an email - lost in the mists of time
from the student loan company to say that
people with qualifications not recognised as degrees
so perhaps HND for instance
wee only entitled to a loan to pay for a
shorter conversion or upgrade course
The Institute of Biology used to run a course to upgrade
from HND or ordinary degree to honours equivalent
people with a teaching certificate but no degree
could get honours graduate status through a short course
probably a night school for year or two
but in theory if they did one year full time they could geta
student loan
the essence - at that time at least - was to loan mpney to get to graduate status not to help with appropriate training
apparently we have to take ouselves back to
1993
we think this was the year Teesside Polytechnic became
The Univesity of Teesside
we feel we must detour to the early days of
CoViD
some TV network - porbably the BBC - kept bringing on
down the line - all them restictions on face to face meetings
an 'expert' from a university
evey time the pofessor of reading out loud
in the studio asked the expet a question he would
whimper 'I'm an Emeritous professor'
that is an honourary professor
like a staff version of an honourary degree
back to the chase...
1993
you have a politechnic that pepaes students for
CNAA ONC ordinary national certificate
HNC HND higher national diploma
and of a sudden
the joint is a wash with freshers who
already have A'levels
and expect a degree level education
from people wot 'as written books and that
culture shock or what?

anyway
a note in our shot history of electricity suppy in Redcar
back in the day, what day, don't know
Woolies was built in the 1950s and Marks and Spencer around the same time
on the seafront or Esplanade facade
between the two was built into the shop wall
an electricity sub station called
REDCAR WOOLWORTH
it was removed when the bulk of the two stores was demolished
it function was taken over by a rather hidden substation called
REDCAR DUNDAS
not far from Dundas Street
but also on the Esplanade
Gabrielle's Amusements has it's own private sub station
it's quite possible that
the Palace Hub also has an electricity sub station
we don't know exactly but we guess the
high tension underground ring main is carrying 32,000 volts
this is one good reason why
private citizens should not NOT
attempt the likes of
private attempts to
fill in pot holes in the road
and absolutely not dig holes in the side walk for
fence posts and bollards
not even if you're an emeritous professor

7th February 2025

we have been collecting a few thoughts about the poblems
overnight
these ae fragments without timescale
instance one
an exam in authoring HTML scipts
so the admin decided that they would issue each candidate with a
secure code
and the exam was in a computer lab and the candidates sat as in a written exam
in front of terminals and they did not enter their name or other identifying details
but simply entered the unique code for identification along with
the code that was the solution to the task
this meant that the markers could not identify by name or handwriting
which student wrrote which script
there was a whole load of stuff about
counteracting plagiarism
the essence of this was ...??
suddenly a load of
legacy tech college tutors wake one morning and they are
university professors
and their next intake of students ae
genuine undergraduates
and they kinda utterly flumoxed by getting couse work
and exam answers that aren't a complete
human fax machine
repro of their lecture notes
we suspect that the dossier that the university handed over to the police
which was 90 odd emails running to 135 pages and was all of our Rickers communications to anybody with an
at Tees.ac.uk email address...
was originally collected by admin or security to
chack it for plagiarism
and finding none
they handed it over to the police to look for
'personal comments'
hints of a pesonal connection that could introduce bias in assessmnents
hence with neither Tania nor the university being represented in court the court assumed that they were chatged with protecting
Tania from Richard
and not
protecting
legacy staff from
undergraduates and graduates
we need to say thst our Ricker was represented by
Craig Beer of
Brown Beer Nixon Mallon
and a little later Craig was diagnosed with dementia
and died
and we think that if our Ricker had had different epresentation
our Ricker would not have pleaded guilty - where did pled come from
and the court may have thrown the case out???
we have to comment that
there was no application to restrain ourr Ricker from contacting
anybody else who had recieved emails contained in the dossier
we suspect the university's attack was on both
Tania and our Ricker
and indeed more focused on Tania
and we remind you
Tania was employed full time in
Janice Webster's university spin off company and
only perhps 20 or 40 hours a year as a part time tutor
within the university
was originally

nuns age too
the curent fashion is for
raddled old hags
to blame their declining attractiveness on
pevious contact with men
and in some cases to try to identify a particular man
latest case Gino de Campo
to be blamed for
turning pretty little girls into
mouldering old Miss Havishams
this is Dickens Great Expectations
time stands still for jilted bride Miss Havisham
there is here the germ of the 'modern' idea that
the slightest friendly contact between a
male and female
entitles the female to a wedding dress
eventually the wedding dress Miss Havisham always wears
catches fire and kills her

6th February 2025

we are looking at chaity shops in Redcar
as of this week the
closing down sale signs
have gone up in the world's only remaining
kidney reseach charity shop - on
Redcar High Street
but we are more inteested in the history of
cancer research charity shops in Redcar
if you start from the concept that
Andy MacDonald MP
is the poshest bloke in Middlesbrough
and that Middlesbrough is the pinacle of
life in the Tees Valley
if you are the regional amange for retail
for Cancer Research UK
and are based in Wirral
Lancashire
and you get told
Redcar steel works has closed'
despite quite recently the shop has
regularly topped the income polls
and made ovee 110,000 pounds a year
going by
press reports
you decide
from now on in edcar it will be
tumbleweed and soup kitchens in Redcar
so you???
rebranad the shop as a
poundshop
and invite redundant steel workers to shelter there
Redcar is the sort of place where medical charities have
traditionally prospered
not welfare charities
and that influences the big chains in decisions over
should we have a branch in Redcar?
most retail managers ae not good with the accounts
and if they are making decisions from a hundred miles away
they will not know the clientelle - customers
there is one particular problem with regional town centers
well two linked problems
because banks don't have branches and thus local bank managers
1 one a retail chain can't oder up a business eport from their bank
to be written by the manager of their bank's branch in that town
2 as a result bank finance is difficult to arrange and<> investment comes from
fiends and family
and in essence
most starter capital is available to various sots of>BR> 'South Asian' families
got the woldwide contacts but not the local ones
it appears that yesterday the ;ast of the black top was laid in the
car park of the new supermarket on Redcar racecourse
today it is oad makings and planting of the shubbery
not seen any food arrive as yet
regarding Redcar and Cleveland Coillege Relyon are in this instance not
bed manufactures but
Relyon nutech o simila and they have already got facilities at
bad choice of wods? facilities are designed to make things simple
what the chance of getting dummed out of your street if you
lean about offshore wind?
Haveton Hill - Port Clarence in Stockto-upon-Tees
as of some time we understnad that
Redcar and Cleveland College is an annex of
Stockton Riverside College???still?

5th February 2025

so, Redcar and Cleveland College hosting a training provider...

4th February 2025

we seem to have slipped into a mode of discussing
Higher Education
we don't recall how long ago in the UK
the Student Loan Company was set up but it was a change from
winning finance for education by passing exams
to
essentially, taking out a mortgage on your career prospects
the Student Loan Company charges quite a high rate of interest but
cannot reclaim payments from people who owe to them but have
a low income
so the company is betting on the client getting a better income as a result og
getting a degree
it's not exactly the same as an interest only mortgage on a house where you always owe the amont you borrowed but pay interest on the debt
but similar
whith a student loan you don't pay either until your income
eaches a threshold so you can accumulate both the original debt
plus the interest
that aside the broader point of setting up univesites all over the country..
the money that funds them doesn't come from government
it comes from the Student Loan Company
thus having a university in your community
boosts the local economy without adding to government debt
sounds good IF the graduates do indeed find themselves with
inceased incomes and are thus liable to pay back their student loans
the student loan company can't afford to pay increased fees to universities
if the graduates from those universities don't emerge into well paying careers
and so
a university such as Teesside with its
anti-elitist culture driving it to train
paramedics but not doctors
all sorts of depatments of nursing etc
but no medical school
in the interest of
fairness
all students must get the same student loan
so with capped income
universities switch to course that are cheap to teach
maths, humanities, social care, nursing
not engineering and medicine
hence, if you have two prestigious universities
Durham and Manchester in the UK
Durham has grown as much as it can ecently but still only has
22,000 students wheras manchester has 40,000
the diffeence would have been greater earlier
when Teesside Poly became University of Teesside
Durham University proposed a joint venture medical school in
Thornaby Stockton-on-Tees
so that the high cost of a medical school could be
spead amortised over the total student population of
Durham plus Teesside
and this was before the invention of
GP training colleges sucha sa Sunderland 'medical school'
but the project died
Teesside pulled out because
it was elitist and not down with the streets
Newcastle University manages to have a proper medical school
despite having only 29,000 students but it is long established and was at one time a college of
Durham university King's College Durham became
The university of Newcastle upon Tyne
and Durham's link up with Teesside was an attempt to regain
lost status
notwithstanding
in its life Durham medical students onlt studied in Thornaby for
a couple of years before completing their studies at Newcastle
or elsewhere
is it true? apres Leon, le deluge


we have seen mention today that thee is to be one
Glider bus style bus route in each of the Tees Valley boroughs
well, Redcar at least
Glider buses are essentially bendy buses
double length instead of double decker
and they are supposed to run part of the way in a bus lane and part way in
normal taffic
we'll have to see how this goes and more importantly where
should be within a year

if you are a student at or a graduate of
a UK univesity that used to be either
a polytechnic or a College of Higher Education
you may not realise that before becoming a university
your alma mata did not have the authority to
grant degrees
if you studied for a degree and were awarded one
it was awarded by the
CNAA
Council for National Academic Awards
wheras if you had O'levels or A'levels
they would be awarded by a syndicate of unitersities
Oxford and Cambridge
JMB Joint Matriculation Board
Sheffield, Leeds, and some doss
Birmingham, Liverpool Manchester
anyone born in God's own country
really had only three options to go to univesity
Oxford, Cambridge or Leeds

3rd February 2025

chancellors of the University of Teesside
Leon Brittan 1993 - 2005
Tom Sawyer 2005 - 2017
Paul Dreschsler 20017 - 2022
Jenny Chapman 2023 -
Dreschsler if we have the right one is a
leading light in the chemical industry
anyway...
Tom Sawyer was a switch from Tory to Labour
and the other two are Labour too
we suspect that the Labour ones are - (all still alive)
in the protect what you've got camp
parable of the tallents...
all three would bury their master's gold
not invest it
some confusion about length of term
fixed five years or open ended
it's not about any decisions they make
but
about the image the uni wants
frankly
the latter two show some sense of
nobody wants the job
the whole things seems to be
will an association with the University of Teesside
tarnish my reputation?
it's mess



good enough for government work



we thought we'd invest a couple of minutes insearching
esearch oppotunities at the University of Teesside
what we got was
socio-economic and environmental issues
we have no idea how much money vaious development corporations in
the Tees Valley ae spending but
if they ae not sponsoring scientific and engineering research
at the local university...
what sort of industrial development are they hoping to attract?
thee is a conflict here between
a local university dedicated to
managed decline
and a national government that says it is dedicated to
economic growth
people whinge about the government not funding - say
the dualling of major roads in North East England
and yet, apparently, no pressue on local
institutions of highe education to
at least link up with
the serious corridors of academia
to put the Ricke story in context..
the contact of University of Teesside with police seems to have been
an attack on shall we say the incoming uni educated folk
Tania and our Ricker
in defence of a
university determined to retain it's status as a
technical college deseed up in the
drag of a university
our Ricker is now too old to give a dam but
people who are consideing investing in the area want to know
that thee are local institutions to which they can send employees to gain
appropriate skills and knowledge
and that does not mean
the skills in applying for asylum and state benefits
as things stand noting that the alternative energy training facilities
being built AT Redcar and Cleveland Collage will be run
AT the college but not BY the college
that does not mean
shall we say, bricklaying so much as electronics
we have colleges that want to teach bricklaying
is that the reason for
house building targets?
do we have an education system that takes clay
young people
and moulds it into
decorative nick knacks and not plates, cups ad saucers?
so we move to Cancer Researxh UK
our Ricker worked in their Redcar charity shop in the year that it made
ove a hunded and ten thousand pounds fo the charity
and they forced him out
the really galling thing was
it being the run up to Christmas it happened just before
the Christmas 'doo' the celebratory meal out
and he gets told to stop working in the shop
and then he gets all kinds of grief because he
didn't turn up for the dinner
he was fit to socialise with BR> but
not fit to work with
may upset other attenders by
working
instead of doing the diesel fitter
before containerisation of shipping
Liverpool Docks - dockers, diesel fitters...
dees 'll fit 'er
taxing the cargo
and this is the current gripe
people want
as with the transition from
polytechnic to university
a mechanism to get rid of the dead wood
and the decent honouable way for a government to
raise standards in any industry
highe education in paticular is to
fund geneeous sick pay for the
as in Japanese
window watchers
tutors who are given no classes to teach
and then some arsehole of a politician or hack says
eeee it's proper unfair them getting money for
doin' nuffin
we we have
presenteeism a pun or corruption of absenteeism
turn up and make trouble because noboy will trust you with a task
this is a demonstration of just
how shallow you need to be to gain influence in
UK society
these days
CRUK has a sign over a derelict shop where
our Ricker and Angie's shop used to be
and why
Les Day
redundant steelworker and some time
'taxi' - hie car driver decided the shop needed a
staff union rep
if you worked at British Steel and didn't know Les Day
we are told he dove a high lift shovel
moving slag from the base of the blast furnace
but we could have got that wrong
the unspoken motto of UK government surrely is
it's the jobs not the work
and don't call me Shirley

2nd February 2025

what we will say hee is that thee is some sot of restraining order
piece of paper floating around our Ricker's tip of a
cozy little home
and it was issued without limit of time by
Guisboough Magestrates cout around the year 2000
that court no longer exists
as a result
we feel constrained to never enter the search terms
Tanya Nelson nee Robetson
into any form of search engine
howeve, we do feel at liberty to shae some information elating to
this person that can be described as 20th century
we don't know where she was born but we do know that she lived her
schoolgirl days in Whitehaven in Cumbria
we estimate that she became an undergraduate in
Optometry and Visual Science at the City University of London
London City University
in 1982
for two years - the first two years of her studies
she and our Ricker wee study budies on the couse
being a clinical para-medical course this would mean
practicing cleinical techniques and routines on each other in
open clinic
as such any contact would have been
hands to face
this was a long time ago and details are sketchy
in their first year they lived in different halls or residence
these would have been built in 1963 and since demolished
our Ricker was in the slightly less brutalist one on Goswell Road
now the memories return
the window of our Ricker's romm looked out over a printing works
that at the time was part owned by the actor who played the main etective
in a popular spin off from Z cars??
Stratford Johns
our Ricker never visited the other hall
in their second year
our Ricker lived in Wimbledon YMCA
and was for ever being asked
what's it like to live in Wembley?
and Tanya was living on a narow boat she shared with a young couple
and our Ricker never visited Camden Lock or wherever it was
by definition , therefoe, Tanya if still alive is around 60 now
and the restraining oder began when she was around 35
afte being required to withdraw from the course at the end of his second year at City
our Ricker returned home to Redcar, inherited his mother's house and
began an on off relationship with
Teesside Polytechnic - University of Teesside
his teaching caeer ended when
Hee Majesty's Inspectoate of Higher Education deemed
the course he contributed to
HNC in chemisty was rubbish but
his unit - computing as - 'good'
the HNC student on that course were mainly
apprentice lab techs working at
GSK - Glaxo Smith Klien
at Barnard Castle
and ou Ricker's unit was the evening module of the day release
and the student all stayed for it
and didn't deputise one of their number to
'stay and get the notes'
as the students on the paallel full time HND did
for the record our Ricker had curriculum discetion and taught
computer science the tutor on the computer module on the HND taught
programming in the language
BASIC
and despit it being a daytime session
the students didn't turn up
the tutor wated our Ricker to teach BASIC too but it was too late
HNC and HND were dropped cancelled ended
and so something like 15 years later
our Ricker signed up for a master's degree in
multi media computing design
and Tanya was the tutor on one of the modules
and all hell broke loose along the lines that
Tanya and ou Ricker having previously known each other
a tuto student elationship would be
inappropriate
but the police were not called in until after our Ricker
had withdrawn for that module
time line
MSc was 4 semesters full time
6 semesters part time
our Ricker was part time
he was required to witdaw from Tanya's module in his
first semester
the police were called as he arrived to begin his
third semester
hence the conclusion that the police were called to
keep our Ricker away from
Janice Webster and not Tanya Nelson
and as such the university were not represented at
Guisborough court and so thought the restraining order
named The Univesity of Teesside
and not Tanya Nelson
as the 'person' our Ricker should not contact

1st February 2025

it's strange what the depths of winter can do to a body
today we found ourselves watching a prog on
Channel 4
a UK TV channel
and the show was about remoter areas of Scotland
and a word featured heavily
a word we know but seemed to be in misuse on this show
as far as we know the word
coudie
is a term for
porridge
so we had to have a think
these East of Scotland folk were making
cottage cheese
and calling it croudie
so a little thought...
Scoatish croudie must be
milk porridge
as opposed to
milky porridge
which is porridge made with and seved with milk
oh our Ricker - breakfast
porridge that set on the plate like a pancake
floating in milk
with a knob of
Lyall's Golden Syrup on the top
the things you forget..
hence we conclude
a suplus of milk in the Highlands
and you make a simple chhese with it
and it looks like a very white version of porridge
so you call it milk croudie
even thous it's cottage cheese
we do sometimes have these meetings of
The Doric and the North East England languages
the show was something like
Britain's Most Beautiful on the same show we were treated to multiple references to the
annealing of artisan blown glass as
distressing
not de-stressing
sometimes we wonder whether
'mainstream' TV is vying to be more
amateurish than podcasts

31st January 2025

regarding the 'search' for casualties in the DC air crash
the 'plane was on finals
so eveybody on board would have been seated with their seat belt on
there would be recovery not search
except for the two 'missing' from the chopper

it would be interesting to hear the
age and rank of the pilot of the 'copter
in the DC crash
we are in that space whee the authorities initially say
we need time to inform next of kin etc
and after a little while press stop asking that question
we suspect that that pilot was an elderly high ranking
retired officer in the reserve
keeping up his flying hours
and we think he asked control to get the airliner to make way fo him
it is the esponsibility of the lighter aircraft to move to
avoid a collision
if the chopper pilot was an officer serving in a senior administrative role
and seeking to keep his hands on the tools
there may be some difficulties in breaking that news to the public
it is uncharacteristic to be this far down the road without
personal tributes being paid to the soldiers

30th January 2025

regarding the DC air crash
the term to look out for is
Air National Guarad
if you can link any of the 'copter or crew details to
the Air National Guard
it menas they were
weekend soldiers on a secondment from their day jobs
taking a couple of weeks out each year to fly
in this case a Black Hawk
a bit like letting an RNLI volunteer loose in a destroyer

underlying this question of
potholes and sinkholes is the reality of
to some extent in the past
landowners
if you have the deeds for a property in say Skelton-in-Cleveland
you may find that your deeds don't entitle you to
mineral rights under your property
somebody else may ahev the right to mine under your propety
big landowners have exploited their seats in
The House of Lords
to skew regulations shuch that inferio materials
such as the rotten sandstone commonly used for backfill
can be deemed suitable where a high lift shovel can rrun a
'quary'
whereas a durable material such as whinstone - basalt etc
has to be extrcted with explosives
we would recommend that rotten sandstone
not be used as backfill after utilities excavations in roads
but that crushed concrete or slag or similar be specified
to mitigate pothole and sink hole risk
we would also suggest that an aboriginal - installed at the time of
original construction
top dressing of a durable material
Ingleby granite, whinstone, etc be set into road surfaces
where there is a high probability that
there will be a temptation to salt the road in winter
impove the materials and reduce the salting and roads will
last longer and cause less accidents
you can look at a road surface and see whether it has been properly constructed
if it is fit for purpose it will be dotted with chippings chippings are angular lumps of igneous rock - granite etc
around one centimeter by two
if the surface is entirely smooth it is a
summer surface
but a four season surface will create
road noise
as will a concrete surface so top dressing for grades- gradients - and curves
the one good quality of British roads that survives to some extent is camber
camber is a common grade execution of
Brooklands Banking
either to be crown in the middle of the road to help with drainage
or high on the outside of the curves as at Brooklands
or in roundy-roundy racing -Nascar?
sometimes we see something and ask ourselves
have I ever seen anything like that before? yesterday the side walk outside the new Lidl stoe on
Redcar Racecourse was restored we hope for the final time
what we did notice was in the car park a
road paver at work in the car park that was
laying sand
well it could technically be designated as sandstone but
it is widely used on Teesside as a sub base in construction
it is the 'rock' that waskes down the river Tees and creates
Redcar Beach etc
what we noted and are not sure we have never seen before is
laying srushed sandstone with a paver
without a binder
it does suggest that regulations have been changes to reduce
the amound of tar and bitumen being used in road construction
it brings to mine a story about Tommy and the council
we are not sure whether it was
North Riding - of Yorkshire
o Durham County Council
but a group of county concilliors bought shares in a company
that made a oad binding agent called
Liquaphelta or Liquafelta
and they specified that Liquafelts must be used as the binding agent
in all blacktop supplied for road construction in the county
and sales did not increase as expected and so
Tommy had to run around the plant finding
discarded packaging fom Liquafelta - to show the company was using the product
although on Teesside this 'rotten sandstone' probably comes from
the Wear or Tees
we suspect that in this case the road material was being quarried at
Spaunton in North yorkshire
but thee is scope for variation contract to contract
in an areas where there is moving ground water
soft rock - sand - can be washed away leading to risk of
sink holes
in other areas thee is more natural stability and
more layers of the road or building foundation can be
laid without a binder
most people excavating on Teesside will find
slag for the steel industry not rock in the foundation layers
but there ain't ne more slag available now is there
there will be specific

29th January 2025

we have an impression about sales of copies of
newspapers with
Mail
in their name
Daily Mail, Sunday Mail
we believe that on weekdays around 700,000 copies of
The Daily Mail are bought
and that on a Saturday that number is one million
so we can't dismiss the idea that when something is printed in the
Daily Mail it is possibly read by a couple of million people
we forget that back in the day - the 1980s
if people wanted to read about sex they had to buy
The News of The World
and what was there to read was
'highly censorious of petty failings'
but more than that excusing itself fo publishing
details of sexual activity by
pesenting that material in a cloak of censorious rhetoric
and then at that time a publication came out the name of which escapes us
that dropped the censorious cloak and celebrated the erotic
and that died with the coming of the Internet
we are looking into the idea that some people just keep buying
The Daily Mail just to have in their hands a reassurance that
out there there are still people who are
having a bit of fun
no matter how censorious the coverage may be

28th January 2025

we've seen, somwhee back in the mists of time
a video in which
two women have a cage fight
and then two men have a cage fight
and then the scene switches to the dessing room where
the victorious man fucks the victorious woman
this is emblomatic of the conflict of ideas in
child protection
in one rather dominant thread in this scenario
the woman are competing for the opportunity to have
possibly the best sex they have ever had
the basic question is
when there is a tennis match
or a boxing bout or a cage fight
or a football match
how do we stray from the idea that there are two motivations here
there is the winning
and ther is
the prize
if one bloke kills another in the street with one punch or a knife
to quote one young murderer
I've wetted your man
meaning caused him to bleed
thee is dominance or victory at stake
and no prize, except a life sentence
we will slot in the
AL Capone narrative here
major gangster jailed for
tax evasion not racketeering
the idea that when the evidence is not clear for the
prime crime
due to witness intimidation in the Capone instance
we'll get 'im on smmat else
when the definitions of
justifiable violence
excess and lethal violence by police during an arrest
or reasonable chistisement of a child
we may switch to the inappropriate pursuit of the prize
in a sense, when all contests are
walk overs
we introduce a handicap system to make the contest more
entertaining
it is a classic
conspiracy theory that
the reason that adults consot with children is for
sexual gratification gained through dominance
the most likley scenario is that
dominance is an end in itself
not sexual abuse but bullying
what is 'proper' control through physical chastisement
and what is
simple bullying?
and because some people are popular with children and some are not...
the people who don't have a way with kids
take out their fustration by introducing the concept that
adults popular with children are
guilty of grooming them
in other words
there are people who establish and maintain relationships through
fear and violence
and those who charrm their way into social acceptance and conviviality
'grooming' has been invented by those without
cultured social skills
to attack those who have
Adam Ant was it - maybe not
don't drink
don't smoke
what do you do
subtle inuendoes follow
do you make friends with young people by
offering them drugs including tobacco and alcohol
or by soothing talk and a little hug?
what we are looking for here is a balance or equivalence between
easonable physical chastisement
and
credible consent
gonna tell you a little story
young woman let's call her Tanya
mum is a single mother but mum's bother is a police officer
all is well Tanya does well at school and gets to a univerity in London
she qualifies in a profession - paramedical profession
and along the way she makes a friend
but she and the friend are separated by work
and here she is she fetches up as a form of medical professional
she and her male friend go diffeent ways for quite some time
in that time he birth father finds out that she is
making her way in the world quite well
and he turns out to also be a police officer
all the way down this time mother and daughter have gone by
the same surname as the mother and the uncle their father
and a very strange thing occurs
for the safe of the reputation as police officers
her birth father and perhaps her uncle and her uncle's wife
and her mother...who knows who?
put the pressure on fo her to
change her surname by deed poll - officially, credit cards diving licence all that
to her birth father's surrname
we will surmise that she may have thought that her chances of
marying her friend from uni, or any other man
would be enhanced by pretending that she was ligitimate and her
birth parents had divoced and her mother had reverted to her birth name
endless possibilities
the question is
if the birth father then arranges a legal split
a restraining order on the friend from uni
who do we criminalise
the friend who never touched her...
or the birth father who saw some sort of
main chance in gaining control over the life of this
young woman who has pulled herself up by her boot straps?
there are serious questions about what third parties are
allowed to express a concern for the well being of a person
of whatever age with whom they have a tenuous link
when police are allerted to activity
perhaps a link between a male and female, perhaps not
in the normal process of
operational independence of the police
just as they can judge
physical chisement as reasonable
they can judge
consent as genuine
fuzzy rules over violence don't chime with
strict rules over intemacy
when our Ricker was young - birth to mid teens
there was a couple living next door
the wife as a bit of a a harridon and the sone
lived and worked in London - a solicitor
and our Ricker's dad ran this chap from Redcar to Middlesbrough
every day - even when Tommy didn't want to call in at the office that morning
they probably both had offices in The Prudential Building in Albert Road
the old one not the one that's there these days
and thee was a 'person' in the life of this neighbour who
never had a name as such and was always eferred to as
'pretty little niece'
'my pretty little niece needs this or that'
since he was in his seventies...
pretty little probably wouldn't apply to an actual niece

27th January 2025

one of the classic jovialities about sex is
do you smoke after sex?
I don't know
I've never looked
regarding childen...
across the board we still have laws that suggest that
'reasonable chiastisement'
clattering , smacking etc.
ae lawful in espect of
adult v child
on the grounds that
'violence is the only way to GET THROUGH to children'
you can't whip a horse
but you can slap a child
you can't slap an adult
so
if an adult injures a child
or upsets a child
it's legal unless
you can convince a jury that
you derived saexual gratification
from the violence
unless the child dies
we often hear the phrase
'with intent'
added to an assault charge
grievous bodily harm with intent
the intent is to
typically - endanger life
the issue the courts avoid routinely dodge is the concept
that is generally missing from statute
the crime not spelt out
in an age of
'we need a specific offence of...'
assault with intent to
gain sexual gratification'
over the past few decades the media have made progress - a little
away from the concept of
sexandviolence
as an automatic autocomplete on their computer keyboards
all the way down the world
anybody found to have indulged in sex is assumed to have
indulged in violence
hence we have two parallel concepts
sex with an under 18 must involve violence
violence against an under 18 has no sexual dimension
we are referencing a recent child abuse gang case in Scotland
you beat up the kids because they are not strong enough to fight back
the female in this gang is grossly overweight
but you can't be charged unless somebody says there was a sexual dimension
in broad terms
if everybody was fullu cloathed - no foul
unless a child dies
and the Southport murderer could not be stopped because
he kept his clothes on and no photos were involved

25th January 2025

electricity sub-stations have names
the new one of West Dyke Road is called
REDCAR RACE
we assume that is short for Racecouse although thee may be
anothe once called Racecouse...
and the one that supplies Tesco next door is called
REDCAR THRUSH

we have said this before but now is time for a repeat
sometimes governments achieve things they want by nudge
in the particular case of knife crime
there is something we have advocated before
this relates to
cookery shows and web material
thee is a thing called something like
demi-lunar
there are also - for th man cave
draw knives and spoke shaves
essesntially you can do a lot of knife skills
not boneing meat of filleting fish
with a knife that has a handle at each end
such a knife is not a stabbing impliment
you could slash somebody but you would find it very diificult to
get the blade as far into the body as the heart
even though these days a slash to the neck is a
popular means of attack,
making knives with two handles - one each end of the blade would mean the risk to life and limb would be reduced

24th January 2025

see this is Redcar
utilities...
underground
red cables are high tension
thousands of volts

we thought we would say a bit more about
swan sociology
we will note that certainly in respect of swans
it is myth that they look serene above the water line but
are paddling furiously under water
swans have massive feet or flippers or whatever and
like oars one swipe can launch a swan over a metre forward
and to get to the sociology...
at this time of year you may see one swan launch itself towards another
probably one of its own cygnets
in the natural condition
the pond is a source of pond weed for food and security from predators
when a male wants to evict another male - his son or not
he will try to chase that rival out of the water
in a context away from public input
the sub-dominant may decide to find a quieter pond
but in a place where
people often feed the 'ducks'
being denied access to pond weed may not be a decisive issue
so at present we often see
Ruffie's number 2 son
sitting on the the ground beside the pond
hoping for some duck food
in another place some harbour in the North East or Cumbria
a cygnet was apparently killed by a dog
but it may have been a fox or other predator and the result of
a dominant male denying a sub-dominant male the security of life afloat

we could wite a sciptfor an interview between a plociceofficer and a jounalist...
hack - if I obstructed you in your work
as you obstrruct me in my work
I would be in a lot of trouble
which of us is special?
we - the pess - espond to suggeations that you
will hold a press conference and
it can seem very much like a
pre-raid briefing
suborninates
'tis is what we insist you say because
it's illegal todisagree with an MP
it's illegal to disagree with a police officer
to suggeat to a politician or a police officer that
they are wong is
bang to rights
a malicious communication
the problem for His Majesties Subjects is
we will paraphase Animal Farm - George Orwell
All animals are equal (under the law)
but some animals are
more equal than others
the operational independence of the police
should be in detail
the police should not be entitled to choose to prioretise
gaining a conviction
over
protecting the public
in that sense
the law should defer to properly constituted decisions of professionals
is this peson
or this pracice of the authorities
or
is this matter to be ignored, brushed over because
it's complicated and
we don't think a jury would understand it
bottom line
if you want a get out of jail free card
do something confusing, baffling
and the authorities will
fill their days with
the low hanging fruit

23rd January 2025

what we lack in UK law is a concept of the culpable nutter
you can't take the
POISON label off the bottle of cyanide
on the grounds that
it isn't the chemical's FAULT that it's toxic
it IS toxic and needs to be kept under lock and key
and not excused control due to being
neurodiverse

21st January 2025

this seems to be Redcar's Chistmas Day
the new Lydl Store is being connected to power or
moe specifically
three phase high voltage cables ae being linked up to the
dedicated electricity sub station in the car park
we do suspect that there will be
EV electic vehicle charging points
and there is a paver standing idel in the car park so
significant progress may be achieved by the end of next week

we were trying to work out why
TeesWorks security and
Tees Harbour Police
can be witnessed straying
OFF SITE
and then we remembered that
South Tees Development Corporation
are living in the 19th century
and we conclude that these excursions are because
they don't have mobile 'phones and they
are employing 'security' in the role of
traditional
knocker.uppers
we are guessing that if somebody is late for work
Knocker-uppers were people employed to wake up workers
in industrial Britain during the Industrial Revolution
They used tools such as sticks, hammers rattles and pea shooters to
rattle bedroom windows to wake workers for work
and to prove it one the one hand
the people who manage wilton Intenational
maintain sirens that could wake the dea for miles around
and estew - ignore
the govenment's scheme for
sending the likes of flood alerts to mobile 'phones
in effect they ae little boys playing with big toys
on the other hand
South Tees Development Corporation are having some difficulty
attracting inward investment and seem to think that
promoting the idea that there is
something deadly dangerous on Wilton International
will do the trick

in the context that at pesent the only
interpesonal act that constitutes an
actionable crime
is
photography with intent to amuse
sometimes called
upskirting
sometimes
sextortion
in the absence of any evidence that the chap in Stockport
had or used a camera or 'phone with a camera
how could anybody expect that he would at any time
before
causing bleeding
be arrested?
no photoes, no blood - no arrest
boys will be boys
class war - only posh people have cameras

20th January 2025

and our moron of the day goes to...
Lord Stewart Rose
of course train drivers can work from home
they'e pesently working from what his Lordship would call
signal boxes
we have a modest proposal for 'improving' train services
as an interim move
at present lots of people cram onto commuter train services
sometimes Saturday sevices are busy
Rest Day Working
potential travellers could be offered
on Sundays and overnight we will offer
with due warning
'driverless' services
fewer people at risk
trains supervised from contol centers - or by control centre staff
working fom home
nurses can supervise patients through video conferencing
etc etc
the biggest positive about diveless trains is
a train controller can't commit suicide by cashing a train they are not on board

18th January 2025

regarding energy supply
we have two contrasting instabilities
on the one hand
the wind does not blow and the sun don't shine
consistantly and on the other hand
demand fluctuates
these instabilities are not linked or in sync
we hear a lot more about the wind and the sun than about
demand fluctuations
natual gas and oil are in storage
but they do need to be processed - refined - to meet demand
and in times of low demand
there can be a shortage of space to store
refined product that cannot be returned to the rocks
without having to re-efine them
hydrogen has the highest energy density of any chemical fuel the least amount of hydrogen needs to be stored for a
given amount of energy storage
typical road vehicles can travel around
300 km on 1 kg of hydrogen
soo
whatever your energy source
the most efficient type of
energy storage buffer in an economy is
hydrogen which requires the minimum staorage facility and can be
electrolised from water
from ANY primary energy source
and equally important
the amount of hydogen in Eath's atmosphere is so low that
in case of any sort of emergency
any stored hydrogen can be vented to atmosphere with the
minimum risk of fire explosion and pollution of any
enegy storage medium
hydrogen is non-toxic and although it can explode and burn
with the minimum of effort
fire and resuce could use fans to disperse it down to harmless
concentration with fans in double quick time
it can't electrocute you
it can't poison you except to the extent that
you need to breath air around 20 per cent - one fifth - oxygen
and if you breath air with a lot of hydogen in it you may
asphixiate
that said
without wind or solar energy
hydrogen is a viable option anyway
the only problem for the general public is
the mantra that
anything NEW is bound to be dangerous
so
playing devil's advocate...
if people are dead set on
Carbon Capture and Storage
if you can make it work
you could try
Methane Capture and Storage
because in that storage facility you would have a store of a
useful fuel
and not a relatively useless - certainly as a fuel
compound that is in abundance in the atmosphere
most people in the UK now pay fro electricity
and possibly gas though
dynamic pricing
the same as the pricing of concert tickets
this is through
Smart meters
but some people ae still on
fixed price contracts
the cap for fixed pice contracts in the UK went up on 1st January
by 1 per cent
the actual change was eon next
unlimited access went from 28.53 to 27.8
and economy 7 went from 11.77 to 13.87
a bit of a switch that perhaps indicates that the suppliers are
finding the fixed hours don't fit new generating methods
quite so well as in the past
economy 7 is still half price
time was the cheaper elecricity was
midnight to 7 am
PLUS 1.00 pm to 4.00 pm
pat of the problem is
coal and nuclear cannot switch on and off quickly so
in some 15 minute time segments
coal and nuclea suppliers have to pay National Grid
to take surplus power off their hands
that is nuclear pays National Grid and
Ntional Grid pay Gas fired stations to
shut down until demand returns
coal still figures in the UK because
UK National Grid can get a fee fom coal fired stations is th likes of
Germany
for taking surplus power off their hands
so the supply companies want to use Smart Meters to
charge a different rate for
EVERY 15 minute slot throughout your contract
depending on the balance of supply and demand
whether that will be to anybody's benefit except
coal fired power stations in Germany
we doubt

14th January 2025

it seems very difficult to get any sort of straight story about
steel making in Redcar and Scunthorpe
there used to be 4 blast furnaces in Scunthope and then there were two
those two were supposed to be shut down in November 2024
then we were told they would work on into 2025
now we are told one of them was shut down on schedule in
November 2024
what we have not been told is whether it will or has been re-started
we guess
that the workers from the third funace to be shut down
have been transfered to the one remaining furnace
at the heart of this is a fairly basic reality that
workers who don't see a future in steelmaking in Scunthorpe
are not having any trouble finding alternative work
or
are reaching retirement
despite the new line that the two electric arc furnaces
that were to be shared between
Scunthorpe and Redcar are both to be in Scunthorpe
we are not sure the people of Scunthorpe
care as much about this as
the media hacks do
for those who do not know
Scunthorpe in in
North Lincolnshire and is very very fa up river from the North Sea
whereas Redcar is a seaside resort
of sorts in that sense
Scunthorpe became a steel town on an ea when
relatively local iron ore was to be smelted into iron and steel
to beused relatively locallly
it would never have been set up for
worldwide import-export of steel and steel aw materials


what we find even more striking about the fie scenes in LA than
the chimney stacks standing alone is
the trees - although perhaps dead - standing in the gardens
this means these homes were not log cabins
not even stick wood structures but
these are - apparently - glorified tents made in the main fom some sort of
PVC
and they melted as much as they burned
and hence the concern about toxic fumes
NOT wood smoke

we thought we would have a little dig into why
the UK leader of the Tory opposition is so out of touch with
British culture
it's a bit complicated but Margret Thatcher as Prime Minister
put and end to couples visiting London to give bith so that their child could
qualify for British citizenship
Kemi Badenoch was apparently one of the last to
claim this 'advantage' and was whisked back to
Africa for her first 16 years
and then came back to London for study etc.
so she is renowned for starting an arguement in an empty room
but in effect this is a symptom of
fake it 'till you make it
she clearly has no idea where she should stand to
gain popularity in the UK
hence we will get a series of outbursts such as
a public enquiry into 'grooming'
may go down well in Africa
in the UK, not so much
we are kinda assuming she was from an
English speaking not Francophone part of Africa
Nigeria - apparently
Jenrick is properly Bitish
his gas fitter father paid fees for him to go to a grammar school
now we know where all those expensive fees for
fixing yer boiler go
there seems to be a bit of a disjunct - something like that
in the California fire story
there is much talk about
how expensive the insurance claims will be
what is missed is that
the properties involved consist of
thousands of
wooden huts stuck on
very valuable sites
shoving up something less durable than a Portacabin on a slabe of prime real estate
will cost less than replacing a burnt out car
this is square mile after square mile of
land falling into the sea as on the East Coast of England
hardly anybody died
not a full scale tradgedy
not Chernobyl
just an excuse for a thorough refurb


some comment about generational change
how to put this?
the present day Grannies of the Western World
they are of the same generation as
The Petenders
and The Petenders were in effect
Chrisie Hynde
she is now in her mid seventies
listed as worth twelve million
but for her generation that's good
and The Pretenders were in the days of
Punk Rock
mainstream
on the BBC and that
we could take any sample of Chisie Hynde lyrics
and we will just tidy them up a little...
re tattoos etc
you're gonna make some plastic surgeon a rich man
but you ARE
another human interest story
more from the same track
I shot my mouth off and you showed me
what that hole is for
and from her book we can see these lyrics were
autobigraphical - Hynde's true personal story
two kids and 12 million
not such as disaster the great grannies - the Glaoria Allreds
are thinning out
and they won't be getting much support from the grannies
and so
where is the reader/viewer feedback at
The Daily Mail The Express the BBC?
who thinks
metoo
sells?
if it were presented as
adventures of a sparky young lass...
but not as
this is how to destroy your life and family
we should note that Chrisie Hynde at the time was
partly motivated to
put it about a bit in London
to, as a US citizen, marry somebody British to
gain the right to remain

13th January 2025

although it was never and still isn't called steel
wrought iron is the stuff that a BOS plant makes
in this sense
a blast furnace makes iron and
sometines it is called cast iron
and sometimes it is called
pig iron
but the work of the
blacksmith
wasn't simply to change the shape of cast iron
today's blacksmiths hate working with cast iron because
it is so brittle
but in the days before BOS plants a Bessemer converters made steel blacksmiths turned iron into steel
thee are in Japan
citation The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronovski
some elaborate rituals that go beyond smithing
fo making blades such as swords from iron
and these were effectively refining iron into steel by the pound not by the ton
rituals because the science was not understood

we know that the NHS is keen to get
nutters off the sick
but we witnessed a new depth of delusion today
an ambulance driver using
blues and twos to
'run' a green traffic light
they rreally do think they are in a computer game
we don't forget the nutter released from the nut house and the same day
an a red light into the back of the car of one of
our Ricker's nieces and killed he and her husband
orphaning thee teenagers
'oh, don't know what happened there
I was having a real good time
piloting the Star Ship Enterprise
then there a bang and flames'
nutters, ambulance diver
we've seen the video of the A19 Thirsk accident
high grass verge
no sign of any vehicle having left the road
difficult the avoid the concept
police arrive - game paused
to hit somebody with a vehicle without taking the vehicle off the road
the person must have been standing in the road
to?
avoid getting her shoes muddy?
not so long ago a cop died because he
stood on the ail track and expected the train to stop
like magic
and the one fly by wire tram running on the Tyne and Wear Metro
apparently the 'driver'
touched one of the controls and
the tram had to be towed back to the depot
so an engineer could press
Ctrl Alt Del

11th January 2025

it's very difficult to know what to say about
Southern California
but we can say
even in Gaza they have concrete

regarding inclusive policies...
back in the day late 1980s
the patner in the law firm that deals with our Ricker's finances was
a former classmate - or at least at the same school at the same time
Spring Healed Jack - a happy chappy of slightly restricted stature
decided way abck then that the best option he had to secure
a futue for his children was to invest in getting his wife
qualified as a lawyer
no idea whether he stayed married but that wasn't the point
we have a little story about our Ricker and the chemistry master
the deouty head, Mr McGreggor
so it's a basic procedure in the chem lab - a titration
so the class got their results
and they were all ball park
but our Ricker's was spot on
so Mr McGreggo decided to suggest to the class that
our Ricker must have bribed the lab tech to give him the answer
and he seemed deadly serious
don't do anything well, it'll get you in trouble
and so that summer when Col Rose arranged
work experience for some of the lads
and most of them went to the likes of
Metal Box to get a couple of weeks as management trainees
our Ricker got sent for two wweks in the quality assurance labs
at Kodak in Harow
where they had just installed and autoanalyser
and our Ricker was given the makework 'job'
of spending half a day with the manual to
check the 'accuracy' of the autoanalyser
esults came out the same
relating to how much silver the plant was
loosing into the drains
Kodak Harrow as opposed to the other place further north
starting with a S
made photographic film and photo printing paper
Stevenage
maybe Harow made paper and Stevenage made film
our Ricker remembes the date because
on his last day the secuity officer tried to stop him entering the plant
it was the 8th of August and his pass was stamped 8th August
so he got in for his last day
but other people on these
public schools appointment service things were given a day or half day
in each department
our Ricker spent the whole 2 weeks in the labs...
same thing happened when he worked a summer in
Batemans' Labs in Godalming
at the end of his time leaving for his doomed studies at uni
the foreman said a part from saying you can kiss the girl who has worked next to you
goodbye
but on the cheek
he said well we never got around to a proper tour
orf the factory
Bateman's laboatories was an optical factory
making up presciption spectacles
our Ricker's job was
plate making
you take a lens - probably round
and you put it in an auto grinter with a spindle
at one end the lens is mounted and at the other end
a plate is mounted
and the sot of pantogaph/router style mechaism
grinds the edge of the lens until
it is the same shape as the plate
so
back in the day
people had expensive spec frames and they got
a reglaze
they had the old lenses - no longer clear or no longer correct prescription
taken out and new lense put in
but if these were old frames or not from a manufacturer Batemans did business with
there wouldn't be a place to follow for that frame
broadly not too difficult to make a plate
aluminium sheet and tip snips
BUT
there was a machine
and it cut plastic plates
and all that summer if you bought
specs with Varifocal lenses from any branch of
Batemans Opticians
the lenses were ground to a plate made by our Ricker
and the company - now long gone - was owned by a bloke who's
son was a dispensing optician
not an optometrist
as a ting side comment
our Ricke remembers the name of the factory manager because he was
Mr De'ath
#or D'eath
but that solicitor from the top of the story was the first of a series who said
our advice? retire now, you have zero leverage in this modern world
you will get no respect, nothing but agravation
if you try to establish a career
on his last day at Kodak ou Ricker was given a bit of a tour of the works
and with him was a sort of 12 year old boy who was appaently
Iranian Royalty
and he wanted a souvenier
so he tore off a bit of photographic paper fom a stash in a skip
and at first the tour guide was aghast
but then he remembered that he was dealing with royalty and
said
weel you know it won't work
but there you had silver impregnated paper going for recycling
by the skip load
they wee producing so much product and so much of it was faulty...
and almost all gone now
photography has gone digital
no fuss in the media about job losses in Harrow and Stevenage
like it was photography not
a steel works
it contrasted with life for the workers
our Ricker was doing this test to validate the autoanalyser
and there were the labs and within the labs there were stores
and when our Ricker or anybody else wanted or need anything that
wasn't lying around in the lab
they hadto go to a counter between the labs and the lab stores
and if they wanted a reagent - a ottle of chemical
they just asked for it and walked off with it
but if they wanted a piece of apparatus
glassware, whatever
they had to sign for it
but then comes the day of the royal visit and
a couple of the lads wee told to tidy up
this consisted of
picking up any non-standard apparatus - glassware
smashing it and binning it
looking smart for royalty vesus
taking home a beaker or flask to use as a vase at home...
pputs us in mind of old computers in skip outside
the office block at the Redcar steel works
they had 13 amp plugs on them
one or two of the lads 'liberated' some household 13 amp plugs
from the skip
and were sacked for theft
once you have 'security' you have to justify having security
so getting workers to sign out kit didn't save any money
it was just the principle of the matter
sign it out but never asked to bring it back
jobsworth moe than me job's worth
to fail to follow procedure
speaking of someone entiely unrelated but also working at Kodak
signed out some platinum crucibles
and when Stevenage shut down
liberated them


so far as we can tell
other than Redcar
the onlu Lidl store
Stainforth Construction of Shipley have built is Gimsby
the ones in London that opened in time for Christmas wee not built by them
so far as we can tell.. the visit to site last week by EQuans on behalf of Redcar and Cleveland Council was because
somebody working for Stainforth had twatted a lamp post outside the store
SC claim to do their own electrical installations
if they employ people without eye tests...
the sparks may fly

we are not amised by police and ambulance coming on Tv and bewailing the
loss of espect from communities
they come fom God knows whee and turn our communities into
private amusemant parks with dodgems and such
behave as if on a movie set
and talk about policing by consent
you have consent to behave like
non-neurodiverse adults
not people playing kiss cahse in the Primary School playground
it's thin end of the wedge when police
encourage citizens to
report anything suspicious
it's called SWATTING not Germany in the 1930s
ambulance services independent of
'parent' hospitals
and police services told they have
'operational independence'
opeational independence should be restricted to
the defective branch
not the storm troopers

10th January 2025

to summerise the arguements set out below...
beause emergency health cae amd NOT driving
is the core skill of a paramedic ambulance crew
in theory they should run
under green beacons
and not be entitled to break the Highway Code
to take this further
unifomed officers who are not deignated
traffic offices should also run under green beacons and
obey the Highway Code


this is whee we get into
laugh or cry territory with vehicle beacons
a doctor can put a lit flashing green beacon on the roof of their car
to ask kindly for other people to let them have prioity on the road
but it does not entitle the docto to break the highway code
if the emegency deepend the doctor must stand down and
call an ambulance
BUT
a green beacon on a piece of plant equipment - a digger or telehandler/stacker
indicates that the driver is wearing their seat belt
what this does emphasise is the fact that ambulance has many faces
there is patient transport - between hospitals and return home and such
but the emergency ambulance service is divided into two categories
traditional
scoop and scoot
and hospital on wheels
it is clear that if you have no intention of
treating the patient on scene
driving furiously is your core skill
if you are two graduate paamedics who may spend ten minutes
stabalising your patient before setting off for hospital
driving skills are not front and centre
the category that are neither are the
first responders who are neither
no room to scoop so no scoot
glorified first aiders
logically only scoop and scoot ambulances should have blue lights
and we have to say that
'police' Q cars and dead flat illegal
these are cars which look normal but have tiny blue lights hidden in their
radiator grills
the regs clearly state
a blue beacon should be clearly visible 360 degrees around the vehicle

9th January 2025

our Ricker has had words with one of the
woodentops
who are pretending to build the new Lydl stoe in Redcar
Tuesday some lad tring to reach out ofthe site to dig up the sidewalk outside
they gave him a digger with a bucket with no teeth
he needed a pick
same okd story
ty to do it with wot we got don't hire in the appropriate kit
any road up
woodentop says
you got your eye on anything in particular
Ricker sez
why wasn't it open for Christmas? woodentop sez
might be open for next Christmas
any road up
the coonsul's contractors equans?
are trying to help the contracator to
wire up the store to the mains for electric
so a slot must have come up in the schedule of
repairing storm damaged power lines in Northunberland
as such we have high hopes the store will be open by Easter


we will daw a couple of threads together today
some oganisations
local authority social sevices
most famously the RSPCA
Royal Society for the Pevention of Cruelty to Animals
have the ability to take people to court without reference to the police
we have seen a significacnt errosion of the concept that
police should not be presecuted because that would
errode espect and trust in the police
the other thread is about
who should have
blue beacons on their vehicles
thee will be a range but
mainly we assume they are
police fire and ambulance
when there is a major incident on the roads
a contractor vehicle weighing up to 40 tonnes can turn up
and this vehicle can be called a
wrecker
o perhaps even a rotator
it with belong to a local contractor not a national organisation
stick that in the middle of the motorway and people
can't avoid driving around it
however
it is an enlarged version of a
fire and rescue tender
but the itty bitty fire engine has
blue beacons
and the wrecker has yellow beacons
it is patently obvious that
wrecke crews should have powers of arrest
and blue beacons
instead of dragging some teenage cop from their
compute game in the mess room of the local nick
to 'supervise' contractors with
decades of experience
hee's the thing
if you've got a licence to drive a truck with a
120 tonne train weight
why don't you get swarn in as a special constable
so you can un blue beakons?

6th January 2025

we thought we would do some slightly difficult sums
say your shout is to a location 2 miles from your base
at 80 mph average speed you will cover 1.33 miles in a minute
at average speed 60mph you will make one mile in a minute
at 40 miles and hour you will make 0.66 miles in a minute
so at an average 40 mph you will get to scene in 3 minutes
at 60 mph you will get there in two minutes
the point is
speed saves time on long hauls but not so much
on local trips

sometimes the most important idea needs few words to explain
we will pad this out a bit
back in the day the only source of
elemental - metalic - iron
wad
meteores meteorites
it fell from the sky and was very rare
fo a vey very long time people developed the ability to
extract othe metals - copper, tin etc
from their ores
it took a long time to develop the ability to
extract iron from rocks
a lot of efforts produced impure and weak material
for a long while the best answe was to get iron ore
vey hot using chacoal
the big point was
you could get the necessary temperature by
burning wood with the iron ore
but impurities fom the wood got into and
affected the quality and propeties of the iron produced
so to purify the product
you purify the raw materials
at first charcoal kilns to purify wood into charcoal
later coke ovens to purify coal into coke it was not a complete success
we ended up with cast iron, and wrought iron
all sorts of things with iron in the name
to use iron to its full potential it needed to be a lot more pure
to have much more precisely defined alloying inclusions
such as chromium
and iron poducts of this type have names that include the word
steel
not
iron
and the way you make iron into steel is - almost universally
to uses a device originally called a
Bessemer Converter
but at a very important point in developemnt it was name changed to
a BOS plant
a Basic Oxygen Steel maker
the vey simple idea we are driving towards here is
you build and use coke ovens in a not very successful attempt to
make pure iron
then you add a BOS plant to do the job properly
and you keep feeding coke - not coal into blast furnaces
for old time's sake and in Redcar so far as we can tell SSI took the leap and produced steel with
balst funace and BOS plant nad no coke ovens
and it appears that it worked
meaning that blast furnaces in the furture could
use dirty non fossile sources of carbon in
Blast Furnaces
and rely on the BOS plant to clear out ALL the impurities

6th January 2025

in UK law it can be an offence to
use an air horn when driving
if it is unnecessary or
use to cause annoyance or harm
only use an air horn in genuine emergencies
or when necessary for safety reasons
avoid using air horns in built up areas
near hospitals schools or during late hours to
avoid causing distubance
disturbance of the peace is an offence
it is not automatically appropriate to switch on blue lights
and sirens simply because you are
'on a shout'
in almost all circumstances blue flashing lights would represent
sufficient warning of highway code breaching approach
royal and senior governmeant convoys do not use sirens in the UK
regarding the other aspect of living in
Siren City - Redcar
Wilton International do not have licence to
continually 'test' their emergency sirens
they need be tested no more often than once a month and for a matter of seconds
a couple of other things have been dawn to our attention
there are requiements that police officers seem exempt from to have good vision to be able to validly hold a diving licence
we guess police rarely are a driver to read a number plate because they can't read it themselves
however there ae no requiements to be able to hear
in order to validly hold a diving licence so
driver o pedestrian a sien is tolly useless if
the person who's attention you seek
is stone deaf
probably from living near a police or ambulance station
naturally we expect that eventually despatches will
classify police as well as ambulance call outs in terms of
urgency
but it does not matters how urgent the call
no need fo sirens when in a van capable of 80 mph on a deserted
non-rush hour highway

5th January 2025

what we want to do now is pt ouselves into the
mindset of the leftists
now that we have two flavours of right wing politicians in the UK
Tories and Reform
we have a bit of a problem using Tory as shot hand for right wing...
clearly 'the Tories' the govening right wing party got
ever so 'woke' probably under the influence of
daughters and grandaughters of a 'cetain (young) age' and generation
but what are the leftists deaming of slipping over the doorstep?
somehow thee is some sot of cross party acceptance of the idea that
creating jobs is the route to electoral success
but what may be the effect and what
what 'ducks in a row' have the leftist set up to exploit this?
just as The Bank of England sees inflation at 2 per cent as
lubication to keep the economy moving
job seeking at aound 4 pe cent is generally seen as
providing employers considering recruitment as having
an appropriate level of flexibility in selecting from
an available poor of workers
essentially, recruiting from the unemployed
rather than poaching from rival employers
and so for the economy although not for some individuals
all is right with the world - the UK national economy
at present
swhy then. to attempts to create jobs
for politicians it is an easily measurable statistic
a win for the policies of incumbant politicians
setting aside the immigration consequences of an
overheating jobs market
what is the leftist view?
essentially, the leftists have generally thought that
a significant element within the workforce should be
people on 'make work' schemes
what the average member of the public would not understand is that
if you are long term sick but not actually physically disabled
you ae not likely to be a union member
if you get onto a makework scheme
there is a good chance that you will be recruited into a union
even if you makework is volunteeing
all of that is standard
'I hadn't thought of that'
what is in the deep recesses is
do leftist politicians and union leaders deam that an
All Powerful Labour Govenment
will seek to legalise
Secondary Picketing
and so all sorts of rag tag operatives in makework positions
would become a standing army of
Flying Pickets
to disrupt essential services

4th January 2025

a note about train crew
if you pay a person eighty thousand pounds a year to drive a train
they need their 'rest days' to
manage their buy to let properties
or simply spend the cash
an extra fifty thou a year for working all legal hours...
probably actually an extra 20 grand
less tax...
at at least 40 percent
like we say
they can invest their time in their side lines and
pay less if any tax


now a note about fee paying schools
as we have said, not for education but for contacts and networking
but across the piece...
NHS and education and all
the attitude of MPs Members of Parliament not Military Police
the attitude is summed up by their view of retail
we LOVE Sainbury
they keep the rif-raf
out of Waitrose
let the cleve clogs and the swats go to places they will get straight As
and we'll go to the fee payers and stitch up all the top jobs
in the next generation
while they get on with their heads in
quotes from literature and difficult sums
here's the rub
one of our Ricker's nephews went to Radleigh but he nearly got kicked out because he was
a weekday boarder - home for the weekend
and the weekend is prime networking time

we ty to catch as many eors as we can...
almost all the stret furniture in Redcar is painted
dark geen
so we sota just assumed...
the lamp standards - lamp posts - in the
pedestrianised aea of Redcar High Street are actually
dark blue
and this may be significant
there are always old
'battle axes' women beyond a 'certain age'
who get on the council and chuck their considerable weight aound
thee was on...
thankfully we forget her name...
engineers try to make things as simple as possible and as an example
it was decided to cover footpaths in
black top and cycle ways in red top
then a mouthy councilor decided
this is a Labour council
I want the footpaths in Locke Park topped with red
so little children assumed that
the footpaths in Locke Park were a cycle track
one of the daftest bits of municlple vandalism is
The Newport Bridge in Middlesbrough was built and always was
mid green
somebody decided it was in a Labour Borough so the had it painted
grey and red
it looks ridiculous

and speaking of Locke Park and ou mistakes...
whateve we said about the swans..
it appeas that we had 4 girls and two boys
because one of the pair has disappeared and the other is being
chased around the pond by dad Ruffie
so a switch over Chistmas from the boys sticking to mum for protection
to all girls together and uffie seeking to expel number 2 son
how Ruffie will feel about
a wife and four daughters....
we are not sure


we finally watched the Wheeler Dealer episode on the Fod Fiesta
we don't often go for conspiracy theories - but
the 'loss' of the car in question looks for all the world like
a face saving exercise
it would be very embarrassing for Ford if
nobbody wanted the completed car
at any price
and who would?
it wasn't even worth breaking for parts or
shoving in a container and sending the the Middle East
a total misfire in project selection

2nd Januay 2025

we have to start this bit with a thought for your head
Yorkshire Trading has a delivery dock on Lord Street Redcar
and is not involved in this...
we have a pic of the access gate to Redcar High Street
and it was open over the whole of the Holiday Season
mainly because a van arrived to deliver just as a
traffic warden was going off shift and the driver asked her to
open the gate because he was running late and
by the time he left she had gone so she didn't re-lock it
there is a particular lamp post on Redcar High Street that is opposite
Yorkshire Trading
over a period of several years this lamp post was un into by a vehicle
on a number of occasions
and each time it was replaced
and each time it was replaced it was painted dark green
to match the other lamp posts
except on the most recent occasion when it was left
in bare silvery galvanised metal
it hasn't been run into since, or painted ovee what may be a couple of years
thus it appears that the lamp post was being run into by a particular driver who
couldn't see it
when it was dark green abut could see it when it was silver
o pehaps they finally had their licence revoked...
these 'gates' are NOT a security measure
they generate a two tier licencing approach people who are allowed to drive on the predestrian precinct
and those who have a gate locked in this face
based on?
oh they may closed the shop if we insist on them having and using
a road accessed loading dock

note bollards in side walk

30th December 2024

Alexei Navalny
we are taking a moment to consider the phenomenon exemplified by
Russian politician Alexi Navalny
to cut to the chase...
this is one of those public figures who fall into one of three categories
I want power
I want to be popular
I want to be important
he fell into the last of those categories
our Ricker remembers a pupil in a school in Greater Eston
Redcar's steel town
she was 14
she said
I've got drunk, I've had sex, I've had a baby
what's left for me to do?
a sort of challenge to the school to make her life more interesting
this Navalny chap had probably done eveything he could expect to do
he was married, pobably had grown up kids??
what can I do to make myself moe interesting
his challenge to himself and to Russia was to
make himself important enough to
warrant assassination
goading the authorities to kill him
not working to change the leadership or change
government policy
the current UK government are a bit adrift
they are trying to reward organised labour for winning power for them
when organised labour did not win power for them
like repaying a debt you don't owe
like the Labour Party have a PPI claim
Payment Proection Insurance
scam 'debt' to organised labour
but the real problem is this is New labour over again because
leftists live in siloes
and in a leftist silo
all the evils and troubles of the world are the result of
devilish schemes by the centre right
and all that' is needed for the country and the economy to
achieve freedom with a single bound
is to get the Tories out of power
not to get The Labour into power
one policy
get the Tories out
here's the thing
given their majority...
all they have to do to keep the Tories out of power is
do nothing
and so
a pogrom, an outbreak of class war
and what will result from that?
we are not certain but we very much suspect that it will mean
a lorra lorra Labour councillors will loose their seats on
Local Authorities
over the next couple of years
commentinh about the protest at Seafield House
how very Redcar to
set up a protest rockery with lawn edging
and not Middlesbrough stylee
lob the convrete through the office windows
but eturning to our schoolgirl
she was not Roman Catholic by dint of what school she was at
but the Roman Church has had a lot of influence on the activities of
the UK Taliban or Morality Police in the UK
females wee offered a sort of choice
walking womb or
nun
if you were female and you wanted to do anything interesting
you had to become a sort of
Sister Bonniface - comedy detective dama series
it is very interesting that the RCC Roman Catholic Church
has for so long guarded the reputation of it's clergy as
gay
in that they would suppress any suggestion that thee were
females
even nuns
working in The Vatican
and for long enough - too long
a female who married would be required to retire from
teaching
so as not to let slip to the children the secrets of the bedroom
and although teachers are these days allowed to continue their careers
into married life
there is an assumption that any sex will be strictly restricted to
the absolute essentials of precreation
any female - therough metoo o whatever - whatever they do
to make life worthwhile
child care nursing medicine medical research...
whatever will be deemed to bu
unworthy to do vital work if it is discovered that they also enjoy
being fucked senseless
in theory it is all about
nepartism
whenever a priest had a favourite illigitimate son
he would refer to him as his
nephew
so the question is
how fa do we take
it's not what you know
it's who you know
we see a lot of fuss about
fee paying schools and we wonder
given the fact that every
rich and poweful person we see on telly...
is pig ignorant and thick as pig shit...
why would you bother to invest time money and effort in
getting your kids a 'good education'?
peopele don't send their kids to fee paying schools to
get a good education
but to
network
even if you are rusticated - sent down - within moths of
entering Oxford university
if you made a big enough splash whist you were there
you are set up for life on the basis of
role to fill?
who do we know?
and so another loop back
to the eyes closed driving of emergency workers
how many crave the fame of
dying on duty?

29th December 2024

season's greetings from
Redcar and Cleveland Social Services



free advert for onn digital

and oh yes we found it
a pic of Morrisons amazing electric car park ramp


this is one of those
I wish you hadn't told us that stoies
Hammersmith is a part of London
and the M4 motorwaybecome the A4 as it connects
West London with Southern England
essentally a lot of traffic
when Morrisons built their store in Redcar
they built around half the car pak area as
two stories - two levels
and access to and from the top level was - and is - via a ramp
given the era of construction we forget the date but
turn of the century - aoiund the year 2000
the ramp is moderately steep and in those days
winter frost and ice were expected to be routine to prevent the need to close the upper deck of the ca park
in winter time
the ramp was constructed with
subsurface electrical heating cables
like under floor heating in a home or office
at the time it may have been thought that
using 'off peak' electricity to keep the amp ice free in winter was
a viable option
we are not sure if the heating was ever used
but it would over the past couple of years have been
ridiculously expensive to operate in a serious cold snap
two options close the upper deck or salt the ramp
now imagine this is a ramp
so alt would wash off down the ramp
overall
in the current situation
the engineers would design the ramp with
a roof to keep the heat in and the ramp safe to drive on
without much electricity and without any salt
which given climate change is probably the situation
no roof, no salt, no electric heating
got away with it
on the other hand
the Hammersmith Flyover is
800 metres long
and generally level
and has no roof
and so
after one winter's electricity bill for the
deck heating system
the council switched to
salting the road
and a lorra lorra salt was spread
and a lot of it seeped into the hollow internal construction of the deck
and the deck was - is - reinforced concrete but more importantly at Hammersmith it is post tensioned reinfoced concrete
the reinfocing steel is not just laid into the wet concrete
it is - was - added afterwards and the concrete is like a string of pearls
threaded together and then the whole neclace embeded in more concrete
so two problems
no access to the tensioning cables - they ae embedded in concrete
and instead of being kept dy by the electric heating
that the council switched off...
they spent decades saturated in water but not just water
salty water from the
'gritting'
every late autumn we get proud parents having the council's
grittes given fancy quirky names and
jouroes standing in front of or inside huge sheds full of salt
and nobody says
'in a strange sot of way
the UK has a twin on the other side of the world
a similar island nation called
Japan
pobably Japan has more severe winters than the UK
but in Japan they don't salt the roads
so if you fancy a classic car...
impot one from Japan
it won't be rusted out
and so the the A167 Gateshead flyover on Tyneside
so far as we know the A167 is a road fom Darlington to Newcastle
but the media have it down as a few hundred metres running through Gateshead
and we expect that some authority or other will have for years been proudly salting the deck of the flyover
and now it is melting like a sugar cube in coffee
if you design a structure to be kept warm and dry with electric heating
and then you switch off the heating for a decade or five
despite it's 'use' as a roadway
stucturally it behaves like an derelict building
and just jemmying the loose bits off to
stop them falling on people's heads
won't save them
so why did people design these structues to be protected by
electic heating?
simples nuclear electric was gonna be
so cheap it wouldn't be worthwhile metering it
hence the standing charge
the part of the bill that is the same whatever the meter reading
people were expected to only pay the standing charge
and only people with outdoor heated swimming pools and the like
would see the meter add to their bill significantly
nuclear got costly...

26th December 2024

we have to say...
thee must have been tens of thousands of people on
Redcar Sea Font
for the Boxing Day Dip
almost all to watch
but
Minibus from Essex
coach from Sheffield
even the cipher ambulance didn't
barge through
self policing
no sign of the filth
just
Coast Guard, RNLI (lifeboat)
mountain rescue and the guys from t't coonsul
who put out the road closed signs
wot appened
nobody sed
hee's people walking in the road
somebody call the filth
we might get a good citizen medal
get on breakfast TV

25th December 2024

when you get a moment...
we wee told a little while ago that some sot of
height restricting gate had been installed on
the South Gare Road
we had a little gander
couldn't see it
what we can report
some lengths of the road surface have been remade
and alongside those
'Armco' barrier has been set up to
keep vehicles on the road
some of the road is in vey poor condition and we suppose that
what we see today is a pat of an overall scheme
we can also report that the
'layer cake' foundation of the blast furnace is still in place

24th December 2024

a couple of things about
Ryan Reynolds Blake Lively
Rob Macelhenny
back in the day when women NEEDED to be married
when the only options were
closet gays
the girl would be told
he won't trouble you much
cases vary
Jackueline Onassis married to late to have childen
Nigella Lawson made no babies fo Sarchi it's a stretch to say
rich closset gay men marry post menaupausal celebrity women so nobody will
question whether they ae having sex
but this question of Vital Voices turning against Baldoni
few people will remember 1960s
feminist writer
Germain 'female eunuch' Greer
basically the title efers to closet gay men wanting a wife to
behave as though she is a man with his boy bits cut off
and her benchmark for
female emancipation was when
it was routine foe a woman to
lick her own menstrual blood off her partner's penis
people like Reynolds want the law to enforce the status of
women as female eunuchs

23rd December 2024

it may be a little early for a NewYear upsum of the past but
perhaps this is an early edition
the greatest achievement of the new Labour Government seems to us to be
that so far David Lammy - new Fporeign Secretary
has not - to our knowledge - had
a massive public melt down
once President Trump gets back into full flow
things may change
the big question on Labour is
is their post election bout of
class war
subsiding?
what we probably have is a core of expensively educated
labour MPs of long standing being
diluted by a shoal of
I just stood fo a laugh or to make the numbers up
'real people' on the Labour Benches
in character - if not in policy - we expect them to be like
LibDems
we would like to return to Groundwork Trusts
Thee are two particula firms of solicitors in Middlesbrough
Atha and Co and Askews
back in the day both had offices in West Teace Redcar
Askews are still there and have just had an extension built
Atha left some time ago
set that aside for a moment
back to MPs and central givernment civil servants
educated at fee paying schools and Oxford University
they may as a part of their induction into their career
have been taken on a fict finding half day visit to
oh shall we say
New Cross in Lewisham in East London
250 violent crimes per thousand of population per year
Goldsmith University
Oh God! it must surely be worse than this
Up North
so
Atha and Co - commissioners of Oaths, that is
family and business solicitors
move out of their offices in West Terrace, Redcar
retreat to Middlesbrough
and Groundwork Trusts move into their offices in Redcar
and it's taken around a decade for that building to be tansformed from
the incongrous alience of Groundwords to the left fascinators and big hats for the races don't you know
Redcar Racecourse
to be converted into
a boutique hotel
Bowles Hotel
not very busy but early days and we wonder whethe they ae more
word of mouth through the horse racing community but
perhaps it simply does not compute in National government that
a town can have a steel works and a horseracing track
like, why no dog track?

we have a little driving issue to explore
in these
dark days before Christmas
even those without computer controlled vehicles....
may be diving with lights on
some will discove or not as the case may be that some of their lights
ae not working some people are driving on fog lamps and not
running lights
this means they are lit up at the front but
not at the rear
increasing the chances of being rammed from behind
to the deaded analogy
Levelling Up fo the North east of England has been like
givinga patient in a diabetic coma a sweet fizzy drink
o another damned food bank
instead of a
shot of insulin
why?
today of all days
Magdeburg was a traffic warden observed opening the security gate on
Redcar High Street
to allow a disabled van driver to
avoid carying half a dozen small crates yp the half dozen steps to
the pharmacy entrance - closed to the public of
Boots
those - especially delivery drivers - needing security
dugs fragrances etc.
should not draw attention to themselves by
breaking the rules

21st December 2024

through around half of December somebody
Highways Agency, Redcar & Cleveland Council both?
has been running an automated traffic survey at the
north end of Mersey Road near Sacred Heart School and
Corporation Road
pehaps some significant redesign of the road layout is being considered
since traffic lights are red rag to a bull for ambulance crews
perhaps the suggestion is
replace the traffic lights with a round about
so the bastards will have to slow down or
risk toppling over like a Reliant 3 wheeler
for many people ambulance crews are the face of the NHS and
the persona they wish to present is that of
arrogant twats
with no concern for public safety
but the gvernment shuld feel pessure to NRVER set targets that
put the public at risk
in 'professional circles' it is
the golden hour
not the golden minute
we don't want to dig into the weeds of how the NHS
UK National Health Sevice
was divided up into separate 'tusts' with the idea being that
each 'Major Hospital'
would be the foundation of a trust
and the trust would include all the associated ancilliary services
nobody in government expected bits of the ambulance service to apply to be
stand alone NHS trusts not being prepared for the challenge, government agreed

we should say regading the Highways Agency
thee are at least three
Corpoation Roads on Teesside
Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Redcar
Corporation Road in Middlesbrough is the bit of
Newport Road that runs past Middlesbrough Town Hall and
Newport Road in central Middlesbrough was the continuation of
the A66 until it was 'replaced' with the flyover
the A66 continues towards Redcar via Tees Docks...
and becomes Corpoation Road, Redcar but with the designation
A1085
which becomes the Coast Road through Redcar and Marske
and then blends into the A174
and a part of what we are saying is
the development of Redcar - in that it was happened east of
Kirkleatham Lane
means that traffic on Mersey Road has grown faster than
traffic on Kirkleatham Lane
and hard data on that has been collected
meaning that Mersey Road is no longer a less travels cross route
to the 'A66' but a major contributor of traffic
and a new junction may be needed
we will note that 25 years ago
consultants suggested a footbridge over the
Corporation Road, Locke Road, Mersey road junction but
at the time our Ricker's committee felt
'people would just use it to throw rocks at traffic'
Redcar is a little more civilised today
Yeah back in the day our Ricker was
Chair of the Dormansown Community Forum
shut down cos of a charuty taking it's funding Groundwork Trusts
all about the yarbs and so
a government backed rival to the likes of
Wildlife Trusts

20th December 2024

the media seem to live in a parallel universe
they say Thames Water has not invested in recent years
the biggest sewe in London does not belong to Thames Water
it is the Thames Tideway Tunnel and feeds Thames Water's
Beckton Sewage Works
it belongs to a consortium of pension funds
it was completed in March 2024 along the lines of
being a 21st century replacement of
Bazelgette's original intercepter sewer
and is being commissioned
and Thames Water will pay Thames Tideway Tunnel Company
to use their tunnel and pass on the cost of the fees to Thames Water customers
in consequence over the period March 2024 to March 2025 the actual river Thames between
Acton and the sea should become less polluted
and as a note as rainfall increases
where - which is almost everywhere - ain water and sewage mix
sewage will become more and more dilute
more rainwater for the same amount of sewage
unless the population of inner London increases we have to assume that people who work in inner London
wait until they get to work
befoe they go for a dump

19th December 2024

somebody's building a shed in the back yard

it's actually Redcar and Cleveland College on
Corporation Road
and we guess it's all about teaching
renewable energy engineering?


we're gonna sneek up on this issue
the search term is
hybid vigour
and this is mostly about farming and
plant genetics
also known as heterosis or
out breeding
when a hybrid ofspring has improved biological qualities
compared to the parents
this is whee we can get eally deeply into the weeds
but we can talk about
dominant and recessive gene traits or variants
a recessive gene quality is one that is easily masked o
suppessed by the pesence in a cell of a nomal or dominannt vaiant
if you have a recessive gene fault you will probably not experience any effect
but you could pass it on to offsping as previously mentioned in the rule of four
although it was arounf 1908 befoe anybody codified
wrote up in a scientific journal
the concept of hybrid vigour
it would have been known about down the ages
take two weeds cop plants and
deliberately 'coss beed ' them
and you get a bettter crop
sometimes this is
unnatural selection as opposed to natural selection but
you need a lot of inputs such as water and fertilizer
so these specially bred varieties to not do well
or even survive in the wild
so
natural 'wild type' variants - weedy but tough
specially bred variants - very productive and fast gowing but needy
here we go with the spill over into
human behaviour and social norms
opposites attract
if crossing a horse with a donkey gives you a mule...
if you have slaves
you may think
if I get an African slave to get a Greek slave pregnant I may end up owning a gladiator
all very well
but then we get the opposite
we start to see the development of the idea that
if you get a Greek slave to mate with a Greek slave
you'll get the same old smae old boring offspring
and that's no fun
so you see the development of a taboo on
incest
and if all you have is slaves who were in the bargain bin
they may have serious genetic defects and
they will just swirl around producing
loads of kids who would always be
cheaper to keep a week than a fortnight
loss making as economic assets
so to avoid - as much as possible
the production of those in the
they have inherited two copies of the faulty gene
you embargo incest because unelated individuals are less likely to
both carry the same gene
but it don't work like that
often - well from time to time
you will hear
Sally Jones and Bert Jones - no relation
on the other hand you will more recently hear about
six degrees of separation
all humans are quite closely related to all other humans and the real experts in this are the likes of the Anthony Nolan Trust
the people who look for genatic matches for
organ transplant purposes
who find
a match
in the most unlikely places
the convention is
don't breed with a 'close relative ' but look to a close relative
for an organ donation
and it simply doesn't work with any reliability
incest as a justification for abortion
is a fiction
sterilisation due to genetic decrepitude is a poblem because
to put it crudely
some people think
kids with Down Syndrome are cute
other people think they are an intorerable burden
bottom line
you don't extinguish Down Syndrome by
outlawing incest

18th December 2024

people probably remember
Nigella Lawson
it is interesting that she has not taken the vacant judge role on
Celebrity Master Chef but her biography is relevant
most people will not remember her father
Nigel Lawson probably one of quite a list of politicians who
could have but didn't become UK Prime Minister
she an Oxford graduate , journalist etc
a woman of substance
had a husband and kids , divorced
all very routine
then, she married one of the Sarchi brothers big time advertising execs
as such despite he substance she became
in his eyes at least
a modern day Grace Kelly
a Trophy Wife
at the base of all this nonsense about MeToo and the like
this is self important men
pissing on their trophy wives
like
dogs pissing on lamp posts so the only way you can have
celebrity this or that is either single celebity woam on the pull
or
all the principals - judges, trainers, tutors etc
being female

17th December 2024

calliope
sometimes we ty to get to the depths of an issue
we seem to have emergency serice drivers who think
they are auditioning for a remake of the final scenes of
The Blues Brothers
senior police officers deny two state policing but
why
pursue people for using a mobile 'phone when driving
and train officers to
play the dash top calliope instead of
watching where they ae going?
the most likely explanation is the next sequal to the Blues Brothers would be
The Boys in Blue who cry Wolf!
nobody believes that there are a dozen major incidents in Redcar
every day
so people just shrug and say
'boys will be boys'
the deeper angle is
look, we hire people to smash dowmn doors
we don't expect ehm to be good drivers
back in the day it was considered impertenant for the driver of a vehicle he didn't own to try to control the actionss of owner drivers
hence
busses and bin wagons did not have
audible means of approach and
solid citizens had to look out for them
in light of the Macausland victory
perhaps the police are conteplating hiring blind officers
and expecting them to arrive safe under the
audio intructions of a satnav
tell you a little story about our Ricker and the final days of
his mum she collapsed in a supermarket and an ambulance was called and the crew said to
our Ricker
'follow us to the hospital in the car'
no blues and twos on the car
just a competent - passsed his test first time - driver
at the hospital
our Ricker pulled up behind the ambulance
befoe the crew could get the doors open
skills not special priviledges
skills that can be learned on a simulator
and calliope playing
hire a sound proof recording studio
this is not an isolated case
Tyne and Wear Meto in the Noth East of England have spent
362 million pounds GBP on a new fleet of trains
the old ones ae falling apart
they can't sack the 80,000 quide a year divers who
can't get their heads around
supervising fly by wie train sets
they may be stuck with the falling to bits unsafe old stock until
they can arrange some early retirement schemes for the
anaolgue drivers
makes you wonder why they made any provision for
'drivers' on the new stock in the first place

we have to say...
these days when we see anybody in unifom
we think of
Pince Andrew
but not China
the Vatican

16th December 2024

quite often we ae told that thee is sime sot of conflict between
science
and
religion o moality
the actual conflict is between
16th centuy science
and
21st century science
little girls ae under enomous pressure
not to seduce men
this is because of what we ae now calling the paratrooper theory
the idea that if yer little girl
coaxes little paratoopers out of a man's knackers
and her womb isn't capable of growing them into babies
they ae murdering the paratroopers
thus the bollocks coming from judges and such that
because the man allowed the girl to murder the paratrooper
they are guilty of
gross negligence manslaughter
and that although the girl will be acquitted on account of her age
she will suffer a lifetime of guilt and remorse
it's well past time these
moralists
grew up

15th December 2024

Eaglescliffe as a spelling is first ecorded 1639
Eeggesclif - 1161-1564
Eglesclif - 1197
Ecclesclif - 1197 1242 1741
Eaglescliffe a local spelling an alternative to Egglescliffe
two theories about Eaglescliffe
relate to the sirnwrite who made the sign for the new railway station
an eror in the order
an assumption by the signwriter that the oder was in error
the school is still called Egglescliffe
perhaps we should note
in this context, cliffe mwans hill not cliff because
Eaglescliff is far from Saltburn cliffs
and that would not be cliffes
consider
Fryers Cliff Hghcliffe Christchurch Dorset

end of the year a few loose ends to tie up
you may not remember that at the time of the CoViD panic we said
pathogens aen't trying to kill you
they're tying to eat you
that was over dramatic
to be honest they are
trying to shae your food
we make use of lots of micobes
on our skin, in our gut
they ae technically eferred to as
comensals
as opposed to paasites
mostly when we get ill it is because we have
ove eacted to the presence of a 'guest'
often we just need to calm down our overreaction
and that brings in the whole area of
auto immune disease and
hypersensitivity and allergy
like
r people who have a bad diet
stick to it because
good food gives them the runs
not because it's bd fo them but because
out of an abundance of caution
we get rid of stuff we aren't sure about
when trying to improve a person's diet
they need to be intoduced to
elements of a good diet very slowly
little bits at a time
we can develop an food intolerance
no human baby is born
lactose intolerant
but if you switch from milk to fruit juice too early
lactose intollerance happens because milk goes off the
intenal menu and it is a bother to get it back on

a little note from the BBC has attracted our attention
something along the lines of
The Village of Eaglescliff in Stockton on Teesside
congrats for not saying
in or near Middlesbrough
that aside
the story is about trains from Redcar - probably actually Saltbun??
stopping at Eaglescliff station for the first time
it's the description of Eaglescliff as a village that attacts attention
and it's worth spending a moment considering that
one of the bigger train operators recently stopped running direct trains from
City of Sunlessland - City of Sunderland to London Kings Cross
the little company that may lose it's rights to use the line when
LNER is privatised or something
continues to run direct trains from Sunderland to Kings X
in the case X stands for crossroads not crucifix
and those have always stopped at Eaglescliff
the idea of eaglescliff as a village is a bit foreign to locals
it is an industrial estate and railway junction
essentiallly trains from Teesside can travel either to
Darlington
or
Northallerton
both on the East Coast main Line
what we can say is that
Eaglescliff is just north of the 'town' of Yarm
the balance is of a tiny railway station just on or near a viaduct
on the southern edge of the town that will be difficult to extend to
allow all the doors to open opposite the platform
Eaglescliff (junction) is a very large largely abandoned
railway junction
this move is a symptom of the
extension of Yarm to
'gentryfy' Eaglescliff and absorb it and encourage Yam residents to
join trains at the north end rather the southern edge of the town


we want to delve a little deeper
and we need to give you a search term
Barr Body
we said we would leave chromosome pair 23 aside
in humans at least...
females have as pair 23 two X chromosomes
and males have one X and one Y
and if baby gets an X from dad - female
a Y - male
the Y chromosome has just the one job
just one
turn that little girl inside you
into a boy
nothing else
and it's done by altering the way and rate at which
girl bits develop from very early on
as a prime example
a clitoris that is boosted into being a penis
that said
a female gets a double whammy
no Y
and two Xs
can't be done
too many cooks spoil the broth
every female cell would be given two Xs
but that works very badly
in every female cell in the real world
it does not happen
because
one of the Xs is locked away in a tiny little thimblefull pf
densely packed - so tightly packed that it can't read - genetic material called
a Barr body and if this were not so...
diseases of trisomy
diseases esulting from having three partners in one of
slots 1 to 22
nd the classic is
Down Syndrome
to save us some verbiage we have a term for
chromosome in one of the 1 to 22 slots
it is
autosomal
the 'normal' cell can sot out conflicts between
2 autosomal chromosomes
but it gets overwhealmed by three
so female cells have a Barr Body to try to nail down gender
but thee can be a bit of a fight over
mum gene versus dad gene
in the autosomal slots
and here we dive off and say
being gay is not from a genetic influence
it is something quite different
a shed egg can hang aound for a while
it is protected in theovary from mum's hormones
but once shed it is bathed in them and the longer it is
because dad came lete to the party
the further down the road to being female the egg has become despite the dramatic effect of the Y chromosome
the Y is for the future it cannot undo development towards femaleness alredy achieved
so gay men don't have gay sons - necessarily

14th December 2024

a couple of medical insight Chistmas gifts from
the Old Man by the Sea
fist
the genetics of pathogens
we are constantly hammered with
thee's a 'new' variant of H1N1 'flu
or CoViD19
what you can do to help you understand what is happening is
adapt a party game
the game of musical chairs involves all sitting around the dining table
whilst music plays
when the music stops
everybody has to stand up
push their chair back and rund around the table
at this point the adult in the room
removes one of the chairs
and the music re-starts
there's one less chair so somebody can't sit down
and they are out
and somebody finds themselves in the big chair - the carver
when we develop an immunity - naturally or by vaccination
it is the immunological equivalent of
removing a chair
we reduce the number of variants of the pathogen
and we - probably - move a different pathogen into the
throne at the centre of the stage
or dining room
hence we begin to notice a variant we didn't consider before
that does not rule out
gate crashers
genuine mutants
but they are rare
inec in a few hunded years rare
this is one of the worst analogies we have ever come up with
you can swap sit and run between music on and music off to taste...
but the problem is we can't remember what the other game is called
the one that is a better analogy
will we have to invent it
imagine a big school gym or scout hut or similar
we wn't have chairs
we have mats and we can call these islands
so
each mat is a pathogen - a vius variant or whatever
and the people oor children run around the gym or dance
and when the music stops
they have to run toa mat and sit or stand on it
if you can't fit onany mat you are out of the game
if you develop an immunity to a particular vaiant within a population
people can't catch that variant and more and
snd if it was the mat that attracted the most attempts at 'refuge'
that will be a problem for the players
and they will end up on another mat
if you keep emoving the mat most people choose
eveyone will eventually be out and the game will be over and
and the winners will be the people who managed to 'catch' the final vaiant
unless somebody puts down a new mat or reintrduces a peviously removed mat
that is
New mat - mutation
reintroduced - loss of immunity to the specific variant across the population
much better analogy
in this game the tables get turned between children and mats because
the mat that gets removed in any round is the one that collects the fewest children
or a random selection of the joint loosers if more than one score least children
that epesents the development of immunity
'spose we could call it Islands

this is one of those probably over ambitious attempts to
put a big big issue into a nutshell
genetics
sometimes we hope that CoViD 19 was the high water mark of the idea that
genetics is about mutations
we want to avoid the trap of giving the impression that
the bare bones is the entirity but we will soldier on with the basics
perhaps you were never told or perhaps you have forgotten... forr most people
23 pairs of chromosomes -
chromosomes - not researched, as in wikispeak, citation required
chromosomes is a word derived from
the bit in a cell that absorbs colour when the cell is stained
our cultural references can get well out of date but
it may still be possible to buy
washing line
back in the day, when you bought a new washing line
it came packed in a particular way
lots and lots of oval loops bound together with
lots and lots of waiste bands
we've probably lost most of you there but some will get it
so
46 coiled up washing lines with you blueprint on them
so we have 23 and 46
the crux
23 come from dad and 23 - broadly matching - come from mum
now we switch analogies
we switch to something that almost certainly could not exist
instead of a washing line
a bike chain at least as long as a washing line
and unlike a washing line a bike chain has links
a male and a female come together and provide each baby with
two sets of bike chains
think of a Emit model or a Heath Robinson design
powered and controlled by a myriad of bike chains
we will leave chromosome pair 23 aside for now
all across this marvelous machine
there are two bike chains working in tandem
or at least: one working and the other on standby
hee we start to get deep
in every cell of the human body
the bike chain running things is
either a copy of the one provided by mum or a copy of the one
provided by dad
again a side issue...
sometimes you will hear about
mitochodial DNA - set it aside like chromosome 23
we are made up of a mosaic of
dad designed cells and mum designed cells
and the simplest way to look at this is that
the life expectancy of the dad cells will be different from the
life expectancy of the mum cells
all the while cells have a self destruct mechanism
could be called poptosis
a cell can detect that it is malfunctioning and decide to
switch itself off
and we see this idea in adverts about dementia
some people die suddenly
some people die in stages
a big part of getting old is either
loosing the ability to switch to the reserve or spare genes
or already being running on the spare
that is
if you are young and the dad version becmes life expired
you have half your cells trying to switch from mum to dad version
and they probably can't do it
so half your cells of a particular type - skin blood, not that simple but
die off and the surviving cells
double up
and you press on without a backup
not all your cells types, just the affected ones
it's like the CRO leaving the successor two letters to be opened in a chrisis
letter one says
blame it on me
letter two says
write two letters
hence and thus
genetic diseases
of late onset
are not som much about
mutation
but about
genetic vaiability
at the present time
MND - motor neurome disease is in vogue
MND is a kind of non-cognitive version of Huntington's Chorea
the word blasters had to change that to Huntington's Disease
basically you are fine for decades
and then you drop off a cliff because
your effective version cells have a life span of 40 years
and when they die off
you are ledt with your defective cells and they
don't die, they fail - fail to do their job
and this links up with a lot of genetic diseases being
the rule of four
if like the ancients you have a dozen kids and
each parent has an effective chromosome and a defective chomosome
one in four kids will be fine
one in four will be still born, misscarried or die very young
and two in four will be on their reserve genes from the very start
one if four - on average - inherit two defective genes
one in four inherit two effective genes
two in four inherit one effective and one defective gene
if both parents have
one effective and one defective gene
and what is happening to health services now is
the
Together for Short Lives
sector of health care is booming because
modern medicine can keep the double defective chidren alive for
months or years
in conrast to the expectation of
perinatal death
the norm in times gone by

13th December 2024

it is probably time for a little review of
non-fossil energy
we get comments on days like today about
government will relax regulation on on shoe wind farms
to set a way point
as it stands we use no energy in the UK from coal
half our energy comes from non fossil sources
some of that comes from slightly doubtful sources such as nuclear
but a comment for our Ricker from back in the days when
you and I were young Maggie...
asked
won't wind farms be a hazard to shipping?
ou Ricker's reply was
they'll be just like
catch fencing
shipping - as opposed to leaisue boating
travels in shipping lanes
and wind tubines as mostly sighted in shallows
wind turbines can mark out shipping lanes
and as it stands
at current energy usage rates
we will be just fine with
three to four times as many offshore wind tubines as we already have
and that is the literal
drop in the ocean
so
no need for on shore wind turbines
sometimes we wonder whether we should discuss matters of national security...
the issue of
new electricity pylons
knowing what we do
we do ather suspect that they may be being erected as
decoys
put up like World War II rubber tanks
to provide targets for 'the enemy'
and draw their fire
we see nothing in the overall plans that renders them of any use in distributing off shore wind energy to the existing network
they appear to be a sop to
landownes who want to get in on the act with
shipping containers full of half dead batteries


Ant Anstead; Bon Mechanic
is the first TV series our Ricker can recall making him physically ill
a geat DIY and home renovation show
completely wrecked by the production company
gifteing the project cars to some
hole in the wall auctioneering outfit
he could have made more money using the time to
give a routine service to a couple of dozen
real cars
since Brewer featured....
why the hell not get him to seel the cars
or did he buy them at knock down gotta get rid of them before filming is over
prices
and make a killing?
did Bewer advise
put them in this totally inappropriate auction where
nobody will but and I'll
'take them off your hands'
and
why was thee no 'accounting for' the thousand pound rebuilt engine
that was suddenly discaded to
get the car into the auction 'on time'?
another 'let's cobble a TV series out of some summer time
down time for TV technicians'
exercise

10th December 2024

the Redcar Lidl supermaket does not seem to be listed as
due to open by Christmas 2024
it is pesently in fit out
shelves and such
that work is scheduled for completion by 19th December
we note quite a lot of solar panels on the roof...
what we want to return to is Macadam and black top - as usual the
clats loving construction industry will lay down the
suface of the ca park at the last minute and the
road sweepe that is picking up the mud that is being dagged of the site
is pulling up the black top of West Dyke Road...
petty much in the USA black top is called asphalt
tarmac is diffeent from asphalt
asphalt is bitumen plus agregate - cushed stone o similar (slag)
tarmac is agregate plus tar
one thing we haven't seen fo a long time is a road getting
top dressed
top dressing is whee a tanker sprays tar of bitumen onto the existing road surface
and a tipper truck with it's tail gate slightly open
runs along behind dropping dry crushed stone into the tar and a good proportion of the stone or slag sticks to the tar
but then a sweeper follows picking up the stone that's doesn't stick
a very quick way to make a tempoay repair
a MacAdamed road is an engineered stuctue
it is excavated to emove organic matter that would rot on subside layers of rock ae laid down each layer finer in paticle size that the pevious
and ditches are cur on either side and in the UK
we assume MacAdam was Scottish
the road has a camber
it is higher in the middle that towards the ditches
this is essentially to dain the surface the compaction is to resist erosion
and the campber is to resist
puddle and ice patch formation
the deisgn was successful but
it was found that tar sprayed onto the newly built construction
helped it to stay together
sunsequently, the tar was mixed with the agregate in a
plant preducing asphalt off site
initially, only the top two or three layers are asphalt or tarmac
usually tarmac is laid below asphalt
the two main machines of the road worker are
a planer
and
a paver
and also a roller the planer - like a woodworking plane
not an aeoplane or a planner who works at a computer in an office
the plane removes the old road suface
the paver layes the new top surface
and the roller should only run
up and back
if the rolle makes too may passes it wil
'roll the binder off'
and you get crushed stone and no bitumen in the top suface
it is a natual instinct of utilities to consult with oad authorities
about digging up the road before it is e-constructed
and then turn up a month later to dig up the new surface
in many instatnce this id the origin on potholes
since a whacker - plate compactor - is no substitute for a paver and roller combo
hence why with constant changes to plans...
when building new construction
the black top goes down last because
ground workers and utilities NEVER turn up to schedule
it's a point of honour to be a pain in the arse
however
to be ridiculously fair to the utilities
the planers can disturb the utilities and so
create faults in them that only become apparent after the
new road surface has been installed

12th December 2024

'tis the season to be jolly
'tis the season to laugh like a drain
'tis the season for the Emperor's New Clothes
wetry to be the littl girl who says
'eee look the king has o clothes on
Carbon Capture and Storage is in the wadobe of new clothes for
the new government
and what with all the little old biddies being given
executive positions...
'oh this is just the thing it will solve all your problems
but of course only eally clever people like you will
understand it
and lots of demented people who call themselves 'scientists' will
pretend it doesn't exist
because they ae not as clever as you and they can't see it

as the technology in road vehicles impoves
a day will come when
some aleady have
collision avoidance baking systems
an step or three up from ABS bakes
emergency vehicles WILL eventually have this technology and dash cams that
can't be switched off
and data logs
and 'drivers'
WILL be called to account ove why
they wee running blues and twos
when the road ahead was entiely deserted

9th December 2024

in recognition of President Assad's
heroic wok as an eye surgeon in London - in earlier days
we trust that he is still getting his NHS pension
and that the BMA - British Medical Association
are tending to his needs

we thought we would try to give a peson of today an insight into
the minds of the people who wrote the scriptures of
many majo religions
the Bible etc.
in particular
what did people who had magnifying glasses but no microscopes
believe about
baby making
actually we may really be thinking about the Tudors
Henry the eighth and Charles and James Tudors and Stewarts becuse
the Authorised Version of The Bible
was the King James Bible
so
we are in the mind set of people who look at all sorts of things
including knackes, testes, testacles...
and see what we now call
cells
and just as people of the same era used simple telescopes
and looked at the Moon and believed they saw
the face of a man on the surface
The Man in the Moon
people who looked at the cells in testacles and imagined they saw
humanculae
they imagined that they saw
when they saw cells
little tiny men and women
but particularly men
sitting in rows like
paratroops
on board an aircraftBR> waiting to be parachuted into
a womb
thee was no idea that the female produced eggs
they saw the whole thing in terms of
men cary seed around in their knackers and
plant them
just like they plant bean seeds and wheat seeds in the ground
and they grown
if they are planted in the corect place
hence we have the parable of the sower
some of the seeds fell on stony ground
some amongst weeds and some on fertile ground
or whatever
and the lesson was
don't fuck little girls or men or boys or baren old women
stoney ground
or animals
and don't masturbate
because yiu will be flinging you little childen into
an unsuvivable hostile nightmare
tuck them up safe in the chuff of a
menstruating female but not at the time when she is menstruating
because that would be like
putting your seedlings in the greenhouse
just at the time when it is being spring cleaned and fumigated
this means that the policy of the Roman Catholic Church on
contracaption is double dangerous
if you continue to adhee to the concept
little paatroopers in knackers
then
if you permit
the 'rhythm method. of contraception
you are consigning the little people to
almost literally - during a period
send the baby out - from the womb with the bath water
so you start by clinging to the idea of a
fixed cohort of sperm to be cheished for life
and then you say
but we can
scatter them on the temporarily barron groud of the womb of
a woamn at the infetile part of her monthly cycle
the most depressing thing to hea in any relationship
especially between
university tutpr and student
is
'my mammy sez'

6th December 2024

if we were investigating the New York insurance hit our top suspect would be the wife
but we only have news reports to go on

we don't have much interest in
Newcastle United Football club
but
their behaviour interests us
it's a vey spoecific behaviour
essentially
when Newcastle players face
trash like
West ham and Crystal Palace
they are petrified that if they play well and impress the
opposition fans and management
they may become transfer targets
impressing Liverpool fans...
bring it on
#

4th December 2024

we suspect that we now have a new definition of the word
celebrity
a person who bites the hand that feeds them
we see just the beginnings of a hint that in futue
Strictly come dancing may switch to taking contestants
not from the D list of celebrities
but from
local dance studios
so that the couples ae
pro-am
a professional dancer and an amateur selected by some
sot of early rounds competition arranged through
dance academies, private dance schools
and that 'celebrity'
celebrity versions of
the likes of
The Yorkshire Anctioneer
will be dropped
because
celebrities have become too much of a liability

3rd December 2024

this Gregg Wallace and his use of language
middle aged women of a certain age
two steps back
of a certain generation not age people seeking popularity by being down with the streets
will object to being called middle class but these whingers haven't got a leg to stand on
they'e not just middle class theya re upper middle class
most impotant thing they are is - generally
empty nesters
suddenly they have lost minute by minute control over thei kids
and become
rheumatism withot a cause

2nd December 2024

OK headlight left Teesside 2009 to date
headlight right Nothern Ireland 2010 to date
it does rather show up
to clarify...
we have this problem called
Chinese whispers
with
religeous doctrine
message degredation
'send reinforcements we're going to advance'
by the time it gets from the font line to headquarters
becomes
'send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance'
three shilings and four pence - predecimal money
so regarding age of consent..
and inducing a child to engage in sexual activity
you start with a list of things that won't get pregnant if you
shove your seed into it
and that includes males and little girls
and then you expand your definition of 'child' to
under 18s
so you have a ban on sex with females aged 17
despite them having been able to get pregnant for
the past nine years and all because you wanted to reduce
youth unemployment figures by raising the school leaving age
you've completely lost the
take care of your seed
concept and you have a random eligeous prohibition
to be even clearer...
in Biblical terms a child is a boy or a girl
a girl is a female who has never menstruated
a boy is a male who has never had an erection all of which is by the bye because science tells us that healthy males preduce sperm continuously and they have a shelf life of 4 to 8 days...

the BBC are cutting such a swathe through
news and entertainment
to make way for religious propaganda..
that we wonder homuch longer they will provide
weather forecasts
the BBC so often put up a headline
8 out of ten cats
and never list the ten cats
in science it is
method, data, conclusion
at the BBC it is
conclusion alone
there appears to be no distinction between
a news item and a shampoo advert

some people may be still alive who remember a movie star called Kirk Douglas
a 1951 movie about a washed up jounalist
stumbling on an iddustrial accident in the
Albuqueque small town where he has washed up
tries to use the story to impress the people who sacked him
essentially
some miners are trapped in a mine cave in and
the journo contrives to keep them trapped until he can get the story to
the big city
and he delays too lng and
there is a second collapse and the men he could have saved
die
sic transit Gloria Allred
we've been itching o say that for weeks
sic transit gloria
fame is transient, fickle
thus passes glory
speaking about inequalities in work hierarcies...
the moe famous version came a long time ago
the lads in the BBC sharing a comment about the arrival of a female star
sic transit Gloria Hunneyford
complete with entourage...
some people - in the chattering classe try to keep a story going
a story the likes of closing a steelworks
for what used to be called the
column inches
now internet clicks
and what we see is the BBC switching from
news gathering
to opinion forming
so many issues on which the
other side of the arguement gets no coverage
one unspoken opposition...
if it's female it needs to be fucked
no matter what its age
hence the old couple in the advert wher the youngster introduces
the man as his nan's
companion
not lover
'he says that because he doesn't like to
think of us getting it on
and that relates to
priests
especially Roman Catholic Priests
breeding their human flock
just like a flock of sheep
Jesus said to Peter and his friends
leave you boats and nets
you fishermen
and I will make you fishers of men
doubtful jesus ever said that
but this was what trainee priests were long told an admonishment to men not to spill their seed in females
too young or too old to get pregnant

later today we will attempt to provide some photos for this story
but sometimes things don't make good pics...
in essence this is the story of a car
it isn't entirely obvious but
cars and vans etc.
have long had acylic rear light clusters
and at a point along the way
they started to be fitted with acrylic rather than glass headlights
the core story is about a Hyundai i20 with acrylic headlights that
lived for 15 years outdoors parked at home facing away fom the sun
and used for a daily 10 mile each way commute
from home in Marske-by-the-sea in Redcar and Cleveland
so imagine a commute to The University of Teesside or James Cook Hospital
and lived that life from 2009 to 2024
the other possible photo stars are headlight units from a
Hyundai i20 that lived from 2011 to a recent date in Oxford, England
and the third cast member is an example of the same unit that lived out its days
in Northern Ireland
the Teesside example was probably MOT tested by the local dealer
S G Petch
it began to attact
MOT advisories
almost as soon as they werre introduced
these were for
headlight corrosion
essentially the headlight material had become
cloudy
this was dispersing the light from them ansd reducing the intensity
what is quite specific to cars on Teesside with this poblem is that
the clouding is not white
it is brown
many cars between ten and fifteen years old running around Teesside
exhibit this flaw
the acylic is relatively soft and iron ore dust from the steel works
settling on the surface of the lenses
penetrated
the same effect has occured in uPVC window frames
and the headlight from Oxfod does not show this deterioation
this effect is also seen in
railway installations where steel wheels dislodge paticles of rust
from rails
we'll see later whether this difference
photographs well
but if it causes concern to an MOT inspector
it is significant
people in Scunthorpe
Sunny Scunny
ironic yes?
don't realise how their world will brighten when the
blast furnaces stop working

1st December 2024

one of the major difficulties faced by UK govenments is that the military are entenched in
Downing Street and Whitehall
whenever thee is a 'crisis' even if it is simply
a news line
a poblem: flooding, snow ice, wildfires
MPs will be bobbing up in the chamber to ask
'how long will it be before the government agrees to
send in troops?'
hence the hampering of the CoViD 19 response due to
the military insisting it was a
'biological weapon'
and a few neredowells boed with the lack of football
tear up some streets...
and the militay are in there
'if you shut down the Scunthorpe blast furnaces
we may not be able to prevent civil unrest'
the poblem with this particular government at present, is
they a more interested in
popularity
than
power
and essentially they don't want to loose the
friendship of their bar room muckers
now that they have
'real jobs'
however
the much anticiapated announcement that
coke imports would not stop in October 2024
is not a full throated assertion that this is more than
keep the steel workers and their
journalist sychophants
quiet for another month
so they don't
spoil Christmas
for the chattering classes

it'a no longer November and the Lidl supermarket
on Redcar race Course is still not open
the window fames are in andthe glass is on site
so the building will probably be
weathered in
durring the coming week
and in this same week the
car park will probably get its
blacktop - tarmac
did you know
tarmac is short for
tar macadam
and a Macadam road is made from compressed agregate
such as crushed stone
and Mr Macadam didn't introduce the addition of tar in his work
hence tared macadam
and
although there is a company called Tarmac
there also used to be a company called
Tarslag
and Lintzgarth, Road Materials, all sorts a rock - literally
and a elated company doing something quite different
had it's UK headquaters on
Ennis Square, Dormanstown, Redcar
just north of the Royal Bitish Legion
before the council offices were built
and you thought the council offices were in Kirkleatham Street
just some of them...
on the other hand
#a housing association?
they have retreated to France
but they are
Thomas Mouget
and they used to turn over the old iron works
not for the slag
but for the scrap and the iron the
iron and steel companies used to burry in the slag
in times of glut
to keep the furnaces going
and yet not oversupply the maket

30th November 2024

in the olden days
the character and persona of a professional
was
cool,calm and collected
we are not seeing this from ambulance crews at pesent
paticulaly the 'sub contracted ' ones
we have had a thought
perhaps a shift of
training with
Mountain Rescue
would improve their priorities

Kisty Wark always seemed to us the
least objectionable of the
nest of vipers that is
BBC Newsnight
she's left but is still making comments
Greg
hired for his particular
barra boy
street trader
charm
has collected some comment
people do all sorts of things especially
visiting the gym and doing
Park Runs
to build up their physical resilience
at the same time
ribbing, joshing, bantering
are approaching capital punishment status
we are all against
hazing
a form of bullying that present real threat to life
but we see young people
physically fitter and
mentally weaker
for lack of mental exercise

26th November 2024

we need to add a small but impotant detail here
we said a carbonisation plant was built in the 1970s
and demolished without going into production
and we didn't say we need to build a replacement
to go back into iron smelting
the reason is that the SSI experiment in
using a redundant
pulverised coal injection plant from a redundant
coal fired power station
to feed cabon into the blast furnace
was successful to the extent that
it will be possible to run a new style
iron smelting blast furnace
by feeding pulverised dehydated - dehydrated is a bit more extreme than dewatered
sewage sludge
into the furnace with the blast gases instead of tipping it in from the top


we have to fit this comment in
Sticktly come dancing on the BBC has become a bit like
celebrity youth training YTS
you stay on the pogramme until you find
something better to do
we assume the finalist will be people who are not doing Panto over Christmas
some people say
timing is eveything
timing is very impotant
the time for this story is somewhee in the next few weeks
before Christmas 2024
we have to say that at this time
the blast furnaces at Port Talbot in Wales
ae shut down but not demolished
and the other two blast furnaces in Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, England
are due to be shut down befoe Christmas 2024
we don't have a demolition schedule for any of the four - two plus two - furnaces
we have a small but impotant stat to introduce here
in the UK in the past 20 twenty years
consumption of Natural Gas has fallen by a quater
mainly through improved insulation and other efficiencies
but patly through a switch to electricity
we have recently mentioned
Bran Sands sewage sludge dewatering facility
as it stands
the facility has been in operation for around
a quarter of a century
but it has not been built out as orriginally planned
it now has digestion facilities for the conversion of the
sewage cake into biogas
that was not in the original plan
if you think about it
why reduce the water content of the sewage sludge from
thee quarters to almost zero
and then rehydrate it to digest it?
the answer is that the original market for
sewage deived organic pellets did not materialise
and with a ban on dumping the pellets into the North Sea
and a limited market for
adding the nitrogen rich pellets to the
nitrogen poo polyhalite from Boulby and Woodsmith mines near Whitby
digestion was the obvious route
howsomeever
we very much doubt you will find any reference on t'internet
about the plant that was not built as part of the
Bran Sands complex
it was a sewage pellet carbonisation plant
the idea was
dy the sewage solids and then produce
sewage derived charcoal or coke
to run the blast furnace on renewable carbon and not
fossil carbon
the deal is still on the table
with the end of opposition from
all those other steel towns
a proper full throated non fossil blast furnace
fired from sewage sludge in Redcar
as envisaged in the 1970s could become
mnot just technically doable
but
politically acceptable
Redcar is the town with the
sewage sludge and the rolling mills
all it really needs is a blast furnace and a BOS plant
and we have a fossil carbon free integrated steel works
fo those with very long and very clear memories...
the sewage pellet carbonisation plant was BUILT and looked a lot like
a twin for the sinter plant - same bown colour
and on the steelworks
not the Northumbrian Wate site
but it was never commissioned and demolished without ever working

24th November 2024

we note that when the weather breaks
a bit beezy and wet..
the blue arsed flies stay home

Don't do dat
to the poor pus cat
you might be a pussy cat yourself some day

this is not about science or engineering
this is about religion
not a particular religion but the concept of
essentially
untested beliefs
in the broader context we would hope that the
new archbishop of Canterbuy
can steer the Anglican Communion
away from the charitable
and towards the etherial
back to sponsoing arts and crafts, music, dance, theatre
doing things to the glory of God
not all trying to be
The Salvation Army
but the immediate question is
after-life or no after-life
it's quite a lot too much for this format but the idea of
Hell and the Devil is relatively modern
in the modern context
some people may see themselves as
avatars in some giant cosmic computer game
with challenges being thow at them through life by
God or The Gods
and so to the question of
assisted dying
thee are two main methods of suicide available to those
too weak through illness and disability to throw themselves
under a train
they can pretend to take but not take essential medication
a type 1 diabetic can stop taking their insulin
or is they are on pain killers they can
do the opposite
pretend to take their medication but
stockpile it until they have enough to constitute a
lethal dose
to that extent
legislation about
assisted dying is for people who
leave it too late
to have control of the process
and so to
why are religious leaders opposed to assisted dying...
there is still a considerable block of public opinion that
somehow, illness and disability and handicap
is a punishment from God
at one level
lung cancer and chonic pulminary obstuction disoder
a punishment not just a cosequence of
smoking or whaever
in that sense
deep down
a person with a deep religious belief
may think
ending some person's life prematurely to
pevent terminal excruciation
is denying the dying person the opportunity to
purge their soul through suffering
befoe moving on to the after-life
leaving them with unsolved debts to God as they attempt to
enter and exist in paradise
on the other hand
the arguement may be
the 'second coming' may be later today
and ya don't wanna miss it bt minutes by being dead...

23rd November 2024

we want to expand on the question of preserving
rare water based habitats
water undertakings
whether publically or privately owned have a lot of often quite massive
facilities
however, the two most familiar a part fom pipes
are
sewage works
and
water works
whatever they are called they do the same job to a different standard
a sewage works takes in water based liqiuds or various types
and is supposed to discharge the wate fom that liquid
into the environment
in a non-hazardous condition
a water works takes in water that would often be
pretty much a dilute version
depending on vaiables and conditions
a dilute version of the sewage a sewage works takes in
it may even in some countries be
sea water
and it tuns out water that is
fit to dink
potable
in some environmentaly sensitive areas
perhaps the English Lake District
without knowing it
pubic demand is for
sewage waorks to operate
to water works standards
there is
as ever
a Redcar dimension to this
there is a pretty darned big
blue as it happens
complex in Redcar called
Bran Sands Sewage Dewatering Facility
people are pobably not familiar with the nature of the
non-hazardous poduct
in some of the tankre vehicles on our roads
some of them contain
what is hoovered up fom the bottom of the nation's
septic tanks
the 'night soil men' - look that up
come to your school in the school holidays
and park in the car park and
use their tanker to suck up your poo
from the bottom of your septic tank and
take it to Bran Sands
and the thing is
it is there that it joins the poo from both
Teesside and Tyne and Wear
the stuff from Tyne and Wear comes by tanker ship
not in pipes
and most importantly
having made the materails safe and removed the solids
the nutrient rich
supernatant - the water the solids settle underneath
is pumped into the bay
and the North Sea is
va va big
but we did run into a problem a few years ago when
without warning Northumbrian Water
Reckitt decided to market
water softened - Calgon - to the people of Teesside
the North East of England
when Northumbrian Water were already supplying
soft water to homes and businesses
so the water gpt ' double dosed with phosphate in effect
althou NW didn't need to add phoshate as their Kielder water is
'off the peat' and already soft
hard water has a lora lora calcium in it
Kielde water has vey little calcium in it
only just enough fo the crabs and lobsters to build thei shells

hencely
in some circumstances
whee the pond in The Lakes is quite small
and the sewage works feeding it is quite small
instead of
tankering the sludge alone to Barn Sands
the 'quick fix' is to tanker the whole of the
sewage to Bran Sands or similar so that the 'excess' nutrients - including the soluble ones end up in the sea and not in some
conservation pond in the Lake District

22nd November 2024

partly is not the opposite of impartially
partly opposite completely
partially opposite impartially
simples
slightly more accurately
partly opposite of fully
completely opposite of incompletely
it's just iritating that somebody ceates a pun
'clever' little message disguised as a deliberate mistake
and suddenly the 'mistake' becomes the norm without anybody appaently realising what has happened
decimated is reduced by ten per cent
but it has become
the superlative of devastated
the two words ae not linked in any way except in public imagination

in other news

the swans in Locke park in Redcar
at the beginning of 2024 we guess
Jaffa the male and prefered mate of Mama
with whome she failed to breed in 2013
disappeared
and Mama paired up rather relucta tly with Ruffie
the male who was oiled by discarded motor oil in a surface water drain
they hatched seven cygnets but one of them was always
falling behind as the family swam around the pond
soon they had six cygnets - babaies
all seemed quite normal for ages as they grew
then a bit of social dynamics developed
the six divided into
four plus two
four cygnets kept together
they kept together with dad Ruffoe
remember we named hin Ruffie because of the damage
the oli spill did to his neck feathers
well that has all moulted out by now
four cygnets with dad two with mum
often all eight together
sometimes one of the two nowhere to be seen
we suspect a gender difference we are wondering
girls with mum and boys with dad
or the reverse?
what we can say regading swan behaviour is
male terretory focussed
females family focussed
all very interesting in terms of
you can get well into this wildlife watching
if the council don't do too much in terms of
putting up signs like
'don't feed the swans'
there ae none at present
post CoViD people are feeding the swand and geese and duscks and
and the swans have stopped eating the grass
technically this is called
ethology
so ethology is the non human vesion of sociology
so is the study of emergency response workers
sociology or ethology?

19th November 2024

we then come to the issue of justice delayed is justic denied...
but although we often hear that a charged person
makes a brief appearance at majistrates' court and they
immediately refer the matter to the Crown Court
at this point we will just say
the delays would be educed if the complainant
often the Crown stads as proxy fo the complainant
and that brings in all sots of stuff about chaild and vulneable adult and the police or cown prosecution service
hi-jacking the proceedings 'in the public interest'
but that aside
summary justic ocus in magistrate courts
indirable offences are referred to the Crown Court
Cown Courts have juries and judges
it should be possible for the complainant - the victim, the survivor
to get repid resolution by opting magistrates' court
the deal would be
you get cquick closure and possible compensation and restraining oreders
in return for the defendent being offered
no guilty or guilty with a fine and or estorative justice
quicker less exhaustive examination - lower jeapordy for the defendent
alongside this we see
memorial legislation
an Act of Parliament may be dubbed
BeckyAnn's Law
as a memoial to a dead victim
especially where the victim committed suicide or
died through misadventire - from an alergy for example
boadly speaking
in the case of memorial laws
alomst all the defedants will be exempt from conviction because
they themselves are 'vulnerable adults'
the whole business of
who is responsibel for the actions of a
man-baby
a person with an adult body and a feeble mind

the supermaket at Redcar Race Course
seems to have hit a bit of a snag
there is not a lot of brickwork in the design but
the bit there is has stalled
the store is getting its own electricity sub station
but we are not so sure about a gas supply

at this point we think we should gather together some thoughts about
the problems with law enforcement in the UK
to step back and try to take a more scientific and medical approach
overall our present conclusion in a nutshell is that somehow along the way
the entry standards for work in the emergency services
seem to have become meshed with or have come to mirror
the tests for a diagnosis of
ADHD
attention deficit hyper-activity disorder
a part of the slippery slope towards that has been a failure to connect
problems of availability and problems of activity
in other wods
somehow
recruiting people who are hyperactive
has been seen as a remedy for low cew availability
we may see you eventually - delay in response
but once we get to you we will dismiss you very quickly
in the hopes that our overall response time won't look too bad

18th November 2024

wehave a question o suggestion about one aspect of
parents teachers children and mobile 'phones
it is about the slightly narow issue of
children spending
too much time
on their 'phones
we have to assume that these parents - these bill payers
ae providing their kids with
'unlimited data' 'phone deals
a lot of deals offer an amount of data per month
a child with such a deal would
be free to binge for a couple of weeks and then have to
go cold turkey for a couple of weeks
and 'learn from the experience' to use their data in moderation

we have to ask
how have we got to a situation where
emergency response vehicle crew
don't venture out of their vehicles if not
dolled up as if preparing for a space walk?
it has to be recognised that the
press accelerater pedal without engaging brain
school of motoring is pushing people
including local authorities
to seek 'non police' solutions
to a widening range of problems
it seems to us that it is a long long time since we last heard
an adult say to a child
'stop that or I'll call a policeman'
thee is dwindling confidence in the
emergency services
largely because
they are fixated on
summary justice
even our far fom fiend
forme MP for Redcar Vera Baird
has been heard to voice the opinion that
the police will - for example
arrest a battered woman for
kicking hes abusers tyres
and fail to egister her complaint
because they have the attention span of a gnat

17th November 2024

we've hit a bit of a snag
the powers that be have decided to purchase a
promotional vehicle
the thing is
we're all too frightened to drive it
on account of all them gay boys playing kiss chase in
emergecy response vehicles and being
as unpedictable as
President Trump
we've came up with a couple of suggestions
if they fit heated glove boxes in the dash of
emergency vehicles
maybe drivers will be able to get the
fish and chips from the Lobster Road chippie to the mess room
hot, without breaking the highway code or using blues and two's
and secondly
if these people are only in the job for the driving experience...
maybe they could set up a film set on the runway at
Teesside Aiport
and let them play out
Gone in 60 Seconds
in their lunch breaks

aside from traditional methods of food preparation such as
grinding corn for flour for bread etc
Kelloggs wee the first company to introduce
highly processed foods
corn flakes wee the architypal highly processed food
delivered to your corner shop in
'just add milk'
condition and they as a company have a tradition of
marketing highly processed foods as health foods
so as a part of that they sponsored
breakfast clubs in schools
hoping to instill into the minds of future generations
the idea that a bowl of highly processed pure carbohydrate
a bowl of corn flakes
would set you up for the day
rather as smoking cigarettes was promoted as healthy at one time
this does seem to have backfired in a way
because as breakfast clubs in schools have blossomed funding has switched from food manufactuers to
health authorities
and the free breakfasts for starving kids...
are now composed of a more balanced, healthy menu
we are expecting the new energy price caps for
'from 1st January 2025' to be announced in the coming couple of weeks
but who knows with this government?
we can say that a typical rate change on
1st Octobe was
eon next
24 access went up from 26.9 pence per kilowatt hour to 28.53
and the economy 7 rate went up fom 9.65 to 11.77
moves in the wrong direction but not that drastic
20 per cent rise in the economy rate
at this time we assess that liquified naual ga stocks for power stations are high
and
wind turbine installations ae proceeding without major hitch, so
we're pretty sure the governmant could reduce the cap rate from
from 1st January without doing great harm to the energy companies
but we ae fa from sure they will
in theory the new rate would run from 1st Jan to 31st March

15th November 2024

regarding the current Harrods debacle
Gloria Allred
the woman behind the furore
can be described as
Ruth Barder Guinsberg
lite
RBG was a US Supreme Court Justice
and in seversl ways guilty of
overreach harmful to the feminist cause
she hung on to her place long enough to allow the next president to
appoint a right wing successor
similar problem to the now depating president
but her meaasge was no one of
male- female equality
but
'the men have beed in charge for too long
it's time for women to have the upper hand'
role reversal, not universal human liberation

yesterday somebody on the BBC asked
Kirkie the Weather Woman
is there a technical definition of a
peasouper'
there's fog and mist
there is smog
smog is smoke and fog
so we have a lot of smog in South Asia at this time of year
none of these is a peasouper
there may be peasoupers in some parts of the globe but not in the UK
these days
a peasouper is called a peasouper because it is
yellow or green
the colour of pea soup
and it is green or yellow because of the
sulphur content
from burning coal

you know we like to start these missives from an unexpected point
because we ae out of data on the tablet at the time of witing...
we won't check this but
let's say there is a vitamin that may be vitamin D??
and you can only come by it by making it using sunlight
in other for people and the sorts of animals that vets normally treat
to expand to colonise areas of the Earth whee for quite long periods of the year
there is not enough sunlight to make the amounts of vitamin D a person needs
that is an incentive to evolve a means to make hay or vitamin D while the sun shines
in quantities in excess of daily needs
and STORE the excess for a rainy day
so we can stoe surplus vitamins and minerals and micro-nutients
howsomeever, we cannot
have not yet evolved the ability to
stoe pharmaceuticals
we have developed slow release pharmaceuticals - drugs
but that is not quite the same thing
hence
we find ourselves having to take some medications
regularly
because
no matter how much of a drug we take - ingest, inject etc
we stand a good chance of putting some of it to
good use
but the surplus we will
excrete
void
dispose of outside the body
it is geneally considered that we should take in a dose that is
not so large as to be unsafe to ingest
to be as sue as possible that we ae taking in enough to do the job
this means sewage contains
a lorra lorra active dug ingredients and other
substances we don't need such as hormones
and these substances have a tendency to
pass right through a septic tank style sewage works
sewage works are set up to
kill living things in the sewage and filter out the solids
this means that even at the best of times the outflow from a sewage works
can contain biologically active substances
however
we need a couple of
long words
to consider the effects of sewage outflows into the likes of
Winermee in the Lake District in England
these words are
eutrophic
and
oligotrophic
one of the things that is done with sewage sludge is that it is
spead on farmland as fertilizer
if you wee a fan of the TV programme Gardeners' World
you would have heard of making
making 'liquid feed' by allowing leaves
comfrey leaves is it?
to rot in a bucket of water
andso it is with sewage works
not all the discarded food - poo - is solid
some of it dissolves in the water
no matter how efficient a sawage works is
the outflow is a version of
the gardener's 'liquid feed'
it is eutrophic - growth promoting
oligotrophic is the opposite
like rainwater is oligotrophic
Windermere is set up to be fed with rainwater
and without getting too far into the weeds
rainwater flowing over some rocks and soils
picks up - dissolves - plant nuitrients
if it flows ove other types of rock it dissolves very little
lakes fed with water flowing ove hard rocks are
nutrient poor - oligotrophic
lakes fed with water flowing through marshes are
nutrient rich - eutrophic
but if there is a lake that fo millenia has been fed by water
flowing through a sewage works
the sewage works at its very best
is like a marsh
and adds 'untraditional' nuitrients
not sewage solids and not pathogens but nutrients to the water
and THEN we get an algal bloom

10th November 2024

something is bewing in UK oyal circles
when Charlie boys pops his cloggs...
we assume
Camilla the Chimney
will live on for a while
we note that the BBC in their listing for the
Albert Hall sevvice of emembrance
listed the synopsis as
TM Charles and Camilla will attend....
Their Majesties
with Charlie gone
the baldy boy wonder takes over
Catherine the airline pilot's daughter becomes Queen
Camilla is not the mother of
Harry or Wills
so she can't have the title
Queen Mother
and who ever heard of
The Queen Step Mother?
and although she may claim to be
The Doweger Queen
that isn't strictly a title, more a description
we will have to wait and see what if anything
Chalie boy has cooked up in his will
but pobably the bald one would be able to overturn it anyway
so
Camilla and Catherine will neve be seen together in public again
almost cetainly not after Charlie Boy's demise

we feel the need to discuss Blyth
we have something essential to say about the industrial history
the essence is that at one time the Uk realised that although it does not have
suitable eserves of aluminimu ore
it needed aluminium probably since it is named for being
alum metal - can be derived from the mineral alum but isn't
aluminum is an acceptable name
in essence the main ore - bauxite - and energy sources don't
exist in the same place
so
the UK set to import bauxite or alumina - alumina is a processed form of bauxite
and import it into the Northumberland coal field
to get the huge amounts of electricity from
Lynemouth pit - coal mine
and
Blyth coal fied power station
as time went on
hydroelectric power in Fort William, Scotland
was enough and sooo much cheaper
the thing we want to daw attention to hee is
the Port of Blyth was redeveloped to impot the aluminium ore
when the coal mine and the power station were shut down
the port was not shut down and
and over time - perhaps even today - the ore continued to be
impoted on the east coast of Northumbeland and trucked by road but to western Scotland
by road
this is the point Blyth to Edinburgh and then to Fort William
British Volt all that stuff
there are places with - for example - hydro power
and places with safe harbours
and they need to be linked
by road and rail
even if the link runs through
sparsely populated farmland

9th November 2024

we want to go back to our Ricker's schooldays
the headteacher S G Baker used to ead the Times Education Supplement
he was a Cambidge grad
and from time to time he would annouce in assembly that
one old boy or another had been
granted an exhibition at Oxford
we got the impression this may be money
so you go up to Oxford in October and before Christmas a panel decides
whether to gant you an exhibition or a scholarship
in essence
an exhibition is for one year - renewable
and a scholarship is for the whole course
back in the day and perhaps to this day thee are exams at Durham University
possibly at Newcastle
befoe the first Christmas and they tend to be called
collections
so by Christmas of your first year the uni knows what sort of
academic potential you have
having taight you for a few weeks and examined you
not relying on external exams
and you get an exhibition or a scholarship - at Oxford
if they think you are headed for a first or double first
before government grants
and that was before student loans
it was quite a lot of money
enough for you to pay for your course etc
now it's more a top up
hee's the thing
like all other people institutions
universities are given to deception
lads fom Redcar getting exhibitions and scholarships at Oxford
wee likely to be grammar school boys whose families could not afford
the cost of a son attending university
hence exhibitions and scholarships tended to be awarded to students who
would be likely to drop out if they didn't get the money
other places may refe to such assistance as bursaries
since the busa was the office in the university or college who was
the accountant
and that has always lead to it being the
poor boys -and latterly girls - who got the firsts and
endless letters after their name
these days an 'overqualified' person is more likely to be
somebody the uni thought needed thei self esteem boosted
than somebody from a poor background
hence Boris Johnson got a second and David Cameron got at least one first
one of our Rickers tutors at Durham - although it was his wife who was actually
one of his tutors as opposed to a lecturer
he had Ph.D.s fom both Oxford and Cambridge
one in chemistry and one in ecology
but he died young
possibly from suicide
it's a bit of a two edged sword ovequalifying people because of the
risk of imposter syndrome
and ou Ricker remembers who his fellow tutee was with that tutor
J J K Wright - sweet girl
and he remembers the kit that lecturer Red Stared to the BBC in London
or Bristol so his rresearch could be featured
and the item was never broadcast...
one of life's little mysteries is why the name of the village
Camus in Nothumbeland is spelt Cambois
on the one hand it is on a curve in a river and
that could mean it was originally
it could come from the Gaelic cambas for
but the Cumbic word would be camas
much moe similar to the spoken version
our Ricker has always been of the opinion that bois is an added French element fo woodland
thee is some mileage in the idea that on a map or deed
at some pointa eference was made to
the wood by the curve or bay in the river Blyth
any road up
this is about one of the fiends our Ricker made whilst at
Durham Univesity
he lived in Cambois and was a Greyman he thinks
anyway
before and whilst studying at Durham
this lad worked on the Fergie Wagons
he was a dive's mate without the HGV LGV driving licence
on the trucks run by Feguson Transport
so he was yer achitypal woking class lad at uni
andhe didn't get given a double first to boost his self esteem
he was put on a General Degree
which was essentially three consecutive first years in
three different departments within the university
and that in a way would be perhaps an even lower qualification than
an Ordinay Degree
and that would be
three years study in the same department
without honours

we are currently in acceptance that
Oxford University is one of the best universities in the world
and probably the best in the UK
we take that alongside the on-off idea of a satellite college of
Eton College for slightly younger people in Middlesbough
the messages coming out of Oxford lead us to believe that that university sees
students as
clay to be moulded
not
young up and coming minds of the future
for their more experienced elders to
banter with
that disturbs us

8th November 2024

we can't avoid the conclusion that it was
MeToo wot won it for Trump in 2024
a very large propotion of women would say to
MeToo activists - if they dared
'you should be so lucky'
and on a similar track
abortion rights campaigners don't campaign for
free, freely available and effective cantaception because for them abortion means
'do this'
and
'don't do that'
or I will kill our baby
they never ask of a woman wanting an abortion
'what blocked you from having control over your fertility?'
'what made you change your mind about having this baby now?'
at the margin this does involve not classing the
morning after pill as abortion

in at least one way
univesities are a bit like farms
they will describe themselves as
asset rich and cash poor
and so they seek to divesify thei income streams
and one example which we know about but we don't know how
successful it is being is
optometry
opticians the palce where you go fo spectacles - glasses and
contact lenses
and in the past an optician was apprenticed
you got a job in a chemist's shop and you fitted people up for specs
and you did a bit of day release at a local college and got a certificate
then
there was ophthlmic optics
then there was optometry
and a student had to do three years full time at a university
and then a supervised and examined pre-registration yea in a shop
as a matter of diversifiaction
now, broadly, you wanna be an optometrust..
you do a longer course at a uni that included the
clinic year
meaning that some - for the moment some - people wanting an eye test
will be encouraged to go to a clinic at a university
rather than an optician's shop on a High Steet
and be tested by a final year student this throws up a new phenomenon
down the ages
schools, teachers, pupils students
have spent their working hours trying to
get the best possible exam result to get into university
now...
some councelling may be equired on
how to appear and act dumb enough to get into one of the
low grade universities offering optometry
so as to be able to work legally in the family optician's shop

the BBC may have generated a little bit of confusion here
thee is and has been for the past twenty years
a Zoe's Place infant hospice in Middlesbrough
no problem with people in the Noth East supporting the one in Liverpool
but don't forget the other two including Middlesbrough
the third one is 'in' Coventry
and back to the old broken record
Middlesbrough Zoe's Place is
you guessed it
in Redcar and Cleveland
so planning permission, all that sort of stuff
Redcar and Cleveland Council
Normanby to be precise

we will here just inject a little left field comment
some will remember that when TV game show host Donald Trump was
elected President of the United States of America
some people suggested that his speech at his inauguration would be
I won
I'm done
in other words that he would resign on day one
he is now 8 years older and saying
I will be a dictator on day one
but only on that day
thee is a hint thee that he will spend his first day of his
new pesidency padoning himself and others
and perhaps dishing out some retribution
but then will step back to one extent or another
up to perhaps resignation triggering a renewed election
it is a pospect that has a far from vanishingly small probability

7th November 2024

so we work through the Ricker case a bit more
there is or was a bit of a Janice Webster biog on line
originaly from the East Midlands of the Ukshe came to Teesside to
study 3D design
as such it can be assumed that she was studying under the supervision of
Dr Webster
and she ends up becoming Mrs Webster
OK very romantic
so why when two people who know each other because they were students
on the same course at London City University
would the university get so 'picky' about a
possible 'inappropriate eleationship' between
one of Janic Websters employees and a student at the university?
why, afte removing the student from the employees module
did they then have PC Hinchcliffe of Cleveland Police
trawl through all of the student's communications to seek out any personal comments?
with Dr Webster gone
was Janice Webster suffering an amount of
imposter syndome
measuring her qualification in 3D design against her employee's
qualifications in
optometry and visual science?
how dir the university manage to pursue a case against the student without the knowledge and consent of the tutor?
on the othe hand despite no evidence FROM the tutor except
access to he university email account
and appraently all electronic communications from the student to
any university email address no impact statemnt no indication of cease and disist communications
we are drawn to the conclusion that
the univesity wanted to protect Janice Webster
in light of her husbands geneosity at accepting termination of employment
and in the unviersity's perfect world the student would have been barred from access to the campus but the court was only provided with evidence of contact between
the student and the tutor
not a single scap of evidednce of communication between
the student and Janice Webster
and at this time Janice Webster was an employee of the
spin off company and not the univesity
one may ask, should Janice Webster ever have had any
qualifications and employment in 3D design
whilst the employee had just completed the
official police reconstruction of
The Great Heck Train Crash
presumably under a contract between
the spin off company and the appopriate police service
this is a pat of the syndrome
'whenever a woman gets an important job she must never loose it'
no matter how badly she performs

a little update on the building of the Lidl stoe at
Redcar Racecourse
this week the concrete floor is being laid and the septic tank
that will be under the car park is well under way
the store now has a oof one long wall and most of it's floor
completion by the end of November
we honestly don't know but by Christmas?
why not?

our Ricker has a new angle on his
'mother and daughter' experience
there was a lunch beak in poceedings and
a couple of young women from the pess gallery
appoached our Ricker outside and asked for a photo
it appeared as the main featue on the front page of that day's
Evening Gazette
and
elevant to the mother and daughter trailing our Ricker around Redcar...
a little later
obviously the daughter had met our Ricker but her mother had not
those were vey different days and it is almost certain the daughter did not have
a picture of our Ricker to show to her family
before the Evening Gazette published one
so we change the scenaio a little to a suggestion that
the daughter found out about the restaining order
from The Gazette??
and hence confonted 'family members'????
he reckons it was quite a nice picture and he agreed to have it taken
to avoid a police mug shot appeaing on the front page
having the publicity did not seem to back fire on Ricker
but may have irked certain people associated with
The University of Teesside
thee is a whole other related story about
Janice Webster who was the wife of the one time
Director Designate of Tesside Polytechnic who
felt disenfranchised by her husband cashing a severance cheque and was
at the time the daughter's boss in a spin off company within the university
at this point we can say that Janice Webster has been dead for two years
but her husband was still alive a year ago
at the time of his 'retirement' Dr Webster was
Director Desiganete of Teesside Polytechnic
and
Visualisation director for Teesside Development Corpoation whenever anybody asked Mrs Webster where her husband was
she would say he was at theother job although he was in fact at home
and not 'working from home'
our Ricker did not contest the restraining order because
he would never have felt safe in an oganisation that would
harbour the likes of Janice Webster

6th November 2024

we have a bit of an expansion on the topic of
Teesside Airport
we think the central character is called an
Airbus A800
we could be wrong
we think Filton in Bistol was able to
land and take off Concorde the super sonic jet
a Teesside did it too
the point of the double decker Airbus with
over 800 passenger seats was
a small number of international hubs
and domestic services to do the local distribution to and fom the hubs
and Teesside as one of a number of air strip to which A800s could be
diverted in an emergency
and no regular super jumbo services to the emegency runways
but feeder services
BUT
HS2 - the high speed rail link
was supposed to replace the feeder flights by smaller aircraft
the present crux
turning point
was CoViD 19
the idea was
super jumbos risk too many people being infected during
intercontinental flights
also a suspicion that Airbus could build them a Boing couldn't
hence a move awy from Heathrow being the UK's one and only
International Airport
and smaller planes... more flexibility
no need for superjumbos or HS2

we are at present wondering whether
President Macron of France is thinking
perhaps we should have taken more decisive action to
reduce the threat fom Russia when we had the chance

anyway we can't remember anything President Trump did last time...
what we are left thinking is the only US President we remember being in any way effective was
President Obama
and we found his appoach
arogant
like the only adult in the room but
not quite as adult as he thought

doing ball park figures relating to
unemployment and economic inactivity in Redcar and Cleveland the location of the proposed Carbon capture and Storage plant
4 per cent unemployed - we take that to mean claiming unemployment benefit
whilst demonstrating they are looking fo work
23 per cent of over 16s not in employment
we note
over 16s
not people aged 16 to 66
of the 23 percent 4 are looking for work
some are pensioners and they are a part of a section of
independently wealthy - not needing a job whilst not claiming
benefits as opposed to pensions, investment incomes
and being 'kept women'
and on maternity leave
and some the infamous
'on the sick'
so we have this concept going around of
that we have 18,400 people living in Redcar and Cleveland
who need a jolly good shake up
a kin to the shot sharp shock of
for example Meadomsley Young Offendes institute
by offeing them jobs they can't refuse on the construction site of
a CC&S building site
paraplaegics, people with MS, MND, autism, paranoid schizophrenia
amputees
the blind
shove 'em on building sites in their wheel chairs to
knit rebar and pour concrete
we want to force the economocally 'back to work'
what we are saying is
two things
we don't mind people who ae 'swinging the lead' being required to be
as specific about why they can't work
as we expect people who claim unemployment benefit to prove they are seeking work
however what we can't accept is that
the odd massive construction project will provide
SUITABLE WORK for the chronic sick and disabled
the bette route is to grow the economy
through SMEs and self employment

incidentally
the number of contractors working in Redcar fo
Thompsons of Prudhoe - in Northumberland
kinda give the lie to the idea that there are no
construction workers available in Northumberland

5th November 2024

we think we need to make a point about
Carbon Capture and Storage
not withstanding the fact that we don't have
oil refineries on Teesside
2 gone, one derelict
even if we did
oil refineries and petrochemical plant do not
emit significant amounts of cabon dioxide
oil fields emit carbon dioxide when they flare off gas that they
can't transport as easily as oil
the use of fossil fuels causes the emission of cabon dioxide when
fossil fuels are burnt
fossil fuels are bunt to fuel oil refineries and petrochemical plants
because they are easily to hand not because they are essential
cabbon dioxide fom fossil fuels is emitted
for the most part
ninty odd per cent approx
when fossil fuels ae burnt in
homes, offices factories - buildings for space heating
and
as fuel for vehicles
that carbon dioxide cannot CANNOT be captured by a
Carbon Capture and Storage Plant
the scope for Carbon Capture and Storage is tiny
building CCandS plants will be a the modern equivalent pf
building the Pyramids in Egypt
makework
as we say, UNLESS it is attached to a cement kiln
or an enormous natural gas fired power station
so now we move on to
Carbon Capture and Storage Mark 2 so we don't connect the CC&S plant to any sort of
carbon dioxide souce
we say
we can put it anywhere because we ae not capturing it at source
we will capture it from the air, anywhere in the atmosphere
so this becomes a public utility and
if you run it at great expense on your land
say anywhere in the UK or USA or Canada or Germany
everybody all around the world benefits from
less carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere
and you and your people are paying for it
not The United Nations

3rd November 2024

we just want to give an illustration of
what a nest of vipers Whitehall is
so it's the middle of the Second World WAR
Tommy (Robson) visits a trade show
and he sees an RB22
and he says
I'll have that, and buys it on the spot
goes off for a cup of tea or other beverage
comes back to check over his purchase
it's got a
Requisition Notice
pastered on it
see it's an RB
Ruston Bucyus
and what is Bucyrus?
American
so
the UK government weren't gonna requisiton a digger
belonging to the American manufacturer
they lain in wait for
some Britsh sap to buy it
and then they moved in for the kill
sowaht does our Tommy do?
says
Hey Senator Churchill!
gimme back me digger
or ya don't get
Goosepool Aerodrome
the requisition oder was rescinded
and Hodsmans built Goosepool Aerodrome
and it became
RAF Middleton Saint George
God knows what it's called now
Teesside Intergallactic Spaceport or summat
Teesside Aeroport Airport
an RB 22 is a Ruston Bucyrus 22 ton excavator
the whole BitishInvolvemetn in the econd World War was
designed to bail out the US economy through
Lend Lease
the last payment fom the UK to the USA for war materials bought during the Second World War
was $83 million 45 million pounds
paid on 29 December 2006
also at the same time 12 million quid to Canada
Bitain paid around two and a half billion dollars
towards the Marshall plan for the econstuction of Europe after the Second World War
the arrogant twats at the top of the British Civil Service will sell the people of the Uk dowm the iver at the dop of a hat
to look 'big' on the World Stage


Low Houselop Farm is approximately at a place called
Tow Law
William Robson
attended
Wolsingham (then Grammar) School
he walked to and from school
including through snow difts
Google says the journey is
1 hour 20 minutes on foot
6 minutes by car
no car for William Robson
there was a Robson Street in Haveton Hill
because
as a Liberal party politician
William Robson was
chair of the housing committee of
Billingham Urban Distict Council
when he split from his first wife
on the basis of her adultey
the case had to be heard in London
divorce in those days
1890s
being so rare
provincial courts were not set up for it
William Robson died when he got caught in a snow storm
when trying to walk between
his home in Haverton Hill
and
Cowpen Bewley
he almost made it to the shelter of a wooden fence
this would have been in the big freeze of 1947

2nd November 2024

it's a bit late to be catching up on items on Halloween missed earlier
but
our Ricker had a ear worm at the time
the song
Dancing in the moonlight
it was a tragic origin
it was written by a chap ecovering from having his face caved in
by a a gang who later killed 8 Us tourists
there have been several versions and our Ricke isn't sure which he is
thinking of
the line in question is
well he always thought it was
it's a preternatural delight
but later versions sounded like
it's a supernatural delight
he was refering to the fact that he survived and the others died
a preternatural event is a rare natural event
a supernatural event is something that happens because of
an intervention by God or some other other worldly agency
a Deus ex machina
as in tying up a theatrical or other entertainment story
'bet you didn't see that coming'
so we think the original songwriter was just reflecting that he had been
extremenly lucky in a random way
and not saved by the intervention of a saint or similar
like how lucky?
toss a coin enough times and it will find a crack or something to
nessle in
and be not heads or tails but edge


we could point you in the direction of a
Boer War and First Wold War senior soldier
Lt. Col. Yardley
Yardley is in Birmingham and is a cosmetics company
in the latter part of the 19th century
it was family owned
and the eldest son didn't need any help from his younger brothers
hence a career in the army for one of them
as it happens...
our Ricker's dad
Tommy
Tom Baker Robson
Thomas Robson was his half brother
during the second half of the Great War was
some sort of ANC - aid de camp
to Colonel Yardly
and they were together in the trenches come
Armistice Day - what we celebrate as
the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month
the end of the war
and on that day Tommy came across a major weeping uncontrollable with his head in his hands
and when Tommy asked what was up
the major said look I've got my discharge papers
I'm gonna have to go back home
and back to managing the family
chip shop
Tommy had just had his pay book stamped
retained
and this we say to explain
Keynsian Economics
at present in the UK ae unning a ad featuring a soldier
thanking The British Legion for helping him
after a medical discharge
you can't just say
in the typical Whithall tradition
cisis? what did we do last time?
there is some 'cost of living' distress in both
the U and the US
in no way is this a crisis comparable to
hoards of demobed sodier landing at UK and Empire ports
take a sledge hammer to crack a nut and you run the risk of demolishing the kitchen table
massive 'make-work' infrastructure schemes
especially if located in centres of population
rather than where this can be linked up to a National Grid
and serve a useful pupose
simply impoverish the nation - saddle it with debt
it can go OK, the interstate highways in the US
but it can fall very flat to some extent the Autobahns in
pe-war and wartime - Second World War - Germany
but do run the risk of going disasterously wrong as with some
Ford Motor Company schemes in South America
over and again the duelling of the A1 in Northumberland is shelved
not because it would be pointless in logistical terms
but
because there isn't 'sufficient' unemployment in the area
no demobed troops eturning to Nothumberland...
Keynes says - no infrastructure 'investment'

1st November 2024

another little bit of catch up...
slavery and reparations
the first thing we want to add to the mix is the
reasons fo the American Civil War
it is generally held that
the North fought and defeated the South
in order to free the slaves
in one sense this is correct - but
this begs the question why did the North want to end slavey in the South?
and this is almost entirely divorced from the activities of
slavery abolitionists in the UK
in essence the Nothern States saw slavery in the South as
an unfair commercial advantage for the Southen States over the economic inteests of the North
the SOuthern States were lagely agricultual and the Northern
much more industrial
the workes in the South were dispersed acoss the -agricultual - land
the workers in the Noth wee concentrated in factories and
industrial towns and cities
slavery and other worker exploitations wee almost impossible to sustain
due to the collectivisation of labour - unions and similar - in industry
The North didn't see why they should 'suffer' collective opposition from labour
and watch the South exploit labour without estraint
not a hell of a lot to do with
The British Empire....
point 2
reparations within the Bitish Empire have already been paid
the mechanism of the abolition of slavery within the British Empire
came in the form of the UK government
compulsorily purchasing all slaves and handing them their freedom
there was a process far more complicated and expensive than simply signing
a piece of paper
there is scope to argue about haw much after care the freed slaves got
just as there is scope to argue about aftercare fo
children in care turning 18 and becoming adults
however
returning to US slaves...
by importing Aficans into America
the British granted their descendents
American as opposed to African
Nationality
some would say
a precious thing


we're gonna come at this one with our usual stealth
ee ain't it gand
almost eveything on t'internet these days
so you can check this out fo youselves
thee ae sales details for a farm
it's called
Low Houselop Farm and it was for sale
it was on offer with a guide pice or around two million pounds
a beautiful farm house
really if the house wee elsewhee it would be woth more than the entire farm
it is a farm and it has cattle and sheep and lots and lots of grass
but not much level ground
it's up in the Hills of County Durham in the UK
aound 1860 as a random date it was famed and possibly owned by a family called Robson
and the parents had less then a dozen kids
and several of them were boys
and so only one boy could inherit the farm that was
too small to sub-divide
and so one of the boys
William Robson
took steps
quite a lot of steps down to the outskits of
Middlesbough
and he became a farm boy on an estate there
and the other farm boy was
John Ord
and they became fiends
and then William Robson left the farming life
whilst John Ord stayed on and eventually became
Estate Manager
and by that time his boss - the owner of the estate was Sir Arthur Dorman
but William had responded to an offer to go back across the river
back from Yokshire to Durham again
but not to do farm work
whatever you may call the role
his job was to
stoke 40 foot Lancashire boilers
using coal to generate steam
because his new bosses were
The Diamond Boing Company of America
and they had come to
Port Clarence
to sink salt wells
but they didn't stay long
they were a diamond boring company
not salt sellers
so they sold the business and it may have had seveal names
but by the time William retired after 43 years service
the company was still going strong and was called of a part of
The United Alkali Company
we could research this in detail
but we suppose it was around the time of the Second World War that
the United Alkali Company jointed with
Alfred Nobel's company and one or two others to become
Imperial Chemical Industries - ICI
and by that time the time William retired
his long time line manager
Donnie Revie
had probably aleady retied
and William was line manager to
Donnie's son Donnie
and Donnie's grandson - Donnie - was a footballer
later a football manager
and they were known as the 'Reevies' not the Revies
despite the spelling
and the likes of Mottie getting it wrong
not Don Revie - Donnie Reevie
who's to say if any or all or them wee officially Donald?
and what we are trying to say is
it's he technology that builds the wealth
artificial diamonds, explosives, all sortsa rock
from tiny acorns mighty oaks are grown
and in it's pomp
ICI was not a satellite palnt of a worldwide conglomerate
curent politicians and economists clamour to
attract foreign investment in duplicate plants of
headquarters plant in India, or wherever
what chance did anybody think there was that
Tata would close steelworks in India to keep
plant in Wales in business


we are gonna try a little non-Photoshop pic publishing


we saw this Halloween display and it made us think
the origin and perpetuation of classic
Halloween Horror
it should be about
blood
this display uses
bloody rags
as
bunting
and in the form of rags or bandages
and we think of the street art versions
suitable for children
and we think of little girls and we think
this artist has
perhaps subconciously
made bunting in the form of
jam rags
pant liners
sanitary wear
perhaps
the annual festival of Halloween developed as as way
to introduce each annual crop of new
little girls
to menstruation
so that they would not be so shocked when the real thing happened to them

31 st October 2024

we have a central question about the
mother daughter story
why did the daughter get a bloody nose
after
the restraining order was granted
what was thee to argue about within the family?
there is aslight hint from the the blind side
at some stage our Ricker's solicitors suggested that
they should have a lasting power of attoney over him
this is shades of
Britney Spears
why would the daughter have a ow with somebody after
the matter was 'settled'?
perhaps
somebody - the 'guadian' - had a power of attorney over the daughter
and had sought the restraining order over our Ricker
without the daughter's knowledge
then to present it as a
fait accomplis
and a reaction of
why the hell did you do that?
this is going back twenty years and perhaps it has
bearing in mind that Andy MacDonald MP is a lawyer???
a day when people thought that
all graduates should live and work
south of Watford
and
The North
should be a playground for
the terminally moronic


we have a slight update on the problems with the Dogger Bank wind farm
it appears that hat has happened is
the installers have raised a rotor and begun bolting it to the turbine
at this stage they have locked the tubine so as to be able to do the
bolting up
then the wind speed has picked up and they have
naffed off leaving the rotor with less than the required number of bolts in place
and the turbine brakes locked on
the rotor is not designed to stand still in a wind
and so it has blown apart
the installers have to work quicker and
only work when they have a long enough
low wind speed window to complete the bolting up
broadly thee are dozens of little bolts and
the question is
should there be less bigge ones to speed up installation
or perhaps should the rotor be screwed on rather than bolted on?
perhaps the crane could hold the rotor steady and some podger pins put in temp
and then the turbine if connected to the electric
could be driven in everse into the rotor


as we saw with the pretty little Lucy Letby
when a nurse or police officer misbehaves????
they are put on administrative duties
kicked upstairs
is the generally accepted phrase
and so we have too many manages who broadly have failed at doing the font line work too many chiefs and not enough Indians

30th October 2024

we missed comenting on a particular case whilst we were away
the chap from Nothern Ireland and the laas and her dad in the states who
topped themselves
definitely a case of
law of unintended cosequesces but probably a case of cant
and abit of sacred cows and scape goats
what was asserted - without evidence - was that the father
killed himself as a result of his daughter having killed herself
'without ever knowing why she did it'
we doubt that assertion
we feel this could be a case of
she went because she knew how her father had dilled into her
how 'impotant' it was not to show people her bits
and he knew how he had dilled her
and so he killed himself because he realised that if
he had been a bit more elaxed about matters
she would still be alive today


we have a slightly less tragic story closer to home
people of a certain age will remember the mother involved
she was on the telly a lot
but 'no arm nor an actress, this ma job'
in an oft repeated advert
sbe was a single mum a long time ago
he daughter was born in around 1966
and our Ricker knew duaghter
and although he knew her home address and wrote to he a couple of times
after they went their separate ways
and one day when our Ricker went to work
lecturing mainly lab techs from
Glaxo Smith Kline at Barnard Castle
but at what was then called Teesside Polytechnic
and there was a note in his pigeon hole requesting he made an appointment
with the polytechnic chaplaine
so he did and was told the young woman had died
the story didn't hang together and our Ricker wote to the mother to say so
but to pledge to act as though it were true
a little less than a coiple of decades later
our Ricker signed up for a Master's degree at the University of Teesside
the first week on of the tutors didn't turn up
the next week she did tun up
and she was the no longer so young daughter
two things had changed
the woman had clearly had her nose broken
the woman had chnaged her surname of family name
by deed pole
not by marriage no simply unofficially but officially
as a choice, a stand alone act
our Ricker was not much taken aback and
assumed the woamn had had anothe kyacking accident
and that she had decided to take on her birth father's surname
....
perhaps even as a long shot her mothe had married her father
we have to say that the mother lives in Cumbria and there is no evidence that
the daughter has ever lived in Redcar
and so, after attending a couple of sessions of the daughter's module
she approached him and asked
you don't mind me assessing your work do you?
he said no problem but he was removed from that module on the grounds that it was
now and undergraduate module and not available on the masters
being part time
our Ricker was supposed to do half the modules in a second year but was
told he had to withdraw from the course at the end of the first year
and the courts handed him a lifetime restraining order from contacting the daughter
that is very unusual they usually last initially five or ten years
shotly after that
mother and duaghter were walking the streets of our Ricker's home town - Redcar
even though neither lived there
and the daughter was sporting a bandaged newly re-broken nose
our Ricker complied with the order and
stiffed them, walked past and straight home
the daughter had been beaten up at the age of aound 35
hence...
ou Ricker started to think
maybe the original broked nose was the result of a beating...
there were no further official communications but
our Ricker was given a 'steer' that
the daughter had changed her name
not to that of her birth father
but to that of her
foster father
despite tha mother being the sister of a senior Cleveland - UK
police officer
it appears that the erstwhile foster father was also
a slightly less senior - never got to be a chief constable
police officer and fostered though some sort of link with
The Church of England
if the faste father had not been demented in some way
he would have been delighted to see his ward
with a profession and a partner
apparently not
and perhaps there is something over possessive about the condition of being
the father but not the birth father


we had a disaster the laptop we use to write this
died
we have said before - words to the effect - we write this in native HTML
so a special laptop running Windows 7
we couldn't find a replacement running 7
but we have one running 8
for now it doesn't un Photoshop so pics may be a problem
one update before we take lunch
a really big digger is working on the Lidl site this week
digging a hole for
a septic tank to process the sewage and food waste
generated by the new store
this is a part of the solution to the problem
treat water borne waste nearer to the source

18th October 2024

we've been watching this item for a while
it is supposed to be a motorised
photo voltaic array that
automatically scans the sky and points its recievers at the
strongest sun
it never seemed to be pointing at the sun
it has been uprooted
and it may be important that the car park on which it was sited on the verge
is now being dug up for new building foundations but
we suspect that sometimes an institution such as
Redcar and Cleveland College
are not doing due diligence in the
looking a gift horse in the mouth department

16th October 2024

we are told that - in order - the three most manufactured plastics are
polyethylene, poly propylene and PVC poly vinyl chloride
the first is made for ethylene
the second from propylene - similar to propane
the third is made from ethylene and sea water
salt in sea water is sodium chloride
the same chlorine is in PVC and salt
table salt, sea salt
and when PVC is burned the chlorine is released but not as salt but as
hydrochloric acid
and that is easily neutralised in a big plant
it is not neutralised f PVC is burnt on an allotment in Warrenby
the big distinction in the two types of energy from wate plants is
some incinerate - burn in oxygen rich air - their feedstock
some pyrolyse - heat to a high temperature - in the relative absence of
oxygen and air
there are two types of olifin cracker
thermal crackers
and
cat crackers
catalytic crackers
we can keep saying stuff about how big plants are cleaner than
land fill and back yard incineration
but so long as there are people with a vested interest in
outdated methods
there will be public relations professionals keen to
take a cut
one way to reduce the pics of
clouds of steam emerging from cooling towers is to
use water that is too hot to discharge into
area heating schemes the like of
the plans to use warm water from disused mine workings
to heat local buildings

15th October 2024

perhaps now is the time to introduce a ne concept
if like Boots the chemist you offer paper packaging
and the item is cold and attracts condensation
the paper will get wet and soft and your shopping will
fall out the bottom
plastic packaging is a good thing
now consider world where crude oil is ousing out of the ground in tar pits and such
loadsa oil and coal
if you want palstic packging or disposable plastic goods
you take crude oil and you use some of it to make plastic
and some of it to generate the energy to drive the process of
it's a one feedstock industry
however
if you have very very cheap renewable energy
and people may even pay you to removed carbon from the atmosphere
you can create plastic packaging without using fossil carbon
carbon dioxide plus energy equals plastic
remember we don't make plastic directly from crude oil
we have to crack crude oil into a molecule
ethylene for instance
that is not much different from methane and carbon dioxide
so if we synthesise atmospheric carbon into plastic
and the we burn the plastic for energy and we
liberate carbon dioxide
the carbon dioxide we liberate is the same carbon dioxide we
fixed from the atmosphere a few months ago
no net increase in atmospheric carbon
same as capturing atmospheric carbon plants and then releasing it again as
cow burps
makng plastic is not like taking crude oil and add a catalyst
as tp part glue or car filler or fibre glass - glass fibre
never can remebmer which way around is a trade name

as far as our Ricker can remember
there has been only one occasion on which he
to parphrase
was met by his revelation that he was a Durham University graduate with
do they speialise in mining engineering?
he does recall being shushed by a fellow pupil
one who ewent on to Oxford or Cambridge - Ian Scott
when he tried to engage a retired minr in a pub in Durham
on the question of
town versus gown
some will know that Oxford in the day had
a university and a car plant
in a sense places such as Oxford and Washington DC in the US
are places where the middle classes are very much in the minority
if they exist at all
and this may explain why Westminster manderins believe that
the unemployed are ineducable
we've got distracted
what we wanted to address waere some comments made by
Dave Bellamy in a lecture
we have to go back to our Ricker's school days
his contact with females was restricted being at a boys' grammar
for whatever reason
most of his access to females was with students at
St. Mary's College in Hartlepool
it's only just struck him that his closest contact with feames at
Durham University wa with students of their St.Mary's College
the link between Coatham - Sir William Turner's in Redcar
and St' Mary's College in Hartlepool was
BAYS
British Association Young Scientists
so for whatever reason
our Ricker is in a Dave Bellamy lecture in the botany departemnt at Durham
and the Prof. makes reference to some work
our Ricker had done for BAYS
and then he waffles on about how boring it is in his office wading through
endless requests for Bellamy yo endose this or that
application for research funding
the bottom line being you need famous memebers of staff to get funding
so our Ricker was not about to stand up in the lecture theatre and say
yea thanks that was me
but the lesson of the day was
if you want to get any work done<
don't get famous
it was a little devce for making accurate field measurements of
the apical angle of limpet shells
the theory was that the rougher the sea in the home of the limpet
the flatter the apical angle

14th October 2024

you know the drill
'it's me rest day tomorrow'
fancy going out on a date?
'no sorry, I'm washing me hair'
industry ain't gonna build a carbon capture and storage plant on Teesside
so excuse
bothered about public access and security
so instead of taking the hint
close roads and railay stations
won't change industry's mind in detail
Redcar And Cleveland Council control access from
SOuth Bank railway station platform 2 to the public highway
they do not control access from platform 2 and platform 1
when Transpennine Express trains from Teesside to MAnchester
terminated at Redcar Central
they now terminate at Saltburn
they arrived at platform 2 and departed from platform 2
if there are switches or points near South Bank station
it would be practicable for
the few eastbound trains that stop at South Bank
to use the same paltform as westbound trains

a lot of verbage today but the essence is
it's all a quaestion of what sort of person you recruit to
a Developemnt Corporation
South Tees Develpemnt Corporation are hell bent on
attracting the next ICI to the former steel works site
and through hell or gigh water they will prevent it from becoming
a trading estate with SMEs
small and medium enterprises
we've seen a few strangely worded rports about
South Bank railway station footbridge
we are not sure exactly what is happening
what we have is a situation where that exact vicinity of presently
subject to significant change - development
this is now the station of the South Bank Wharf
it means that in theory people may wish to travel
to and from the new docks area by train
in essence a dockyard would attract more
public traffic than the
coke works that it replaces
decisions wil have to be made
the footbridge is not only over
the pedestrian tracks 0f South bank Station
but also over the empty - no track - track beds of
the goods loops
whoever is responsible for the upkeep or replacement
of the bridge will want to shorten it...
to save money
and the question is
will netweork rail want to make the bottleneck
reduction from 4 to 2 tracks
permanent
and will people anting to walk from South Bank the town
to South Bank the port
without any interest in the railway or
Middlesbrough or Redcar be happy to be cut off from the site of their
new potential employer
the immediate question raised by the various reports is
are down passenger trains making station stops at South Bank?
that is trains from Middlesbrough and Darlington and such
to Redcar and Saltburn
it may be that they are not stopping at SOuth Bank to
discourage passengers from attempting to cross the line
this does not mean that there is a rail replacement servie from
Middlesbrough to Saltburn
trains are running normlly between Middlesbrough and Redcar but
if a passenger were to get off a Middlesbrough to Saltburn tarin
at South Bank
they would be stranded on the docks side of the railway line
and so a mini bus service is available to
drive them around - most of the way back to Middlesbrough
and then back to the town of South Bank
on the other hand, in a dynamic situation
there is a possibility of a minibus service from
Middlesbrough station to South Bank town
this is complex and expensive and at present affects
a very small number of people
essentially, people commuting by train between Middlesbrouh and South Bank
and people commuting between Redcar and South bank
it is not affecting people commuting by train
between Redcar, Saltburn etc. and Middlesbrough etc.

are ephiphanies like busses and cops
travel in convoy
we set 'im off, our Ricker
he bin finkin agin
and this is how t went
he remembered a 'fellow student'
but he couldn't remember his name so he
asked Wiki for a list of vic-chancellors of Durham University
then he remembers
Chistopher Higgins
and then Wiki dropped the next bonb
something our Ricker didn't know
first year Higgins and Ricker on same course
botany and zoology joint honours
and we ever so much doubt that Higgins was doing chemistry
at the same time - probably playing his violin
so Ricker and Higgins got separated
Ricker joint animal ecology and physiology
and Higgins
joint botany physiology an ecology
Higgins was some sort of
Royal School of Misic drop out pet
and that chemistry exam probs decided the university to
separate Ricker and Higgins for Higgins protection....
todays's Wiki bombshell is
Higgins's PhD supervisor or
Doctoral Advisor
was
wait for it
John W Payne
you've never heard of him
we can tell you a little secret
he worked at
Porton Down
you've heard of that
hence all the bullshit nonsence aboutBR> pathogenicity
not what you know
but who you know
BSE bovine spongiform encephalopathy
with our Ricker it's
we know he's always right but this time he's wrong
with Higgins it's
we know he's always wrong, but this time he could be right
until 2014
and with Higgins
he's an out and out idiot
but
he's our out and out idiot
and he can play the violin

13th October 2024

we don't have much respect for
economists
most people don't
what we hear a lot from economists is
growth
we would like to draw an analogy for growth
say you have an apple tree
this would be better with a vine - a grape bush...
say, with the apple tree it bears fruit - apples
and you think
if this tree were bigger it would bear more apples
you are thinking like an economst
a couple of problems
aside from if the roots don't grow the tree will
suffer with too many branches
but
to simplify
if the tree gets bigger
the extra apples will grow on parts of the tree to high to reach
and with more branches and leaves
the sunlight won't penetrate so well into the middle of the tree
and it will deg dark and damp and
rot
a person who tends and orchard or an apple tree knows that
for best results you need to regularly prune the trees
and that may keep yields steady but it will keep the tree healthy
and another thing...
when you buy a second hand car
say you are not buying from a massive multiple with a reliable warranty
you are advised to go visit the vehicle before buying if it's a
private sale
and finding out where the car is and having a quiet drive past
to check out car and seller isn't
stalking
so we have a history of
UK Development Corporations
and they have huge areas of vacant borwn field land
if you were a business and you were looking for a new supplier
make no mistake somebody from the potential customer would be
doing a drive by on a weekend before making an approach
so why do we have development corporations wanting to
do a handful of deals each to bring tens of thousands of jobs each
when economies are built of SMEs
small and medium sized enterprises?
lighten up
reduce the security
have open days
invite the publc in
deals will follow

nformation is naturally thin on the ground but we understand that
there are 5 maths students in this year's first year at
Trinity College Oxford and
we suspect that
four of them are male and one female...
Trinty does maths and medicine

we've messed up a bit here
the famous chemistry exam...
and the term formulae
what was involved was something we very much doubt
features in GCSE or A' level chemistry
setting aside the requirement to synthesise two compounds
one was an azo dye...
this exam was either in
physical chemistry
or
chemical physics
and the internet sez,br. chemcal physics is distinct from physical chemistry in that
it focuses more on using physics theories to understand and explain
chemical phenomena
wheras physical chemistry uses thermodynamics and kinetics to
study the physical nature of chemical processes
the misleading element in what we have previously written is that you may think that when we talk about a formula sheet e meant
chemical formulae
formulae with symbols for chemical elements
this was not the deal
what we are talking about s a set of mathematicl formulae that
attempt to define the
energetics of chemical reactions
in the most basic form
how likely a chemical reaction is to 'go'
how stable an element or compound is
these formulae are way beyong e equals m c squared
but enough for an undergraduate exam could be written very denseley
on half a A4 page
this was not an exercise in guessing what chemical formulae would
crop up in an organic chemistry exam

there will be people who remember
Duncan Bulmer as a biology teacher at Coatham
and he had a wife who was a Primary School teacher
and a daughter
at this time we just want to touch on
Ann Bulmer's idea of a suitable boy friend for Diane
she got all excited about a new boyfriend and the fact that he was
a 'process operator' at ICI Wilton
untl she made some enquiries and discovered this was
ICI speak for general labouror
this was supposed to be a little intro to a return to the story about
our Ricker's mystery chemistry exam
it basically refers to the fact that our Ricker's dad was
very keen for Ricker to get a job at ICI like his uncle and his grandad had had
although it was called The United Alkali Company when
William Robson worked there
and it seems Durham University were not so keen
the most striking thing about this mystery chemistry exam was that
it was not held in the chemistry department
it was held in the chaplaincy on New Elvet
perhaps not so much
why have these bozoes not walkd out of this exam
it's so difficult
perhaps more
I wonder what subjects these other candidates are
answering questions on
at this distance of time
perhaps at the peak of the eam season
exam halls were in short supply and
people doing exams in different low popularity subjects
were lumped together
perhaps our Ricker got an incomplete exam paper - no formula sheet
but we still do have to wonder why he turned up for the exam
so well prepared that he could actually do the exam
so to return to the Bulmers
Duncan had taught our Ricker and Ann had not
so perhaps some explanation for thinking a
process worker at ICI as a better prospect than a
Durham University graduate

12th October 2024

perhaps we have solved the mystery as to why so many people
buy and run SUVs sports utility vehicles
is it so they will still have something drivable after
the police have played pin ball down their street?
and perhaps because the police feel the need to raise a posse to
respond to a report that a child has
dropped their icecream in the street
that response times are so slow and travel is so fast

things are looking up in Redcar...
a discarded pair of panties
red lacy panties
down a back alley
very encouraging
mostly in the past any discarded panties would be
blood soaked because the wearer had forgot
a bout periods

we do worry about how polce officers are recruited in the UK
we didn't watch Pigletts
an incident in Redcar this morning
first to be sent
a fire engine
then ten minutes later three police vans
then five minutes later and ambulance
maybe one of the police officers got cramp getting out of their vehicle
two things
are Cleveland Police phasing out squad cars so that they can travel around in vans
in the hope they will come off better in any accident they cause?
how is it that marked police vans patrol Redcar
but
if anything is reported in Hemlington
the nearest police are seven miles away
a Police and Crime Commisioner with guts would
have a new police heaquarters built in
Hemlington
not in Boho by Middlesbrough railway station
how many run away trucks do Cleveland police arrest in a year?
it's a historic conservation area
and industrial estate
why is police heaquarters a part of a living industrial museum?
Boho has been described as Middlesbrough's hidden gem
an eco-system of creativity
video game authors
should we ask
have Cleveland Police caught Pac Man yet?

11th October 2024

if you serch on line for
foot binding or footbinding
there is a lot of stuff out there
most of it seems to revolve around the idea that in China
people thought a female could dance more prettily
with smaller feet
that is not the theory we have had over time
the time line is agreed to be that the idea and practice
started with the upper classes and spread over time to the lower orders
we had't hear before about the dea that is is easier or more impressive
to dance on small feet than larger ones
but we do know that 'western' balerinas
manage to dance
on point
wthout having their feet broken abd tightly bound
what we always understood was that at first
upper class parents had this done to their dughters so that they were
incapable of farm work
to make them less attractive to be
kidnapped and enslaved for manual labour
and perhaps so that they couldn't run or walk far
from the parental home or village
in the broadest terms
limited to being coutesans
in other words limiting their career options to
sex work
and baby making
it's interestng that it appears to be OK for a male to
be able to go to the gym or whatever and build himself up
so that he has the strength to - for instance
pick up crates or whatever and carry them across a warehouse
he using his developed physical attributes to make a living
but so frowned upun for a femlae to
get her legs apart for the same purpose
we see two current cases of potential sex work
portrayed as exploitation
the woman in France who had sex with 50 men without noticing
what we don't know is
was the husband paid or were the clients persuaded to offer some other
pecuniary advantage to the couple
such as being loyal customers for other goods and services
whatever way
if the husabnd benefited from the transactions
the couple benefitted from the trnsactions
and so why so much effort to suggest the female was some how
sleepwalking through her shifts as a sex worker?
like you doze off post prandially - after consuming some food or drink
and a little while later you wake up a bit bruised and
dripping with cum
and you're not the least bit curious?
and the Harrods gang
are we seeing a gaggle of ducks
who have been heared together with to horrendous
Gloria Allred
who have in the past, the long distant past
used their womanly wiles to
promote that nice Mr Fayed's business by
sweet taking people who he want deals from
and now Ms Allred has planted the idea
you helped him build that empire
you are entitled to a share of the spoils
in such as case
if there has been an written agreement
if you get this contract, I'll see you right
that is a bit like
sweat equity
where a worker works for a low wage
plus
shares in the company
so that if the company succeeds the value of
the shaes you had in lieu of bonus
will become very valuable...
we've attended course where job seekers have been instructed
during the interview
don't cross and re-cross your legs
which advice the smart students may interpret as a
suggestion to do the exact opposite

10th October 2024

we have to ask...BR> was the trouble that Harrods chap took to
pleasure so many females
the secret of his business success?


they've changed the wording slightly on the
Morrisons level crossing advisory sign...

there is talk these days about
potential redundancies amongst university staff
our Ricker's experience of universities stretches back to when there were
far fewer
a tiny expansion occured before his time when
Durham University having a sattelite called
King's College?
in Newcastle had it hived off to become
The Univesity of Newcastle
and in that move The University of Durham lost
pretty much all of its scientific nd engineering departments
except Geography but including its medical school
and so to retain some credibility if had to grow new ones quite quickly
this was perhaps the era of
Botanist David Bellamy
on a smaller scale staff can up and leave for pastures new at short notice
overall because at any given time a university will have
signed up freshers - new students
it will need to offer the advertised and contracted course, whatever
and people can be recruited to very senior careers
in bizarre circumstances
and speaking of such
around the late 1970s
a situation developed where
Durham students were being taught by
Hull graduates
and Sunderland students were being taught by Durham graduates
we do recall at least one occasion where a journalst
covering a a story involving the chemical industry
consulted his secondary school chemistry teacher
there as been much churn in education in the UK in the past
half century
and lines of credibility have been disrupted
at the same time we see it as exceptional when
the cricketer brothers Root
achieve prominence without the support of
a tragic back story
'we' now overlay onto
fill tht post today
with
you may be as thick as pig muck but
you too could be
a university vice-chancellor
or leader of the Tory party
it is a question for the age
is a meritocracy inevitably
a dictatorship?
we know about the fictional characters who are portrayed as
evil geniuses
but at present we seem to see most world leaders as
high school dropouts with a grudge
effortless superiority does not seem to be a driver of
manic competitiveness
perhaps people who more clearly see the world the universe
for what it is
have less motivation to change it

9th October 2024

some things we say are a bit embarassing
puberty blockers....
and age of consent
the trick cyclists
pschyatrists
say
the human brain takes time to mature and develop
and so we need to excuse anything anybody does before
they are 18 because they would be under the influence of
an immaturity they will grow out of
and so the puberty blockers
if we excuse 19 and 17 year olds because of there incomplete
development
of we apply puberty blockers...
aren't we stopping their devlopmental clock whilst letting their
social calendar roll on?
would we say the age of consent for a person on puberty blockers for
2 years
would reach the age of majority or consent at
18
or
20
so far as we can see the function of puberty blockers is to give
parents
not
children
time to get used to the children's decisions about their
social genderBR>
we've seen another Uk trial collapse at jury deliberation time this week
it is an interesting issue that
the jury are supposed to consider only what they see and hear in court
but the advocates are supposedly free to research the case widely and at leisure
it comes back to that old time distinction between
MPs who are just MPs and MPs who are also barristers
an MP who is not an MP is referred to or was as
my honourable friend or my right honourale friend - latter if a minister
friend if same party the honourable member if of another party
but an MP who is/was also a barrister is/was referred to as
my honourable and learned friend etc.
you don't get called up for jury service if you are not
regarded as a numpty
or
the man on the Clapham Omnibus

once in a while our Ricker has an epiphanyBR> apenny drops and something from his past makes sense
we say below that in a physics exam the marking scheme allocates marks for
remembering formulae such as Kirchhoff's laws
and then the CoViD 19 PANdemIC comes along and
candidates are given formula sheets in exams to compensate for
disruped learning
so we ask were marks allocated for
making use of a formula sheet
or were more marks given for plugging the numbers in?
our Ricker remembers an exam at Durham University - phusical chemistry
you needed to know half a page of complex equasions to answer the questions
that was a challenge for even the mighty Ricker
towards the end of the exam our Ricker sat abck a bit and asked himself
how come none of these bozoes have walked out of this exam?
they cn't know these equations
what are they writing?
and then you kinda think
right now fifty years and more later
did the invigilator
accidentlly on purpose
gve formula sheet to all the candidates but me?
but a Wheatstone Bridge is a good way to
explain some of the basics of electronics
even if it is not a good way to train telecoms engineers
they probably had resistance boxes and galvanometers
but mostly for show
impressing the customers with how scientific the service was
in essence
like water, electricity takes the path of least resistance
you have a diamond shaped circuit
you put the terminals of a battery on the top and bottom joints
the current will flow through the four legs of the cicuit
the pair of legs on the right and the pair on the left have a fixed resistance
to stop the battery going flat in an instant
the other left leg is a connection between the terminal of the suspect wire
and an earth
the right - the other, left and right interchangeable - pair of legs is
a fixed resistor and a variable resistor
if the resistance in the test circuit is greater than the resistance in the opposide leg-pair
the current will spread evenly between the two balast resistors
and then a lot of it will nip across the diagonal and hence through the galvanometer
producing a reading
when the galvanometer reas zeros
the current from the battery is flowing equally through both side of the diamond
and not baothering with the diagonal because the galvanometer will have
a tiny bit of resistance that will make the short cut pointless
at the point you know that the test- variable - resistance in the one side
is damn near equal to the resistance of the cable you are testing
and snce it is your cable
you know what length of that cable would have that resistance
allowing for earth return resistance....
hell the money would save if you knew to the nearest mile
how far across the Atlantic yer cable had failed

8th October 2024

we thought we would leave this hanging for a while
Charles Wheatstone was born 1802 and died 1873
the telephone was 'invented' in 1876
so the Wheatstone Bridge was not invented to test telphone lines
it was invented to find faults in
sub sea telgraph cables
and of course severed cables under sea are earthed by being
in the water
there may be people who remember a physics teacher called
Arnie Harker at Eston Grammar school
he left teaching when the grammar school was comprehensivised to Gllbrook
he went to b a labourer at the steel works and
after years of drawing a hydraulic jack cross section on blackboard
he was sent to bring one by his crew chief and
realised tha he had no idea what they actually looked like
cross sectional drawings for the marks but no photos of the actual item


on this particular occasion our Ricker was sitting quite comfortbly
in a hotel conference room in Newcastle-upon Tyne
and suddenly the doctor who was running the session said
Richard, what is speed?
and our Ricker reflexly said
distance over time
so
he has absolutely no idea whether
Kirchhoff's Laws
are covered in GCSE physics...
but a mystery that has lurked in his tiny mind for more than half a century
recently popped up like a released iceberg
it's fact that exam boards temd to tailor the scope of exams to
knowledge that may be useful in the future careers of the people that
they expect to be taking that exam
and so when our Ricker were a lad
people studying physics may have been thought to maybe later
get a job as a GPO telephone engineer
General Post Office
Kirchhoff had at least two laws
I3 - Is + Ig = zero
etc it all comes down to network analysis
here's the thing
because there are equations involved in
network analysis
the people who set exams will set questions that depend on
instant recall of a whole batch of equations and
the ability to slot numbers into those equationsBR> that formula is actually saying
we are discussing a Wheatstone Bridge
that is a circuit arranged like a square or rhombus with one diagonal
three sides of the square carry currents
I1 I2 I3 I4 and the diagonal carries current Ig
and you measure the current in leg g
and you vary the current by varying the resistance in I3
until the current in Ig is zero and from your setting of the resistance in leg 2
when Ig is zero you can work out the resistance in leg I1
we should start again and name them
leg T leg V leg F1 and leg F2 and leg G
T for test, V for variable, F for fixed and G for Galvanometer
that is a huge plathora of opportunities to do
sightly difficult sums based on an ocean of correctly remembered formulae
just the stuff of exams
but there may be a bonus mark for
name a significant use of a Wheatstone Bridge
ans. determining the location of a break in a telephone line
and that was always the question
how the hell does that work?
no marks for knowing how it works so yer
teach to the test, stick to the marking scheme tutor
won't bother your pretty little head with such things
marks for remembering the circuit diagram
marks for remembering the formulae no mark for knowing how the hell it works
snce in the world and age of fibreoptics
it don't work
we tell you how it used to work
telephone messages used to be transmitted as
electrical impulses
so the test leg or circuit is
the length of wire or cable from the test meter
to the break
and then back through the Earth contact the earthing sheath of the cable
if the cut end is dangling in fresh air....
the test leg will have infinite resistance and the distance from the
Wheatstone Bridge to the fault will be
to infinity and beyond
which is why there are two reasons for the earth sheath
one to make this test work - you hope
and to represent a Faraday cage to protect the signl from interferrence
but to be honest
you just send a lineman out to look for where the cables are
hanging loose or there's a JCB driver with a stunned expression
but it depends on having a galvanometer
to measure the very very small current that indicates
the very very very small resistance in the copper transmission wire
this item was brough to you as a comemoration of
our Ricker's great nephew's first day as an undergraduate at
Trinity College Oxford
Go Tristran
ut remember your kid brother bailey who is
a trainee sound engineer

7th October 2024

wot we fink is
the problem with the Redcar Central - West Dyke Road level crossing
wasn't an inadequate cable but a failing - faulty - joint
'they' seem to have dug up the sidewalk and not much else
what they have done this past weekend is
renew the track on the up line through the Redcar Central station
so we guess they plan to renew - replace - the down line track
the up line takes the polyhalte trucks full - laden
they go back as empties BR> hence less wear on the down line so it will need less extensive work

6th October 2024

as it stands what we can see is tht the track is being renewed
through Redcar Central station
we wait until tomorrow to see whether
the layout has been changed and the gates improved

5th October 2024

at preent there are 6 significant oil refineries in the UK
Fawley - Southampton. Pembroke - Wales, Stanlow - Mersyside
grangemouth - East Scotland, Lindsey - Lincolnshire, Humber 11
Famley produces 13 that is 15 per cent of UK consumption
Pembroke 11, Stanlow 14, Grangemouth 10.2, Lindsey 5.4
we could check but so could you...
we think of those
Grangemouth is listed for closure in 2025
and then Fawley will be the only refinery owned by
an oil major - a company you may have heard of
Fawley - Exxon Mobil, Grangemouth - Phillips 66, Linsey Prax
Pembroke - Valero, Stanmore - Essar
Harwich - Haltermann Carless
Carless owned this from the 19th century and as
7th largest , employs around 100 people one hundred
we suspect that the withdrawal of Exxonmibil from the Carbon capture and storage project
is an indication that they intend some time soon
selling it to some company you have never heard of
even more out there than
Hunstman or Ineos or Sabic or Sembco
Fawley enploys 2,500 people
producing speciality products
Humber is the only Uk producer of
Petroleum Coke
coke made from oil not coal
yes you can do that Mr. I wanna rip up the Lake District to mine coal
so the small quantities wanted by industry
for electrodes in electric arc furnaces etc
could be made if one refinery stayed open
so where Carbon capture and storage?
six refineries
Fawley 34 km from the nearest suitable site
5 refineries by next year
how many actually anywhere near a place to dump carbon dioxide?
if Teesside were producng any CO2 perhaps those dsused anhydrite mines...
but it isn't
it's yer classic solution in search of a problem
to clarify
the Carbon Capture and Storage project that was canned on 3rd october was
Exxon Mobil have withdrawn for a project to
collect carbon dioxide from their
Fawley refinering in Southampton and pipe it into presently water filled caverns
34 km away under a specific part of the English Channel
sometimes when you write stuff like this you end upBR> feeling rather silly
we have now discovered why we had an announcement of
funding for Carbon Capture and Storage on 4th October 2024
it was because a major oil company that actually has an oil refinery on the
South Coast of England
annunced on 3rd October 2024 that it was
pulling out of a scheme to lay a 35 km pipeline to
transport carbon dioxide from its refinery and
bury it under the English Channel
so this announcement on 4th October was
touting for a replacement project for the
hare brained concept

the Tees valley is pretty typical of
The North East of England
in one particular
there is some sort of desperate urge to
preserve its
'street cred'
in the face of reality
it is a gererally accepted assumption that in the borough of
Stockton-0n-Tees
there is a massive oil refinery and petrochemical - chemicals from rocks - facility
at the peak there were three oil refineries on the Tees
one on the south banks and to on the north bank
they have all gone
that is none of them are operational
one of the major operators went bankrupt and so
a significant quantity of kit
stands as memorial
the active involvement of Teesside in the
oil and gas industry runs to
a huge tank farm on 'Seal Sands' Greatham
that is operated by a workforce of around
270 people
two hundred and seventy people
here's the street cred bit
Wilton International
was developed around 1947 as a sort of overspill from the
petrochemical activities down by the river
almost every bit of plant operating on Wilton International is in one of two categories
to be charitable we could say
Wilton International is the major - 30 per cent
preucer and recycler of PET - milk bottle plastic
but most 'big kit' is nvolved one way or another in
energy from waste
the 'grubby little secret' of Wlton International is that most people working there are
working on pilot plants and research facilities
these people are essentially
not blue collar and not white collar workers
they are
white coat workers
lab techsBR> the major 'chemical engineering work'
occuring in the Tees valley at the moment is
swapping out new for old
valves and control gear
at the Seal Sands tank farm
it is just one of those little bts of bravado that
once upon a time
three Tees valley oil refineries had a tar-like residue or waste product called
olefin 6
and in the white heat of Prime Minster harold Wilsons
technological revolution
the olifin 6 plant at Wilton
was a thermal cracker that
turned it into ethylene
so that it could be processed into
polyethylene
polythene
nor it import s olfine 6 from God knows where
and crcks it into ehtylene to
burn in a waste to energy plant
on our ricker's visit - long long ago
it seemed to have a crew of around
half a dozen people per 8 hour shift
a couple of dozen full time permanent jobs
and some conractors popping in from time to time to do
the afore said valve swapping and similar
and yet
come opening time at Redcar Job Centre...
a huddle of old biddies
looking for work in the local supermrkets
quite a large population
quite a low unemployment rate
ball park half a million people and 6 per cent unemployment
with around a thousand people employed in
heavy industry
what are the economically active citizens doing?
well a whole lot of them are employed at the two major local employers
not British Steel and ICI...
James Cook university Hospital The University of Teesside
not much street cred there
and none at all in the local schools and supermarkets

4th October 2024

this is going to be a very incompetent chemistry lesson
from around 1927 to 1970
our Ricker's Uncle Wilf's work at ICI was as
transport manager for the cement works on the north bank of the Tees river
in Billingham
what ICI had there was an
anhydrite mine
the cement works recieved
sulphate mud from the plant that extracted
ammonium sulohate from the anhydrite mine
what happened was the rubbish from the ammonium sulphate works was uses alongside
chalk imported from soewhere like Chessire...???
so when you bought and used Ord Port
ordinary Portland Cement from ICI
in that era
a proportion of the clinker it was made from was waste from the
extraction of salts from anhydrite mined locally, very locally, on site
and ths stuff was transported above Haverton Hill Road
in buckets on what was called a Blondin after a famous tight rope walker
the web sites say that when the plant closed in 1970
production was transferred to Tinstead???
but it was actually transferred to Eastgate
up in the Tees or Wesr valley
waffle waffle waffle....
the point we are getting to is
the prime candidate for a new plant in Redcar to use a
Carbon Capture and Storage facility is
a cement works
cement works are big big business and they produce Big big
carbon dioxde emissions whaever fuel they use
cement is essentially chalk or limestone minus carbon dioxide

OK take a deep breath
Carbon Capture and Storage
imagine you build an electricty generating station
imagine you build
plant alpha
plant beta
plant A and Plant B, plant number 1 and plant number 2
side by side on the same site
but that site is close by to an oil refinery and a petrochemical plant
plant A is a multi fuel electricity generating station
plant B is the carbon capture and storage plant
the deal being announced today.... is this
if you - privte sector investors - finance Plant A
we the government will finace plant B sofa sa gud
what is the likely resut?
if this were a couple of plants built at a random location
or at a Natural Gas delivery import termnial
what would happen is - if the plants were built
the private sector would run both plants for a while and at some point
they would say
thanks for the capital investment but
we are in business making profits for pension funds
two issues
this is a multi fuel power station and NOW
hydrogen is cheaper than Natural Gas
and
the carbon capture kit needs upkeep and the grant was for
captal costs and not running costs
so we will be shutting it down the other scenario is that the two plants are near the afore mentioned
oil refinery and petrochemical - plastics - plant
plant B can be switched to doing carbon capture and storage for
5he oil refinery -Seal Sands - and the petrochemicals on Wilton International
we would call the power station Warrenby but that won't happen
BR>BR> we can sometimes draw too many conclusions from a little evidence but
on Mersey Road there is a campus of to Roman Catholic Schools
one for 11 the 16 children and one for younger ones
without any hard and fat rules
the bit of the car park near the Primary school is
sorta for staff there
and for staff of the secondary school further along the frontage
we noted - on one day - that approximately
ten out of the thirty Primary School spaces were in use
whereas
most of the - 80 per cent ?
of the much larger number of Secondary School car park spaces were in use
a pers on could conclude that
people are not pulling their kids out of sectarian schooling but
are not putting fresh crops into it
essentially people are probably concluding that
tinternet is undermining the concept of
special secret knowledge imparted by sectarian or fee paying schools
hence the 'ban on mobile 'phones in schools
don't bother your pretty little head about that...

we have a couple of pics of the Lidl supermarket Redcar Racecourse build
this week's main projects seem to be BR> put some sort of tiles on top of the Kingspan style planks on the roof,bR. and install the pre-cast concrete slabs that will become the strcture of a
goods lift at the service yard end



everything comes back into fashion eventually
we were talking about education and
the abolution of the grammar schools
using a different term we might call this
the removal of 'streaming'
meaning
every child is born eqyal and if they all have the same
life experience
they will all become equally succussful adults
what is happening now is streaming from the opposite end
grammar schools invested extra resources in the children
the boys
with the best potential
now
unequal investment is back but it is
extra resources for the
SEND children
special educational needs children
there were two models of comprehensive eduction
no streaming within schools - all classes multi ability
no streaming between schols - children separated within schools
the idea was that if the slow learners ate lunch with the quick learnersMBR> yhey would see the pont of learning
which they were not being shown by their home environment
the idea was
if children were being taught bad attitudes towards learning in the home
they could observer appropriate attitudes towards learning
demonstrated by the fast learning kids
at school
and what we get is
slow learners being on roll but excluded
and hence
the slow learners being given the special -m extra -educational resources
once invested in the children who shown promise

2nd October 2024

Cleveland Police is one of those police services that
competes
to be the first authority to secure a conviction under
new legislation
we recently read of a man given quite a severe sentence for
acts of voyerism
carried out form 2006 onwards
sexual offences act 2003 made voyerism an offence
unskirting w not added until 2019 - the Voyerism (Offences) Act
so there is a line here
we are encouraged to put CCTV cameras around and within our homes
but id they catch somebody
me cassa sou cassa
behaving in our home as they would in their own
flitting from bedroom to shower au naturelle
we are committing an offence in securing our home
rather as it is an offence to embed broken glass in the top of
a boundary wall
because the sacred cow burglars may hurt themselves
as they go about their 'lawful' occasions
we look to the origins of all this nonsense
the little old biddie
elderly woman
speaking about her life...
'I've had ten kids and
never seen anything I shouldn't'
and this is based on
a man gos to work
after work he goes to the pub or the clurb - working men's cloub
and he comes home after closing time
and he fucks his wife without waking her
thus for the woman
babies just happen

1st October 2024

a couple of things in the ongoing saga of the
West Dyke Road - Redcar Central - level crossing
firstly the down side or northern gate is now being
powered by a generator not the mains
secondly Balfour Beaty not Network Rail and going to do some work on it
over the next couple of weekends
this work involves digging up a part of West Dyke Road
all suggestions are that somebody ha concluded that the reason for the
continual failures is that
the electricity supply to the gates is inadequte and will be beefed up
there is now this cute little sign outside Morrisons car park that
informs people when the crossing gates are closed so that they can
op to change their route to the Kirkleatham Land rail bridge
all a lot cheaper that building a West Dyke Road railbrdge...

a couple of things seem to have happened to TV in the
Bilsdale transmitter area
nothing to do with Bilsdale
ITV 1 HD seems to have been removed from Freesat
on the other hand a second MUX seems to have been activated at Bilsdale
now insread of 15 chanels ...
for the moment at least...
25 chanels are available
basic ITV as before with the adition of basic BBC none of yer Quest and Dave and all that
perhpas the weather has closed in for the engineers and
they have decided to power up some services for the winter
it's hard to know - what with most people havng switched to the
version of cable called broadband
whether anybody will notice
to be specific if you still have a terestrial TV aerial
you may be able to get 25 chanels on Freeview
and even more specifically that will be a way to get
ITV News Tyne Tees because it was that that was only available on
Freesat ITV 1 HD

30th September 2024

we're getting into the weeds here but some detail about
secondary education under the
North Riding of Yorkshire County Council in the 1960s
prettymuch every grammar school in the county was ranked
firstly, Cleveland Grammar a s a girls. grammar in Redcar that took
only: day female pupils
Coatham took male teenagers - 11 to 18 approx
as both day pupils and boarders
some boarders stayed Monday to Friday
some a ha;f term at time
Eston grammar took boys and girls and no boarders
Archbishop Holgate's in York took bos including boarders
so far as we know Archbshop Holgate's was the top ranking grammar
in the state system in North Yorkshire
our Ricker was offered a place there but his parents turned it down
as an example
there was a week day boarder from Ainderby Steeple at Coatham
Roy Brown is a live to refute this but we suspect that he
'lived on a fishing boat on Redcar front'
because he was too smartfor Eston Grammar
but not smart enough for Archbishop Holgate's
so allocated a place at Coatham but
with a 'home' in Grangetown
was deemed ineligable for a bursary to
board at Coatham
and so some sort of arrangement was made for him to
attend without commuting
a commute tht we assume Paul Daniels made
so we are guessing his mam wanted him to go to the grammar and is dad didn't
so there you have the basis for a biopic.....

hen you are quite young and thrust into a new environment
you tend to absorb 'facts' and ideas in a rather random way
when our Ricker first started attending Coatham Grammar
Sir William Turner's School
not The Sir William Turner School
'cos for his heir Cumley built it out of the legacy...
anyhoo
back in the day 11 to 18 schools were run by senior pupils
there were monitors and prefects
and the prefects had there own 'room' or office
so our Ricker was told about the prefects in the same way as the teachers
and down the years the names Dack and Deadly Headley remain
but somewhere in this confused remembrance was the name
vasey
the thing is Royston vasey is 7 years older than our Ricker and so if they were
'at school together - even foe short time - Vasey would ahve had to be in the upper sixth
Royston vasey ran away from his childhood home in Grangetown at 14
and lived in a fishing boat in Redcar
and he spent time in Borstal
but the whole thing about whether he was 14 to 18
off and on
a pupil at Coatham is a mystery
could have been a different Vasey
but it is probably not too faciful to think that the reason for
Royston vasey getting into so much trouble was that he was
smart enough to be a grammar school boy
and that didn't go down too well
down his street in Grangetown
or with his mum's husband
just sayin'
we should add that the late husband of
The Lovely Debbie MaGee
she of the kitchen refurb ads...
a certain
lived in Grangetown and attended Coatham Grammar in Redcar
despute the existence of Eston Grammar??
and one of his sons was in trouble with the law
you see the problem with Cleveland Police
trying to do a sort of
one size fits all policing
one of the series of discredited
Chief Constables of Cleveland Police arrived saying
I've done police work in Port Talbot
i know what sort of people I will be dealing with
not expecting grammar school boys then?
it leads to a sort of society decaptating police state
right lads, anybody says anything you don't understand
get 'em sectioned declared mentally ill
and that applies particularly to
students at
The University of Teesside
wqnna get sectioned?
apply to Teesside uni

29th September 2024

sometimes you just hav to a ve a little chuckle
especially when it comes to local government
because other times it can get rght under yer skin
preamble
broadly, housing is built on farmland
farmland is often made up of individual farms naking up
an estate
each farm would have a name
and quite a common name for a farm would be
Grange Farm
it's kinda similar to Home Farm
and so around the country as housing spread out
lots of Grange Farms were buit over and,br. the community established would be called
Grangetown
so this is about the one in Greater Eston
not the one in Sunderland or whereever
so
what we can call ther Roy 'Chubby' Brown pub
The MagnetBR> was and it's rremains are in Grangetown
so the Hindus have a community centre in the locality
and not to put too fine a point on it
if they hadn't emblazoned it with signage declaring it to be in
Middlesbrough
they may not have been turned down by
Redcar and Cleveland Council
for planning permission to convert Thr Magnet into
a Hindu community centre
as it goes, similarly
a big chunk of Redcar's projected overspend in the most recent finncial year
is down to putting right the damage done to
Satburn Cliff Lift
by allowing apprentices loose in the place in the first instance

28th September 2024

last week a dinkey little mobile crane
with a suitable materials handling attachment
came to Redcar and installed the roof
Kingspan style
on the new Lidl store at Redcar race Course
it was a bit o a rush job beause they has to finnish
on Thursday beacuse it was gong to get a bit breezy on Friday
on Friday the open air market on the High Street
kinda didn't happen
meanwhile we see some activity at
Redcar Central Station
where RobertsonsBR> have the old roof off and ,BR> we suppose they will be spending the next year or two
carefully hand crafting a replacement

26th September 2024

we're gonna have to sort this out some time soon
but way down here....
we are not known for our fact checking
so we throw this in without 100 per cent confidence
Saks Hair Redcar
some references to
110 High Street (East)
we think that without much fanfare they have moved to
80 - 82 High Stree (East)
the former Halfords
quite appropriate all these people going into Halfords for
a respray
actually we don't know they do spray tan
anyway British Heart charity shop has closed
the vape shop on West Terrace or s it West Dyke Road?
has closed referring peopleto the Gusborough and online shops
most of the recent 'shop' openings in Redcar
have been barbers and hairdressers and beauty therapists and massage parlours,br. people are generally looking to High Streets for
sevices
goods, not so much
Dear Mr Bloggs
we hvw notie that you haven't yet booked a free flu vaccine
If you don't want one please let us know by declining the invite
To respond xxxxxxxx (expires in seven days)
xxxxxSurgery
nobody seems to see the problem for people brought up on
English English
what the writer meant was
It's time to book your 'flu vaccination
please use the link
xxxxxxx
to make an appointment
please access the link even if you don't want a vaccination
as the page has an option to inform us of your
decision to decline

numpties thinking they are reading English think
I only need to click on this link if I
wish to decline

25th September 2024

this is all getting a bit werd and out of hand
page design wise any how
what we are talking about is modern historyBR> anything post Second World War is
for the moment regrded as
within living memory and some people
don't regard that as history
history is what has already happened
but some people say 'but is no longer happening'
that is a disputed concept
most people don't recognise that due to shifting
War Aims durtng World War II
immense industrialsation occured in
The UK the USA Japan all sorts of places but restricting ourselves to
the UK and USA
there was post war a concept of
a land fit for heroes
and all sorts of industries
beating swords into ploughshares
style developments occured
broadly steel, coal, petrochemicals
turning out consumer durables
wahing machines, electric irons, and most of all
personal transport - cars
and people - mostly men
got jobs in these industries
on Teesside in the Uk this meant
Dormans - Dorman Long,but we will say - British Steel
and ICI
and couples presented with men having
well paid secure employment
a job for life
a feeling that at least within marriage
there was no longer a need to be careful
about how much sex a couple had
becaus not matter how many kids they had
they could always afford to feed aand clothe them
so families with ten kids were not out of the ordinary
twenty years of sex without contraception would equate to
ten to fifteen kids
and so we had the
baby boom and baby boomers the chldren of the baby boom
so tha by around the mid 1960s this began to worry
governments in the UK and USA and they
turned to God for help
more specifically they turned to the church
and particularly the
Roman Catholic Church
and kinda made a sort or routine request to the Pope
get your lads to endorse the contraceptive pill
utter astonishment in government circles when
The Pope went the other way
banniny any form of contraception except abstinance
in July 1968
we know that most people in the USA and many many in the UK
flatly ignored this pontification
utterence by the Pope
hat we know is that this
flattly ludicrous edict
broke a lot of people's faith
God is not THAT random
what we don't know is
was the destruction of Roman catholic Faith
the genesis of Evanglicalism in the USA
did that Pope create President Trump?

24th September 2024

today we will be mostly telling a story about
school teachers
we will call our main character
Harry Hindle
Harry was born a really rather long time ago
and when he got tackled in a game of footie
and his leg was broken
there was no NHS
and so his broken leg was not
set properly
so he walked around on two legs but one was a
peculiar shape
so come the Second World War...
he was excused service
and did some sort of course that left him with some sort of
science qualification
perhaps the authorities thought
radio operator?
come the end of the war
he found himself qualified as a
Primary School teacher
we'll not say it was whale Hill in Eston
but that sort of thing
perhaps he was being compensated for his disability
but he sort of did well in his career
his career path was not that unusual
being the male teacher in a Primary he soon got to be the head
and then when County Modern Schools came along
primary School headteachers were considered
ideal people to lead schools for children aged
11 to 14 whose education careers were expected to end at 14
so he got to be head of Eston County Modern
and then along came the Dissolution of the Monestaries II
the dissolution the Grammar Schools
and so Eston Grammar technical School was
renamed Gillbrook Comprehensive
as an aside
at the time Redcar had two grammar schools
one for boys, one for girls
Eston Grammar was co-ed - boys and girls
and for a little while the teachers from Eston Grammar who had
taught A' levels
were hived off to a short lived Sixth Form College
and harry hindle was seen as the natural person to lead
the comp that replaced the grammar
mind baby boomers.. on the same campus at the time
Stapylton and Sarah Metcalf so three comps on the one campus
lorra lorra kids sme taught in cloakrooms
baby boomers and ROSLA...
but you see, despite paper qualifications
Harry Hindle was essentially a Primary Level English teacher
and so
well English teachers are ten a penny
Science teachers, sports coaches, teachers who can
play the piano in assembly
they are too busy to train for membership of
the Hierarchy
and so schools lead by English Teachers main line on you can tell a good tale, can you sing
so we have schools Primary and secondary lead by people who
are immersed in story telling
in Fairy Land
neat handwriting , proper spelling and punctution and
creativity
with a sprinklng of not very difficult sums added for 'science'
most people can recognise a correctly spelt word
even if they can't remember quite how to spell it themselves
but for a simple sums administrator
daily returns on spelling tests represent accountability
so take an example of English homework
write a one page essay on
what happened when our house burnt down
since most kids hav never experienced having their house burning down
this will be creative writing not journlism
from a science perspective a better English homework task would be
write a page of text about your favourite
toy or pet
quite a bit more like journalism
write about the best meal you have ever had
is different from
what happens when mum has no food in the house?

23rd September 2024

we are going to have another shot at explaining the
trouble wif yoof
we are not sure of the extent to which individual
departments in govenment
run their plans by each other
we ave to say that generally a minister stays in a department
for quite a short time, a year or two
and they wish to make an impact in search for the
next promotion
we could guess that the
department ofr work and pensions - if that's what it's called
would want to help their minsters on their way by being able to say someting like
we have reduced the number of people claiming unemployment benefits
during the past year by X million
they don't need to say
by increasing the school leaving age from 17 to 18
would hey do that in co-opertion with the
minstry for education?
somewhere along the line
funding for unemployment benefits has to be trnsferred to
funding for schools
the minister for education can say
in the past year we have secured a ten per cent increase
over inflation, for schools
both seem like they have achieved something..
but nothing has happened beyond
rearrangng the deck chairs on the Titanic
that is a futile gesture in many ways but
that does not account for the response of the
Department for Employment who
on the one hand
arrange a longer period of education
and on the other hand
seek government funding - quite separately - for
infrastructure projects
to provide employment in the construction industry that are
classfied as
labouring
that is
you spend huge amounts of money to create
jobs that could be done by a person - a man - who could do tht job
with the education and skills of somebody who
left school at 14
but you have paid the department for Edcation to
keep him entertained in school or college until he was 18
and with nothing to do and feeling
no stake in society
due to being infantalised because
you're still at school so we will regard you as a
'terrible twoes' toddler
and underlying this are
a couple of ideas
females detained in school will be much more likely to
make positive use of their time in the chokie
and men of 18 will say assume that
they know the answer to why females
even the ones who use the extra school time to get qualifications
get pad less
reinforcing the idea that qualifications are a waste of time...
'how many women do you know who have
a wife and kids to support?
if the benefits agencies and family courts say
men should support - financially - their partners and children
they will have to be given preference when it comes to
wage settlements

21st September 2024

28th June 1914
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
it seems to us...
that every time somebody in the UK dials 999
or in the USA 911
and God it happens so very veru often
there's this very short sghted cartoon character in the past
with the catch phrase
what happened, what happened?
all the people in the emergency services are
listening in on their radios and asking themselves
is this the big one?
has somebody just rung in to inform us of the incident that will
start World War Three?
Muskie the Muskrat from the cartoon Deputy Dawg
It's possible, It's possible
so it must have been
Vncent Van Gopher
wh kept saying
what happened, What happened?
the gopher being a tunnel dweller with very little sight, vision
thus we see
the archutypal CIA agent as
Vincent Van Gopher
utterly clueless and brashly trigger happy

19th September 2024

just for once we will give a credit for a source...
northeastbylines
is what we have read to source this item
Teesvalley Energy recovery facility
all contracts are subject to review but our observation is that
at least at one time the longest train - rail vehicle - to be seen in Redcar
was a train of wagons bringing refuse - rubbish - from
Liverpool to Wilton International for incineration
hat is noteworthy is that the reputed largest incinerator in the UK is in
Runcorn
that Cheshire location was in the day a twin to Wilton in the ICI empire
bylines say...
there is to be a new incinerator on Wilton International that will burn the waste from 3.9 million people
and that is almost six times the population of the Tees Valley
th bottom line is
as technology advances the impact of stupendous industrial installations
on the local environment declines
but it is very difficult for the
not tech savvy individual to dissassociate the idea of the work
incinerator
from the experience of an old oil drum with holes punched in it in
a neighbour's back garden
the Liverpool contract was for all the waste from
the Merseyside Waste Authority
and started in 2017
removing waste from lanfill for the Merseyside and Halton local authorities
there are two major concepts here
incinertion is ? is it? breferable to landfill
what proportion of waste that is currently incinerted
could be
digested
with less environmental impact
if you chuck a can of diesel on a barbecue
you will probably get a huge plume of nasty black smoke
if you run an equivalent amount of carbon based fuel - petrol, gasoline
through a vehicle with an engine managenent computer and
catalytic converters in the exhaust system
you will hardly notice the fumes
you can't measure the amount of polution coming from a plant
by measuring the quantity of material being fed in
so, people on the outside can say
look how much rubbish Redcar is accepting
that place must be hell on earth
they're confusing Redcar with Port Clarence
to put it another way
noxious emissions from
land fills that leak or catch fire are
stratespherically worse that come from
moden waste to energy plants
that is something the people of the Tees Valley are well aware of
but the waste generating masses are not
the only fly in the ointment is
these plants - energy from waste - have a life of 20 to 30 years
it is when pressure is applied to halt their timely replacement
that environmental risk appear
we haven't analysed the source piece but we do note
as we said above
the waste arrives by rail
not by highway truck
there is some commetary from retired doctors in Newcastle on Tyne
that Teesside is already heavily polluted
suggesting the 'pain' should be shared around
we only have one annoying plant in Redcar
it is the olifin 6
it is only a nuisance when flaring for regular maintenance
when the oil refinery on Seal Sands is fully shut down
there will be no olifin 6 to be disposed of

18th September 2024

it is absolutely tru that way back in the days of
severe 'industrial action'
the three day week and power cuts
head teacher on Teesside prioritised
school dinners
get 'em in
give a hot meal
send 'em home
repeat
nothing much has changed
feed 'em with food and fairy tales

when we said
collective consciousness
perhaps we should have said
telepathy
but then again...
how many people who have done an
I'll show you mine if you show me yours..
are paranoid schizophrenics who
hear voices or have 'spti personalities?
people in the UK are slowly getting used to the idea that
economic 'crime' is being decriminalised and reclassified as
taxation by volunteers
off the books redistribution of wealth
social justice
and we do wonder whether if people in Victorian times had been
as wealthy as people of today
the police would ever have been founded
now we have a justice industry and in the context of
the legalisation of freelance taxation
it has become a solution in search of a problem
and the problem it has alighted on - as would a butterfly - is sex crimes
the wonderfull irony is
just as females are gaing access to
economic independence, contracaption, abortion
they are being denied access to sex
because for men
women and children have become
the only jail bate bait in town
there is no theft of a motor vehicle
there is taking without the owner's consent TWOC
the defence being
nobody was using itBR> it only becomes a crime if you cut it up and sell it as spares
in which case the crime is evading VAT
at the bottom line males are being told
you can do what you like
so long as it doesn't involve women or children
oh and you can beat shit out of anybody
so long as they are not an emergency worker
see if you make assault on an emergency worker a
specific crime
in the name of keeping down numbers in prison
you can gradually transform all sort of assault
not on an emergency worker
from fellony to misdemeanour
in the UK
all assault cases not involoving emergency worker
disposed of non-custonially an magistrates court
all assault case nvolving emergency workers
deal with at Crown Court with automatic detention
like the Swiss cattle with their cow bells
the sacred cows of the UK streets will parade under blue lights

17th September 2024

perhaps we should offer comic legends
Morecome and Wise
the last word on Huw Edwards
'the BBC tartan - small chques

some of the things that some of the
victims groups
and similar say about child abuse smack of
magical thinking
we can refer to our Ricker's memories of late night drama on the BBC
two old men for some reason at a reunion for boys who had been
at the same boarding school at the same time, long, long ago
and both were recalling
in the middle of the night creeping into
matron's bedroom
one for a hug because he was homwsick and lonely
the other to fuck her senseless
in toay's terms the matron would be guilty of child abuse with both boys
but if we widen that out beyond intimate contact
when these people say
every time a person copies or views a picture of a child being
involved in intimate activity
no matter how old that 'victim' becomes
the viewing repeats the harm to the child
it's a bit like saying
we seem to be living in the present but we are actually living our entire lives
all at once all the time
what we can say is
if you know somebody's secret
the fact that they shoplifted a chocolate bar when they were ten
or the fact that the first time they had sex was when they were eleven
they people who know your secret
have the fact that they know it 'over you'
and can bring it up with you in any future arguement
that does not require the replaying of CCTV images of the event
and
wht can be said is
perfectly reasonable
you have been my girlfriend and I have video of us having sex
and if you find another boyfriend I will show him the video
that makes sense
but what does not make sense is
despite you being in your fifties
there is video in existance of you having sex at age eleven
and despite you knowing at any moment in time
somebody may be viewing that material
you don't KNOW that somebody is viewing that video
it puts an old person in mind of an old time musician called
Alexis Corner
his band were called CCS
collective consciousness society
an idea that everybody's brain is a sort of mobile 'phone
tuned into every other mind on the planet and continuously aware of
what everybody else is thinking
CCS's instrumental version of Led Zeppelin's
whole lotta love
was the theme tune of
Top of the Pops
but the members of CCS were playing as
the Top of the Pops Orchestra
so the BBC didn't have to pay royalties to CCS and their record label
typcal BBC cheese paring
and probably why they keep recruiting trash and
getting their news channel to di them when their agents ask for more money
we think we detect a sense that the BBC incessantly has their
news anchors name checking themselves because
they want those anchors to
make the majority of their income from
freelance work outside the BBC

16th September 2024

there is an elephant in the Hue Edwards court room
it is the question of consent
for decades we have been confronted with all sorts of
contexts in which consent is not genuine consent
at one stage there were marriage vows that were designed to
settle the matter once and for all
a person - in those days a female -stood before God and swore
to this my wedded husband I give complete control of my body
from knees to navel
should have been the end of the matter
was quite effective when both partners in the marriage were
poor as church mice
and of course completely blown away by the introduction around half a century ago of
the concept of rape within marriage
that concept destroyed the nortrum
you've made your own bed
you must lie in it
there have been many instaances where a parent or guardian has regarded a
female under their control as
their one woman army against the world
a gold-digger
our Ricker has met two types in this context
women who have been TOLD to trail their coat for a particular man because
he would be a good catch
and the opposite
females who love somebody dearly but are told by their controller
I'm not wasting you - your youth - on somebody who will not
behave like a daughter to me
if people pay - in cash or kind - for sexual gratification
hey are comodetising sex
and there is a problem here
where do we draw the line between
chocolate produced by a happy, fullfilled and prosperous workforce
and chocolate produced by a miserable exploited workforce?
the things we hear about the production of sexual images are
the damage the creation and existence of these images 'do' to
the people featured in them
there would certaily have been an era in history when
people - particularly children - would not have been aware of
photography and certainly not the internet
does the harm come from the knowing?
our Ricker has photoes of himself at various ages and he would be hard put to
pick them out as pictures of himself if they were mixed with
images of other children
in the short term, for a while in a restricted locality
there has to be a possibility that a child could be
playing out and somebody who had bought a picture of them in
their birthday suit
may recognise them and conclude - probably wrongly - that
they are um for a bit of hanky panky
it appears to us that the target of these complaints is the nidea that
long after they have stopped looking in the least bit like they did when a child
they could be recognised by strangers who had seen their baby pics
and that sight would instigate a storm of lust
at the end of the day
we seem to be speaking of pictures taken without significant distress to the child
especially when we are talking about covert voyeurism
that may be construed in a sort of
blackmail, extorsion style
'you were up for it then
why aren't you up for it now'
style
and then we get back to the three 'male' adut categories straight
closet gay
out gay
setting aside trans male
a very important question for a society is
how do we regard somebody who is closet gay
do we regard them as a delicate flower who is
battling manfully against his inner nature?
and so to the concept that
we could any one of us under the correct circumstances become
adicted to methanphetamine, or heroin or cocain
perhaps that is true
but is it true that
once buggered a male, any male, would turn gay?
the difficulty we have in this is the
orhtodoxy that
females tollerate sex due to their economic dependency
and so
if you don't hold with the concept of a
female sex drive...
you can't get your head around the concept of a gay man
being overly in touch with his
feminine side
because.. feminine side? get job and up yours to all those pasky men
how many of these people who witter and whinge about
child abuse
think it is a staright man's cheapest means of contraception?
is there an underlying truth that
those who wish to be fucked are divided into
those whose ony offer is buggery
and those who can offer two choices
as we have said before the female has two urges
to have sex and to make babies
females will norally - we assume - steer most visitors to
the front not the back door
and that carries with it a significant risk of conception
so go for the little boys not the girls and
no chance of paternity suits
however, what analysis is there of the proportion of
butch gays
being
hung like a hamster and not like a horse
is there a population of butch gays who have discovered that
they are just not big enough to have a grown female get a
grip on them by traditional means?
so our response to the sentencing of Edwards is
what sort of solution is psychotherapy to
the problem of being hung like a hamster?

14th September 2024

being the adult in the room is sometimes amusing
sometimes frustrating
f a person sits outside the fray...
you see people battling with conflicting convictions
it's kinda like that old story of
the railway is closed because we have got
the wrong kind of snow
the wrong kind of food
the incessant drive is
the battle cry of public health is
THE CHILDREN ARE STARVING
oh and by the way they need bigger clothes
and wheel chairs and such because they are
obese
if you tell vulnerable people that they and their children are
starving
they will eat
and eat
and incessantly eat
children who are fed at a breakfast club...
babies and old people need a nap after a feed
they divert their blood supply to their gut to
facilitiate digestion
so
give a child a meal before school work and
they will stop
ADHDing
sit down to digest the meal and you will think
look
not dozing, concentrating on their learning
big win
want a wider hospital bed sir?


a place for everything
and everything in its place
our Ricker does that thing of getting tired and
putting something down and forgetting where the new location is...
so we will refer to
Jack Clough's dad
rather than get his name wrong
Jack Clough's dad did something a lot of steam train footplate crew did
he died of stomach cancer
from time to time somebody will produce an
infotainment
doumentary about steam trains and decidee to
demonstrate cooking breakfast on
a shovel in the fire box of a steam train
one of the early examples of
health and safety at work was...
the stats came in
most people who died of stomach cancer were
footplatemen on the railway
and the train companies responded by
punching holes in the shovels so the crew
couldn't do that
we really do wonder how many people who advocate coal mining
have ever come within half a mile of actual coal
the last batch of coke made in the UK
was made on March 20th 2024 at
Tata Steel's Morfa coke ovens in Port Talbot
so from then coke and not coking coal imported to UK..
in theory coke will be imported to run
two blast furnaces in Port Talbot Wales
and two blast furnaces in Scunthorpe Lincolnshire, England
Scunthorpe is reported to be planning to end coke imports in October 2024
with stockpiles to last until just before Christmas 2024
Port tabot is reported to be closing down its blast furnaces in September 2024
if a new coking coal mine were sunk in the English Lake District
there would be no local Uk market for the production
it would have to be sold on world markets
it is difficut to see how oal produced under
UK labour laws could compete in world markets
as a slight side issue...
the last three steel towns in England and Wales
Redcar, Scunthorpe and Port Talbot
all have rolling mills
lackenby Mills in Redcar and Skinningrove in Clevland are fed with
steel from Scunthorpe
the aside is
the electric arc steel furnaces are to be built
where the mills are
essentially
two in Port Talbot
one in Scunthorpe
and one in Redcar
a small win for Redcar as a result of
keeping its steel mills after loosing its steel production works

we don't remember quite when we last mentioned this but
we did make some remarks about
on shore wind farms with no
rotors, blades
visibly moving parts...
well
the latest we have heard is
there is one of these things at or on
the BMW Mini manucaturing plant in Oxford England
we are guessing they will be a bit safer and a bit quieter
and a lot less worrying than the
bladed windmils we get at present
time will tell
we think it will sort of
breath , awell and contract like a beating heart
on sort of
wind makes it sway and it springs back kind of basis
like a tree sways in the wind but as the wind drops a bit
it springs back to where it grew
to the shape it grew in
wind bends it, wind drops , it straightens
repeat


Three have told us that the 'phone mast
off Severn Road in Redcar is theirs
and the one on Queen Street has a 3 badge or plaque on it so
to our knowledge
Three is the only network in central Redcar with
a state of the art mobile network
but we could be wrong
we have noticed that mobile network providers do tend to
suggest you connect your 'phone through WiFi
in that sense
the signal is too weak to work through brick walls
so use your 'phone on
say - EE on the move and broadband indoors
this has to change
but here we are
5G limping and they're devloping 6G
we suspect 6G will not be 'better'
probably even more buggy and waek
so it's not surprising Vodaphone want to be bought out by 3

12th September 2024

Redcar Race Course
is a flat - no jumps course
it is one of the few if not the only English race tack with a
Straight Mile
now we have some dfficulty here because
some define that as
the only racecourse in the UK that to has a track where
if the shute is used - a sort of siding
a race can be run that is
a mile long and straight and level
so there is some sort of technicality
differentiating Doncaster that means Doncaster is not
absolutely the real deal
however
roundy roundy main track at Redcar is quite steeply banked in the BR> turns at north and south
long long time ago he owner
we assume Lord Zetland
decided to move - wholesale - the banked northern turn to the south
a bit
since the straight mile is on the grandstand east side
this did not shorten the mile but shortened the run out
the slowing down space before the turn
he did this because he had thought he would build a
condominium
a block of flats
curving around the outside of the north turn
that never happened
the track was moved but the flats weren't built
and so 2024...

Redcar is gonna get a Lidle store
right next to the Tesco that was built where
Recar RAce Course Stables used to be, as a Safeway
and the reference to
Robertsons and the part demolition of
the old Woolworths store on Redcar High Street
is that
this is now it is now and the builders have been given until
the end of November
to finish the damned thing
and Robertsons note that is not November 2034
re Redcar Central Railway station

11th September 2024

we want to offer a bit of consumer advice that is
very local to Redcar just for today
there is one mobile 'phone company that
has a shop in Redcar and has a mahusive 'phone mast in central Redcar
and other company has a similar mast down on the coast
other providers have lots of little masts
we can say that just at this moment
the bloody great big mast in central Redcar is the reason why are the people offering the best coverage in Redcar cown centre
however
to be more technical
remember Bilsdale TV Transmitter?
Freeview?
anyway
at the moment that is transmitting on just the one MUX
it is ransmitting 15 ITV and related channels on that MUX
at fairly low power
at some point
the guys on the 'reverse' zip wire will complete
putting the lights on the Christmas Tree that is
the new Bilsdale transmitter
and perhaps and we must stress perhaps
Redcar and cleveland will get
Freeview restored complete and at full power
and good coverage on all mobile 'phone networks
but for now
if your contract with O2 or Tesco has expired
and you're having to take your device out into the garden to
get decent service
the advice seems to be
go to the shop in Regent Walk and switch to Three
this is not forever advice
work in ongoing to bring all networks up to snuff


we want to take a little time to comment on
Labour Priorities and 'family'
we won't delve toay into the concept of
every woman or an age wth me mam is called auntie
we won't dig out the exact genealogy
remember Sherlock Holmes - a fictional character?
he had a dour but reliable side kick Dr Watson
but at some point readers were introduced to
Mycroft
Sherlock Holmes was the architypal
consulting detective
rather a long way from
the bounty hunter style private eye
but a person called in by the police when a case got out of hand
and the concept of Mycroft was essentially that
despite Sherlock being the most successfull detective on the planet
Mycroft was
Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother
and Mycroft - in modern terms - worked at the
Home Office
the UK term for the Interior Ministry
stuff ain't always as you imagine
this where our Ricker's family tree may get a bit mangled
because we can' t be bothered to go look at it
Jenny
we'll say she was a sister of Tom and Bob and Fred
some woman in the family married a bloke called
Clough
and there were two Clough brothers
and one had a son called
Brian
and the other had a son called Jack
and at a time - around the 1960s or 70s
Brian was off playing footy
whilst Jack was apparently living a quiet life in a little knot of homes
near Redcar called
Lazenby
Lazenby sort of overlooks Wilton International
what we have to say is that you have probably heard of The SAS is the army unit that is kinda close to a bunck of
James Bond characters but in army unforms not dinner jackets
the thing you probably don't know is that
the SAS has a smarter brother
the SBS
probably no longer around but at one time
the Special Boat Squadron
commandoes
and Jack Clough was in the SBS and he lived in Lazeby
n that is yer 'deep state'
but what we wanted to say today was
Jack Clough's dad was an engine driver
he wasn't the regular drver of
Mallard but he lived in York - not London
and as a driver trainer he got on the footplate from tme to time
and drove Mallard
you may think that driving a steam train is a very skilled job
and you have to spend years as a stoker - often referred to as a fireman
a whole different can of worms
years as a non-driver on the footplate....
before you know enough about trains to be promoted to driver
'twas never so
you may remember the concept of a soldier being excused boots
on account of the deplorable state of their feet
in the rel world
the driver of a steam train was an employee who had long service
and was allowed to remain on the footplate
whilst
excused shovelling
being a driver was like being
on the payroll because there was no pension scheme
so when you remove the shovelling
convert to diesel or electric
train drivers have a status a lot like
African people on the payroll because of slavery
a living monument to past heroics and exploitation
and 'doing a job'
that could easily fall withn the compass of
the conductor or train manager

9th September 2024

we have not had time to participate in
the supporting of the
2024 Olympic and Para(llel) Olympic games
but we do have a couple of observations
we are too far removed to understand the different
classifications of disability
so far as we know
equestrian sports are the only ones where
male and female compete together without separate
gender based awards
it is fairy clear that people who are competitive in
say
able bodied basketball
would wish to compete in wheelchair basketball
however people with some levels of
intellectual impairment may
be better at a given event that those of average intellect
the crux is
people with intellectual impairment will be
more difficult to coach
will take longer to grasp instructions and routines
there is a concept here that
a typical olympian may dedicate
up to 4 hours a day to training
but some handicapped athletes may
use training as
physiotherapy or speach therapy etc.
we think what we are trying to say is
to a greater extent than acknowledge
'difference' is more expressed in
training and caoching then in
performance
the pther thread is about the presentation
inparticular the 4 opening and closing ceremonies
we are pretty sure that
President Macron
originally intended these ceremonies to revolve around
a fully refurbished
Notra Dame cathedral
and it wasn't ready in time
and we suspect that plans for the ceremonies were delayed
in hopes the cathdral would be ready
and perhaps some cash intended to prepare the cathedral
to participate in the ceremonies
was spent on refurbishing the cathedral
we are not sure

7th September 2024

it must be really difficult for Redcar and Cleveland council to
seek out and maintain a team of utter fuckwits
Coatham Enclosure
look it up
when built it had a diving board and the pool was filled with sea water
it was a safe palce to pretend you were bathing in the sea
now
it leaks
it is probably being either filled with tap water or accumulating rainfall
when you want to clean it out
what other contorsions of the mind occur with the people who decided to
put a JCB with buckets into the pool
and not a
ROAD SWEEPER
it just beggers believe the inginuity displayed in the effort to
fuck up andthing the council do
the council motto
Build it
and we will fence it off

the form of words
shelter in place
derives from the Cold War and was part of
avice in the event of a nuclear weapon attack
it had two bases
firstly: nuclear weapons are so powerful none of our shelters
would offer meaningful protection
secondly
with conventional weapons casualties = walking wounded
need help but are not a threat
after a nuclear attack
casualtes may be contaminated and should not mix with people who
mayt not be contaminated
thei also applies to suspected
biological weapon attacks
when broadening this out to advice in acse of
civilian accident
fire or gas explosion
referring back to spaced out tower blocks
ifwe have an estate consisting of
tower A, tower B, tower C, tower D
and a fire or explosion occurs in tower B
people in towers A, C and D should
shelter in place to give the emergency services space to operate
but people in tower B should
evacuate as calmly and quickly as possible

6th September 2024

a little bit of 20th century history
a light to shine on what is happening in Ukrain..
President Putin lives in a 20th Century Dream World
he expected the tactics of the Second World War to work today
as we have said on a few occasions
not quite socompletely...
somebody said somebody like Ivan the Terrible did
Europe a great favour
he used genocide to do quickly and neatly the work of
famine and pestulance
he reduced the population of Europe to a level
the land could comfortably support
and in a sense he - or someone similar - was
more discerning
in case of famine and petulance
survival of the fittest really maens
deathe to the halt and the lame and the young and the old
in a genocide people are selectd for destruction on other criteria
mainly ethnic
and so
despite the 'the winners write the history'
both Hitler and Stallin were about
selectively reducing the population
not subjugating it
we don't really thinh the current UK and US governments
deliberately fail to tackle drug and tobacco use
to in the sense of the story of the old time dictator
enter the 'oval' office and leave a loaded pearl handled revolver behind
in broad terms
the First World War killed a lorra lorra soldiers and other combatants - navy
in the Second World War the proportion of casualties
amongst civilians was much higher
the British in particular set about reversing this change
from a British perspective it may be helpful to understand that
urban housing in Eastern Europe
had a lot in common with
The Tenaments of Glasgow
and here is a search term
fire storm
large amonts of digegent - broadly useless - were warehoused in
clearly defined multistory terraces of flats
God knows what 'Coronation Street' looks like these days but
most people in England lived in two storey terraces
at much lower density
except perhaps in London
perhaps 4 storeys
what the British authorities observed was that
a large explosive round - shell, whatever - could be lobbed into an
Eastern European city
and a fire storm could be generated that would lay waste in a way
not much different from the effect of a nuclear device...
because of the unstoppable spread of the fire storm
hence and thus
the planners two three courses of action
distribute the population to the likes of
Milton Keynes, Harlow in Essex, and such
for those reluctant to move so far
build isolated tower blocks which would have to be
accurately targeted to damage them and from which a
fire storm could not spread
because you left open space between
and thirdly
devise brutalist architecture
build everything from
concrete, steel and glass
so that they could not burn
then we hit the 1990s
and people start
buding these towers close together to maximize land use
and they start to
increase the 'fire load' in these buildings by
ditching brutalism and adding
all sorts of combustible contents
loads and loads of chip board
combustible chip board kitchen counter tops
instead of marble, slate and concrete
drapes instead of aluminium mindow blinds
the whole nine yards
and instead of a cast iron or pressed steel cooker
we start to set what would become
set on and infront of a ceramic tiles hearth and back splash
air fryers after deep fat fryers
directly on the chip board wooden lamnated kitchen worktops but most of all
hollow uPVC window frames that melt at the first hint of fire
and so President Putin has not achieved a single instance of a
fire storm in a 21st century Ukrainian town
but over and again we see tower blocks go up in flames in

5th September 2024

we did allow a small misdirection to slip through
we said
the French won't sue
the reality is that we are dealing with the
political psychosis that
politicians and civil servants are convinced
have an unshakable conviction that
the UK suffers from
mass unemployment
and so
if a French company can be forced to
crry the can for a tradgedy
that will 'threaten jobs in France not in UK or US'
and those who can read the figures and see there is not
mass unemployment
decide that the threat is similar in that
if employees are managed, supervised
pressured to work to more exacting standards
they will opt for a life on benefits
essentially
ask me to do my job properly and
I will go on the long term sick with
stress
and so
so long as there is only
inefficiency
and no children re harmed...
systems that fail are GOOD
because they generte
MORE JARBS
we note that quite a lot of people in Redcar have had their
double glazing replaced since the steel works shut
because the iron ore used to stain the white uPVC brown
and new windows are a worthwhile investment now because
they will stay white
and the major double glazing installation company in the town Hensons
has folded

4th September 2024

the new Zetland Marina
gets off to a bumpy start







the first thing we have to say today about Grenfell is
priority number one
don't add to the horrendous death and injury toll by
driving anybody involved to
suicide
the second thing to say is that the cladding involved was
never intended or desiged to be any part in any
fire suppression system
if it wasn't designed or intended to suppress fire then
even if it had some involvement in the spreading of fire
it had not FAILED
the inquiry had investigative powers that we don't have but
we refer back to the TV play or movie
Farenheit 451
when these towr blocks were built
it was gnerally accepted that a building made of concrete was
invulnerable
the premiss of the play is that fire fighters have been rendered
redundant because building are now built from concrete and will
never catch fire
and so they are re-deployed to
find and burn books
what we don't have is data on what windows were installed n
Grenfell Tower when it was built
we are reasonably sure that they windows would have been along the lines of
Crital Windows
metal - iron, steel or aluminium framed, single glazed
to us the essence of this tragedy s that somewhere along the line people at the council
decided to refurbish the block and fit double glazing
we did study the video of the live action of the fire
it was quite clear that
the window frames in position during the fire were
uPVC plastic
and they melted and fell out taking the glass with them
glass from the windows
and little or no aluminium from the cladding
would have been on the ground around the tower from the off
fire spread from one kitchen to the one above
after the kitchen windows frames melted out
slam dunk no doubt
steel window frames capable of holding double glazed units
would have been more expensive
the deaths arose because the
building standards officers
failed to communicate to the emergency services that
the building had gained insulation but lost
resilience to fire
after the plastic window frames were fitted the
shelter in place advice
should have been replaced with
evacuate expeditiously

perhaps not for the first time
David Millar
our pick for current world's best sports commentator is we've taken some pics of the finnish line on
The Stray
opposite Zetland Park
as before there should be a couple of turns up Saltburn Bank
in the past the finnish has been on the Esplanade but
well you know them lads from Robertsons need their space
they may want to
wander over the road from their snug to contemplate their
hill of beens
LLoys Bank seem to have taken over from A J Bell
as sponsor so the colour is now a lot like the
mouldy cucumber colour Middlesbrough buses had in the 1970s

it seems to us that Nerth East Ambulances have
homing pigeons in their dashboards
if the shout is to Redcar
nip over Locke Road Railbridge and off to the
Civic Centre on Kirkleatham Street
and run around a bit and see if anybody
flags them down

BR> according to our Ricker
Orla cycle racing anchor's
best outfit of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana
was the black jump suit with the Alice Band
and today
The Tour of Britain comes to the Tees Valley
note
paedophile hunting obsessed Cleveland Police have arranged that
anything that my involve
'children in the background being photoraphed'
s not held durning school holidays
so that
instead of all that Islamic headgear
to protect the female anatomy from the
whithering effect of the camera lens
all the women and children are
safely tucked up in school before the TV people arrive

3rd September 2024

we rarely consciously try to predict the news...
but we have a question for tomorrow
do you think that vehicle windscreens represent
a fire risk?
has anybody who arranged the
stunts
to try to demonstrate a fire risk from
aluminium wall cladding
ever subjected a winscreen to the same test
at Grenfell the finger has been pointed at
two sheets of aluminium separated by a thin layer of plastic
a vehicle windscree is
two sheets of glass bonded together by a thin layer of plastic
same difference
absolutely no egineering distinction between the two
essentially the response to Grenfell was
blame something French
not anything American
if we blame anything American we'll get sued

1st September 2024

here's a little quiz that probably doesn't figure in the
UK driving licence theory test

in a situation where you are travelling at
twice national speed limit
exempt from the provisions of various
Road Traffic Acts
because you are an emergency response vehicle driver
in a situation where a collision is inevitable
at what target should you aim your vehicle?
a bollard
a lamp post
the vehicle travelling in your direction in fron to you
a vehicle travelling towards you in an oncoming lane
a bit of physics here, a bit of maths
avoid the bollard and the old oak tree
the tree has seen it all before and the bollard is designed
to stop you dead in your tracks
the answers is the lamp post
the lamp post is designed to collapse sheer off in case of an impact
note
bollard here apples to bollards and not to
'bollards' on pedestrian refuges in the middle of highways
the illuminated box with the arrow
which like lamp post as re designed to sheer off on impact
and additionally have no electrice above graound level
the maths bit is a bit more complex
this is whay concrete lamp posts are being phased out
they are not impact safe
say the vehicle you are following is doing
80 kilometres per hour
and the oncoming vehicle is doing 80 KPH
and you are doing your routine 160 kph
if you hit the vehicle in frontBR> your closing speed will be
80 kph
if you hit the oncoming vehicle
your closing speed will be
240 kph
perhaps counter intuitively
but logically
in this situation you should aim for the vehicle in front
not the scenery or the oncoming traffic and
the the vehicle in front of you should
NOT BRAKE
only the overspeed vehicle should brake
because if the target vehicle brakes
from 80 kph to 60 kph
your closing speed goes up from
80 kph to 100 kph
if you see something out of control looming in the rear view
do not brake - gun it
so long as there is space ahead to do so

31st August 2024

we had a casual walk along Redcar High Street
yesterday and we thought we would estimate the
number of charity shops
we counted 8 minus two
minus two are British heart Foundation or similar
and
Kidney Research
the Captain is leaving the Kidney because it is
the only Kidney Research UK charity shop - in the world
and will be closing soon - he says
and the British Heart say they are closing too
YMCA, PDSA, Salvation Army, a Hospice
an animal welfare charity and some sort of church related shop
off High Street a merch(andise) shop - bought in goods
at the Lifeboat station
there ar empty units
some of them quite big - e.g. Wilco
but for the most part
when a shop closes in Redcar
it has been brought down by the collapse of a chain
back in the day
Redcar's department store
the basis of Redcar being not a one horse town
but
a one escalator town
Redcar now has two escalators - in B&M
installed when Regent walk was built and the
flag ship store was a Co-op department store
Uptons went when the 'family' sold to
International Containers
and they went bust tking down slew of
speculative buys
families buld up businesses
and then they sell out
as with Morrisons Supermarkets
or a family member with the wrong drive takes over
as with Wilkinsons - Wilco
and customer focus is lost
and they go down
same with the Co-Op selling Regent Walk to Beales
sometimes it can be difficut to know whether a
cheap shop
is a charity shop or not
in broad terms
Prime Sites are not these days - in Redcar
being loaned to charities to keep them looking active
charities are moving out or to secondary locations
the food bank is in Queen Street

30th August 2024

we know that during the summer when there is little or nothing on
the Downing Street grid - calendar of topics and events
people do get the chance to push an public relations pitch
and so we have items about
shop lifting
when shopping on line there is opportunity to brouse
essentally to read and record via screen grab etc
the fine print
bricks and mortar shops...
the bloke who owned and ran Coleman's Mustard is supposed to have said
the mustard diners leave on the side of their plate
represents my profit
people do buy several sizes and send most of them back for a refund
and so fitting rooms tend to avoid that
however
in food retail
the pressure is to try to get cuatomers to
shop once a week
and treat a visit to the supermarket as
an entry in an episode of the old time
TV game Show
supermarket sweep
the thing the supermarkets don't want is
people in the shop
reading the labels
if you are sprinting around the shop and
Tesco sell ginger and garlic in almost idential jars
at the very superficial level
you might hope that a proprotion of shoppers will
pick up the wrong jar and
if they are not doing self checkout
especially at the high speed staffed tills at Aldi
won't notice their mistake until they get home
and the jar will spend years on a cupboard and the customer will
take another lucky dip next time
hence, PR pressure to portray careful shoppers who read and compare as
behaving suspiciously
being potential shoplifters
generally in Morrisons a customer has to
ask permission to leave the store without buying anything
and a visit to Tesco
feels like a visit to a jewellers
Overall ther must be quite a ot of people
buying 'something' probably something they don't want
just to avoid being suspected of theft
a person can move from site to site to compare deals on the internet
without such problems
on the other side of the coin
since nowadays poor people get their food for free from
food banks
any actual shoplifting is some sort of
middle class sport
something to substitute for
walking through a field of corn
when asked to reveal the naughtiest thing you have ever done
a sort of rite of passage

28th August 2024

we have an observation about Voltaire that sparks the imagination
we think that Voltaire has come into the Tees and taken extra rotors on board
we are thinking it will leave with
a dozen pylons and more than a dozen rotors
a rotor being a hub with three blades attached
and so we are thinking that some sort of
cutomer engineer
remember half the Dogger Bank wjnd farm belongs to SSE
some real world engineer has certified this stack of rotors and
Voltaire will now go out and install a dozen certified topsides
and then removed half a dozen Able UK 'Gerry built' rotors
previously installed and bring them back to Able UK's yard to be examined and tested and install the super numerary rotors
onto the pylons the suspect rotors will be removed from
perhaps they intend bringing a random sample of installed rotors
back to the beach for testing

our Ricker's hit one of those
I'm waiting n for a delivery, i may as well write this up
Newton moments
Sir Isaac newton was given to saying
'this is how it is
I'll write it up when I get a moment'
bariatric surgery
GCSE human biology
digestion consistes of mastication - chewing - and
enzyme activity
and both start in the mouth
back in the day you did an experiment to show that
saliva digests carbohydrate into sugars
whatever
digestion starts in the mouth and
when you get hungry
mainly
it's because the digestive enzymes are being pumped nto the saliva
and there is no food in your mouth
and so you start to digest your own mouth
so we are a bit at a loss as to know how come
putting a baloon in the staomach to 'make it feel full'
affects the state of the nerves in the lining of your mouth
but hey what do we know?
don't stick chewing gum on shop carpets but
find something to put in yer mouth
not a fag or a vape
what the world needs is
chewng gum that isn't 'sticky'


it's a rum old business demolition and salvage
you want a crooked pub demolished?
it can be done overnight in one night
on Redcar High Street it will take years because the contract is to
keep 20 numpties off the dole for as long as possible
and then there's a change of government and
the 'scheme' has to come under review
so work stops but probably payments from the government to
Robertsons don't

27th August 2024

here's a rip in the space time continuum
question
why do the authorites evacuate neighbours in case of
a suspected unexploded bomb
and tell residents in the same building to
shelter in place
in case of a roaring fire in their own building?
the risk from a potential explosion in a
hole in the ground in a neaby field/building site
is greater than sitting on top of the flat below
that has turned into a barbecue for the Gods
this has to be some sort of hangover from
a post second world war drive to convince tenants that
high rise flats are as safe a houses
and the other thing...
politicians such as
metro myor Boaty MacBoatface
saying close doors and windows
and fire fighters smashing windows to disperse
smoke logging
so thay can gain safe access to assess and fight the fire
plus ca change plus (c'est) la maime chose
we thnk not

26th August 2024

this is a little story about the
Amalgamated union of Big-Hammer Mechanics
Voltair is back in the Tees with the load of wind turbine topsides
to took away in August
the result of a
blade failure on an installed turbine on th Dogger Bank
a similar incident in May 2024 was put down to
faulty installation on site
we assume that Voltaire has returned a mooring near to
Greythorp Dock
with the debris from the incident
in a sligtly different vein
Voltair seems to have taken up a routine of
docking at South Bank on the Tees for a day or so
presumably to dump rubbish and pick up supplies
a nd then shift over to Greythorpe to pick up
turbine topsides components
if the blades are flying off the hubs
the hubs are assembled to the hubs by
Able UK at Greythorpe
so the sooner they loose the contract the better
and professionals with
supervising engineers at South Bank take over

25th August 2024

regaring The One Show and such
we suggest a thought experiment
DNA sequencing and in parallel the much simpler
DNA profilling
have been with us since 1952 and practcicable since around
1962
so the challenge is
thinking entirely outside the box
imagine a world where there is no DNA profilling
how would you try to keep track of who
the birth fathers of children were?
in that sense we tend to use
father for birth tather or genetic father
and dad for socio-economic male parent
every female knows there is a clock ticking
there is these days
around ten to fifteen years before pregnancy is possible
and 40 odd years of life to live after pregnancy is possible
it's all very Mama Mia
ABBA
the drive in the female to both
have sex and get pregnant
the 'outside world'
male dominated world of officialdome sees
girls sex mad
if you're the father of boys you worry
but
if you're the father of girls - you pray
and there is the T shirt regularly seen on Redcar High Street
you can't scare me
I've got three daughters
they see girls as ex mad as an isolated isuue
and the drive to entirely focus on
suppressing
'unplanned pregnancy'
hence the term, now somewhat lost
family planning
but of course the females are often more interested in
'getting a dose of that'
when seeing a fit man
than actually having sex
our Ricker is one such who in earlier days has heard
one girl say to a pal as they walked by
I could handle a dose of that
the point being
in deprived communities
amongst the female population
if is the sex workers who hold the best chance or
producing a child who will maake t to university
because, across the piece
their clients will provide a better genetic basis than
family, friends and neighbours
the field available for sperm donation is
far wider than the field of candidates available to become
life partners
and females want a child they can be proud of
more than they want a child with a rich, arogant arsehole of a father
and one last song lyric
if her dady's rich you take her out for a meal
if her daddy's poor you do what you feel
or
took him minutes
took her nowhere
heaven knows, she's have taken anything
just GET PREGNANT whatever it takes
and then you won't be
a childless cat lady
and have to be Preseident of the United States of something
to distract yourself from being pointless

24th August 2024

first we should say that we don't watch the BBC show
The One Show
and that ever since
Carol Thatcher - duaghter of one time UK Prime Minister Margaret
worked on it
we have regarded it as a
nest ov vipers
to be more correct we regard it as having the
moral compass and certainty of
a bunch of five year olds
but this Primary School school yard bickering seems to have spread to all of
BBC news output
The One Show is in slot around tea time between home work and bed
where the audience will be
family but in a more relaxed context than the
almost excellent Breakfast output of the BBC
and so it is probably more in the cross hairs of what may once have been called
'The Moral Majority'
it will be interesting over the coming month to see what
BBC news 'journalists' do with themselves whilst their
routne target - The Tories - take a sabatical from being
scandal fodder
what was it? 'Pop will eat itself'
no fixtures so an intramurl kick about turns into
bloody internicine feuds
in short
who gives a fuck if somebody fancies a bit on the side
but
more seriously we don't regard it as particularly helpful for people to
ask five and six year old females
have you got a boyfriend
driving females from the very start into
serial monogamy
the old time pop song that echoes here is
Runabound Sue
she goes out with other guys
and more in the UK
Goodbye Ruby Tuesday
who could hang a name on you?
when you change with every new day
soon I'm gonna miss you
reference to females changing their surname on marriage!!

19th August 2024

we do seem to be living in a parallel universe
in our universe this past weekend
Redcar got dumped out of the F A Cup by
Pontefract
it's a strange world watching North East local TV news
and no Orla on the Vuelta D'Espania
sad so sad

we're at it again
efending a view on a matter of
little or no imporance...
somewhere around the pace we have a couple of
sea urchin shells
one ful size of unknown origin and one much smaller
but off Redcar Beach - actually not quite legal to
take things home off the beach but never mind
and if we could be bothered to photograph them and set their picture against a picture of a
hedgehog
you may see the resemblance
up until around 400 years ago
there were no hedgehogs
they were called urchins
and sea urchins were named after them
and that happens
something is named after something else and
the original or original name disappearsBR> and the point we are making is that
hedgehogs were probably named after
pigs were domesticated
hedgehogs are named hedge beacuse they lived in hedges
wow now we have to talk about hedges
search
quick set hedge
the enclosure acts
hedges were invented
there are no
naturally occuring hedges
they are set to create human boundaries
and the urchins took to them
and the hog bit is nothing to do with hedgehogs
sounding like pigs, they don'tBR> they are hogs because they snuffle
they gurub up food they way pigs do
and the bark
they don't squeal

18th August 2024

a climax forest also known as a mature forest is
a satble forest that has reaches its maximum development
in terms of structure and species composition
so has the popultion of Planet Earth decided that it is a
climax community
in terms
'we've had enough of experts'
or
don't let the adequate be the enemy of the inadequate
rather than
don't let the ecellent be the enemy of the good
no more 'progress'
all or effort directed to
equality
but then
Animal Farm - Eric Blair - George Orwell
all animals are equal
but
some animals are more equal than others
what did you learn on your work experience placement?
how to make an hour's work
last a week
the whole game is to sneakily con some of the workers
some of the time
to actually do something
useful
like all those kids slogging themselves to a frazzle to
get into med school so they an earn £14 an hour
while the horny handed sons of toil
rock up to a train driver training school to
sign on for £60,000 a year no questions asked
will that break down?
probably not
is there a chance of a
post Wall E - animated movie
world?
we think not
will there be a rise of the military?
people in the military o two things
they wait
and
they break things
and so we had a phase in the UK at least where people in blue collar jobs
went commando
they did not dig ditches all day like their forebears - fathers, grandfathers etc
but they acted like the military
turn up, wait around an if anybody asks you to do anything
break the tools


we haven't lost our suspicions that
UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer
is an alcoholic
what has 'gone wrong for him' so far is
bringing rioters to court whilst the story is current and
we are in the simmer news vaccuum
has given the lie to his assertions that
the rioters were
tourmoil tourists
and some sort of
ultra Tory political splinter group
all the people convicted so far have been
local to the areas where they rioted
and have been the sort of people who would
vote Labour if they voted
and are directlyin line with give the attempts to get
famous personalities with criminal convictions from
the days of the miners' strikes
what we lack so far is any idea of
which of this years convicts will be seeking pardons
as household names in a couple of decades time

17th August 2024

we messed up again thext about a pic that didn't show
corrected now??
for the benefit of Mr kite...
Beatles reference
for the benefit of the Harbour Gnome


this past week
design contractors and build contractors for
the Redcar Gas Fired electricity power station were appointed
the taan on a slant is a road tanker delivering cement
not concrete or mortar but cement powder the the two vertical siloes
so we can say we are 'celebrating' the commencement of construction
the other pic - there - is a pic of the layer cake
the remains of the Redcar Blast furnace
to mark the fact that the
site remediation team have reached the actual
Redcar Iron Works site and are
pulling up the foundations of the 'old' 1970s plant
after spending years messing about with a load of long derelict land


well ain't it the truth
always something to write about...,
our Ricker had an interesting encounter this morning
on the face of it was with
the Harbour Police's pet gnome
what was suspicious about this character was
given the significance of Tees Road to
the South Gare Litter Picker volunteers
and he was on the South Gare Road and
never heard of Tees Road
so the suspicion had to grow that this was not even a plastic cop
but somebody just dressed up for a fun day out
shout out to the two lads NOT installing a water main on the steel works side
of the south Gare Road fence
a lot of football to be discussed before
diggin' a hole
but it does raise the question about Redcar getting
more like Los Angeles every day
on the basis that
if you are not within ten metres of a vehicle you own
you must be homeless
where are they gonna put all those trucks when The Olympics goes to LA?
a note about Taygating
freshly banned youth entertainment
broadly speaking in the US
tailgating is not drivng too close to the vehicle in front
it is setting up a barbecue out of the tail gate of your truck
in the parking lot of a sports stadium
tailgating... Tygating Taylor Swift
nothing to do with the stadium gates

16th August 2024

don't say we didn't warn you
the car on it's side his
whte with blue stripes...
it's like pissing in the wind
there are certain people who need to get out of their heads the idea that
speed limits and other traffic regulations are NOT
designed to impede and restrict the lives of
In Harry Potter terms
muggles
non wizards
people not members of the emergency services
they apply to everybody because they are judged to
make the roads safe
there hs to be a serious look at training over such matters as
when to abandon a 'hot pursuit'
in this case the 42 year old driver who was being pursuied
ut was not involved in the crash
was quietly picked up by police within an hour or two of the incident
and it will be difficult to sustain charges against them
in relation to the crash although dash cam data from the pursuit may
represent evidence of carless driving or speeding
the police office involved went to hospital but
we doubt we will hear anything more about that
just look at
how far the oncoming vehicle was off the carriageway and onto the sidewalk
before the impact
position of the rea wheels
and how far her? car was dragged into the carriageway by the impact
position of the front wheels
she? could have been forced over the edge of the embankment
by the force of the impact
forfunately the cop car took the brunt of the impact
because the target vehicle was stationary and probably had brakes engaged

15th August 2024

we don't know what has happened with the cyanide in the canal but...
there re two likely options
manager on holday and someody left in charge has made a mistake
or
closed for the holidays and a contractor or resdent engineer has
emptied a tank for renovation or development work
our eduated guess is te material involved would be around
2,000 litres 400 gallons of really quite dilute sodium cyanide
dead fish may have been killed by the snap of hot weather
slow moving water in the likes of canals can easily get
oxygen depleted in hot weather
we would guess around one kilo solid sodium cyanide

12th August 2024

this is a dark day for our Ricker
he is desperately tryn to fight off a
complete meltdown
oictured below
the railbridge deemed unsuitable for emergency vehicles
the road sign the basis of that designation
that wasn't taken down when the
no right turn sign was put up
how fuckn' stupid do you have to be to get a job at the council

11th August 2024

Daddy Hog
we've taken some pictures of Locke Road railbridge
you know how much of a chore we regard publishing pics but we may get around to it
the essence is
if your satNav tells you to turn off
Corporation Road Redcar onto
Locke Road
it is with an e because it's named after Dr Locke
who gave the land for Locke Park
what you are confronted with is a narrowing road
narrows after the entrance to the park car park
which appears to be on a bit of a hill
we have not mearsured this hil accurately but it rises for around
160 paces so perhaps 80 metres
there are several problems with this
you will have no idea - there is no signage
tht you are approaching a railway bridge
three problems
the north side descends to around the same level in 60 paces
around 30 metres
at the bottom is a cross roads
the straight ahead road is not straight ahead
it is a dog leg from the left around the cricket ground
oncoming traffic swerves effectively across your straight ahead
o pass you on the right hand side
and 30 metres from the crest of the hill
as Locke Road becomes Trafalgad Terrace
Kirkleatham Street constitutes a cross roads
dead ahead is the entrance to the cricket ground
oncoming traffic will not be coming at you from the entrnce
to the cricket ground but from behind the cricket ground hedge
resident parking is permitted on Trafalgar Terrace
the island at the foot of the north embankment is
a traffic island
not a roundabout
traffic heading for the council offices will pass
to the right of the island
both sides of the traffic island and
for two way traffic
the island is part of Kirkleatham Street
not Locke Road or Trafalgar Terrace












there was quite a domestic around our Ricker's place
on Sataurday evening
not to put too fine a point on it
Daddy was barking instructions at Mummy
it had our Ricker come running
we think barking is the best description of
hedgehog vocalisations
but that nest is Mummy's nest, end of
it's an interesting bit of evolution
if a hedgehog's main predator is a wolf, fox or dog
they tend to bark
so perhaps a hedgehog barking will send a message to a predator
but more likely firghten a rival hedgehog

somebody woke up dead this morning in her home in Henry Street...
somebody else was inconsolable about it
our sympathies all around
BUT
we got the Air Ambulance and a couple of police cars
OK
and a DCA
a DCA is a double crewed ambulance
what we didn't need were three
THREE
count 'em
Ambulance Service Rapid Response Cars
the second and third and perhaps the first
since they were all lined up facing the Esplanade
had not approached using Kirkleatham land Railway Bridge
but had trvelled north on Locke Road Rail Bridge
the second one to arrived
running blues and twos
turned off Corporation Road onto the embankment of the railbridge
two thirds of the way up the hill
as a live in van conversion
a scrapper of n old van
with the ambulance car
we nee to say these cars are estate cars or station wagons
with the majority of the interior packed with kit the likes of
defibrulators etc
no room to carry a patient
what did the vn do?
slowed down
RRV moves to overtake
RRV looses control and snakes up the top half of the hill
there is no way on God's Earth that RRV driver had the slightest idea
wheather anything was oncoming on their adopted side of the road
or anybody was crossing the road just over the hill
three points
don't slow down for Blues and twos
emergency response vehicles can do
three times the speed limit
gun it until you get to a wide part of the road and then pull over
second what in God's name is wrong with Kirkleatham Land Railbrige which
does not have restricted views
third
why are ambulance vehicles on
open radio?
why are they not being tasked by despatch
and if they insist on privateering
why are the second and third vehicle drivers not told
cool it
'Enry's already on scene
we hope the driver of RRV 2 got the fright of their life this morning
but if not some dy soon somebody is gonna put
a very big dent into one of these RRVs
probably with their hips


we do not make a habit of publishing corrections...
we said something along the lines of
SAAB invented the car seat belt and
didn't patent it
not exactly correct there was a guy who worked for SAAB, an engineer
when he worked for SAAB he was working on
ejector seats - -erhaps more correclty ejecting seats
and part of designing an ejector seat is to
keep the occupant in the seat during the process
so he invented a form of harness to be waorn in case of the need to eject
then he went to work for Volvo
and apart from James Bond
people don't generally have ejector seat in road cars
interesting that some professional - race - drivers
resisted seat beslts because the preferred the idea of being
thrown clear
in an accident
there is and never was a simgle simple patent of the car seat belt
but it has to be admitted that it was Volvo that made a point of
patenting the three point linkage but making the patent
open
that is
not seeking roylties or licence fees for use of the idea
we should also note tht it is UK company Martin-Baker
not SAAB who make real world ejection seats
somewhaer along the line the guy at SAAB
simplified the harness from the type worn by race car drivers
to the simpler sort worn in cars
all of which in the US was set aside somewhat by
air bags
so people who resisted buckling up
could still have their survivl chances increased
but crumple zones and all sorts a rock
play vital roles in that

10th August 2024

as we understand it
there are a couple of sailings each week each way
between Redcar and Zebrugge
they are RoRo freight ferries with no accommodtion for pasengers
other than vehicle crew
this one was in Redcar on a Saturday morning
P&O and another carrier are involved
RoRo means roll on roll off
freight on trucks not craned aboard
how much this is a new development we don't know
one carrier describes the doack as
3 miles from Middlesbrough and
sx miles from the North Sea
we're not quite sure about that




when you REALLY need and ambulance...
t won't have blue lights and a siren
this visit at Flemings Field in Redcar seems to ahve been
a bit of a false alarm
at a complete guess...
somebody fell off a ladder trying to trim a hedge

6th August 2024

we've done a bit of research and some of this is from memory
1947 India independence from the British Empire or Commonwealth
anyway
we think the vice-Roy was Earl Bountbatton of Burmah
that's Earl Louis Mountbatton Earl being a title, something like that
and the thing went down a bit like the independence of Hong Kong years later
but the British sorted out the partition of South Asia into
Hindu India
and
Moslem Pakistan
and the British monarch - king then queen
was head of state in Inda for a couple of years
and in Pakistan for about 8 years
counting from 1947 the British monarch was only hea of state in Bangladesh
whilst Bangladesh was part of Pakistan or the united - pre-independence - India
all of that is complicated by the fact that to some extent
the British encouraged people from South Asia to go work in
East Africa
and so ex UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's parents were
'Kenyan Asians;
essentially people sent to East Africa from India by the Britsh
and then sent to Britain by ethnic African politicians in East Africa
so Rishi Sunak would be Indian and Hindu in origin and religion
but perhaps never lived in India or East Africa
the thng we have at present is
chickens coming home to roost...
in having had several generations in the UK who were told
don't bother with school
don't bother wih the Job centre - Labour Exchange
just go down the steel works when you get to 14BR> and they'll put you
on the pay roll - for life
and that has been seriously erroded from the 1970s onwards
and kinda it's only abroad like America where you have companies such as
Microsoft and other tech monsters who can do what
steel works did in earlier times and take tens of thousands of people
on the pay roll to
watch the world go by from their office window
if you ask companies to pay tax
they won't be able to have window watchers on the pay roll
so politicians say
make work pay
but they mean
get people off benefits and onto company pay rolls
how do you fatten up companies that don't have
market dominance - are subject to competition for
all but government contracts
whilst still paying benefits to an increasing band who
even with a company car
would not be physically or mentally able to commute between
home and office?
we;ll give you a government contract if you put
ten thousand people on your pay roll and never ask to have them visit you
and by the way
we'll charge you with
malicious communication
if you try to contact them

5th August 2024

broadly speaking the British
The British is actually a term often used for
North Europeans and included Dutch Holland and Germany
did one very good thing and one very bad thing in
South Asia
because of their domination of transport
ships navy etc.
The British dominated world trade
the one big good thing for South Asia was to
build the railways
the one bad thing they did was to
export heroin - opium - from South Asia to China
South Asia was never 'independent' before
Britain handed independence to India in 1947
it had always previously bee a part of one empire or another
most famously the Moguls
anyway
South Asa around a couple of centuries ago was very similar to
the West Midlands of England
what The British traded from South Asia was
spices - including opium - and trinkets - fancy little bit of jewelery
and high quality textiles
all 'renewable' products
there was no major removal of irreplaceable mineral assets
as China is currently accused of stripping from Africa
hence South Asian historians of economics say
if South Asians had invented
steam ships and steam locamotives
they would have dominated world trade
and been much wealthier
well perhaps, but it didn't turn out that way
The Britsh cashed in on industrialisation and employed
people of South Asian heritage
both in South Asia and in Britain
in hindsight, example
SAAB the Swedish aero manufacturer
made cars
and inveted the car seat belt
and decided not to patent it
for the common good
SAAB no longer make cars
what level of altruism do people demand under
noblese oblige?

BR> over the past few weeks we have had a perfect example of
the BBC British Blur nd Cant
gaslighting the British people and the world
there has been unrest in
Bangaladesh over perks for veterans of the
war of independence
flat statement
leaving it in the air that this was
independence for???
Britain of course
WRONG
Bangaladesh has had three trenches of independence
India got independence for Britian
Bangaladesh got independence from Pakistan 1971
and it is veherans or the Pakistan- Bangaladesh war
who have these perks
milions of people in Bangaladesh accords to the late
George Harrison - a Beatle


waddaya think a police service could get for £88,000 year - at 2014 prices?
we can tell you one thing the chief constable thought wasn't needed
Cleveland Police UK
seems to get through chief constables and
police and crime commisioners at the same rate as
Sunderland AFC football club gets through managers
or head coaches
the one in question is
Jacqui Cheer
and she thought
£88,000 a year?
Hmm
we're paying that to have a mounted division
I think we can find something else to spend that money on
so for ten years on mounted police in Cleveland UK
and
quite honestly you have to say that what we have seen lately
has nothing to do with
politics
no footie?
we'll go for a rumble anyway
we should just add a note about
Rotherham - since that is a town involved here
a lot of stuff about
'child' exploitation and Rotherham
liberated young white females
having it off with repressed Asian males
and the elders of the Asian community
dobbing their youth in for
having sex before or outside marriage
that's 'not integrating'
that's 'tell yer mother ar saved ya'
Asian elders deciding the morals of white females
to keep their streets like the 'old country'

4th August 2024

this is a point at which we may need to spend some time unpacking
asylum seeker
there are two main groups of non-British nationals with some right to
asylum in the UK
there are quite large numbers of people from around the world who
fear persecution in the land of their birth because of
a desire fro a more progressive lifestyle
they range from young women wanting a more liberal participation in society
along the lines of female emancipation in the 'West' through the 20th century
to people who have failed to disguise or hide a particular routine trait
such as being gay
these will normally be in southern Europe - Spain , Portugal etc
and all sorts or Middle Eastern and Asian communities
clearly there is no way all the youth of half the world can
decamp to Hampshire
there is a need for diplomatic efforts to ease the transition to
modern social norms for these people
within their native lands
the second group is the one our Southport perp belongs to
and although his type is worldwide
his problem is particularly acute in Africa
people with physical and mental abnormalities have since
time immemorial been regared as some sort of variation on
possessed by demons
it is absolutely no use whatever thinking that they will
'come right'
if we are nice to them
and they need - if they re not to be executed by their family and neighbours
to exorcise the evil spirit
to be housed in a safe place and kept from doing harm
at the bottom line
we don't need more prison places
we need more long term psychiatric care
it is absurd to see a plant flagging and water it and then see if
bloss up - another dialect term
and conclude that it is 'cured'
and put it back in the blazing sun without further watering
it is clearly a variety of plant that needs constant care
a nutter who improves in the nut house is still a nutter
and needs to be in a nut house
end of
eople who can exhibit normal behaviour in
extraordinary circumstances
cannot be assumed to be able to
cope well with everday life

we seem to be in for a fit of
terminological hyperinflation
if you have a left wing government who regard themselves as
centerist
having a monopoly on calm discourse
and they can't tollerate the term
right wing
or right leaning
and everybody who disagrees with them has to be called
hard right...
we then with have to go down the route of needing other terms
before long there will be use of
ultra right wing
and other terms will be invented and emerge

the trouble with immigration is
it's a bit like a play date or a sleepover
if it gets out of hand
it's yer own kids you shout at
we all know that after a few years when the immigrants
have bought up a few billion's worth of the UK economy
they'll go back to the old country
and run for president
and they will mkae the
'international laws for future generations of Brits


this is gong to be one of those tedious sloggs through
stateing the bleedin' obvious
if you want to re-paint the
Newport Bridge
whichever Newport you ar thinking of...
you need to hire a gang of painters
if you want your living room decor changed
you need to hire a painter and decorator
but
these days
yer bridge painters won't work off a rope and
a boson's chair - a plank
you gonna need to hire scaffolders to put up and take down
scaffolding
but more to the point for you living room you may feel the need to
hire an interior designer
but you will almost certainly need to hire
a painter
and
a wallpaper hanger
the essence of university life is that
tutors, dons, professors
don't feel comfortable teaching and assessing
students who are smarter than them
to they set a lower intellectual band for their students than they
feel the themselves occupy
an so there is a downward spiral of
innate ability in the graduates of any particular
university department
and so
we don't produce doctors - medical paractitioner doctors
we produce
specialists
and now you can't call out the local GP to attend a road accident
you need three or four different types of
paramedics
interestin how a
paramedic is more skilled than a doctor
but a paralegal
is less skilled than a solicitor
so yu have a doctor who
doesn't do sick or blood
so you need a domestic to clean up after patients
while they get on with their dying
who'd a thunk it
doctors who can't prescribe some drugs
and non-doctors who can prescribe some drugs
less to cram into their overstrained little minds
hence the need for
more and more staff all of whom want
to be called 'consultant' and
and own three acres and a Jag
there will still be people alive today who remember
Doctor Finlay's Casebook
a time when the Health Service was the local GP
but in those days
to be a medical student you needed to
play rugby and be the son of a doctor
so that yer dad had taught you all you needed to know
for your job as a doctor
before you arrived at medical school as a doctor because
all the 'tutors' were and are
patients in need of sheltered employment

we want to add a little note about hedgehogs
if you think about
bush babies and owls
they work all night and sleep all day and
they have very big eyes
we are not sure because we were not there at the time but we
suspect that the maor traditional predator of hedgehogs would have been
wolves when there were any
and foxes to the extent that they still exist
and so with big snouts we assume that hedgehogs
sniff out their food and
they hide away at busy times because they think
stay home until all the pet dogs have gone home
and go out when it is quiet so that we can hear the better
if there is danger
essentially hedgehogs don't have directional ears
that can be turned around to scan like a rabbit or a hare
so they hear a noise and don't try to figure where it is coming from
they just freeze and maybe roll up
hedgehogs are not stupid as such but they are
stubern
if something gos wrong they just keep trying and get themselves in
deeper and deeper


this bloke from Southport...
through his life not just treated with
kid gloves
but
lionised
held up as an exmple of a brave lad dealing with his mental
his neural diversity
we would ask
would he have been regarded in the same way if he had been
Irish or Roma?

3rd August 2024

ths is the time of year when
hedgehogs will probably be out and about
a couple of thngs...
people tend to sayBR> if you see a hedgehog out and about in the daytime
it must be in distress so call the sanctuary...
hedgehogs don't have to worry too much about predators
however they will stay home until it is
QUIET
not necassarily until it is dark
they are pretty much as difficult to see in dylight as in the
short bright summer nights
the hide away completely in the deep dark of winter
a hedgehog has a nest under our Ricker's decking
and she has two babies
and the thing about baby hedgehogs at this time of year is
first they lke to get out and about in daylight to
get their bearings
like you can get around a darkened roo better if you
know the layout from daytime
second and very important
at this lime of year a baby hedgehog is the size of a rat
the easy way to tell an baby hedgehog from a rat is
hedgehog - no tail
rat tail as long as it's body
so give them a bit of space and
we suppose the experts will know what food they like best
by this time of year they are probably la ctose intollerant
but feed them ,perhaps but don't scoop them up to a wildlife centre
just because they are out in daylight
only if they are pretty clearly in distress

2nd August 2024

there is a form of video production that is called
infotainment
informative entertainment
home and car refurbs, up-cycling that sort of thing
we understand that there was a link between on of the best
Mythbusters
and one of the worst
Overhaulin'
there was also a UK version of Overhaulin' called
Car S O S
Overhaulin' and Car S O S were charcterised by
pranks
the two elements of infotainment that are most corrosive are
pranks - on participants - on the lines of
I'm a Celebrity ( get me out of here)
and synthetic jeopardy making a documentary about a work process and
contrivng an emergency or ten, along the way
the Britsh Film Institute
will probably provide you on request with a copy of
a BBC TV drama of around 1968 called
The Year of the Sex Olympics
Big Brother, I'm a Celebrity 90 day Finacee
in 'The Year'
people are divided into
low-drives
and
high-drives
perhaps a typical example of a high-drive would be
Bazeljett
Sir Peter Bazalgette
member of the UK government's Board of Education
his company Endemol developed the TV franchise Big Brother
the whole concept of infotainment is to bring to solid form the
myth of
re-arranging the deckchairs on The Titanc
get the masses to emote with vigour about as a distraction from 'serious issues'
as with the army recruit looking forward to
passing out parade in front of family
and not death in the mud of the trenches
let psychopaths roam our streets whilst we suffer agst about whether in dress
this season
red and green should ever be seen
bread and circuses

1st August 2024

as usual we invite you to make your own Google or similar search
but
the Uk government owns around 20 per cent of
the NatWest bank
the bank is worth around 700 billion Great British Pounds bank rate will fall to a workable level when, as soon as,
His Ma Government has sold off the remainder of the shares
150 billion or there abouts

and the other reason for the Crown Prosecution Service keeping the
Southport 'kid' out of court for 'so long'?
to give time for his famiy to be set up with new identities


on the face of it
the police in Southport had a suspect who was
'bang to rights'
and so the delay in charging would normally be
news management to be able to make a space in which to
milk the Edwards case to the max
that is the most probable explanation
however
the may have been deliberations on the matter of
'is the defendent fit to plead?'
to clarify
we have suggested that the fact that the suspect
now a defendent
is 17
is he
17 years and 360 days old?
was he wanting to secure his place in a mental institution but
without publicity and on favourable
tried as a child terms
he could be tried as an adult
he could be named despite being under age
these are issues that may or may not become clear in time
the Edwards case brings up the concept of
afate worse than death
and
a life devastated and destroyed
these concepts relate to an era
past - at least for the time being in the UK
when sex offences were pretty much all about
putting a woman at risk of chieving an unwanted pregnancy
in a context of abortion being forbidden
there is ths massive expansion of the scope of
indecency
to cover all sorts of things with no direct link to pregnncy
it is a bit like HASAWA
the Health and Safety at Work Act
insisting that workplaces keep well maintained stock of
candels and oil lamps
in case the electricity supply is interrupted
i.e. no consideration of battery powered torches
the battery powered torch being the morning after pill
when a piece of legislation shows signs of becoming redundant
professionals within the justice industry will seek to
alter its raison d'etre - reason for existing
to keep the work load high
within the industry
so laws on sex shift from being about suppressing unwanted pregnancies to
upholding some sort of moral code that was introduced
to suppress unwanted pregnancies that are now
suppressed by contraception
like a conservation area having
gas powered street lamps
for old time's sake
if you got pregnant in your mid teens with no safe means of
termination it could pt quite a crimp in your lifestyle
if somebody takes a pic of your bum
it could put qute a crimp in your lifstyle???
to an equivalent extent?

we've been here before but...
the search term of the day is
displacement activity
seagulls
herring gulls, kittywakes
not puffins
nest on cliff ledges
when they are going well
nest sites are in short supply and thus
very close together
and these birds spend most of the year well spread out
across oceans of sea
so they get fed up with each other
and so they could get to fighting
but what they do is a displacement activity
they - old term here -
titivate their nests< BR> ferociously
and here we have the police
failed to keep three little girls alive...
so they make a huge fuss about
pictures of little boys
kill girls
photorgaph boys
which do you think is more important
it's pretty clear what the police think
but this displacement activity of the stock in trade of
bird brained cops
they will set their hand to anybody else's job
rather than do their own
the dark dark words in the world of law enforcement
never to be spoken
or written down
the cobbler should stick to his last

31st July 2024

spot the difference?
arm rests are being installed on the benches in the
shelters on Redcar Esplanade
to stop the dossers lying down

the government is short of cash
obvious major saving
shut down the NHS
the police are ready and waiting to cover any medical problem or service

30th July 2024

we think it's about time somebody set up a barrier down the middle of the
Dundas Street slipway on redcar beach
and re-opened the sound and safe east half


it is - we think - a fundamental belief in healthcare
that is you stop bashing your head against a brick wall
eventually you will come right
essentially the concept of the
straight jacket
for mental patients
and so
instead of locking up the nutters for the protection of the public
the NHS seed nutters all around the country so that
they are 'with nornal people' and will absorb
normal behaviouse because
there are no nutters around them to egg them on
it's a bit like the concept of a mountain road
everybody know to keep away from the edge of a mountain road
but if we dig huge pits along the side of random roads
people will know that at any moment
if they loose concentration when driving on any road
we could veer off into a deep deep dtch
in other words
instead of the NHS being responsible for containing the nutters
they become everybody's problem
because we have not the slightest doubt that we will eventually be told that
the perp in the Soutport massacre was
'known to the authorities'
and these desperate people have to resort to massacreing little girls
to get a picky eater outsed from their romm in the nut house

28th July 2024

sometimes we get bogged down in a particular story but
the carriageway of Tees road in redcar is about
sixteen feet wide and it is a cul-de-sac open at the north end and
oncesomebody got a mini stuck between garden fences at the south end but
there is no way out
at the ambulance incident site people by convention - no council involvement
park on the east side
so the available carriageway is around eleven feet wide
at that point the council has replaced the grass verge on the west side with a
tarmac infill without a drop curb
this is around five feet wide and does not include the
five foot wide paved pedestrian walkway
at the time of the incident a car was parked half on
the verge tarmac and half in the gutter
thus taking up around two to three feet of the carriageway
so 16 feet less five feet less three feet
is 8 feet
and yer transit van is six feet wide
so what sort of a clown needs cars moved to get a six foot vehicle through a
one car length gap eight feet wide
the answer seems to be that emergency vehicle drivers seem to be recruited from
places where any vehicle at rest is likely to be
car jacked
'I need at least twenty feet so
like the Italian military
mytransit with six forward gears
and SIX REVERSE GEARS
Austin Champ is it?
can run away fast
The Austin champ was a military vehicle similar to a Land Rover
and had five forward and five reverse gears
it seems to us that people turn around in traffic queues
because they fear carjacking if standng still
our Ricker has experienced people
locking their car doors as he has walked alongside a queue
some people need to crawl back under the rock where they belong
so the answer may be and I feared that if I stopped
I would be carjacked'


over time original features are lost from public buildings
we are not sure wheather there are any railway stations left with
a little plaque reading
ambulance
when they did exist they were above a slot in the wal on the platform
and inside as a stretcher
stretcher - ambulance
same difference
these days we have codes on motor vehicles
a red L means this vehicle is
under the control of a learner driver
a green P means this vehicle is under the control of
an inexperienced driver
blue lamps mean
this vehicle is under the control of an
arrogant twat
if the community leave spaces big enough for the transit of why the hell do little old ladies have to be knocked up
from their homes to hand over car keys so that
gaps the size of the Titanic can be made all the way up to
a potential patient's front door
and why
ussing the concept
emergancy services have opperational independence
to mean
emergency services are above the law
is it such a triumph to disrupt an entire community to
cut the waiting time in a hospital car park from
six hours and ten seconds to
six hours flat?
at least the emergency services let us know where
all the people who are banned from
Alton Towers and Flamingo Land
are

27th July 2024

we think we have discovered a new disease
body dydmorphic disease by proxy - mechanical
we've been watching an ambulance crew fannying about with
parked cars in Tees Road on Saturday afternoon
can't get a van through a gap anybody else claiming to be a pro
could get a truck through
is it a requirement of being an emergancy vehicle driver to have
failed your driving test at least ten times?



it's back to old clays and poritch
porridge and no fixings eaten out of
earthenware pots not the fine china
at Greythorpe on or near the Tees
we suspect that the wind turbine bits in stock will be
the last stored there
and South Bank wharf is ready for use
because
this past week
Able UK
have taken ashore another oil or gas rig
topsides
to cut up for scrap
back to their
day job, stock in trade


sometimes a 'long word' can be very short
back in the days when our Ricker 's dad had money
we got a Sunday paper
probably the Sunday Times
and our Ricker read some sort of
guest op ed???
piece, article, whatever
written by a hotelier called
Sir Charles Forte
and out Ricker wrote a letter including
what a demonstration of hypocricy and cant
and they published the letter
and today
the C in BBC stands for cant
hypocritical and snctimonious talk
The Paris Olympics opening ceremony was shit
and they had a budget that was freed up by not hosting the
derniere etap
final stage of
Le Tour de France cycle race
the ceremony was a week after Nice provided the venue
and the ceremony didn't use any of the traditional route
Chaps Elise etc
that Le Tour uses
anybody wanna buy a city
there's a bankrupt on called Paris if you are interested

on the one hand...
there are five fingers
on the one hand
if France paid more than a few hundred thousand Euros they was robbed
but on the other
why did the final stage of
e Tour de France
cycle race have to b shifted from Paris so that
a week later
Lady Gaga and Celine Dione
could sing one song each
we could say
'Very French'
but neither
Eurovision Song Contest nor Tour de France
a bit sad really
shdes of Marcel Marceau

26th July 2024

iif we are to be subjected to any more guff about
Strictly training...
we need to know
was the complainant doing a
bring your kid to work day with the crip?
who was causing disruption ?
the tutor or the owner of the talent?

25th July 2024

The Amanda Abbington story seems rather tragic
we would suggest that if a few dozen people were very upset by her
pulling out of the show
when she looked very likely to win...
those angry voices would probably have been from people who
had placed bets on her winning
there is something deeply destructive in the driveBR> probably synthetic - the result of upbringing
that women seem to crave having
one particular man all to themselves
at some point this actor 'had it all'
mega famous partner she made babies for
at the time of her Strictly adventure
she seemed to be torn between
doing her best 'at work'
and not doing anything she could not do with her
disabled partner

23rd July 2024

were a bit disappointed with Google today
what we were searching for is pretty mainstream
Cool for Cats
Squeeze that's yer Jooles Holland and yer Roxy Music nit
anyway back in the day a lot of popular music was about
socia conditions and mores and that
the thing we wanna say now is very difficult to say
without using a 'long' word
hence, we will begn with the word
perfunctory
(of an acton) carried out without real interest, feeling or effort
we would suggest
the caretaker made a perfunctory scan of the security arrangements
a perfunctory thank you for an unimpressive gift

what we need to start with is
an erection being described a
a boner
we've got one of those
put in give the dog a bone
and you get a whole slew of stuff about
nick, knack paddy wack
what we wanted wa a sort of
East End London 1960s pop song
and we'll get to that later perhaps but we did find
an AC/DC hit involving
give the dog a bone
what women in general do not like is
perfunctory sex
the story about
the Victorian rake who comes across a
canal barge and gets up the female bargee's skirt
we refer often to the book
The Other Victorians
the classic line from the woman on the barge
push on, I nearly came
and the rake's comment about wondering whether
in that
took him minutes, took her nowhere
moment
conception had occured for a woman he would never see again
up side down side
for quite a lot of women who find that
after 'sex' they have to
finish themselves off
masturbate to achieve the climax or orgasm
they were not supplied by their partner
back in the sixties when UK late night TV discussed sex
a typical survey question for a female panel was
how often do you fake orgasm
a man for himself has to juggle three things
erection
ejaculation
bring those together is not as easy as it seems
however bringing those together with
the partner's orgasm is almost impossible
we have to quote the two basic
1960s sex Sams
how was it for you?
in other words
I'm fucking you senseless but I have no idea how it's gong for you
and
do you smoke after sex?
I don't know, I've never looked
mostly, without economic inducement to be sensationalist etc
females will say
I like sex best when we start slow and gentle and
then we build up to a creschendo when I feel my insides are
about to be ripped out girls have supple bodies with rubbery bones
and can welcome a level of acrobatics
that could do real harm to a meopausal granny
e are talking about the risk of hyoid bone fracture
and we are talking about fifty something
Stricktly Come dancing contestants
being chucked around like
ten year old gymnasts

we are alreay deeply fed up with the new Labour government
the two child limit for paretn benefit was supposed to be
set a date
any number of children born BEFOR that date - parent benefit
and child oncieved after that date who was not a first or second child
no parent benefit
clearly an incentive towards
encouraging contraception



so this is the power cabinet outside
Robertsons' man cave



This is the story
this 'workies' snug has been built on a prime amusement location
on the Esplanade
and having been moved
the amusements and the Lifeguard station
they have had to run a great long power cable - 2
each about 24 Amp
so
what sort of warped imagination decides that
oh we couldn't possible wire up
The 'Workers' Playland
to the power cabinet
because all construction workers live in the 1950s
and believe that they and their work site will
disappear in a puff of smoke
if they're not burning diesel

22nd July 2024

we have a newly elected labour MP
Natalie Fleet
who has decided to campaign against sex
instead of
campaigning for sex education

we could have said this a long time ago but we refrained
you don't have to be a psychopath to
find it difficult to give up power
the difference is betweenBR> President Biden's attempts to cling on and those of
President Putin and President Recetep whatever in Turkey...
in pseudo democracies...
two out of three will do
get the job - tick
keep the job - tick
do the job - fail
oh what the heck I've got the secret police and a tame media...

20th July 2024

last friday hottest day of the year so far
Saturday morning
a beautiful ganet
dead on the sea wall at Granville Terrace
and they'll tell us
must have missed out on developing immunity to bird 'flu
never never blame global warming
we have a pic
we may publish it if we can be bothered

people often confuse - we recall Brewer in Wheeler Dealers
or conflate
patent or patented and trade secret
patent is like we nedd to have
patent coronary arteries
clear open unobstructed
a Patent is a the publishing of the details of a
device or process
the idea being to promote technical development and
economic growth
the concept being you stake a claim to be the
originator of the intellectual property
and a right to claim a licence fee from anybody
wishing to incorporate your idea in their product
it is entirely practicable to extend
patent law to insist that anybody
selling to governments or global enterprises
that they patent all aspects of their product
including source code of software

this is one of those SUnday afternoon catch ups on something that caught our eye
somewhere along the lines in the past month or two
somebody, probably a male politician
got involved in the
gender idetity controversy
and he said something along the lines of
got a cervix - femle
no cervix - male
we're not sure he knew what a cervix was but
most people have herd of cervicl cancer
and women not men get it
QED
sorta
and that does prompt the stream of consciousness reminer
men can get breast cancer
anyhow
point of clarification
the cervix is the
neck of the womb
it keeps by in
it is the door through which baby's sperm entered the womb
you need a cervix to get pregnant
for pure and simple
insemination
the womb just needs a door - the cervix
anything south of that
for reproductive purposes is
a roadblock, a nuisance
the birth canal is there
100 per cent
so you can be fucked
it is not a genital organBR> it is a sex organ
you have eyes so you can see
you hve a birth canal so you can be fucked
the birth canal evolved so that
female humans had a point of social contact with
male humans
a basis for co-operation and societal structure
our Ricker has a relative who is
hung like a horse
and thats the reason
not the method by which
his partner made him a couple of babies
the contingent necessity for making babies
after all
President Trump
is reputed to be the propretor of a
mushroom-like fungal body...

the Proms - BBC Promanade Concerts - summer season has begun
we don't think it is proposed include
Jacques Offenbach's comic opera
called Genevive de Brabant
and the hit from it was
Les Deux Gendarmes

We're public guardians bold but wary
and of ourselves we take good care
to risk our precious lives we're chary
when danger threatens we're not there
but when we see a helpless woman
or little boys who do no harm
we run them in, we run them in
to show them we're the beaux gendermes

there are a lot of people who are
incredibly arrogant
the people who think nothing significant can be done
outside London...
and there appears to be a feeling inside Microsoft that
computer applications can only be developed inside Microsoft
and in that logic
if anybody produces a riva system
they could only have done it by
reverse- engineering a Microsoft product,br. and it s very likely that the reason for Microsoft driven computers
fell over becase they fell into a booby trap set by
Microsoft to thwart reverse engineering of Microsoft products
in other words these computers performed a hack on thenselves
bwcause Microsoft wnt to send a Microsoft engineer out to
protect Mirosoft's intellectual property
not their customers' data and systems


we've written something below that could be a bit misleading
but it is our policy not to
'take things down'
if we can avoid it
there are two sorts of 'hack'
ones where a bad actor takes over a system and demands payment for
restoring it
we had one of those quite a few years ago and we never got around to
doing aything about it because
we just switched to the backup
the other sort is where a hacker steals confidential data
and threatens to sell or publish it
that's more of a problem
we have said that - implied that - cybersecuity is automated
AI scans for problems and sends out fixes - automatically
we get suggestions we may 'need' this 365 thing
we ignore them
it's really qute important to take note of exactly what is said in
Press Releases
we use a variety of technologies
without publishing specifics...
some of them are
open source
and some are
propriatory
at base it appears that this cybersecurity company may be angling to
get taken over - bought out - by Microsoft
the essence is
if you don't give us the
source code for this 365 thing
we won't be able to protect those of your customers who use it


we should make mention of the computer melt down
we are almost 100 per cent certain that the defective file was
computer generated
AI artificial intelligence generated
the issue at question is
it doesn't need testing....

19th July 2024

a couple of points about
locke Park Lake
the weir gates may have been stolen for their scrap value
they were metal - possibly aluminium
they have now been replaced with wood
the drop in level does point up how desperstely the pond needs to be dredged
it is not simply a wildlfe -leisure issue
the pond is a settling pond for sediment in The Fleet
eventually a sufficient build up would represent a flooding issue

18th July 2024

from time to time there is a major disaster
and sometimes the insurance companies cannot
avoid liability

A Name at LLoyds
a member of one or more syndicates at LLoyd's providing insurance
often this will be re-insurance
insuring random SME insurance companies against
facing claims they can't meet
small and medium sized enterprise
a Name contributes limited cash when joining a syndicate
and, BUT
accepts unlimited liability
and hence the chorus in the face of any disaster
Lloyd's can afford it
here's the story
it comes from a long way back and relates to a
natural disaster way before any we can remember
there was a really, really big draw on Lloyd's resources
and a lot of people through their unlimited liability
were completely ruined
and one of them was a little old lady ofvery limited resources
everything she had, home pension the lot, gone
how so?
she had been a secretary or PA to somebody at Lloyds
and when she retired her boss
set her up as a name at Lloyds
he paid the small premium and she banked a share of the profits
we're seeing a number of reports issued today in the UK
a lot of handing out of bame
particularly Helen Pitcher
deemed entirely unfit to fullfill her duties
as chairwoman
Criminal cases Review Commission
so many of these 'top jobs in government'
are handed out on the basis that the
salary will be a nice little top up to a pension
and the post holder will never be called upon to
carry out any duties of significance
the problem is not in missjudging the candidate
but, rather
missjudging the scope of the role

17th July 2024

one of the tropes - is that the right word?
of modern economics is the idea that
if all the oil and gas industry jobs are lost
all the energy industry jobs will be lost
t'aint so

any road up
the State Opening of Parliament is very cool
very impressive
a couple of things about the British Monarchy
the Royal Reglia consista of
The Crown< the Sword of State
and The Cap signifies a licence from
The Pope
permitting the Britsh Monarch to rule
presumably, in theory, any Pope could
ask to have it back
the second 'disrespect ' to the monarch is
the person who carries the speech in a wallet...
we think it was
Quentin Hogg
Lord Hailsham
in the role who in the role was thought not to be able to
walk down the steps of the throne
backward
without falling over
so he was excused and allowed to
turn his back on the Monarch
whilst - in this case she - was seated on the Throne
a disrespect
people doing in that role appear to turn their back
without medical excuse
and over all we assume that the Monarch is simply reduced to the
Honour and Status of a
Herald
since they do not apparently provide input to the content of the speech

14th July 2024

we gave the football a miss
did anybody get kissed?

the whole issue of team selection in soccer - football - competitions
such as European and World Cups is complex
do you want each country to put up their best team?
do you want sparkling play?
there is a standing 'joke' that
top class footballers are so rich
it's surprising they don't employ people to
play their matches for them
in a sense
a number of players who qualify to play for
a country such as England
do that by not making themselves available for international matches
it coud be advantageous for the rounds to be spaced out in time more
and for squad selection to be re-done between rounds so that for instance
an England international who's day job is to play for a club in Spain
makes themselves available to play for England
on condition they won't have to play against Spain
clearly that could - if the competition is held over a short time slot
mean that to have an all purpose squad
you would have an unmanageablely large squad
the simpler answer is to appoint and England Manager
of such importance and grip
that no player would decline to play for them
no matter who the opposition


we forget the name of the chap who was boss of the
Teesside Development Corporation
the one who went to conferences around the world and told employers
bring your process to Teesside
it won't matter how polluting it is
nobody will notice because the air and water are already so contaminated
this was symptomatic of the concept that
relatively speaking
the inside of a home reoresents
a clean room
and we have a small example of how
official advice can get out of sync with reality
recently a Cleveland Fire Officer made a welfare check on
the home of an elderly resident and asked
where would you turn for water to put out the fire
if your cooker caught fire?
now old folk remember being told over and over again
don't put water on a chip pan fire
smother it with a damp cloth
so the elderly resident is left asking social services
was I dealing with a complete idiot
or was that a trick question?
the 'authorities' double down and double down and double down on
the air outside is dangerous
every homes has a magical internal source of clean fresh air....
if people are following modern day advice
to live in a sealed home
there is no wonder so many people have damp and mould
and have to have oxygen supplied in cylinders

14th July 2024

we was wondering..
have we stumbled on he reason why
the police don't mount foot patrols/
is it because they believe that
'fresh' air is toxic and the
air conditioning in the police vehicles
filtes out the toxins and such
so like huddling inside yer tunic - jacket
while you dash from vehicle to building in a rain storm
if you hold yer breath between leaving the vehicle and getting
inside
you will survive
regarding the demolition on Redcar High Street...
we think there will be little further demolition
as such
the projetct will now have to go into the
construction phase
so that new works replace what is left of
Markies and Woolies
for the protection of the neighbouring buildings

although in the British cultural tradition there is are concepts of
upper class twit
and
toff
the origins of 'rich people'are so diverse
there is no real cohesive 'upper class'
one of the ways to characterise
middle class
andBR> (respectable) working class
is that the middle class
especially middle class youth
seek and follow
fashion
whereas the youth of the respectable working class seek
bigger and 'better' versions of
what granpappy used to have
upper class people want
something nobody else has
and in personal transport
bigger and better versions of the
carbon fuelled interna combustion engine
middle class
classic example of fashion in transport
the utterly Gadderine swine style incomprehensible
switch to diesel from petrol
'because it's cheaper?'
or because it's fashionable?
and so
although the United States of America is
bigger - five times bigger - than the UK
the US is 'blue collar' and the UK is 'white collar'
and so
everything big in America
and in some sense this s not
wealth related
it is the classic Trump condition of
'manbaby'
arrested development
all that constantly getting measured to see
how much they'd growed
quotng their age a six and three quarters
the really strange thing about this is
the idea that a person in their sixties
is at the height of their powers
but they turn seventy
and they turn to jelly
speaking of jelly - stream of consciousness
Jellybean
has taken over from
Nigel
as top dog star on UK TV
and we are wondering
Droopy - Drew Pritchard
has a new side kick called Alastair or Alister
to replace the irreplacable Mr. Tee
and we are thinking
is this the same Alastair who used to work for
Henry Cole?

12th July 2024

our Ricker wishes to set a recent entry into a slightly different context
he was helping Sir Robert Goodwill with his campaign to become
MP for Redcar
we should say that a basic distraction for our Ricker during his
teenage years was that he was a
server or sarcistan
at Christ Church Coatham
he essentially was an assistant to one vicarBR> Allan Wordsworth
Rev. Wordswoth had three sons
one was very left wing and probably a vicar
there was a youngest with whom our Richer shared duties
and the one called Allan was a Tory
when Rev Wordsworth retired and our Ricker went to university
our Ricker stopped attending church
but somehow along the way
he associated himself with Allan Wordsworth Junior
hence helping out with Sir Robert's activities
having helped out a bit
the context was being expelled from the Tory Party for
asking the party to find a better candidate than Lord Bates
next time there was an election
the whole idea of the Thatcher adminastration in suggesting
our Rcker apply for a job in the Cabinet office was
by tradition - then not now
senior civil sevants did not stand for election
the problem the Tories had was that they felt it would be
inappropriate - embarassing
if th3re was a Tory MP in Redcar
and a Labour MP in Langthingy - now Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
and so the plan was
get Sir Robert to stand nearer home - Whitby
and get our Ricker into the civil service
half of that worked - the Sir Robert bit
but when they got our Ricker's
Civil Service entry exam results
they decided this did rathe smack of a
Durham graduate being smarter than the usual
oxford graduates
and so - according to our Ricker
the whole thing fell through
and of course in those days
a person contacted an MP by snail mail
and then email
and although there was use of women as cat's paws
in essence
bothe Vera Baird and Ian Swales
chose to have
words of advice
from our Ricker
deemed
malicious communications
and so the genesis of this web site
where our Ricker could offer advice without it being
in any wayBR> official

11th July 2024

we never research the fine details of a story
but we are going to give a flavour of this one
from what we have read
the impression that we have is that...
stepping back to a few years ago because of
retirements and promotions....
we seem to have had a situation where
the chief scientific advisor to the NHS
UK National Health Service
was a graduate of Oxford University
and the chief scientific advisor to
the government was a graduate of
one of the the London Universities
associated with St. George's Hospital
on the face of that some may assume that
the NHS was getting better scientific advice than this is where things get very difficukt to research accurately
one chap - now replaced by a female...
was then Sir Patrick Vallance who was
Professor of Medicine and led
the division of Medicine at UCL
Univerity College London
he was the government's chief scientific advisor
on the other hand
the chief scientific advisor to the NHS was
Sir Chris Whitty
he had obtained a B.A. in physiology from Pembroke College Oxford
in 1988
we need to digress here a little
our ricker's moral tutor at Durham was Ken Bowler
he was a Hull graduate D.Sc. in zoology by Durham University
there was no exam or work assessment
a D.Sc. doctor of science
is awarded as a 'long sevice medal'
not a mark of excellence
so as opposed to chief scientific advisor
which was what tother guy was
the crux was
Vallance was a doctor
Whitty was an epidemiologist
when our Ricker applied to join the Civil Service
to be a low rank officer in the Cabinet office
under Thatcher
he got cosmic marks in the civil service entry exam
but he was
not recommended for appointment we don't know him
in other words
the Oxford grads
who inhabit the corridors of power
tend to say
he's an idiot
but he's our idiot
hence the CoViD debacle
was managed from the narrow perspective of
epidemiology - the Oxford man's perspective
instead of the wider perspective of
medicine and social care
available from an advisor
with a broader perspective
but who had not been to Oxford

10th July 2024

mention of Andy MacDonald MP has put our Ricker into on of those
stream of consciousness modes
many many years ago
around five years before he died
Malcolm MacDonald
signed our Ricker's
degree certificate
because
at the time
this not being the Malcolm MacDonald of
Newcastle United fame...
was Chancellor of The University of Durham
and we have had this vosion of
Andy MacDonald MP
'channelling'
Manny Shinwell
see Malcolm MacDonald's dad was
Ramsay MacDonald
and Ramsay MacDonald was thrown out of
The labour Party for
heading a government of National Unity
and perhaps from the view point of the ghost of
Manny Shinwell
Sir Kier Starmer's
carrying a ming vase across a ploughed field
approach to fighting the 2024 General Election
may seem a bit like
setting up a Government of National Unity
and perhaps the sort of thing
Andy MacDonald may think should lead to him being
expelled from The Labour Party
we could go on but we stopped our Ricker there

9th July 2024

just to be different??
we thought we wouldpick up on an election story that
was intense and fell by the wayside
Diane Abbott
although there were around half a dozen candidates in her seat
almost all of them were cast for one of two candidates
and in fact Ms Abbott got
three quarters of the votes cast
that's not the main point of interest
to digress
when our Ricker worked in London
mostly he travelled to and from work by tube, metro, underground
and this was before the Oyster Card, we suppose
and so most weeks for a couple of years he would have bought a
weekly pass
since he never 'worked' on Sundays
he had 'free travel' in cetral zones on a Sunday
hence him getting around London at the time
to even further digress...
he really did have difficulty convincing people
or simply registering with people that
he lived in wimbledon
not Wenbley
where do you live?,BR> Wimbledon
oh, where the football stadum is
no, Wimbledon - tennis
any road up...
back to Diane Abbott
most people challenged with
guess who got a quarter of the vote
would not have said
The Greens
although a leftist twat the likes of
Andy McDonald, Middlesbrough and Thornaby East
we may say
the people who are out of step in New New Labour
are supporters of the continuance of - preservation of
protection of
Smoke Stack Industries
but in Stoke Newington or whereever
the Greens are all about
ULEZ
ultra low emmission zones
because
children are dying from traffic fumes
the Tories would not expend a penny on trying to
beat Diane Abbott
but they did themselves a lot of harm by
thinking that in Greater London they needed
candidates who opposed ULEZ

7th July 2024

we wait to see the outcome of the football
have the England team
yet again been told by the police that
they must not win because
the police can't be arsed to police
the celebrations
the search tem of the week is
Porterhouse Blue
a Porterhouse Steak is the best
but you have to wreck the entire side of beef
to extract it
hence it is very expensive
Porterhouse is a fictional Cambridge College
where there s a tendency for member of the
Senior Common Room
to die from meical events
brought on by excesive consumption of
food and drink
Oxford nd Cambridge universties are somewhat isolated
Irory Tower is a term sometimes applied to them
the essence is to be
AT Cambridge
not to have been there
an Oxford or Cambridge graduate who leaves
is like a trainee footballer who is
'let go'before they get to play for the 'first team'
whatever anybody may think about
Value Added Tax on school fees
people at Oxdridge - Oxford or Cambridge university
particularly Oxford
want to preserve the status of the
institutions that they inhabit
they strengthen their position by sending graduates out into
powerful jobs
and they justify their existence and funding by
acting like a posh Chilldren's Home
collecting waifs and strays
and feeding them up
it does not matter whethe an Oxford grduate such as
Lord Bates
has had a stroke
even after a stroke - the stroke is in the fiction not Lord Bates' CV
to Oxford University he becomes
a 'Useful Idiot'
in the Oxbridge scheme of things
one of Our Ricker's young reltives has just ended a
three year slog through exams
to try to get to university
given his circumstances we think that if he does achieve entry
which his younger brother hasn't even attempted
he will be confronted by the contrast between
the ernest endevours of his sixth form tutors
and the
I've got tenure, I'm now semi-retired
of university dons

5th July 2024

Middlesbrough and Thornaby East has thrown up an interesting result
Andy McDonald Labour share change minus 6.8per cent at 47.2
conservative minus 6.4 17.9
Reform plus 14.3
20.5
so Tory plus Reform 37.9 per cent
47 plays 37 isn't a marginal
but although there were other candidates
totally about 5 per cent of vote share
the Reform candidate seems to have taken about
as many votes from Labour as from Tory
and so there is a glimmer of
a plague on all your houses
about this
a lot of people don't see Labour politicians as more
honest
than Tories


we want to say that the 2024 UK parlamentary election...
could be seen as what
president Trump would call
the Deep State
the Civil Service and such
being smarter in the UK than in the 'rest of' Europe
by whatever means
even if unconsciously
the Tory hierarchy - bosses - seem to have
used the Reform prty as a means of
lancing the boil of
Right Wing Populism
that is threatening mainland Europe
in other words
broadly
Labour only made gains in seats
not in votes
the essential trend is that
Tory voters were given - by Reform
an opportunity to turf out their
dead head Tory MPs
without having to actually vote Labour
for the most part
Tory plus Reform equals more than Labour
we can't say whether the current Tory PM will return as leader
before the next General Election
but we expect
a place keeper Tory leader soon
and a significant effort to find somebody
not certifiably mad to be sought
to lead the Tories into the next General Election
and that may be
M Sunak
making a better fist of the return to power than
Harold Wilson did for the Labour
back in the day
and the Lib Dems lanced the other boil
people who wanted a clown for PM
voted LibDem and not Reform
meaning the Tory defeating Reform
did not become the official opposition to Labour

2nd July 2024

we are going to admit to some confusion over
electricity prices
we do want to say that the standing charge on some
eon next key meters has become 5 p less than £5 per week
and clearly the simplest way to help
low income households is to
exempt them from the standing charge...
however, the price of electricity seems to have fallen quite a lot
yesterday down from 35.17 pence per killowatt hour to 26.9p
and economy 7 restricted hours
down from 10.18 to 9.65
we have to say that our estimate of a
fair cost would be 16p and 8p
but we will have to see what it turns out to be
from 1st october 2024...

we seem to have stumbled across a
fairly niche -rare- public health concern
it stems from dealing with issues in isolation - siloes
these pictures have been 'mocked up' in the sense that they
are supposed to be a before and after of the same house
but area actually of two very similar houses






the typical gas boiler is hung on a wall and has what is called a
balanced flue
there is no chimney as such
but a pipe straight through an external wall one pipe inside another
one lets air into the boiler
and the other lets the fumes out of the boiler into the air many of those coal fires were replaced with
gas fires with a back boiler
these fire/boiler arrangements are vented through a
pipe threaded up through the chimney
there is no balancing pipe feeding air to the fire
the fire draws air from the rommjust as the old coal fire did
and for this reason and to counteract damp
some of the bricks near the base of house walls are like
Swiss Cheese, perforated, full of holes
these bricks arecalled
air bricks look at them holes in the wall!
if we get flooded
water'll pour into the house through them
get 'em blocked up
and so
sealed up air bricks
water tight patio doors...
no water ot get into the room with the gas fire
troubles is
no airtoget into the room with the gas fire
as the fire uses up the air/oxygen trapped in the room
the gas that is pouring in through the gas pipe
is being burnt in air depleted in oxygen
when gas is burnt in low oxygen concentrations
we get incomplete burning
and we get fumes that we would not normally get from buring gas
complex carbon compounds
these could be toxic and they could be irritant
or even cause an allergy
people who stop up low level air bricks to counter flood risk
MUST make gas safe engineer approved provision to
provide and open gas flame
gas fire, oven, cooper ring or grill
with enough fresh - not necessarily smelling of flowers - air
to ensure tht compustion is complete and
products of combustion are safely vented
carbon monoxide kills quickly but
carbon monoxide monitors will not detect lesser toxins that
culd cause chronic disability

1st July 2024

we know it would make more sense if our Ricker had
confused
Brent Cross with new Cross but we are not sure there is much contrast there
and we guess we've confused
Westgate with Westfield or something else...
we also like this Lynne Truss comment from
eats, shoots and leaves
The Russian Revolution was sparked by punctuation
a century ago the then equivalent of
web designers were called
compositors
they set the type for pringting presses by hand
and they were paid by the letter
and they were not paid for punctuation marks
and they went on strike for pay for all work
and sparked the Russian Revolution
of course they had mass communiction in their hands
so they were best placed to do it
acouple of decades ago our Ricker cared a whole lot more about a whoe load of things
than he does now
in thta context he bought a few books
one was by a journalist called
Lynne Truss
she's still around...
and the book was called
Eats, shoots and leaves.
the story on the dust cover is too long to quote
so just for today a shorter quote
A woman, wthout her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
perhaps we will publish a few more, similar such zingers
perhaps we will publish a few, more similar, such zingers
we've written about this before but what terms should
a First Nations Briton be offended or threatened by?
Brit?
Pommey Bastard?
Pomm
there are lots of people of
South Asian heritage sometimes a place the likes of London can get an immigrant
into a mire of trouble over personal sensitivities of origin and association
to take an example from our Ricker's experiences as a
newcommer to London from Up North but anywhere would do
there is an element of the
Tour de France coverage reference here
prisoner's dilemma
risk
try to escape and you may go free risk -reward causes reat offence optometry and visual science
a young chap agreed to take the job on condition that the university
arranged and paid for him to train and qualify as a
dispensing optician
having so qualified the lad took on a Saturday job as a dispenser at
a shopping centre
the risk reward problem for our Ricker was
this guy had a job for life at the uni but our Ricker was required to
give up his job wth D and A opticians
without qualifying as a dispenser ro go for the greater 'prize' of
training and qualifying as an optometrist
and the gamble failed
required to withdraw from the optometry course
he was neither qualified as a dispenser nor an optometrist
experienced, skilled, but not registered
setting that aside
the nature of inadvertant offence
one day our Ricker was chatting to the lab tec and
said something about the tec's 'job at New Cross'
New Cross was at the time a shit hole in the docklands of the East End
and our Rickr said New Cross because he had been there
and the name had lodged in his mind
but the lab tec's Sayurday job was at an optician's in
a Shopping Centre in West London called
Westgate
what is now BandM in TRedcar's Regent Walk was originally a
Wesrgate department store and so it caused great offence that anybody working in
West Gate Shopping Centre in Shepherd's Bush, West London
was working 'down the docks' in New cross or New Cross Gate
and so
if we are on the autistic spectrum
we see no difference between
Brit
short for
Brit
ain
and
Paki
for Paki
staini
but if you were
Sikh
you would be appauled to be referred to as eithe
Paki or Pakistani
it's like
is it 'cos'I's black?
do I get a discount because of slavery?
do I get a lower pass mark because of slavery?
is there a differnce between
pommy Bastard
and pomm?
yes
the bastard element carries some connotation of
#doubtful parentage
something not on the RADAR of the speaker
but something very much on the mind of the listener
speaking of Regent Walk's passage from
Westgate ot BandM
Yorkshire trading set up a store in Redcar in the old Wollies
then the steel works closed
and it got re-branded as a Goodwins - down market
then it moved into the BandM store and got
re-branded back to
Yorkshire trading
Wollies becomes Yorkshire Trading becomes Goodwins gets demolished
Yorkshire Trading return as in the BanM that was Frank Dee
and BandM move into Regent Walk that was
Westgate
so the 'new mall' has moved down market and the Hih Street has
moved up market
a bit
and Marks and Spencer wot used to be next door to Woolworth
has been demplishe with it and
replaced by a food hall on an industrial estate
in Redcar and Cleveland
but
in Greater Eston
becuase the trend is no longer to
out of town shopping
but to
on line shopping
the thing is
you go on line to search for something you want
you go to the High Street foa
thneed Dr Seuss and The Lorax
a thing you 'need' something you seein the 'flesh' and decide on the spot
I gotta have that

26th June 2024

we have a couple of lines of thought about
Road Safety
particularly in respect of vulnerable pedestrians
as we understand it ...
f you are a heavy transport contractor for
BAE British Aerospace
when and only for the duration of the transport
you may - your escort driver may - be issued with
a fob or remote control that will
set the traffic lights at junctions and crossing for the duration of your transit through that obstacle
knowing what a bunch of aresholes UK police are
if they were issued with such fobs
they would 'loose' them
and so
the basic technology exists
instead of a blues and twos switch in emergency vehicles
a signal priority circuit could be
hard wired into emergency response vehicles
such that they could
get back those 10 seconds they would loose at a red light
we are aware of a form of highly secure
car park barrier
we think there is at least one in Downing Street, Westminster
these could be installed wherever a
School Crossing Patrol
is employed
full width half a metre high
bounce yer noddy cars off that
taken together really
these technologies should be able to say
blues and twos to be
banished or restricted to
signal to stop
we seem to recall that in the past year or so
at least one police officer has been mown down by a train
because copps are trained to believe that they have
Superpowers

19th June 2024

once in a while our Ricker strays from his normal path
and we can say that he has seen a couple of lads from
t't cooncil
running around in a pickup van
removing contract labels from
garden waste bins
we have to conclude this is because people have the whole thing is a farce
we know that because of the very wet spring
hedges and such
not to mention the
dock forest on Flemming's Field on
Mersey Road opposite Sacred heart School...
no mow May
there has been more green 'waste' than usual
but round these parts...
people don't have big enough gardens what should happen is
regular mowing of the perimeter the five metre wide strip to stop pollen and seeds blowing off site in the past
possibly only for one year due to the demolition of
Sacred Heart Mark 2
we had a mo mow summer
and a contractor took off a hay crop in early autumn

17th June 2024

we have a couple of further comments about the
Woolies Library on Redcar Esplanade
people sometimes refer to
Ancient Lights
that law was removed centuries ago
however
under thePrescription Act 1832
a property owner can get an easement
basically they can have your trees cut down if
they have grown so dense that a window in your property that used to admit light
effectively no longer does
you can't get an easement over trees that shade open space
and so
we don't know whether the Palace Hub and the Library will have the same owner
and so what is built on the Woolies site would be easily agreed by the owners of
The Palace Hub
However, that may not be the end of the matter because
from the outside it does seem possible that
windows in the west wall of the Palace Hub
illuminate a stair that may be an emergency exit
therefore Building reguations and not owner consent would have
the last word

16th June 2024

we suppose that it is natural for a
Monarchy or any Head of State apparatus to act as a
Drag Anchor on Social Change
we could explore the concept of
Noblese Oblige
the perhaps Victorian concept of
seen to be believed (IN)
but Henry 8th was into that too
so the concept of the
Working Royal
pressing the flesh
however
a part of that traditionalism is that
a Royal Mother could not be
both
a hands on mum
and
a Working Royal
the concept of contageon is not new not even
Victorian
and it does appear that some elements of the
UK Royal Household are
feeding on the experiences of
CoViD
and strengthening their case to say
the royal children should be shut away from
working royals and their contact with the great unwashed
an packed off the boarding school at the earliest opportunity
and the modern royals are kicking back and essentially
the traditionalists
including the lame brain public health 'doctors'
with their
hand washing to fight respiratory infections
are backing up the case for the
'house arrest of princess Kate
on health security grounds
and there are other manifestations of
traditional medicine being a considerable drag anchor on
scientific advances should you or should you not
feed tiny amounts of peanut to infnts
to ensure that their immune system will not go ape shit
when they encounter the material at a later date
and so
science would say
get the youngest of royal out there into the envronment
you would wish them to work in in later life
tradition says
preserve them in aspic for as long as possible
and hope for the best

we have an important search term regardng the current
set of political debates
it is
gentrification
and the Byker estate is the model although for
soft southerners such as
Arthur Scargill - National Union of Miners 'president'
we could say
The Barbican in Islington, London
the concept of
take a sink estate and pour money into redevelopment of
the built environment
and you will inspire the sould of the people...
runs counter to the concept that happy as a pig in shit
and are not gentrified
elevated to the gentry
but are displaced
our Ricker's uncle Fred worked at ICI
his uncle Bob worked in the shipyard
the wife of one of them had before marriage
worked in servce in one of the big houses
like the Alexander Hotel as was
that you see in the back of shot when
a cycling tour visits and one of the things that characterises
social improvement is tha
men were generally - in the UK - out workers
and women were household staff
and so the origins of the concept of
wives and mothers being more
refined in their tastes
pushing for gentrification
men clinging to tradition
if was Fred and May wnd Bob and Ruth
so it was probably auntie Ruth
our Ricker once upon a time worked with a chap who was
a political refugee from South Africa
it is a bone of contention as to whether a
White South African is
British or Boor
British or Dutch
and this white south african claimed to have been a
friend of Steve Biko
a black south african martyr
but this refugee had a point to make
and we could amplify that point on the modern context
essentially
native africans built round houses
and colonists insisted on straight lines and sharp corners in constrction
and now with the surge in flooding
we see
flood water sweeping around curved corners ofbildings and sweeping buildings
off their foundations and decide to cook over an open flame...
same difference there will be some
world class car door slamming in the
streets of Kensington tonight

15th June 2024

we've had a think about the Woolies/Markies site on
Redcar High Street
we think there may be a new concept at work here
sometimes we like to offer you
internet search terms instead of
paraphrasing other people's work
and we got all archaeological for a bit with those
Scottish Castles
what we could have referenced was a
modern or medernist version of that
in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
The Byker Wall
the Irskine idea was to make a run down area attractive by
now we have to insert
T Dan Smith and Poulson
people thought give the people on sink estates
a better environment and they will live better lives
in the end the people of
Old Byker were offered a new life in a new Byker but
only around 10 to 20 in a hundred
stayed to experience the new environment
most original residents
melted awya to find lodgings and lives in
the cosy familiar contentment of
altenative sink estates elsewhere
but to get to the point
the Redcar Woolies Library is a
commercial equivalent of the Byker Wall
and in Newcastle-upon-Tyne now we think
somewhere up there...
this commercial version of the Byker Wall is proposed
it is proposed to preserve the facade -frontage- of a redundant Marks and Spencer
and hollow out the tructures behind
The Byker Wall was designed and built to
separate
the railway and motorway from the new homes by building a wall of
maisonettes
with largely solid walls to face the transport infrastructure
and the prevailing wind
and a well pierced lght and airy sde of the wall to face the
replacement housing estate
theis concept of
High Street renewal is to
remove the bulk of the interior square footage enclose public spaces
and in the Redcar High Street example
protect a public plaza from the wind and weather of the nearby North Sea

we do sometimes think we are paying too much attention to a
particular issue
but the Wolles demolition is an important example about
the honesty and reliability of politicians
and so we will refine our case
we estimate that the library to be built on the
Esplanade edge of the site will extend pavement or sidewalk of the Espalade
towards the High Street
so take the distance from the Espalade to the High Street
how many times longer than 25 feet is the length of
Bath Street
and you can work out what proportion of the site is intended to be
built on, not plaza or patio
in the completed scheme...

we were very happy to see out future queen
the Princess of Wales
at the King's Birthday Parade
we would never want to undermine Royal expectation management but
we said that we thought that whatever ailed the princess
she had been suffering from it since at least the time of her first pregnancy
around ten years
this brings into focus the concept of
virulance
many people will have heard the term
benign growth ot tumour
an over stretched NHS tends not to offer
free treatment for growths that are
'not cacerous'
and some people need emeergency treatment
the moment they have their diagnosis
a tumour that exists for a decade without
causing any symptoms
except under extreme stress - such as pregnancy
is not entirely benign
but it is low grade
you've got to be careful with the health of the mother of the
future king
but a lot of people will pay privately to have benign growths removed
what we are not entirely sure about is the concept
suggested in the media - that cancer treatment involves being
immunosuppressed
in other words
got cancer
get immunosuppressed
stay away fro contact with the Great Unwashed
this does not compute for us
perhaps we are missing something
you might artificially immunosuppress someone
suffering from an autoimmune disease...
generally we regard cancer as a
failure of immunity
not an over active immune system
perhaps the logic is
if the patient's immune system failed to destroy the cancer
perhaps it is overall faulty??
we think this is flawed logic
cancer is about (cancer) cells going rogue
changing mode or getting out of control
this concept of isolating becuse you have cancer is a puzzle to us
and speaking of medical puzzles
and doubling down
we said seabird off the North East coast of England
weredying from heat exhaustion
'they'said it was bird 'flu
so 024 is a cooler spring and summer and
populations are recovering
so 'they' say
perhaps the birds have developed immunty if we get a hot spring and summer in the near future
and birds start dying off agan from heat exhaustion
will 'they' say that the birds have 'lost their immunity'??
people who are funded by the fossil boys
have to earn their corn

14th June 2024

e are not familiar wth the geography of the
Palace of Westminster
but we caight sight of a party leader
Farage?
speaking in front a war memorial
IN MANUS TUAS DOMINE
we think that may have been intended to mean
in your hands oh Lord
in which case
IN MANUS TIAS : DOMINE
but there is a version about famous last words
in manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum
into your hands oh Lord I commend my soul
Psalm 35:5 and Like 23:46
Luke was one of Jesus' desciples but also
his doctor
so he was reporting in a professional capacity
Jesus' last words
it is interesting to wonder why Farage chose to speak
under that banner
but we suspect it was not abour writing the epitaph - death notice
of the Tory Party
but some sort of reference to the early departure from the
D Day commemoration
inwhich case - thin gruel as political commentary

12th June 2024

broadly speaking we are half way through the
2024
God we do hope there won't anotherone this year
2024 UK parliamentary general election
general means all seats up for grabs at the same time
half way
what do we think?
is there more revalry over election coverage
between news sources
than rivalry between political parties over votes?
extraordinary fuss about
PM 'cutting short' a D Day media appearance to
go get intervewed by ITV....
what do we think people will do come election day?
we think two major sentiments
a plague on all your houses - low turnout
and
better the devil ypu know
people may from time to time seek a
second medical opinion
but mostly they would like to be seen by the same GP
family doctor on each occasion they need help
the breach of the
Red Wall
has taught people that the sky won't fall in if they
don't vote Labour
to some extent
really for a lot of people
there is no difference between
Man City V Man U
and
Tory V Labour
and not voting is the equivalent of
not renewing your season ticket
but perhaps going to the odd match and
buying the replica strip
there does not seem to be any sense that
any party will
change the world
if elected
going back to that other point
if either Starmer or Sunak forms a minority government
or a coalition
that concept may be the motivation for a July election
call an election in July
tell everybody you are going to loose
shake off the dead wood and the nutters
and plan a further election for October
with some candidates who are either
blessed with more than three brain cells
or are
non-verbal

9th June 2024

sometimes it seems worthwhile to record a snippet of social history
our Ricker's mother was born in 1916 in Tyne Dock, South Shields
on Tyneside, in northern England
and we could refer to Cockney Slang as a secret language in London
we often hear the structure of that language wrongly explained
take: up the apples
what on earth could that mean
in Cockney slang it means
upstairs
????
how does that work
it doesn't quite relate to
up the wooden hill to bedfordshire
a reference to bedtime for a toddler
Cockney is supposed to be rhyming slang
and stairs rhyms with pears
but up the pairs could even be misheard as stairs
so it wouldn't function as a secret code
however, apples and pears are similar fruit
and so the long form for upstairs is
up the apples and pears
but to make it into a secret code
you drop the pears they go so closely together that
the pears become a silent partner to apples
and so you have
up the apples
short for up the apples and pears
rhyming slang for upstairs
and so to South Shields
Harton Colliery was a coal mine that closed with
the loss of around a thousand jobs in 1969
and it was run before Nationalisation by
The Harton Coal Company
and so people in Tyne Dock and South Shields
mostly females she's got shares in the Harton Coal Company
it had nothing whatever to do with Harton or coal or shares
she's got shares in the Harton Coal Company meant
she's got a wagon bottom
a wagging bottom
given to trailing her coat for the men
walking in a way that drew attention to her under parts

wethought we would offer a short guide to
railway signalling for motorists
there are four colours of railway signal
white ones are special
they tell the driver that the points are sset to
divert her train onto a siding or loop or branch line or back from..
the main colours are the same as on roads
roads is a funny word
'Rules of the Road' apply to shipping???
any road up
green, amber and red
for practical purposes
green means line and route clear proceed at up to speed limit
amber means proceed at reduced speed
red means proceed only under instruction
we have a little story about the amber lights
people in South East England are more familar with train travel than
people Up North
on occasion and not so much more recently
a passenger train may be coming up to London Waterloo
from the West Country
and all the way - at least from Guildford in Surrey
it would pass every signal at amber - reduced speed limit because the train ahead - immediately ahead is or was
The Royal Train
longer non-standard separations

8th June 2024

this is perhaps the problem
when you buy kit and gear
you are tenpted to try to get the job out of what you own
rather than hiring in the tool for the job
so Thompsons have hired in a
High Reach
to bring down the lift shaft brick at once
we'll see how they get on but
honestly Redcar Esplanade is not the place for
a digger on top of a midden pulling down heavy machinery


sometimes eneed to set aside a few moments to
co-operate with or support the devlopment of
children who are complete strangers to us
we will divert into an example of
child cognative development
the first stage in the devlopment of child
vocalisation is
mimicry
a tiny person will roam the home like a
parrot
parottng the vocalisation they hear
there are some classic examples that don't come to mind right now there are in this context three phases to language development
the parrot-like use of phrases that
get a result when other people use them
so I'll put them to the same purpose
the second phase is to analyse the structure of the vocalisations and say
there are rules to the construction of
lingustic tools and this that I have been parroting breaks those rules
I will change the way I express myself to conform with the
logic of the communication
and the third phase is a reversion to
common parlance
an understanding that over time communities have
developed short cuts, short hands
that communicate effectively whilst breaking gramatical rules
and people who get frapped in phase 2 are likely to be diagnosed as being
on the autistic specrum
and so to
traffic lights
when approaching a pedestran controlled road crossing
one may happen across a gran or nanna
in the throws of trying to teach
a child way too young to be let loose on their own
to press the button and wait for the green man
and one often feels compelled to fall as an adult into
doing what Nana is telling the tot to do
to avoid the inevitable
why do I have to do that?
that man didn't do that
and so to traffic lights and especially signals on the railway
there is an incident type on the railways called a
SPAD
a SPAD is a Singnal Passed At Danger
and the essence of this is
step back a little
when our Ricker was preparing for his driving test
he had a slightly quirky instructor
one day the instructor wanted to test a particular skill
without fore-warning Ricker what it was
and so he directed his pupil to turn down the road that lead through
the underpass at Redcar East railway station
and so Ricker complied and the instructor was not happy
because our Ricker had driven correctly
and unconsciously avoided the test
at the beach end of the underpass there is a junction with a
slightly more important road running parallel to the railway
on the road there is - at least there was
a dotted white line across the exit of the underpass
in the Uk at the time - and perhaps to this day
a dotted white line is a halt line
a solid white line is a stop line
the instructor was expecting Ricker to stop at the halt line
but the exit being clear, he did not
and the execcise in
springing a hill start on our Ricker collapsed
the operative word in SPAD is
Danger
on the railway a red light means danger
it is not a stop light
in other words
if you are a person who usinf a particular PeLiCon crossing
Pedestrian Light Controlled crossing
several times on most days
you get to know the sequence and can
forego or skip the assistance offered by the
button and the green man
most importantly because
you need to take into account that the green man does not indicate that
a physical gate has been put in the path of drivers
ultimately
drivers run red lights
and green man or no green man
you'll be just as dead
if you rely entirely on the signals and not on
your own assesment of traffic condtions
there's another technicality here
the green man is displayed for around 5 seconds
all the vehicle lights will be held ar red for
around 10 seconds
ther is a reason for this
the green man - or cycle, or horse
is an indication that
when visible the term is
proceed - BEGIN to cross - with caution
the green man will be swapped for a red man before
the vehicle lights are swapped from red to green
because the green man says
begin to cross it's too late to set off
even though it is safe of people
currently in mid corssing to complete their transit
the green man does not say
you have control of this crossing
it says
this may be a good moment to set off across the junction
and these days these crossings have extras
a little cone under the pedestrian console
that rotates for the vision impaired that turns when the
green man is lit
and RADARs or whatever that
detect pedestrians as cables burried in the road detect vehicles
and PLEASE drive up to the white line
don't stop short
if you don't drive over the embedded cable
the crossing won't know you are there

7th June 2024

a technical issue has arisen regarding
mobile 'phone snatching
somebody lost a lorra lorra money because somebody else
took out a huge loan on a snatched 'phone that was
'open under facial recognition'
if you set the time between
last input
and
auto shut off
too long
a 'phone can be snatched and all the thief has to do is keep poking the screen
every - say - five minutes
to keep 'you' the owner logged on until they can get o a safe place
and take out the loan or whatever
this is why the thieves need to snatch a 'phone whilst you are actively using it
not so much pick pocketing it where you would be logged off and
the thief would need your password of finger or face to log back on
one of our 'phones beeps every time we walk out the door with it
it is telling us it has been moved
asking , do you want to chase after me or are you with me?
the more complex the security...
the greater the need to understand it
if you use your 'phone a lot...
specially in public places
set a short password that won't be too much of a bind to keep re-entering
and a very short
last use to shutdown time
then there is a better chance the 'phone will shut down
before the thieves can use it
if your 'phone needs to see your face every ten seconds to
or detect an input such as a screen touch every few seconds to
keep you logged it will be more secure
but this probably only works if you are
not having a voice conversation
if somebody steals your 'phone and knows its number
they may be able to
ring it and thus wake it and get access to your data
this is probably why 'phones no longer respond to a swipe with
and on screen message
'hello my number is XXXXXXXXX
so for God's sake don't write the 'phone's number on
a label on the back of the 'phone

6th June 2024

Thompsons are
bulding a hill of beens in Woolies
not beans
rubble that has BEEN walls is being built up into a
booster seat for their dinky little Komatsu digger
because it can't reach the top of the Woolies lift shaft
without one

5th June 2024

The Woddsmith Mine near Whitby has been in construction for a long time
we suspect that it must be very near completion
or at least very near to large scale production
this implies a firly drastic reduction in
workforce scale
in essesnce, phasing
we would expect quite a lot of workers to be transferred from
Woodsmith - Whitby
to
Warrenby Power Station
the gas fuelled power station to be built on the site of
Redcar Iron Works
for those who actually visit the site
Tod Point Road Warrenby etc
we could explain that the remains of
Warrenby Steel Works are easy to see on the right hand
eastern side
of the road to The South Gare
and that land has not been ' reclaimed'
it is Redcar Iron Works - a construction of the 1970s
that has been erased to make way for the power station
there will be some disruption as workers transfer
from Whitby to Warrenby
but these sorts of contractors are accustomed to
travel days
in the normal run of events
specialist engineers expect to
travel to site on a Monday morning this means actually 'working'
three full days and two half days
one thing we have noticed in Redcar is that
shops have three sets of customers
contractors, residents, and tourists
overall the trade pattern is such that a number of shops are taing to
experimenting with
being closed on Mondays

regarding the wind farm on the Dogger Bank
we think there has been a change of tactics
over the winter 2023 - 4
Voltaire would take a dozen turbines out and fit them to
a dozen monopiles and trasition pieces previously installed by
Alfa Lift??
the current situation seems to be that
AlfaLift and Seaway Straznov are ferrying
monopiles from Rotterdam to Dogger
and Voltaire - the new expanded Voltaire
to stationed on Dogger to install them
so not a dozen fully installed turbines at a time
but dozens and dozens of monopiles installed while the
weather is summery
no turbines are being collected from Greythorpe
and no transition pieces are being collected from Blyth
it appears that it has been decided that transition piesces and turbines
can be safely installed in winter
but that monopiles require better weather

4th June 2024

in recent video Sir Kier Starmer shows symptoms of
nystagmus
an eye condition recently described by a lad in a charity ad as
wobbly eyes
adult onset temporary nystagmus MAY be indicative of
alcoholism

the phrase IS
he's all mouth and trousers
refers to beach body builders who
pack their bedgie smugglers with socks
all mouth and no trousers
makes NOT SENSE WHATEVER


not to get too far ahead of ourselves...
ABBA, Abbott, avatar
perhaps we should have a new ABBA stage show style gallery
in the house of commons for
reruns of speeches for past greats of UK political history
before the dementia got just too bad



the black layer cake is the hearth of the Redcar blast furnace
is it being removed
or to be a monument
or to find a new use?

this shows concrete mixing plant and so
we are assuming they are about ready to sink piles for foundations,BR.


apart from Tesco dock to right
we have in blue
Bran Sands sewage sludge dewatering plant
trade secret here...

this is a photomerge of two shots

this is it sropped
source pics above
we have
big cube?
Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station
white pipes - wind turbine parts at Greythorpe
big expanse of crushed concrete
ste of proposed
gas powered electricity generating station
it's gonna be a biggie

29th May 2024

nd the scores on the doors..
the airliner that 'killed sombody' a week or so ago
whist travelling forwards at 500 mph
dropped for 5 seconds at a rate of 22 mph
hardly aerobatics
and very similar to the antics of the
Vomit Comet
use to simulate weightlessness for
trainee astronauts
a free bonus experience...


Michael Walton Bates, Baron Bates
is a British Conservative Party politician
serving in the house of Lords since 2008
from 1992 to 1997 he represented the constituency of
Langbaurgh in the House of Commons
by the bye we know of at least one member of the Tory party
who was expelled from the party for suggesting that
the party should be able to find a better candidate
kinda around the time Sir Robert Goodwill was standing in Redcar
Langthingy is now called Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
and Sir Robert has just resigned as MP for Scarborough and Whitby
any how
our digest of significant facts about Lord Bates...
he entered the House of Lords in 2008 the same year that his marriage of 25 years to Carole Whitfield ended - we suspect dissolved
since 2012 married to Xuelin Li
she has donated £206,000 to the Tory party since 2010
and has met in person with President Xi
policy mogul has him listed as
Life Peer since 2008
on leave of absence since October 2021
does not say on leave of absence from what?
our Tory party expelledcorespondent regarded Lord Bates from the start as
a person likely suffering from some sort of
early onset dementia
walking around in a dream...
and so to a few questions
mainly: was he booted upstarirs to the Lord to prevent his
puppet masters setting him up once more as a Commons candidate?
was sombody other than Xuelin Li
buying Lord Bates's status as a Tory candidate in much earlier times?
why persist in promoting the political career of a
complete dork?
if not for reasons of financial support?

28th May 2024

we're back in the 1970s and at Durham University
a little cameo about Richardson
zoology student
wanted to go to Egypt to do research for a PhD
so they said
we'll fund you if you get a First
so what other reason did Durham need to give him a first so they did
so the deal fell through
because the funder said 'if you get a first'
knowing that this Richardson was the only one of
a set of siblings - brothers - who had gone to Durham
and not Oxford
anway
any road up
our Ricker being the one with the big car...
took a handful of fellow students up to Newcastle to
visit the Hancock museum - now demised we understand
and so Ricker parked up in the car park and went with the others for
THEIR first visit to Newcastle-on-Tyne
and Richrdson looked around
Where are all the bomb sites?
if this was London
there would be bomb sites everywhere
so when Jenny Archer of the Redcar town Deal Board says
the project to turn Markies and Woolies will be 'transformational'
that's not technically untrue
like Hitler and the Luftwaffa
transformational
as a side note
Rodah or whatever they call themselves appear to be packing up on
the Majuba Hotel - next to TunedIn! whatever site
they decided or somebody decided for them to
include ripping up the curvy sea wall on the site
they appear to have broken the crusher by trying to run
sea wall instead of sand through it
and so they have brought in local firm Russell
to pick it up and crush it off site
have you herd of those 'castles in Scotland
called something along the lines of
Brch
like a tower circular twin walled
they didn't live in the space in the middle
they lived in a cavity between the two leaves of the
cavity wall
thato's what is planned for the Woolies site on Redcar High Street
a straight wall along the sea or north end
with a library built into the cavity
and most of the site turned into a community space
like a Market Place
like we don't have any open spaces in Redcar??
a first for Redcar
a place to pitch a burger van amongst the
shanty shacks
we don't think so
The Hancock Museum was a museum of taxidermy
which means
transfer skin
trnsfer the skin of an animal from it's body to a
manekin - dummy
the Hancock museum is still a part of the University of Newcastle 0 Tyne
but is now called the
Great North Museum Hancock

27th May 2024

we really should say...
the demographic - sort of people - the Tory
National Service Plan
is designed to impress...
would not like the detail
the whole idea of National Service for the over 60s is
I've done National Service because
I'm a man
I'm not a woman or a spaz
for those people in the Cons Clubs up and down
having done National Service means
I survived Basic Training
I wasn't 'excused boots'
because I was a strapping example of British Manhood
honestly?
there are all those
Gordonstoun School inspired
Outward Bound chalenges
to fit the bill
Boy Scouts Girl Guides Boys' Brigade Sea Scouts Prince's trust...
endless...


rail wagon typical 77 tonnes cargo, 28 tonnes of wagon
on the Middlesbrough to Whitby line
a mineral line between Saltburn and Boulby but general traffic
between Darlington and Saltburn
there are two styles of freight train
once or twice each week each week
steel shipped from Scunthorpe to the Tees is shifted on the rails
from Middlesbrough to Skinninggrove steel works
those trains are as long and heavy as need be
twice a day each way
we talking A V Dawson dock Boulby potash Mine
polyhalite fertilizer trains
we can say - locomotive plus up to 15 wagons
wagons 28 tonnes plus if travelling TO Middlesbrough Dock
77 tonnes of fertilizer
15 plus 1 for the loco - ball park figure
1680 tonnes
and they go through Redcar Central at
60 miles per hour
that's trough Redcar Lane and West Dyke Road leval crossings
for Christ's sake stop playing chicken with the level crossings
one thing
if the klaxon starts after you are past the lights
continue across
do not turn back

26th May 2024

polyflurinated alkyl substances
there we, we've said it
we were talking about the reaction we need to chemical incidents
PFAS are known as
forever chemicals
there are others.
some chemicals once made will continue to exist
unchanged, for a long long time
and if they are harmful
that potential harm will persist for that same length of time
DDT was an insecticide - pest killer
that was also toxic to other life forms including people
it got very famous, and banned
however, depending on storage conditions
how damp the soil, what the temperature is...
a given application of DDT toa site or crop
half of it will disintegrate within two to 15 years
and then half of what's left will disappear in another 2 to 15 years
it's very unlikelythat today there is much if any DDT
circulating in the environment
at the other extreme
nitrogen dioxide - exposed to moisture has a half life of
nanoseconds
very short indeed
turns to nitric acid
most likely it will fall onto concrete
almost immediately t will react with the alkaline concrete
and will become something such as
calcium nitrate
in other words
out in the wild
the next stage in the factory process of
nitrogen dioxide to nitric acid to fertilizer
will happen
thusly
industrial chemists know that some substances
best to let them fly, they won't last long in the environment
for those substances
dilution is the solution to polution
for other substances...
they must NEVER be allowed out of jail
they are toxic and will remain toxic until the end of time
unless subjected to un-natural processes of destruction
this is why
an incident at a chemical works is less of a threat to the public
than an incident at a waste disposal facility
chemical works - small risk to the public
warehouse or superstore - moderate risk to the public
waste processing facility - significant risk to the public
BUT, remember
most of the latter incidents involve fire
and fire mean heat and
hot gases are less dense thn air and so they rise
and that leads to the slghtly inaccurate concept
heat rises
it's actually the les dense hot gases that rise but the effect is the same
in a fire - especially a big one
the gases in the fire heat and rise and to fill the gap
and so
at low level in the vicinity of a major fire
fresh clean air is rushing towards the fire site
from all directions
and the toxic fumes the fire is producing are rising skywards
billowing or in the classic
mushroom cloud by which time they will have been diluted with fresh air
fresh air here means fresh air
not air loaded with the small of flowers as in the
household chemical adverts respirators - breathing apparatus - in The Blitz for example
firefighters were able to approach fires and fight them
we could get boggen down here
we forget the name of the movie but
this does not apply to fighting a fire within a building
this applies to fighting a fire from the street outside
we remembered
the movie is
Backdraft
the idea here is that in a major fire
the gases produced by the fire are not
entirely burned
imagine being in a large internal space
say a multistory car park
there is a fire at the far end
products of combustion are rising from that fire and
spreading along the ceiling towards to point where the firefighters
have entry to the space - building
they cool a little and begin to fall a little the are them both toxic and explosiveand the firefighters
camein through a small access point
and that inrush of fresh air is severely limited
and the firefighters are trapped between
the initial fire in fron to them
and the secondary fire or explosion behind them
in a context of an industril incident
we need to go to a famous fire fighter called
Red Adair
Paul neal 'red' Adar
died 2004 aged about 90
essentially he used buldozers to get to the seat of
ol industry ifes and dump explosives - nitroglycerine
onto the seat of the fire and
blow it out like blowing out a candle
so you got in riding a bulldozer so you have fesh air coming in behind you

25th May 2024

some may have seen the recent pictures of an orange cloud of gas hovering over
Billingham i Stockton-on-Tees
it was hanging there like a hoy air balloon
from time to time you may catch a glimpse of a lab
a science lab not the warm furry type
quite often the tecs are shown working on something
on a bench that is just the other side of a glass screen
that setup is called
a fume cupboard
it's like having the oven inside the extractor hood
not just below it
the purpose of making nitrogen dioxide in a fertilizer plant is
to expose it to water or water vapour and that
puts nitrogen dioxide and water together to create
nitric acid
one of the three 'strong' acids - nitric, hydrochloric and sulphuric
if you breath nitrogen dioxide in
it reacts just like that in yer tubes and yer lungs to
coat the surfaces of yer breathing apparatus in nitric acid
in the lab
you use the extractor fan in - usually at the top of
the fume cupboard
to extract the fumes from the lab before you can breathe them in
just imagine that hot air balloon cooled down a bit and before
the police could get the word out
it sand and crept into your home
if you then switch off your extraction and close windows and doors
you could be in the position of trapping that cloud inside your house
making nitrogen dioxide in the lab
on an open bench, not in a fume cupboard
if
you consider the relative sizes of
a hot air balloon
and
Earth's Atmosphere - in total
do you want your home or office filled with
the released amount of nitrogen dioxide
in your office nd trapped there by your closed windows and doors
or out there having drifted mementarily through your house and
caused you to have a little cough?
if you SEE smaoke etc
close windows and doors
if you taste or smell gas
ventialte your internal living space


Redcar is hosting a
keep dogs on leads festival over the Whit weekend
we are so fed up with the
can't find anything better to do than bring in more restrictions...
brigade dogs banned from Redcar beach year round not just in summer...
hat we are not going to sort this lot out
seven cygnets aswimming
Mum and Rouffie brought out their brood for the Bank Holiday
ludicrous idea a Bank Holiday
when all the bank are shut all the time and yet
open all the time on line
so
some pictures of the kite flying
one of the
the disabled toilets are shut Stack
the changing places one at TunedIn is shut
how do toilets that are only open to disabled people with a key
end up destroyed?
there is a sequence of pics to show how rain
draining from a tiny hole in the sea wall
can shift a great deal of sand

24th May 2024

we're at a point of paradigm shift
paradyme shift in American
major reset in English
and we drift back into the era or the previous one
life is messy, complex
and we willnot be trying to stand up this version of events
on the basis of our Ricker's 'private life'
take this as 'fictionalised' if you want
long long time ago our Ricker had a study buddy called Jane
and for the purposes... we will say her dad was a famous
chap described as
'The unacceptble face of capitalism'
there was a term we forget for
buying up companies and
asset stripping them
you'd get more for that car if you broke it for parts
writ large
his company was called
London Rhodesia Mining
these days it's called
London Mining or Lonmin
and one of the guys on the 'board'
with shares, whatever
was a chap called something like
Mohamed Fyed
and the two fell out and
Mohamed Al-Fyed
left Lonro
and then a whole load of shit came down
essentially
because of the threat of miners' strikes
and the knowledge that
North Sea oil and gas was a finite - limited - resource
the government knew that the UK needed enery from
what became OPEC - Middle East fossil fuel rich areas
and so
Tiny Rowland became totemic of British Colonialism
British hard and soft power in Africa
and Mohamed Al-Fyed became totemic of
developing close links between
the UK and the Middle East
and so to optics
to the appearance of things
Mohamed Fyed was Egyptian
but near enough to Middle Eastern and Moslem anyway
and so the cement the paradigm shift
the government quite un-necessarily
got involved in the grand pissing contest between
Tiny Rowland and Mohamed Al-Fayed over
ownership of the Department store
Harrods
now Mohamed had a son by a short first marriage
he was Dodi
Mohamed also had 4 children by a later 'lifelong marriage'
who is to say who engineered what
but in sum
the British Establishment
chucked
the UK's prime retailer
at Mohamed
and the mother of the UK's future king
Charlie Boy's sons
at Dodi
like bones to a dog
and this cemented a culture of deference in the UK
towards anything Moslem
and now?
not so keen on and not so dependent on
fossil fuels
and some re-calculating of the on-going cost of this association
when you sup with the devil
use a long spoon
the spoon is getting longer

23rd May 2024

we have an update on the Redcar Central level crossing crash
we are told that a signaler
in York or in Redcar?
permitted the train driver to pass a signal at danger
first we should say there are no signals on the upline
the line the train was on
between Redcar Lane Level crossing and West Dyke Road level crossing
the scenario we are leaning towards is that the signaller closed the
Redcar Lane gates
saw a standing queue at either side of the West Dyke crossing and
allowed the train through before they had actually closed the gates
signaller depending on the rather sensible belief that
the pedestrians were standing waiting because of the lights
the vehicles were standing waiting because of the lights
and
the West Dyke Road gates are a bit slow opening and closing
slower than most...
perhaps a signaller not familiar with this particular type of gate
assumed
1 traffic had stopped
2 the gates would closemore quickly than they did
deep in the back of our minds
with prejudice
we have an inkling tht the road vehicle driver may be
an illiterate member of the
Travelling Community
and therefore one of the Sacred Cows
this signaller is at risk of carrying the can for
thr sacred cow
get the wetware out of the system
the gate 'knows' when it is fully open or closed
due to the sensors
and does not carry on and rip itself apart
it should be the gate that changes the signal

as we understand it... in the 4th July 2024 UK general Election
some people will be voting in different constituencies from before
Longbeck, St Germain's Saltburn
in other words marske and Saltburn
will be voting for the Redcar MP
Ladgate, Marton East, Park End, Beckfield
will not as before be voting for the Middlesbrough MP
but for the Middlesbrough South and East Clevaland MP
that's what we understand
time will tell>BR> on the face of it it appears that the populations of 4 wards in Middlesbrough
equal the populations in three wards in Marske and Saltburn
Middlesbrough constituency appears to be replaced by
Middlesbrough and Thornaby East
the point here is that without a
Fixed (length) Parliament Act
changes to boundaries are not certain until
the dissolution of the old parliament
so it kinda looks like some people won't know
what constituency they will be in in the new parliament
until they get their poll card

21st May 2024

Daddy's Home

this is one of those
elephant in the room
issues
as it stands
corporal punishment in schools is illegal in the UK
but corporal punishment of children in the home
if 'reasonable in extent' is legal
the problem is
if corporal punishment of children in the home or
within the family - to include such as in a hotel room
is here a clear understanding that this is
perhaps NOT the OK for corporal punishment in a family context
in the sense that it applies only to children
and it does not imply that
corporal punishment within 'marriage' or adult partnership
is to be treated in the same way
if the authorities in the Uk are offering tacit approval to
corporal punishment between adult pertners in a relationship
does this explain the pursuit of charges of
rape and sexual assault
and almost zero charges of
common assault within households?
referencing Mr P Diddy Combes

20th May 2024

das ist mein dogger




we need to explore our comments about
Archbshops of Canterbury a bit further
if you choose the
trasactions with God route
as opposed to the there s a slippery slope
if you are the arch bish
and you say
feed the bastards and they will breed
that's what God has whispered to me
a bit of a problem with
overpopulation
a bit of a priblem with
cut down the rain forests to plant more palm oil forests
the difficulty comes when you are the recently deceased
President of Iran and you see overpopulation
and you say
God has whispered to me
the more infedels, heretics, blasphemers I slaughter
the more credit I get with Him
so you have one set of clerics
currying favour by helping the bastards to
make it like rabbits
and another set finding justifications for
thinning the bastards out a bit
mainly by fomenting wars
and neither is studying
God's grand plant as evdenced by
the workings of the Natural World
Nature is red in tooth and claw
so as we heard it from th bish
in the Middle East and Africa
drown them in food
in Hartlepool...
double the rate of child benetif for
every extra child
so for the bish there is no merit in
heir and spare but beyond that
poverty
we say this from time to time
because 'child benetit' is actually parent benefit
the only way to tackle
child poverty is not to
increase 'child benefit' but to
take children into care
extra child benefit..
new shoes for the kids
or
more drugs for mum

19th May 2024

oh THESE babies
they're not babies
they're goslings
you shooda sed


we could say
cheap job - move the curb - kurb whatever
back to where the trafficlight stands on the pavement
but the road would probably still not be wide enough for
two buses to passe safely






wejust wanted to point out the 'repair' at the entrance to
the shop built on France Street
this strip is where the tiles spelling out
HALFORDS
were removed
and that shop was our Ricker's
Sue Ryder Care shop
and for some reason
some people thought it belonged to
Ladbrookes the bookies....
perhaps it does???

and just in case you may think the car that got trapped on
West Dyke Road level crossing
came out of Birdsll Row
there is a sign there too


it's very difficult to consume the output of
mainstream media
these days and imagine that anybody learns anything
in school
turn up in school
8.00 to 10.00 - breakfast club
10.00 to 12 am indoor sports and dance
12.00 am to 1.00 pm lunch
1.00 pm to 3.00 pm - councelling is yer da beating up on yer mam?
but it's not the tales of what is done
it's the norms of knowledge assumed by the media that resonate most strongly
every slightest fragent of knowledge is hailed as a revelation
but we really wanted to discuss religion
in particular the current and many recent
Archbishops of Canterbury
what we see is a reversion to a
transactional relationship
between cleric and God
I want this, give me a brain wave about
what you - God - want in return
in times past most educational institutions were
set up and run by religions
and although there were scripture classes
as in some places where the ability to recite a holy book is much admired
it would be fair to say that the writing of 'scripture' and the activity of
religious institutions in general has traditionally been about trying to
explain - in the sense of reveal - the workings of
God's creation, the universe
and not so much emphasis on
what do I need to do to get granted a favour by God
and in that sense we see a contrast between the work of
a monestary resident
Gregor Mendal
the founder of the science of genetics - some say
and a less conteplative division of 'the church'
dedicted to what is known as
selling indulgences
scripture is a best guess at th time of writing as to how to
get the best out of your interaction with Creation
the selling of indulgences is about
what to do
on the one hand - giving to charity
and on the other hand
praying or a miracle
to get the laws of nature
disapplied
to your particular case
we chose disapplied because a judge in Northern Ireland used it
in terms of
UK laws that don't apply to Northern Ireland
in the more immediate term
we see members of the UK parliament deciding to
'leave politics'
in a parallel manner
people entering UK politics around a decade ago would have seen
being an MP asbeing a 'high powered version of'
a compensation lawyer
contact my constituency office and we'll see
what we can do about getting you some
compensation from the European Union
in other words several generations of MPs have seem the job as
a broker between claimants and state
and not as
management
management of the apparatus of the state

18th May 2024

babies?
babies we ain't got no babies has we Matilda?
never seen none Stan





I can't see you
so you can't see me

17th May 2024

See-Saw Margery Daw
Jonny shall have a new master
he shall have but a penny a day
because he can't work any faster

interesting
there are various interpretations
see-saw Margery Daw
seems to relate to women and stand alone in the rhyme
it seems to be about how a female can go in and out of favour
with a male
some say Margery Daw is a reference to
Anne Boleyn
who used her 'pretty young thing' assets to steal
English king Henry the 8th from his wife
Katherine of Aragon
in short a female had to keep her looks f she wanted to keep her man
and that led to ups and downs
Katherine's marriage annuled and then Anne executed
the bit about Jonny or Jenny getting a new master is
a bit confusing
the essence of the story is
will get a new master
in terms of slavery in the Southerm states of America
slave owning reolved around rivers such as the Mississippi
and when a slave proved troublesome or
cheaper to keep a week than a fortnight
they would likely be sold
and the less valuable slaves
like used farm machinery would likely be
sold down the river
the less skilled work was done down river - further south
so if Jonny or Jenny was a slave
why would they be paid a penny a day?
probably because
there was a 'trade' in employment for
free labour as well as slave labour
a free person who was not skilled or was ill or injured
would be 'let go'
from their employment (contract)
as opposed to being sold at auction, as with a slave
and find less well paid work
hence, thus, therefore
if you were Jenny
and you worked in a textile mill in North West England,BR. or a sweat shop in London
and because you were young and inexperienced
or
old and ill
and you only produced a quarter of your quota of work for the day and to make up the other three pence for the doss house
between work and sleep
you would have to persuade three men to
put ypu up against a wall for
a knee trembler
to 'earn' the remaining three pence
because any group of females living or working together will
tend to synchronise their periods - monthly cycle
classic example all the staff in a hair dressers or beauty parlour
giving birth in the same week
women became a reliably unreliable workforce
how hard they worked at the day job
was strongly influenced by
their appetite that day for some
sex worknin the evening

16th May 2024

a 3G pitch is a third generation plastic pitch
for soccer, rugby football and similar
and there is a trend here
we have said that football - soccer - is popular in schools because
it's as cheap as you can get in terms of
provision of supervised physical exercise
but of course one of the stand out developments in society is the rise of
'charities' that promote ideas about
economic and social 'need'
because they represent
opportunities for economic growth
a 3G pitch or twelve
becomes and essential asset for
every village and Primary School in the nation
because a 'charity' or 'consultancy' has said it is so
and this changes the economics
people look at this essential expense and say
we got government funding to lay down the 3g pitch
but no funding for maintainance and so
we can't afford to use it in case it gets damaged
and so
football becomes more and more a elite sport
at all levels
and we see with Gateshead not being rich enough for the
Football League
as opposed to not being 'good enough' for the football league
and at the same time
on the opposite bank of the river Tyne...
newcastle being too rich for the European Football League
your wealth has to be
just right
to be secure in the club
and so
for 'boys'
no tin soldiers and no football
and what is it that for the moment they can do to their heart's content?
play with Lego

we have an enthusiasm shortage at present regarding
publishing photographs but we can say
re Locke Park
there are ducklings and goslings
baby ducks and baby geese
we are ntrgued by the swans
they now have a very big nest on hospital island
we have set to wondering
does mum keep the cygnets home for a while
after they hatch?
since she can't feed them and they must eat
does she take them out to forage
after the people have left the park of an evening and
in the early morning
or has she got an empty nest?
a person can imagine all sorts of things but our Ricker
would not be surprised if
fuzzy grey blobs around the edge of the nest
were cygnet heads
time will tell
that is a very important distinction
all these seabirds
can bring sand eals to their youg in the nest
and birds of prey can bring voles and such to their young
but largely vegetarian species such as swans, geese and ducks
are not known for
bringing pond weed or grass to the nest to feed their young

15th May 2024

just in case you were wondering where it is safe to go wild swimming
Coatham Bay, Redcar and Cleveland

14th May 2024

we think we need to mke a distinction
if you have the care of a boy child who prefers
playing with Barbie to playing with ActionMan
that may give you pause for thought
but if you have the care of a boy child who prefers
computer games, ActionMan style dolls and such to
joining a scrum of other boys kicking seven bells out of each other
around a football
and that bothers you?
perhaps it is your own mental health that requires attention
perhaps it is no longer acceptable when a boy child is moving on from
a Teddy to more human form artificial companions
to get him a toy fort and a box of tin soldiers
but banning boys from having a baby doll as a toy runs counter to
efforts to get new fathers to take up the offer of
paternity leave own children

13th May 2024

for the most part, eventually, without much effort
the missing fact occurs to our Ricker, so
the movies with the flop house and Twiggy
Blues Brothers
but it's Carrie Fisher's character who
blows up the flop house with a bazooka

two major problems with life in the Uk at the moment as
moral crusades
to hell with the economy - we want EVERYBODY to have a job
and
to hell with life style related disability
we don't want people to be educated about how their bodies work
how do you provide a GCSE course in
Human Biology
without opening yourself up to a charge of
inciting a child to engage in sexual activity?
there are things money could be spent on in Redcar
to improve the built environment and lived experience
demolishing a building one side or the other of
France Street or Moor Street whatever it's called
between Lord Street and High Street East
was part of the plan when Morrisons was built
and would revolutionise bus operations
yes Mr Metro mayor your remit - public transport
instead we get several years of disruption whilst
markies and Woolies get taken down brick-at-once
it really is laughable the predominance of
moral crusades over economics
and we see in the character of the
Mother Superior of the orphanage
corporal punishment etc
on what sort of 'work' young people should seek
burger flippers not musicians etc

12th May 2024

HM Coast guard and RNLI report an incident
near to Trident Close
near to Trident Close implies - in the West Harbour...
Hartlepool like

when a child finds themself without child companions...
they amy approach an adult
'dad, dad willl ya play in goal for us? thee is quite a lot of confusion about
if you can't talk to children about girl bits and boy bits...
should you talk to them at all about
bodily structure and function?
best to play it safe and say nout
so our Ricker has a couple of blisters on his right foot
so on a lovely day he is at this computer not out and about
there used to be famous newspaper colunnist who would
either send in nothing on a day or send in a copy of the previous day's column
insert name here is indisposed
would appear in place of the column
this is kinda the reverse
a pointless contribution...
we made reference to the Robertson Dossers Club
sometimes it is very difficult to get a straight answer off the Internet
Dosser
the concept of
the Doss House is mainly Victorian
essentially from the Dublin - London axis
you may well have heard of
Thw workhouse
place to shelter from the weather in return for some labour and
listening to some improving lectures
The Doss House was slightly different and one step up
Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat
pleease put a penny in the old man's hat
if you haven't got a penny a ha'penny will do
if you haven't got a ha'penny
teh God bless you
to get into the Workhouse you needed no maney but
you may be sent there and kept ther against your will
a Doss House was a commercial enterprise
oh dear we have forgotten the US equivlent
two musical movies
whole load of star cameoes
Beluchi just out of prison
taken by his pal to a
Flop house
same thing
at a Doss House - in mid Victorian Dublin or London
for 4 pence a night
you got enough space to lie down on your back and sleep
dorsum is back
as in dossard the number flag on the back of a
cyclist in a competion
a Doss house was a place to buy a space to lay down you aching back
and sleep for a night
and so
two things
the dily target of a Victorian Dublin or London begger was four pence
and
the alternative to buy with the four pence was
a visit to a prostitute who for the same 4 pence
would throw in sexual services
so perhaps the brothel was level three
workhouse
dosshouse
brothel
and so there levelling up schemes
Robertsons being major participants
for turning up to a job site
you get
entertainment for the day
plus enough money to pay for
a night in
contractor's accommodation

11th May 2024

our Ricker is ever so easy pleased
he being very very old reckons the sexiest woman ever on TV was
way back in the mists of time
a weather presenter called
Trai Anfield
however
now that we have the
Sunday every day Orla
wat he can say is...
really simple with the hair bands to
gve that pretty face some style by
dumping the
regulation TV presenter helmet hair


sometimes we fail to notice the small print on a web page that says
working off line
and in other ways we can be looking at a page that hasn't been
refreshed recently
so we think we are talking about 8th May 2023
and we are talking about tracking voltaire
so far as we can tell
on that or a nearby day
Voltaire was not visible at Greythorpe
but was being tracked as being in the Tees
so observed as missing 10.00 am
tracked as still in the river 14.45
that sort of thing
could be a glitch
could be that Voltaire made a vist to
South Bank Wharf
in transit from Greythorpe to Dogger Bank

10th May 2024

the Robertsons Dossers Club
membership 20 plus guests
has displaced the
RNLI beach lifeguards
spose being young and fit they will be able to
vault the barrier
or use jet packs to get to the beach
in an emergency
keep a couple of dozen dossers off the dole is
not more important than providing
bathing safety for visitors






over the past six months or so
Israel has been in a
damned if you do, damned if you don't situation
essentially
HAMAS did something very difficult to contemplate
it was inevitable that the children of the world would
try to distract attention from that by
painting whatever Israel did in response as
far worse
and so it was natural that many in Israel took the view
better to be hung for a sheep than a lamb
if victim blaming is inevitable - we note some attempt to avoid thisin this case
next best thing for the college kiddies was to
portray any action of Israel as
over kill

8th May 2024

little things please little minds
while bigger fools look on
there seem to be studio wars going on at EuroSport
Giroditalia highlights DMAX
some 'director' has decided - probably a year ago
that
cycling is about yer arms
so we have Orla the anchor
standing around doing
teapot impressions and
doing her passive agressive by
wearing trousers on a show that's all about
legging them pedals around
very disappointing
ge her sat down and showing some leg


12 kids come to a sticky end
twelve million don't
so it must be something that all 12 million were exposed to
that caused the early demise of the dozen
this is what passes for logic in our modern world
do we say
well if only a dozen autistic kids top themselves
we can pretend that autism doesn't exist?
we do suspect that at heart this is about
parents of neurodiverse offspring
hoping against hope
and professinal advice
that their 'quirky kids'
will 'grow out of it'
if they are kept in aspic long enough
on the other hand
our Ricker has a harridan of a neighbour who had a hysband and two sons
and a neighbour she did not get on with
pair of semi-detached bungalows
and one day her husband had had enough and
killed himself
and her reaction was such that thenBR> one of her sons killed himself
sometimes
death is nature's way of telling us to
slow down
seems the opposite applies to some neurodiverse parents

5th May 2024

the UK NHS - health service is very big
and along the way it can fit in quite a lot of little
trials and experiments
we can't be an authority on these but we do see thingsBR> from time to time
one day our Ricker was in a GP - family doctor's - office
waiting room
and a gaggle of people were obviously
on their feet, wandering around
clearly on a mission
from what he could gather they were volunteers who had been sent
after a little training
to explain what we are about to try to explain
essentially the difference between
an advocate
and
a mentor
essentially an advocate sets out to
explain what the patient wants - to the service
a mentor sets out to expalin
what the service can offer to the patient
or more precisely
how the patient can interact with the service to
gain the best benefit from the contact
in a perfect theoretical world
in politics, an eleceted representative is supposed to
act as both advocate and mentor to
constituents
to be sensitive to the hpoes and fears of electors
and 'sell' government and local authority actions
the trouble is
the trouble appears to be
that today's polticians never get down to this job
and spend their entire political energies in
constant 'hustings'
one of those 'good old sayings' is
the most difficult thing about any job is getting it
mainly
the politicians of today have pretty much decided that
the day they get elected is the first day of
the campaign to get re-elected
things like the
'fixed term parliament acts'
are designed to encourage elected officials to set aside
campaigning for at least the first half of their
projected tenure - time to next election
to do unpopular but essential things
politicians in the UK are failing to
'do anything'
because they are not doers
they are
most especially President Trump in the USA
'great box office' as they play out the roles of
squabbling six year olds in the school yard
politcians want attention and they crave to be liked
so they do what gets them 'screen time' and most easily
this comes in the form of
dissing rivals
and so
the world of politics becomes
a couple fighting in the from seats of a moving car
and completely ignoring the kids in the back seats
one day in a general election in Redcar
for some reason, some young chap who worked for
the sort of company where the present Prime Minister
first made money
had been sent ot Redcar by head office
and the candidate - Sir Robert Goodwil had
borrowed an ex rental Ford Escort as official campaign transport
so the scenario was
the geek from head office and some other person - 'local'
were in the front seats and our Ricker w in the back
people don't quite understand the status of some areas of
the Redcar constituency but
the ward or township of Grangetown is best described as like
a movie studio back lot
there are roads
and some of the roads have buildings on them dotted around
and so
for quite a lot of people
the streets of Grangetown are a perfect place to make
first steps in learning to drive a car
for some reason this little car was travelling west along
Bolckow Road
and initially the scenario was that it was well to the east
and somewhere quite far in the distance
a learner driver was having a go at
three point turns
at first our Ricker politely suggested that his driver should
watch out for trouble ahead
by the time the two vehicles were almost in contact
our Ricker was shouting really quite loud
this was not because either car was travelling fast
but because
as an iron rule
back seat drivers and to be igored
Sir Robert was not in the car at the time
the main difficulty that both Sir Kier and the current Prime Minister have is
if an investment was not performing well, in the PM's
'proper job'
he would simply sell it off and take the loss when it was
as small as possible
across modern society
'workers' rights' legislation means that
disposing of underperforming assets - particularly human ones
is very much more difficult
all this talk of
we need a new leader is like...
you have kidney cancer and so to improve your outlook we are going to
replace your left eye with a glass one
our Ricker is having a bt of a flash back to school days
and it may have been a lad caled Kantika
anyway this lad was boasting about his dad's new car
and perhaps our Ricker has always been a bit
no filter
but also the person most likely to talk about the
elephant in the room
eventually he got so fed up he said
well you know what they call Ford Capries?
puff cars
it is very interesting that there is possibly a whole can of worms there
perhaps Kankika's parents were separated, perhaps his dad WAS gay
but car nuts these days
perhaps with the exception of Australia
have no interest in
4 door versions of iconic models
in the 1960s a proper regular family man
wanted a Ford Cortina
and so did his wife
although she wouldn't be driving it
it is very interesting to hear little girls
like six year olds who have been bridesmaids at an auntie's wedding
probably more correctly - flower girls
talking about
knights and princesses
and what they want ot have at their wedding
and wanting a prum for their dolly
and little boys wanting the fastest car there is
the nurd from Conservative Centrl office was some sort of
junior finacial expert - 1980s - although he was not yet on the big bucks
he was keen to point out that any client who wanted to have his services
would have to pay his boss
5 or 6 hundred pounds a day to hire him
what a generous freebee his boss was supplying to
Redcar constituency Tory party
we thought we would shoehorn a story about an
orthopaedic surgeon
big bone and joint repair chap
he said
what's interesting about my patients is
if I set off the fire alarm
it's the patients who have been on the ward the longest
who are first out of the building
the creaking gate lasts longest
in other words
the peanut gallery full of who should be sacked next
but
no, that's not a job for me
I'm very comfy knitting on the front row of the audience
as the aristoes loose their heads in the French revolution

4th May 2024

the experts divide the world into
democratic and repressive
it is a distraction that repressive governments tend
as a sort of package deal to
engineer a constant state of
well, we would become more democratic but
there is a s'temporary' state of emergency
a threat from overseas and from our neighbours
this has been done twice
by UK govenments
Faulklands War and CoViD
civil servants seem to think they have to check from time to time
how the British would respond to an authoritarian administration
as you will know, in these pieces we have this semi-relevant preamble
to something we want to say
in authoritarian - non democratic states
particularly at the present - China
the government's core aims are about
wealth creation and economic growth
in democracies the emphasis is on
job creation
UK governments hoard jobs
like an old man who has to hire a lockup to house
moterbies he will never ride
they are utterly oblivious to the fct that there is a level of
'unemployment' that is healthy
The Bank of England sets 2 per cent as the target rate of inflation
the government including the arms length Bank of England
do not set - say 4 per cent - as the target rate of unemployment
anything anybody wants to do...
justification?
it will create jobs
never - it will drive inflation down to zero
it is very difficult to achieve economic growth when
your main target is
not even to drive down unemployment
but to create jobs
and all too often we hear
this project will create 10,000 jobs during construction
and
twenty jobs when in opertion
in other words
even if the jobs are created
they will evapourate before the next general election
and this lazer targeting of job creation
at the expense of wealth creation is the coming scourge of
ordinary people...
'in work' poverty
our Ricker has not stood often for election but he can report from
the mists of time
'we think you are a great bloke and would do a good job
but
your opponant fixed our daughter up with a council house
so we will have to vote for him
there is no doubt that grandparents vote
and people who hold out the prospect of
walk in - no skills, no qualifications jobs
for the teenage grandchildren
is a positive driver to placement of the ballot paper X
but the 'social reformers/campaigners' are having to take a tumble to
skills shortages, not housing shortages and unemployment
if poverty is to be tackled

3rd May 2024

what we can see in the Tees valley Mayor election is
the effect of the
Andy MacDonald - or whatever the Middlesbrough MP is called
the Labour smaear campaign on Lord Houchen
we think commentators should consider how well this smear campaign
vote of a mayor you can trust
can be extended to Tory parliamentary candidates
the effect has not been insignificant
and the campaign gained credibility with the return of
the whip - technically over a different matter
to Andy MacDonald
at present Labour on Teesside appear less like
a one trick poney
and more like a broken record

2nd May 2024

we did not witness the level crossing incident so we can't do
this is what happened
what we can do is
if this is what happened, this is how
we are in the zone of somebody running the red lights
NO CONFUSING GREEN LIGHTS ON LEVEL CROSSINGS
we need to step back to the unusual nature of
Redcar's West Dyke Road level crossing gates
you know that for several decades now
ref the farmer arrested this week because a burglar
got in the way of a discharge from his gun
for some decades now if you cenent broken glass into the top of
your yard wall
and an intruder hurts themselves trying to climb in
you the homeowner are liable for
grievous bodily harm
because we have the same rules about
vulnerable people
as people in South Asia have about Sacred Cows
The gates on West Dyke are an experiment
they are not traditional level crossing gates
they are gates designed to control vehicle entry into
commercial goods yards
all those sorts of gates are required to
stop
if closing
if they encounter an obstacle
there is a pressure pad on the leading edge that cuts the power
and so
we assume that Jack the Lad or Minnie the Moocher
decided to run the lights and got onto the crossing
just as the gates began to close
the gates having stopped would not move the vehicle
but may have caught up on it in some way
so the train is getting a green light
and proceeds having crossed the more traditional - closed to road users
Redcar Lane crossing
but it is drawing up under braking to stop at platform 1 Redcar Central
we are assuming that the gate not only stopped but retracted
leaving the trasspassing vehicle with no exit on the far side
because the down side gate had closed without incident
and somehow not having time or gumption to
reverse off the crossing
is rotated off the track by a glancing contact with
the entire length of the train
the picture shows the REAR of the train in cotact with the road vehicle
OR
less likely
somebody in the railway signaling
opened the gates before the train cleared the crossing and
the road vehicle lighthly ran into the rear corner of train
that had inexplicably stopped short
due to the gates being opened prematurely
not a very likely explanation
but
given the zero damage to the train
there is a little quirk
discounted by the nature of the damage to the road vehicle
that the road vehicle stopped short of the track
with the gate retracted
and then drove into thw train after almost all of it had passed
super weird
in sum
the most likely scenario is that
the tarin 'snow ploughed' the road vehicle out of it's way
and got as some reports suggest
dragged it along the track
we wil not rule out the possibility that the road vehicle driver
had decided to overtake the queue and so was on the right hand side
of the crossing when the vehicle was hit

1st May 2024

you know we said
Redcar West Dyke Road Level Crossing was
recently kept closed for several days longer than planned
well in short today
a Saltburn to Nunthorpe train went through that crossing with the gates open
modern car- nobody hurt
could be a 60 plate Seat SUV but we could be wrong
we have pics
we're having lunch before we publish them
since this happened a around 9.30 on a Wednesday morning
and there aren't pedestrians strewn across the crossing in bits
we assume the worknig lights were flashing
somehow
it seems
the train had a green light??
and the road had the red lights and audible warning but the
SUV driver may have jumped the lights and parked on the edge of the crossing
such that his vehicle prevented to gates from closing
there will be eye witness accounts eleswhere in due course

very few people in the UK today are
unfortunate enough to have to say
'I was separated from my parents at birth'
what it appears to us is that almost nobody would say
I was separated to my parents at birth
separate and different
FROM
this species differs from that due to its colour
how does differs from
become
different to?
this scheme is different from that scheme
the difference is what separates them
drives them apart
puts distance between them
the train does not depart to the station
it my depart from somewhere else for this station
but it does not depart to this stationBR>
we have a little story about court room tactics
admittedly this comes from the civil courts
it relates to
The Tolworth Tower
the Seifert designed Tolwaorth Tower was built in 1964
on the site of the former ODEON cinema
it was the tallest building in Outer London
in Surbiton
to quote the web site of Commercial Stone Limited
commercialstone.com
What we did
to this architecturally important local landmark
Commercial stone undertook the careful removal of the
failing mozaic tile cladding and replacement with
hand made tiles to match the originals
we can't trace what company constructed the towers and put up the original cladding
what we do know is that the contctors used
Unibond tile adhesive
and when the tiles started to fall off there was a civil court case
because the contractor said they fell off because
Unibond tile Adhesive is rubbish
and Unibond said that the tiles fell off because
the contractors had not followed to instructions for use
stupid Unibond assuming that
construction workers can read..
the issue of the day however is
the lawyers for Siefert and their contractors
at a crucial point in the case
the summing up for the plaintif we assume...
slammed down a bag of power on the desk in front of him and said
Unibond use asbestos as a filler in their tile adhesive
this at the time late 60s early 70s was regarded as a
ligitimate tactic
asbestos had nothing to do with whether Unibond Tile Adhesive would
stick mosaic cladding to a building
but it showed Unibond as an irresponsible manufacturer
and the issue here is that Siefert's lawyers had
not given Unibond's lawers prior warning to Unibond's lawyers that they were
intending to introduce asbestos into the courtroom
or their arguement
this was a classic ambush tactic
leaving Unibond's lawyers totally unprepared to rebut the suggestion
these ambush tactics are supposed to be banned these days
the parties are supposed to give the opposition sight of the
major elements - and any evidence - in good time before the trial
when the police say
please don't publish information on the internet
they are defending their right to
ambush the defence

our Ricker's recollection of the Tolworth Tower is that it stands
over an underpass on the A3 at new Malden
but he's old

30th April 2024

we don't know who this Humza Yousaf is
something about his child not getting into
the nursery of his choice??/
got him famous
he got to be something in Scotland
we don't know the relationship between
MPs for Scottish constituencies
and
Menbers or the Scottish Assembly
as far as we know there are
three Wstmnster MPs for Aberdeen
this chap decided
'out of the blue'
to ditch Scotland's targets for
decarbonisation of the Scottish economy
like so many other politicians we guess he thought
whatever I do
so long as it pleases the fossil boys
they will ride to the rescue and
save my bacon
so he follows up on dtching the targets
with ditching the Green Party
and...
dada, nothing from the fossil boys and
the MPs and Msps for Aberdeen
there is a statistic about Aberdeen
around a quarter of a million people live there
almost none of them were
born in Scotland
it is the classic example of
let's OK something dreadful and get away with it by
offering thousands of jobs
and when the dreadful thing closes down
the area is NOT hit by
mass immigration because
all the immigrants who took those jobs
naff off back home
to America or 'mainland' Europe

there's a really important issue here
poilce are saying it boils down to
all photography is copyright The Police
what we hear is
relatives and next of kin were informed by
pecially trained officers
trained by?
not medical schools or universities but
by the police
we will not be surprised when the day comes that th police declare that
their specially trained officers should be the people who
inform patients that they have cancer
long ago our Ricker imagined the scenario where the heart transplant team
said 'well ladies, it appears that the police are too busy to do this operation
so we'd best start without them'
just don't tell the patient they were operated on by a surgeon
and not a specially trained police officer
bastard cops are atr it again
it is NOT illegal to operate forward or rear facing
'dash cams'
indeed oft times the
defective branch will off times appeal for
CCTV and ash cam and ring door bell footage
the Bbc toadying o the 15 minutes of fame brigade in the lower ordersBR> of officialdom yet again
editors bin any such footage before broadcast
it is only illegal to pick up a camera whilst in control of a motor vehicle

29th April 2024

we recently caught a glimpse of an item on the Bbc about
femicide
we were wondering is that like
insecticide?
something you could put in the water and kill all the females
without affecting the males
oh the glorious calm and peace...
but all that whinging and backstabbing are the price any species pays for
babies and continuity of the species
perhaps more seriously...
what is being removed from the male experience is the consolation
'I may be rubbish, but at least I'm not a girlie'
if females develop skills that is threatening to individul males
if females who do not devlop skills are paracheuted into jobs they
can't do
to fill quotas
that is a threat to society as a whole
whatever the quota, gender ethnicity, poverty religion
onece it exists
the choice is between
driving the competant out of that trade or profession
to protect the mental health of the paracheutists
or
puting the paracheutists on the long term sick and just
paying them for holding the role without expecting them to carry it out
to evoke an old music hall refrain
if you are a trade unionist
or
an equality rights campaigner you may insist that
every pottery company must have a quota of
sagger maker's bottom knockers
on their payroll
even when they have a machine that automatically churns out
saggers
a sagger is a piece of fired clay put into a kiln with
unfired wares to stop the whole load collapsing or sagging
during firing
the problem can be that
although
they also serve who only stand and wait
that is we keep on the sagger makers' bottom knockers
in case the machine breaks down
the problem is insisting that these reservists are paid the same as
the engineers who fix the machines when they DO break down
hence
bankrupt councils with huge debts for
equalisation back pay to women who were
on a lower grade than men
but should be paid the same because pay is for
turning up
not for skills



what's the most important kitchen utensil in a refugee camp?
a sieve
a sieve to sieve the bullets out of the flower
the United nations has no interest in its own cerdibility
in their fantasy world
everybody in Gaza is dead
they all died from starvation before Christmas 2023
not the boy who cried
Wolf!
there are some people who when speaking insert
fuck like a sort of touretts
btween every other word they utter
the UN has tourettes
every other word they speak is
famine
are we to accept they are institutionally neurodiverse
or just sideline them completely
edit out all mention of famine or edit out all mention of the UN?

when we say coffre dam...
we mean a dam made up of vertical sheet steel piling
overlaping, no gaps
the things you see when you
HAVE got a camera with you
and you can't arsed
Saturday 27th April 2024 morning
we have to say that large vessels have almost no
ability to steer if travelling very slowly
as a result many specialist vessels have what are
often called
azipods
not praticularly small protuberances
often on either sie and at each end that are like
jet engines although the are probably hydraulically powered
what was seen was a ferry
probably one of the ones that trades in and out of the Tyne
saying which they normally are almost still at sea
the termnals are so far down river
we are guessing that the ferry had been hired for the day to
test whether a vessel equipped with azipods
could safely dock without tugs at the new
South bank Wharf
and azipods is what we expect Seaway Strashnov uses for it's
dynamic positioning
so perhaps - if the test was successful - Strashnove with in in the Tees soon
currently it is on the Dogger Bank

28th April 2024

to just run through the military threats to the planet
China
you have a bowl of fruit
and you obsess about the guy next to you having an orange
you become all consumes about the orange and trying to get it
and one day you turn around and see that your bowl of fruit has
collapsed into a bowl of mouldy soup
there are only arouns 200 actual sovereign nations around the world and they are entitled to
protect - militrily and with customs checks etc. - their boundaries
they are not entitled to distract their own
Great Unwashed
from domestic inadequacies by
sabre rattling
at neighbouring countries
people such as the current China administration should remember
the cobbler should stick to her last
the last being the leather worker's equivalent of the
blacksmith's anvil
Israel
on the fce of it
many people are seen on the streets of cities around the world
trying to pressure Israel to
snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
if you watch these programmes such as
The Bad Skin Clinic
this is about removing unattractive tissue from people's surfaces
in a sense it is a gentle way of introducing people to the concepts of
traditional cancer treatments
and the whole idea of
margins
what they remove in The bad Skin Clinic and Dr Pimple Popper
are growths that are distressing but not life threatening
and so they don't qualify as
cancer
but they do grow - slowly
if you don't get the whole lipoma or the whole keloid out
it will grow back srgery was focussed on the removal of
infected tissue
and an abcess on a lower limb
or a serious injury to a lower limb may indicate
the removal of the entire limb to provide
a margin
to 'ensure' that tiny bits of infection were removed with the abcess
most leftsts are quite happy with the concept that
'poor countries' such as Russia, Iran, North Korea
are exempt from International law about things sucha as
protecting their military with
human shields
if one of these countries were to say
today we will be mainly nuking the British Military college
Sandhurst
we are in some sense punishing the British for not locating
their elite military school
on the Isle of Arron
where we can attack it without
causing civilian casualties
and not in leafy Berkshire
in other words
should the military be integrated into general society
another Ricker story
one day in the 1980s
our Ricker was wandering along the street outside
Hyde Park Barracks
and he was approached by a little middle aged man with a broad
Irish accent who asked and our Ricker thinks
this guy casing the joint?
'sorry, no idea'
of course he could have been there to
visit his son or fix the plumming
but if so he should have had proper directions
for it to be a war crime the distinction has to be
not, do you integrate the military into everyday life
and make it into a tourist attraction
being seen to be believed(in)
or you force non-combatants to encamp on the
front line

27th April 2024

this one may ramble a bit
we've made mention in the past that although
all sorts of universities have lecences
some full some provisional - to
run optometry courses
back in the 1980s there were a handful
Aston in Birmingham
UMIST in Manchester
is UMIST now Manchester Metropolitan??
we don't care but back in the day UMIST stood for
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
and City in London
to move on
whatever the situation in Northern Ireland today
if you wanted to be a proper optician in Northern Ireland
and other places - somewhere in South East Asia
could have been Hong Kong or Singapore
whatever
places dotted around the world if you wanted to be an optometrist
you would probably train at City in London
and so there were two little student groups at City Optometry
the Roman Catholics and the Protestants
so our Ricker knew two Johns
diversion - when our Ricker lived at SLOSH
SOuth London Overseas Student Hostel
Arterberry Road , Winbledon
apart from the French speaking Africans that our Ricker with his
O' level French was supposed to be able to talk to
no chance
what sort of farming do you have in this country?
fell straight away with
what's the French for arable and for mixed?
probably wanted to know whether we grow rice or cassava
anyway
John Meyler was the Rc
the other John had brought his wife and kids to
live in Milton Keynes so he could commute to
central London to study optomentry
at the end of term the RCs would get together and fly together on
the same flight from London to Belfast
but the crux here was what the other John said
'I moved my family to Milton Keynes because
things are getting very difficult there now
my brother is a police officer and these days
he has to stand in line to shops and such to be served
even if he's in uniform'
so of course
when we mention 'cost of doing business' that includes
charitable donations and sponsoring in work training
all sort of things but it also includes 'if Jimmy comes in and takes things without paying
let him be
or I may have to tell my parisheners that you are
a hard man to deal with

26th April 2024

rather alarmingly the new kit fitted to
Telegraph Pole DP 313 rear Corporation Road Redcar
appears to be pulling it over!!!!
we wanna give you a case study of
the perils of Bootstrap Capitalism
Sir Tom Cowie died in 2012 aged 89
he built up his father's 'one man' motorcycle repair business into
Sunlessland's - Sunderland - biggest businesses
mainly vehicle lease
one day he got very shirty in the media about his share price
he said
I've just paid out a handsome dividend
and our share price has gone down, not up
this revealed his total lack of understanding of
high finance
if you own shares you may get a dividend - a payout reward for
owning and holding the shares
but the shares are worth what you can sell them for
plus any prospects of a dividend payout
the moment a dividend s declared the people owning the shares get
a dividend
divi in the Co-Op, back in the day
don't get divi now, get membership 'perks'
most companies will only pay out a dividend
once or twice a year
the moment the divident is paid or allocated
the shares go
ex-d or exdiv
anybody buying those shares at this point will have to wait
six months or a year for the next dividend payout
when a share goes ex-d it's value drops
in most cases by the amount of the dividend
Tom Cowie could not get his head around that
this is why entrepreneurs sell out or hire people with
MBAs - Maser of Business Administration - to run their company for them
clearly the system of promotion at The UK Post Office
did not follow this pattern

we have been pondering the Post Office debacle
the scenario that makes sense of what we are hearing
the problem seems to be that nthere were
two teams managing Post Office
a turn around team
and
a jobsworth team
in short it appears that the turnaround team instructed
Fujitsu to insert phantom losses into the accounts of
peripheral, disposable, sub post offices to
justify closure
and the jobsworth team could not
let the turnaround team
get on with their work and so
they pursued the staff involved
we're back tothe nature of 'morality' within the underclass
Mary had a screen printing business
one day some bloke from a chemical company
one of the ones that bought out remnants of ICI
almost certainly Huntsman
and he had an idea of buying hundreds of T shirts or
fleeces for team building
so he went into Mary's shop to enquire about the possibility
and he was there to get a quote
he did not have authority to make a purchase order
but Mary took the enquiry as an order and produced the garments
and Huntsman never took them or paid for them
Mary's business was dissolved
Mary went on to employment as a manager in a
Sue Ryder Care charity shop
every day mary would
fiddle the accounts to ensure that
the books balanced EXACTLY
only a few pennies or a pound or two
but for her there was no scope for error
the banking had to match the till reciepts
to the penny, EVERY DAY
this is where these tales of sub-postmaster
putting their own money in to cover 'losses' comes fromBR> but at the slightly higher level
more senior executives were saying
the book must always balance
and not knowing about or turning a blind eye to the
machinations of the turnaround team
instead of making up the losses out of their own pockets
they pursued the sub-postmasters through the courts
big city managers have a concept of
'the cost of doing business'
freebies and kickbacks to police and local authority officers
shrinkage - shop lifting
all in the books as
the cost of doing business
makes sense to top people dipping a toe in the
everyday
but it is completely alien to the
I've worked my way up from a Saturday Girl brigade
culture clash

25th April 2024

the technical term - should you wish to buy one - is
riddle bucket
we said thousands of tonnes of sand were being fed through a crusher
to turn them into sand - on the Majuba Hotel site
well.. the contractors have got hold of a couple of riddle buckets
buckets with bars and gaps instead of solid bottoms
and the operators are shaking a lot of the sand out of the buckets
before dumping the bits of concrete into the crusher
see! work can be a learning experience
it is broadly impossible to predict what course - route
water will take when draining
and of all the things water can drian through
sand is the stuff it finds easiest to sweep aside
Majuba Road is a part of the
Coatham Enclosure
the 'land' on either side of the road is
beach that has been ENCLOSED by the outer relatively straight
sea wall
you can't just run a vibroroller over the sand and expect it to
stay put for a hundred years
you need to 'further enclose it' with a
sheet pilling coffre dam
and anything you build within the dam needs piles
either extending to the shale or friction pilesBR> that will grip the sand
sand is not clay
you can't 'puddle' it
into a water proof layer
and as we have seen on the Dundas Street slipway
even clay can be washed away by the North Sea

shoe shop chain Charles Clincard -
Teesside based 45 shops plus online
they are a 'family firm' in touch with their customers
well
it puts a person in mind of
top league football players and their wages
if you are a traditional retailer and your core customer base is
over 60
today's pensioners are people who have never had much money
low wages and very small or no works pension
so if you just rely on your existing customer base
and news reports about a steel works closing
you will probably miss that stat we published a few days ago that
80 per cent of the pupils in the two major secondary schools in Redcar
do not qualify for free school meals
and as you miss that stat
you decide to put your chain's
clearance department in your Redcar High Street store
and not in deeply deprived Middlesbrough
it's one thing to have a head office in Middlesbrough
but a shop???

5

24th April 2024

we're looking at the Majuba Hotel site
and we have to have a laugh
these days there are two major systems for
site survey
traditional boring for core samples
and
ground penetrating RADAR
so we think the surveyors drill a cuple of bore holes
what we find intriguing is
given the height of TunedIn - perhaps we should say TunedIn! but we won't
and given that ths is to be a 42 suite hotel
it is surprising that on a site that size
the architects - f there are any such elitist scum on the project
decided the building needed a basement that has a floor below the water table
there is no outward sign of how deep down the shale is on that site
but especially when building on a beachfront
we would expect piles - possible friction piles
not cut and cover foundations
at the moment the operators are using a pick or pecker to
break thin unreinforced concrete that may have been the floor
of the swimming pool but
the swimming pool had a deep and a shallow end and we seem to remember
the deep end was in the west and the shallow end in the east
with changing rooms on north and south sides
since the concrete is not reinforced and about 15 cm thick
why couldn't piles be driven through it?
perhaps the hotel has an undergrounf car park??
free car wash when the tanking fails


we do wonder about the concept of
promoting the concept that
crossing The Channel in Small Boats is Dangerous
one of the things that is often noted but not much commented on is
the person who commits suicide was seen
a very short time before their death
looking very calm and composed
often this is interpreted as a doubt as to whether this was suicide
in realty, there is a case for suggesting that
a person in turmoil
achieves serenity by finally resolving to end it all
we hear very little about asylum seekers
arriving in Europe and finding it not as they had hoped or expected
cramming onto a small unseaworthy boat may be a form of
death by cop
perhaps they expect to sail away to heaven, not England
it is hard to believe that they genuinely believe that
life in the UK is so much better than life in France


the chattering classes talk quite a lot about the dangers around the world from
populist politicians
in the UK final votes about new laws and regulations
rest in the hands of a few hundred people
the appliction of those rules and laws lies in the hands of
'half the UK workforce'
what we appear to have as our major threat
is not populist politicians
but
polulist police
a populist justice industry
and courts willing to destroy the careers of
what shall we say?
thoughtful politicians
by the amplifiction of trivialities
most specifically
the concept of
'perks of the job'
has been turned into
abuse of power
for the purpose of promoting
at the administraative level
populist policies
and a major plank of the arguement is
there are certain charateristics in personal behaviour that may leed to
the imposition on a person of a lasting Power of Attorney
a polce officer - of whatever age - who
looks at a hundred people and sees a thousnd people and says
this country is a democracy so
the thousand must have their way, no matter what
should be retired on medical grounds
if they cannot show that
their work activity is too autonomous
and populist

today we are going to use
Jason Blades
Jay on The Repair Shop
without consulting him
to illustrate a problem over the concept of
Vulnerable AdultBR> if you check you will probably find that 'it is said'
ten per cent - a tenth og
Uk adults are
dyslexic - a recognised disability
not dislexic or deslexic
and we have shown the calculation that around 10 percent of
people of working ge in the UK are
functionally illiterate
and the appologists in
politics and the justic industry will push the line that
these are the same people
THEY ARE NOT
if you are dyslexic then you are also
dysgraphic and dyspraxic
we had a real problem with
Repair Shop Australia recently
because they were repairing a dictaphone
and thought dictaphone was a naughty, after the watershed word
some great minds - most eminently Albert Einstein
being dyslexic would never hve seen any fame without
a partner willing to take dictation or a dictaphone
the point about Jay
lovely fella that he is
is that he can talk for England and has superb
hand-ey co-ordination and dexterity
he would not have these if he were duslexic
Jay grew up - no fault of his own in a culture that is
illiterate fond
no names no pack drill
people who despite being able to become functionally literate
in Jay's case in his 50s
don't because their culture is
Ar coudn red the sign or the instructions so
arm vulnerable and not responsible
if anything goes wrong or
I break the rules/laws that I can't read
whatever the rights and wrongs of
taking sick note verification out of the habds of medics
there is a case for paying reduced levels of benefits to people who
BOTH
cannot demonstrate that they are dyslexic
AND
cannot demonstrate that they are functionally literate

20th April 2024

the excavations for Hotel majuba have hit the water table
for the nurds... thats an Allelys tractor in the background
like Train Truckers and that
it' parks up there quite often


so this is not an optical illusion
the left habd stack of turbine pylons are on the same barge - Voltaire
as the crane
it growed
this seems like a progression of the installation protocol
what they cn now do is
use the dynamic positioning of Strashnov to nail down the monopiles
and then if the water is too deep for Voltaire to
latch properly onto the seabed
it can moor up to the monopile to keep station whilst assembling
bigger turbines than currently 'in stock' at Greythorpe

19th April 2024

we've had a look at the barge Voltaire
from a distance
and we are happy to say that it MAY have had
a taller crane or a taller jib fitted
but it could be an optical illusion
the colour of the jib has not changed
so it looks the same as it did but now it seems to
tower over the turbine parts in a way it didn't used to

18th April 2024

we have noticed a trend or development in what is called
the aftermarket sector of the motor industry
people are trying to familiarise themselves with
hydrogen technology
you can now buy a kit that sits in the market slot
previously dominated by
nitro
there are kits which pump nitrous oxide into internal combustion engines
nitrous oxide known as NOS
is typically used during races because it has the capacity to provide the compoud does this by increasing the amount of oxygen present to the engine
in the intake gases
this is N2O not NO2
this is illegal for road use and invalidates insurance
however
looking at the other side of the equation...
here are kits available
that take electricity from the alternator
use it to eleectrolise water into
oxygen and hydrogen
and feed them into the inlet of the engine in a similar way to NOS
this is called
HHO
we are not clear whether bothe the hydrogen and the oxygen are fed into the
inlet of the engine
broadly speaking
it is considered that this will not give improved performance
partly because engine energy is sapped through the alternator
to run the electrolyser
partly because
hydrogen does tend to detonate
whereas petrol gas fumes have a kind of
tsunami wave pressure on the top of the piston
this latter is why hydrogen fuelled internal combustion engines
have to be built a little differently
the arguement being a bit like
petrol - hammer drill
hydrogen - impact driver
sofar as we know
people are not buying desktop electrolysers
and bottling their own hydrogen to run through a NOS system
but some probably are
if you have an electrolysr style - not the chemical sort above the
masks that drop down in an in flight emergency
feeding oxygen into the inlet may produce a better power boost than
njecting either NOS or hydrogen



this heap of used plastic is
the guts of the old TunedIn spetic tank or cess pit
so in future if you visit or stay in the
Majuba Hotel
you can be assured that there s no cess pit under the floor


we can say Voltaire arrived in the Tees at 11.11 am today
we have a theory about what will happen now
we think Voltaire will ferry part completed wind turbines from
Greythorp to
Strashnov on the Dogger Bank until there are none left there
and then perhaps further wind turbine parts will be delivered to South bank
and Strashnov will pick those up for itself by docking
at South bank Wharf
this is not a comprehensive picture of Secondary Education 11 tp 16
in Redcar and Cleveland but
Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic Secondary in Redcar
we want to point out two significant stats
this is a non-selective - academic terms - school
and is the major Roman Catholic school in East Cleveland
in that regard three coaches brinhg pupils each day from
East Cleveland - Guisborough, Skeltons etcBR> the two stats are
80 percent occupancy - 886 places, 716 pupils
religious character - Roman catholic
Religeous ethos Does not apply
meaning - Roman Catholic-ish but not selective
on academic or religeous grounds
and the second stat
148 pupils, 20.7 per cent - eligible for free school meals
the same Trust runs St. Peter's in Eston within Redcar and Cleveland
540 places 543 pupils
275 - 50.6 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals
one of the points of interest is the question
do renters move home more often than owner occupiers?
something in Redcar and Cleveland is causing medium sized secondary schools
to be marooned in a sea of housing that is not generating pupils
fairly central schools such as Sacred Heart
seem to need to have pupils bussed in to survive
three coach loads could amount to 120 ish
could be more
not likely the service would kept on if it were much less
is the decline - in numbers, not necessarily standards
of Sacred Heart due to
less children or
why go to a religious school?

17th April 2024

here's a different perspective on the
sewage in the rivers problem
it's supposed to be lack of investment....
shreholders creaming off dividends
consider this
unemployment in the Uk is around 4 per cent
there may be some more on long term sick
but
17 per cent of adults are
functionally illiterate
look at it either way
ten per cent of adults are both
functionally illiterate
and
in employment
and those people may well be in
intrastructure installation and maintainance
question
if a crew install a sewer
and they are all functionally illiterate
what are the chances that they will
make and file a plan of
where in God's name they have put it?
can't maintain drains if
people park over them
can't maintain drains and sewers if
people don't even know they exist
let alone where they are
and what exact form they take
and so the the Majuba Hotel project
they finally found what they were lookng for
sorta
a few decade ago the Department for Education
funded the building of TunedIn
as a sort of homework club venue...
anyway
they built a septic tank on the Swimming Baths site
and then more recently
a new larger septic tank was built a ltlle further away to serve both
TunedIn and the new hotel
so that the hotel could be built where the original TunedIn septic tank
was
so the site remediation contractor eventully found the 'old' tank
but smashed a clean water feed pipe in the process
so
there was a second day of a road tanker in attendance to
clean out the old tank
before it was ripped out
a bit of a worry if there were no plans for a septic tank
installed twenty years ago and in use until a couple of years ago
but then we are talking
Water Utilities in the UK
so they were looking for a septic tank and they were looking where
the swimming pool was
Great British Engineering
don't it make ya proud

16th April 2024

we may have given a slightly misleading impression about
the vessels working on the
Dogger Bank wind farm
in the sense that we may have implied that
something unexpected had happened
the whole reason why Voltaire was working on Dogger Bank was
Voltaire draft - height below the water line
is 7.5 metres
the depthe of water needed by Seaway Strashnov is
13.8 metres
recently
a part of the new South Bank Wharf on the Tees has been commissioned
that involved dradging
and wharf edge hardening
and so we expect that Strashnov can now dock
in South Bank
and that is why it has been called up
we expect some ferrying of turbine parts
from Greythorpe Dock
to
South Bank Wharf
that could be a job for Voltaire
but we could be wrong
5,000 tonnes 102 metres Seaway Strashnov
Voltaire 3,000 tonne i62 metres
we have been looking at the two crane ships
it seems that perhaps it is Voltaire's
'jack up' system that is the problem
if there is less sand and silt on the Dogger Bank
than expected...
we have seen sand swept off Redcar beach by recent storms
perhaps they need
Strashnov's
dynamic positioning system
if Voltaire can't get a grip on the Dogger Bank sea bed
with it's spud cans and jack up legs
we do wonder whether Strashnov has sufficent reach
is high enough, but time will tell

15th April 2024

the word of the day today is
transgressive
involving a violation of moral or social boundaries
the poets have well erned reputations for transgressive behaviour
as well as verse
our Ricker kinda gave up on universities a dacade of so ago
but as he withdrew
he began to hear students saying such things as
'my dad says'
not so much
'our priest says'
the whole thing can be characterised as revolving around
debate
versus
no-platforming
back such a long long way
we should research
The Lunar Society
really clever, quite well set up people mostly men
meeting to discuss
the wonders of nature - mainly physics
and then
gradually as student numbers grew and grew
the marginalisation and mockery of people
at uni to study
uni became a combination of
cattle market for the females
seek a partner
and
follow the set course
stay away from the library and
get a desk job snaring qualification
for the boys
and a hint of the true origins of
no-platforming
don't confuse your mind with anything that
usn't in the set texts
it may lead to you writing something for assessment that
loses you marks
a world of lowest denominations where
not in your lecture notes
equals
wrong
there was that artist colony
something along the lines
Bloomsbury group
Living in Squares
painting in circles
loving in triangles
Vanessa Bell, Virgnia Woolf
if we had time we'de research the parallel between
who's affraid of the big bad wolf?,BR> and
who's affraid of Virginia Woolf?
it's a lot of work trying to figure out
what new ideas are good and what are bad
people struggling to keep a roof over their head
and put food on the table
haven't got time for
social experimentation
even though they are
very firmly told
they should devote every holy day
Sunday in Christianity
to assessing their life's direction
and so it is
poverty of means
that justifies
zealotry
from zeal
fanatical and uncompromising pursuit of
religious, political or other ideals
and in a way
zealotry is a sign of increasing wealth
a stage on the road to a comfortable life
people devoting their time and efforts to
how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
are experiencing what we these days call
first world problems
people starving in Ethiopia
are not having mental breakdowns about
where best to source their family's
five a day fruit and veg
and just exactly what a super food is

we note - we got told
a ship or barge called
Seaway Strashnov
note Alfa Lift is actuall called Seaway Alfa Lift
Seaway Strashnov spent the winter
off Angola
and is due to start work on the
Dogger Bank wind farm - momentarially
another press release tells s that for now
MAN trucks will be restricting sale of
compressed hydrogen gas fuelled
internal combustion engined tractors
the front bit of an artic
to people doing really heavy work
sucha as
logging
and wind turbine component transport
in short
people immune from
black listing by the fossil boys
you buya an H truck
we charge you double for spares for yer
diesel fleet
so that's MAN and Cummings
bypassing fuel cell technology

14th April 2024

so we have a
Two State Solution in Locke Park
the swans have a nest in the middle of the island
and the geese have a nest at the edge
and Ruffie is standing guard against people
and daddy goose is chasing ducks away
interestingly Daddy Goose is tollerating the
water hen
funny how Patrick Stewart's?
script for the Yorkshire Tea advert
has been - we sware - changed from
there's money behind the bar at the Dog and Trumpet
to
we're having a pint at the Dog and Trumpet
a nation divided by a common language....
we wonder what sort of training the Bbc does for
News and Current affairs broadcasters
there seems to be some confusion between the roles of
producer
and
editor
a producer on Bbc Beakfast produced in Salford
a neighbour of Manchester
seems to be to hang around out patients at some
local hospital toutng for some crip
in search of their 15 minutes of fame
as such
the missing link is an editor
who has the medical director of that hospital
on speed dial
to ask
is this story a goer?
in essence
where was the editor who decided to give screen time to a mum who
wanted to tell the nation
my 12 year old daughter wouldn'r have hit puberty
if she hadn't had a 'phone
somebody tell these women..
if you want to mother pre-pubescent females
go get a job in a primary school
don't put yer daughter on
puberty blockers
sometimes people put up confusing distinctions
they distinguish
puberty
from
adolescence
in some sense
puberty is the time when the distrubution of hair growth
on the body changes from a childhood to and adult pattern
adolescence is more of a male thing
one measure of adolescence is the sudden arrival of
the ability to achieved an erection in the penis
in adolescence - puberty 11 years, adolescence 12 years??
same difference!
one way to say it is
females are man fxated from birth
males are female indifferent until they have the tools to
do the job for females
so we can say a female will hit puberty
and be pre-pubescent, pubescent, or post pubescent
but not really have much truck with
the male: pre-adolescent, adolescent, post adolescent journey
most women spent a lorra lorra time, money and effort shaving waxing etc. to maintain as far as possible
an appearance of a pre-pubescencnt hair growth distribution
most women deep down know
men prefer lttle girls to grown women
and try to look as child-like as possble
shaving yer pits and waxin' yer front door - essential!!
so where do these fuch wits on the court bench
get their ideas from?

12th April 2024

12th April 2024

what can we say about the attack in Sydney Australa?BR> the officer shot and killed the attacker
if she had Tazered him
he'd be in the nut house come Monday morning
and then he would be evicted from the nut house and get himself another knife for Christmas
when is there ever one of these offenders whoi is not
previously known to the authorities
are they sent out deliberately to
make headlines?
a female who may commit suicide is more important than
a male who may commit mass murder???
September 1969 to August 1983
a BBC Tv show called Nationwide
Co-operative Permanent Building Society
this is the story as embedded in the memory of our Ricker
in 1970 the Co-Operative Permanent Building Society
decided to demerge or
demutualise from the Co-Op movement
the British Co-Operative Union
it did not take the Co-Op bank with it
Co_Op bank Manchester
Co-Op building society Swindon
Co-Op bank is not a mutual but a business owned by - at times over this and perhaps other matters the Society got
endless flack from the BBC current affairs magazine TV show that the building society decided to
change it's name to
The Nationwide Building Society

11th April 2024

the real world is always more complicated than we would have it here
so
essentially - this site's most over used word
a judge such as a Crown Court Judge
may be a former barrister
or may be a barrister acting as a judge on the day
essentially it is really quite difficult to persuade barristers
to sit as judges in Crown Courts such as Teesside
not least because of the risk of baracking from the
peanut gallery it is the particular words we are focussing on
there comes a time in a trial when a judge changes role from
chair of a discussion forum
and begins to hand down some sort of
judgement, summing up, sentence etc
so if a judge says in sentencing or summing up
probably the former
this convict is warped
the message they are trying to impart is that
the complainant is not warped
the problem in these cases is
what occured was
recreational sex
not reproductive sex
and the message form the use of that form of words is
any female who volunteers to participate in,bR. recreational sex
is warped
and why would anybody say such a thing if they were not
closseted in a room with a rabble of
representtives of the underclass

10th April 2024

imagine a hotel chain says
we are going to spend £ 2 million on inproving
your town's branch of our chain
sounds good
in realty the hotel hires
one thousand people to cut the lawns
with nail scissors
these companies are getting tax breaks and kick backs for
spending tax payer money on
employing the 17 per cent of the adult population who are
functionally illiterate
ten million spent
90 percent of it spent on
living wage labouring pay packets
it's a bit like insurance
if you have comprehensive car insurance and you
get a wing miroe broken off
the insurance company will write the car off and give you
market value for the car
if you have home insurance
you may well get
new for old replacement of you lost appliances
we will spend ten million on
improving your town centre
but after we have gone
you won'r know we've been here because
we won't provide any EXTRA facilities
we'll just rip out the stuff you already have and
leave you without it for years on end
and then put it back
because
levelling up is
wages for morons
not facilities for locals
or
attractions for visitors
for the next several years
the space on Redcar Esplanade that has for years been the site of
seasonal kiddies' amusements
will be taken up by a brand new
temporary spa for 'construction workers'


why couldn't they put their workers spa hotel
here instead of on the Esplanade?


the word of the day is
warped
one of the things that we do wonder about
Crown Court judges is
do they have daughters?
our Ricker at one time had two nieces
and this comment relates to the one who was killed by
a mental patient
the day he was released from custodial care
as it happens the chap involved probably had no idea wo he had killed
it's a long time ago but it happened in Reading
and it got next to no coverage
Annelise and her husband pulled up at the traffic lights
in what we many describe as a
Fiat 500 knockkoff -
a car similar to but not actually a Fiat 500 - very little car
and the chap in the car behind told police and lawyers etc
well I was having a great time
I was piloting the Starship enterprise and then there was a bang
and this like fireball in front of me
and this surviving driver would not be described by a
Crown Court judge as
warped
even if he was travelling at warp speed
but the ting about this dead 40 something married mother of three
that should not surprise any
father of girls
'when you're the father of boys - you worry'
'when you're the father of girls - you pray'
any father of girls would recognise the comment of
Kari - Annelise's mum
about Annelise at age seven
'she goes for anything in trousers'
there is nothing whatsoever strange or
only ever likely to happen
excapt as the result of
grooming
in little girls wanting all sort of
attention from and activity with
any sort of male they can get their hands on
'lock up yer daughters'
'lock up yer grannies'
Elvis, the Beatles, the Stones
have rolled into town
hypocrisy and cant
seem to dominate the minds and activities of
men born in the UK in the 1960s

9th April 2024

when we look at Robertson's
hutment on the Esplanade for
the Markies and Woolies contract
you have to marvel that they have not actually
installed a diesel generator the size of a house to
run half a dozen lights great self restraint there boys
we have to accept thet the eectricity mains in the area
are too feeble to power
a temporary office block
and we ask
when the High Street end of the shops
that is to be a mega patio
is cleared of structures
will the hutment be moved to the vacant site?
or will we be having 'should have retired yearss ago'
site managers running the gauntlet of 20 mph traffic
on the Esplanade
so much for reconstructing the Dundas Street slipway
there's an office block in the way
probably be there for the next five years
or ten
Levelling Up amounts to turning redcar into a
Living Museum of 'modern day' construction
whilst on majuba Road
thousend of sand is eing fed through a crusher to
turn it into sand

8th April 2024

we have sadly concluded that
gilder Ruth Tappin's dog Luna
Salvage Hunters the Restorers has died between series
sad, but the quality of the work does not seem to have suffered
nd by the way
we vote Paul Cowland for fave UK infotainment starBR>

5th April 2024

so , progess?
Mum and Ruffie together on the 'hospital nest'

7th April 2024

without going into too much detail...
Hansard is the record of what is said in the chambers
Commons and Lords of the UK parliament
at this point we will attempt a laborious transcription of a
part of a speech made in 1955 in the House of Lords
Lord Cherwell
... no need to bore your Lordships with arguements about the vital need of
the country to keep ahead in science and technology
that I gather is generally accepted
But surely it must be clear that from a national point of view the
work of highly-trained scientists is more important than
carrying dishes from the kitchen to the serving tables in liners
end quote - paraphrase
some reference to liners - cruise ships
a suggestion referred to as
allowing science graduates to
teach scence in secondary schools for two years
insted of doing National Service
quote..
It is true that scientists working in Government establishments
or on certain Government contracts are exempt from military service
but that exemption does not apply to men doing really fundamental work
in the universities
later until recently, all young men - perhaps 12,00 a year -
were exempted entirely from military service
because they proposed to undertake agricultural work
end quote - paraphrase
despite some tightening up
we now have 8,000 men hoeing turnips and 50 doing high grade research
end quotes
the broad picture is one of a conflict between
elitism and inclusion
we won't take the time to follow the paper trail over how
at some point
during the First World War
Bob Robson was in a reserved occupation in a Tees Shipward as a
fitter turner, burner, welder, shipwright in Arkasses - forgotten how to spell that The United Alkali Company - ICI - in Billingham
but their brother Tommy was
'in retail' and got called up
there is another story from 'down south'
in the second world war
a chap turns up at a recruiting station and wants to
join the RAF and be a fighter pilot
and the recruiting officer asks him
what are you doing now?
I'm an apprentice at the aircraft factory
he thinking, I got an in here, knowing about 'planes
and the officer says
go home
you're more valuable to us
making 'planes than flying them
and there is this kind of cutoff in the populr mind whatever we may say about the dangers of
Nuclear War
fourlevels
exemption from National Service if involved in food production
exemption from National Service if involved in designing a
cheaper to make machine gun
funding for your research if you are Openheimer
funding for CERN, Cancer Research UK
etc.
more people can say
the turnips will rot in the fields if my boy is called up
than can say
my kid could advance the struggle against cancer
but what if the cancer researcher has to spend
half their working hours
tending their allotment and cooking and cleaning
because they should avoid being
out of touch
with real people's lives
it is easier to make the rich poor
than to make the poor rich
because there are few rich people and billions of poor people
instead we get token transformations
occasional rich people are broken by a scandal
and occasional poor people are enriched by
playing football or winning the lottery
but these are token - high profile - exceptions
not the end of poverty
and so to the
liberals in western society
all up in arms about
protecting the Palestinians from the Israelis
but very quite about protecting the Palestinians from
Iran
our Ricker is old enough to remember local media on Teesside
campaigning for charitable funds for
scanners whole body caomputer assisted tomography scanners for
local hospitals
tax payers pay for them now
tax payers pay paramedics and emergency doctors when they
fly on rescue helicopters
but the pilots and aircraft are paid for by charities
the NHS wll pay for a paramendic to get to you by road ambulance
but if you want to live because they got to you
in twenty minutes instead of several hours
you are dependent on charity
it is often the implementation phase that is the bottleneck
the NHS is like the caterpillar who looks up at the butterfly
and says to the other caterpillar
you'd never get me up in one of those

3rd April 2024

we're gonna try to understand the Gaza thing
there are two significant works called
eyeless in Gaza
one by Milton
one by Aldus Huxley
Milton
ask for this great deliver now, and find him
Eyeless n Gaza at the mill with slaves
so more a quote than a titled work
The Huley is a semi autobiographical novel
criticising the dearth of spiritual values
in contemporary society
Mlton - not the one in the Sompsons
is writing about the latter days of Samson
of Samson and Delilah fame
Milton depicts Samson the once mighty warrior as
blinded and a prisoner of the Phillistines
Gaza fell to Isrealite rule from the reign of
King David in the early 11th century
before the common era
otherwise known as BC
or 3,000 years ago
1994 the Israeli government sorta did a
devolution for wales stunt
handing powers to the Palestine Authority
when can we expect tunnels under Glostershire?
Gaza was supposed to have some autonomy
not to be turned into a base from which to
attack Mother Israel
so Israel has Gaza and The West Bank
as the British govenment has
Wales and Scotland
same sort of psychos
but nobody is currently arming
Plaed or the SNP
so why the hell is anybody - World Kitchen?
other than the Israel Defence Force
providing security in Gaza?

2nd April 2024

re the Dogger Bank Wind Farm
Alfa Lift is shuttling back and forth between
Rotterdam and The Dogger Bank
and Voltaire is still moored in 'Flushing'
we are beginning to wonder whether
Alfa Lift is going to set out as many
monopiles and transition pieces as it can
and leave them in place waiting for a replacement for
Voltaire to install the turbines when it gets here
however
the official line is that
Voltaire is undergoing
'scheduled maintenance'
and will return to work in May 2024

1st April 2024

OK so this isn't a April Fool
Today
photograph the display on your gas and electric meters
and put some money on your key meter if you have one
eon next
key meterbefore top up from today
open access electricity 35.17 pence per unit
as soon as you top up the meter
with any amount, it will be reset to charge at
29.88 pence per unit
and on Economy 7 the change is from
14.61 pence to 10.18
as an example

31st March 2024

we've been having a bit of a think
about these quotes from scripture
human reproduction is not regular or certain
have sex, might get pregnant, might not
get pregnant, may produce healthy child, may not
however, when taking populations in the round
some of what they seem to be saying is
take a man
any number of women can make any number of children for him
on the other hand
excluding very recent developments such as
IVF in vitro fertilisation
any person can have only one
birth mother
there is a dudge here towards
if you are a woman
what you need is a son
not a husband
and you can take a sperm from another woman's husband
without taking the husband
and in time - less than a decade - you will have
a man to whole you have an inalienable link
and that we express as
tain't no big thing the diamond ring
t'aint not big thing the toll of the bell
when you are ready
go out and get a dose of the most impressive man you can
get your hands - all three of them - on
and you could be set for life
not through extorsion from the father
but through your link with the son


Genesis 3:1
To the woman he said
I will multiply your pain in childbearing
in pain you shall bring forth children
Your desire shall be contrary to your husband
and he shall rule over you
meaning
you will have sex when your husband wants it
not when you want it
but also, it is the basis of the concept
if getting the babe out is painful
childbirth
surely getting it in will be painful too
stands to reason to the bloke who hasn't got a clue
footnote
obstetrics
means?
one who stands opposite
in other words
doctors and that
watch women give birth
but they don't watch woman have sex
Genesis3022
Then God remembered Rachael and God listened and opened her womb
magic innit? need to give birth yer birthcanal dilates??
takes a while sometimes
Corrintians 7:28
but if you do marryBR> you have not sinned
and if a betrothwoman marries
she has not sinned
yet, those who marry will have worldly troubles
and I would spare you that
need we say more?
1Peter 3:1
likewise wives
be subject to your own husbands
so even if some do not obey the word
they may be won without a word
by the conduct of their wives
the basis of the concept that
so long as wives are 'failthful'
husbands can put it about
Genesis 38.9
but Onan knew that the ofspring would not be his
so whenever he went to his brother's wife
he would waste the semen on the ground
so as not to give offsprng to his brother
and, if you fuck somebody who isn't yer wife
use contraception
in this case
coitus interuptus
lke all the porno videos show
don't pump it up her chuff
give her a cum facial
there's a lot of good stuff in The Bible
the likes of former UK PM May
don't take the trouble to read it
and another thing
Water privatisation
a Thatcher thing
Thatcher thought all 'Civil Servants' were Pinkos
lunch for the Cabinet
I'll have rump steak
and the vegetables?
they'll have the same as me
but she also - more importantly - thought
all people in business were
straight and honest as a die
like shopkeeper Mr Roberts, her father
speaking of dice...
this degrading of the phrase
in Spades
can become in spadefulls
WRONG
in most card games
the black cards outrank the red ones
and spades out rake clubs
so you can have
a car
but the Rolls Royce has class
in Spades
different class

30th March 2024

the darkest hour is just before dawn
there isn't any doubt that the cohort of men who are
approaching retirement age and are in
positions of power in the UK
are probably the last or near the last 'generation' who
went to boys only boarding schools
there needs to be care over the distinction between
boarding schools
and
grammar schools
but 1986 1998 corporal punishment banned in UK state schools 1986
corporal punishment banned in prvate schools 1998
so perhaps we are being a bit optimistic
even the boys with sisters, mothers and aunts
being away at school most of the year
had not much experience of females as
friends without benefits as we may say
work coleagues? team mates?
all that sort of thing
not pan gender
so these men grew up
trying to
not trouble their wives too much
in pursit of an heir and spare
BECAUSE
they conflated in their mind
sex with corporal punishment
they thought - believed deeply - that
for a female
being fucked would be like
being caned but to the max
and females who tried to explain how much they
craved penetrative attention
were regarded by these men as
not fully human, insensitive wanton whores
pretending they liked corporal punishment
for the financial benefits that came with it
and maybe
putting up with it in exchange for the
joys or motherhood
and they get - we assume - proper confused by
female enthusiasm for sex exhibited on the Internet
so many brides down the years
so disappointed that
'fate worse than death'
turned out to be
separate beds
something very odd about our Ricker's parents
they slept in separate single beds until he was in his 80s
and then they moved into a double bed
lmost as though he got so close to death he lost
the fear he would be seen as seeking to take advantage of his wife
so we can say that very few people in the UK now
who are under 40
have any experience of people being sent to the headmaster's office
to be caned or slippered
but it remains - particularly with that whole range of
men who went on from
boys only secondary schools to become
non-marrying Roman catholic priests
that a kiss on the lips can be
quite continental
as in the classic
Diamonds are a girl's best friend
continental in this context meaning for Americans...
French, or British, or Italian but not Spanish
Roman Catholicism? isn't Rome in Italy?
Roman Catholicism is more 'traditional' in countries
such as Spain
and there are conspiacy theories that
Marylyn Monroe was murdered because she was
too liberated
and just a little Locke Park swan comment
Mum is presently trying out for a nest
the location where some readers may remember
the Canada Geese
stood guard over Ruffie
whilst he got the bulk of the oil
off his feathers

28th March 2024

as we go with the swans of Locke Park
there has been some human involvement
as we reported earlier
Mum built a nest at the apparently vacant
Jaffa end of the pond
then a human chap decided that the 'bandstand' on
Jaffa Isand was a good place to play stott the football
and eventually Ruffie seems to have convinced Mum that
it's a better idea to build a nest on the island at
his end of the pond
that humans can only access by boat
we'll see how she settles in the context of
happy wife, happy life
but life involves being alive...

27th March 2024

Let the clarts plodging begin
first order of business on a new building site
remove the hard standing
so we can get at the clay beneath and spread it all over
the roads to
show the local who's boss
Majuba Road
Rhoda
arseholes
if they weren't a bunck of cowboys...
first order of business
install a wheel washer
it's either contaminated land or it isn't
if it issn't there's no need for them to be there






we have to say there is no shipping in the River Tyne
but we do want to draw a parallel between the
Baltimore bridge collapse
and the Blinking Bridge
between Newcastle and Gateshead
that is a pedestrian bridge and
is sort of eye shaped and the eye
blinks shut to allow pedestrian use
and open to allow shipping to pass
it was the first and possibly still is
the only bridge of that design
the point about ships hitting bridges is
when it was installed
the authorities insisted that a set of
four Dolphins were set under it to
stop vessels from hitting it
low bridge style because it was only high enough mid stream
and in time public opinion - public pressure
determined that the dolphins or bollards
spoiled the look of and the concept of the
blinking eye concept
once a structure such as a bridge becomes
a local or national icon
it becomes difficult to retrofit improvements
planning permission and all that...

26th March 2024

there's a ting fishing village in Cornwall called
Flushing
there's also a bigger port in the Netherlands called Flushing
but it is also called
Vlissingen
and Voltaire
our Dogger Bank wind turbine installation friend
has been moored in Vlissingen since
20th march
either it's knackered
or the crew are getting a load of RandR
rest and recuperation

there's a lot of different bike sports
and some of them involve racing through a sort of
natural obstacle course
like trees and rocks on a hill
and in some of those
you loose points or get a time pnalty every time you
put a foot on the ground
the simple version of that is a
slow bicycle race
no obstacles just
how slowly cn you ride your bike without
wobbling and having to put foot down
and so ther eis a proper cycle race in satburn next month
but the Redcar slow bicycle race continues
except that it is for construction workers
how slowly can you progress the building - or demolition
project without
actually being turfed off site?
and we have a new contestant
and the site has a big hole in it because
when they removed the swimming pool - baths
they removed the concerete but they didn't fill the hole in
and the hotel site consistes of
the swimming pool site, the swimming baths car park
and the RKade car park
the actual RKade became the kiddies' play park
over the past couple of years
th clue is that the council swimming baths part of the site has
the continuation of the curvey sea wall that TunedIn has
the RKade site only hs the straight beach sea wall

there are a couple of facts that we don't have
in relation to the Baltimore bridge collapse
we would off the bat say
don't build a new bridge
dig a tunnel
then you can forget conflicts between
shipping and road traffic
however,
there is some fairly hard rock under Maryland
that would make a sturdy tunnel
but it may need to be blasted out and not
produced by a TBM - tunnel boring machine
burrying a tunnel in the river bed
cut and cover
would depend on the
river being deep enough
all of which stands against the probable
di it quick, no expense spared
probable outcome
probably the best answer is a quick temporary bridge
and a long term plan for a tunnel
and of course
the less of the traffic that produces
hydrocarbon exhaust
the quicker, easier and cheaper
a tunnel would be
and so a mini channel tunnel TML
using electric traction to ferry
fossil fuelled traffic under the river
could - if the tunneling conditions are favourable
be a medium term option

25th March 2024

today the free car park at the
Old Swimming Baths site
on Majuba Road
closed
and heavy palnt arrived
construction appears to be imminent
nothing we know indicates that
tht construction will be other than
a boutique hotel
next to TunedIn
if it goes anything like the other sites in Redcar
expect it to open in 2034


in history there is scope for a debate about
did Hitler seriously want to invade Britain?
Germany changed during the Second World War
at the beginning of the war
Hitlerites - people who thought as Hitler did
were pretty closely aligned to the idea of
rebuilding 'main land Europe' in the image of
19th century America
and honestly World War 2 changed both Germany and America
into something much more like 19th century Britain
19th century America was about
homesteding
a steding s a small farm
homesteding is a lifestyle of selfsufficency
it was WW2 that brought genuine mass production and
mass motor vehicle ownership
and
Interstate Highways
and with all of that
commuting
leaving your own land daily and travelling to
someone else property and working for them for a wage
and spending that wage
hunter gathering in
malls, supermarkets and hypermarkets
the need for war materials drove this change and
then the capacity - in the US and parts of the UK
ws redundant and adapted to
peacetime use
not quite swords to ploughshares
more amunition factories to refrigerator factories
and tank factories to car factories
all well and good but
what was Hitler's original plan
it had to take some account in the 1930s of
tractors and small engines
taking over from human and horse power
that was the challenge
and the response was to
reduce the population and adjust the population size such that
every adult male left alive could be alloted a parcel of land
in mainland Europe on which to settle
a self reliant homestead
he wasn't interested too much with German industry
and like so many people the world over
it seeemed qute natural to import manufactured goods from
the UK
in a sense Hitler saw German industry in terms of
Birmingham and Sheffield in the UK
nantlers
little meisters
people who sat at a bench and turned out
cutlery and cookoo clocks
'heavy end' industry was a british thing
steel works, coke ovens and that
the question became
we can't import manufactures from the UK if we are at war with them
so we must industrialise but that was not a part of the dream in the 1930s
returning to that dream
no matter hown much of Poland and Ukraine etc
Germany annexed
there would not be enough land in the German Empire
to provide a homestead for evey family
and so the name of the game was not
collonisation
the name of the game was
take over this land in Europe but outside Germany
and eliminate the existing human population
and divide it up innto super allotments for Germans
but even so
still not enough land so
we must reduce the number of German citizens
rastically
and so
the extermination of all people in Europe that the Hitlerites thought
would not make a proper go of running a homestead
some people in the UK decided that they would rather like to have a war
because there was - by the standards of the day
overpopulation in the UK too
so the likes of Winston Churchill - half American
decided to convince the British people that
war with Germany was inevitable
and essentially
war aims change as war proceeds
Churchill decide to stamp on the lion's tail whilst it was devouring Europe
or more precisely
he deided to kick the bear's arse whilst it was devouring Europe
and of course
the UK and the USA
not only gatecrashed Hitler party but to amke it a genuine WORLD war
decided to take on Japan at the same time
China was an ally of 'The West' against Japan
and Russia was a part of the farm land Germany wanted
all of this is the basis of the
playbook
of current Russia President Putin
in some ways, approximately
Ukraine has about as much good agricultural land as Russia
even though Russia has a lorra lorra snow
one story in the mix is that President Putin wanted to
double agricultural production in 'Russia' by
making Ukraine part of Russia
the problem with this idea is that countries already in Europe
such as Poland
can produce all the food Europe needs
except for thinks such as coffee and bananas that
don't grow in Europe or Russia
bottm line Ukraine food surplus ends up in
The Horn of Africa
so why invade Ukraine
it was just a stunt
it's always been described by Russia as a stunt
a 'special military operation'
in
regieme change within a week and out
home for tea and medals
and a global profile as a
world policeman
so
what ails Russia now
simples
alonside the USA Russia is a major
non-moslem
provider of oil and gas
Russia is
trying to be the plus in OPECplus
Orgnisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
meaning
Organisation of Moslem oil and gas exporting countries
and Russia is undercuttin OPEC
and the Crocus massacre is
writng on the wall
for King Putin
back off and charge what we tell you to charge
but with sanctions
India won't buy Russia petroleum at OPEC rates
THAT's President Putin's real problem

24th March 2024

this is a bit difficult
we really are about to do what anybody with the
Princess od Wales information provided by the Bbc
should be able to do if they are
medically trained
we have facts
The Prncess of Wales has a cancer diagnosis
that diagnosis follows extensive and complex
abdominal surgery
that is now
skip back ten years or so
what previously prevented Princess Catherine from
carrying out a full range of public engagements? severe morning sickness during
all three of her pregnancies (that we know about, miscarriage? no info)
we put that lot all together and what does the
tripple A medical student say?
the patient is at high risk of having
mistaken symptoms of
stomach cancer
as morning sickness
if that is the case
we are NOT in the terretory of
early diagnosis
we are in the realm of having had the cancer for
at least ten years
there is very little we can say about prognosis excapt that
we cannot think that it is good

22nd March 2024

we like our little anecdotes
here's the story of a little knot of
7 year olds - mostly boys
and we are looking to
inate versus learned behaviour
something is happening
perhaps a game is being played
and something very frustrating happens to one of the boys
a goal is missed or a ball slips from a grasp
and the boy shouts
corsetts
and the background is
these children have been raised
so protected from 'bad language'
that in their innate need for
expletives
in their discourse
that if they are NOT taught
when you are really pissed off you say
you're pissed off
what happens is the children scan adult conversation
and identify words that are spoken
sotto voce - a bit like whispered but not quite the same
and they pick up that these are
naughty words
even if they have no idea what they mean
and adopt them as their own particular expletives
and so to the immediate prospect of
The Labour
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
shall we say, particularly amongst their natural supporters...
this latest smear campaign - the Diane Abbott issue
how many potential supporters are going to ask themselves
Christ, now often over my life have I said to
somebody ot nobody in particular
a'm gonna kill ya
if this lot get into power
I'll be jailed for life
you can't attack a 'professional rivl' in a particular way
and not have audience members
internalise the criticism
the thing being
if you can't find fault
don't invent fault
and don't criminalise routine, natural behaviour
and expect the mud to stick
only to the person you threw it at


special pleading is an arguement in which a speaker
deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavourable to
their point of view
an example someone breaks a rule or should be exempt from that rule
or
a student caught cheating in an exam
may argue that all the other candidates were doing it and
what made them different was that
they got caught
so, they would be being punished for
being caught
and not for cheatng
and so to WASPI women
women agitate for equality
at some stage men became eligible for the
State Pension at age 65
and at the same time women qualified when they reached
60
of course the government could have reduced retirement age for men to 60
but they chose to increase retirement ago for women to 65
in stages
the WASPI women are claiming that the change although
tending towards gender equality
was not sufficiently well publicised
essentially they are saying
we didn't get a personalised warning letter in the mail
so we didn't make suitable provision
plans to stay on at work to 65
so we went onto Universal Credit
not State Pension - for the first 5 years of our retirement
up until we reached 65 years of age
BUT
many of these women would have retired from
paid employment and been paid a 'works pension'
from the age of 60
if that was in their contract
we have no idea how this affected women who were widdowed before the age of 60
and were expecting a pension based on their late husbands' employment
we are farly sure that if you are widdowed before you reach
retirement age and you re-marry
you cannot claim a pension related to your late husband
but only on your own and your new husband's record of employment

we note that the Redcar cancer Research shop now has a new
concrete floor...
and we note the erection of a works compound
in preparation for the replacement of the
collapsed slipway on Redcar Esplanade
and

it was FDR - Roosevelt when running for US President who had
a Brains Trust
of advisors equivalent but more exclusive than
King Edward the 8th Pound Table
Frankline D Roosevelt set up his Brains Trust in 1924
so the UK Round Table derived from that
and later the Bbc developed a radio and then Tv show along the same lines

21st March 2024

in 1927 Edward Prince of Wales
who was to become king Edward the 8th
made a speech
that included the words
The young business and professional men (sic) adopt methods that have proved so sound in the past
adaprt them to the changing needs of the times
and wherever possible improve them
and so...
Adopt, Adapt, Improve
is the motto of
the Round Table
Tabler are suppored to be males aged 18 to 40
perhaps 45
as such they are a sort of commercial and industrial version of
Young Farmers
when we say males we mean
lives and self idetifies as male
and the matching Ladies Circle is for people
under 41 who live and identify as female
The Rotary Club is for - mainly - men kicked out of
the Round Table on age grounds
and both are kinda Free Masons Lite
but only one century old
we could say the organisations have lost the old King's focus
they are now not so much
developing ideas and techniques to improve life in general
in the country (and empire)
and more raising charitable funds to help individuals
and so the present king in waiting...
help rough sleepers
as opposed to
erdicate rough sleeping
in that sense
to avoid helping advise government
too political
compete with or undermine the
government orgaised welfare state
thta year louis Marchesi founded in Norwich
the now
Round Table International

20th March 2024

in the immediate post World War 2 era
starting with secondary educaton
people in the UK were settled into two groups
the ones who went to grammar schools and such
and the ones who went to 'modern schools'
people 'failed' an exam and were allocated a place at a Secondary Modern
the essential problem with this was that
families were relatively large
there could be four of five children of similar age
in the same household the exam was called the eleven plus
and some who failed the eleven plus took
a sort of twelve plus in their first year at te secondary modern
f they 'passed' they were transferred to the grammar school
and actually at Coatham in Redcar
we must note that boys went to Caotham Grammar
girls went ot Cleveland Grammar
those who failed - both boys and girls - went to Coatham West
or James Mckinley
so in Redcar the bll park split was
around 50-50
grammar - secondary modern
actually so many boys passed the twelve plus that
in the first year there were 1A 1B 1C
in the second year there were
2A 2B 2C 2X
X was an entire form - a quarter of the pupils
made up of boys who failed the 11plus and passed the 12plus
all of this preamble relates to the fact, idea, that
the main problem with the grammar school system was
the lack of a rule that said that if
any child in a household passed the 11plus
all the children in that household would go to the grammar
that was what was needed
instead we go
Comprehensives
schools were every child in a catchment went to the same school
and then, once there, they were either streamed
grammar school 'quality' pupils taught in
separate classes from the rest
or
possibly in catchments with very few children
'worth investing in'
unstreamed - all mixed up together
all of which was probably an experiment
when talking of such things we are working towards a concept of
two different types of people in our one society
and in the UK we could say the population is one where
there was a complex split in the grammat
from year three of four - our Ricker forgets and can't be bothered to check
the forms or classes became even more complicated
4L, 4A 4B 4C
and AL took Latin
but what happened in the sixth form was and 5A was a class for puplis particularly suited to
rote leaning
5L pupils more suited to education - developemnt of
inate capabilities and skills
we are moving to a point, honest
in the modern era
shall we say
the authorities are of the opinion that people are not
getting enough exercise
they decide - this is not a health recommendation
it's an illustrative example
they decide people should take so the head of the grammar school is told to tell his pupils
you must take 6,000 steps a day
on the basis that if the raget is 6,000
most will achieve at least 5,000 - the target
the same message goes to the head of the modern school
in a spirit of fairness
you must take 6,00 steps a day
and if you take less
you will be sent to a
re-education centre
a Borstal or Young Offenders Institution
for a Short Sharp Shock
the result
grammar school pupils ta it in their stride
and modern school pupils get criminal records
and in the context of CoViD
you get VoxPops of women saying things like
my mam died 'cos Mr. Johnson
ate a slice of birthday cake
the magical breach of the arbitrary regulations
that were always set to be
just that bit
over severe
with the aim of getting public behaviour
in the round, across the piece, on average
about what was sought
and thought about right
those people totally incapable of understanding
the origin and logic of the rules set
believing that the slightest deviation
will bring down the Wrath of God
what you have is the smart involved in
'nudge government'
that means
we think it is a really bad idea for you to smoke
take drugs not presecribed for you
chase losses when betting
and the toffs the people indulging in nudge government
have lost track of the fact that
now they have
in pursuit of inclusivity
turned over all the professions in the country to
people who's grandparents went to
County Modern Schools
and they want nothing to do mith nudge management
they want
a specific crime of...
a specific crime of...
no nuiance
simple
if you don't outlaw smoking
we won't believe it's harmful

19th March 2024

we see how in the short term
the National Grid operating company
has to maintain good reations with the fossil boys
and so they have just realsed a report about
offshore wind will need 1,000 miles of new pylon supported cable
here's the thing
electricity supply in the UK was essentially
based on coal fired power stations located on major rivers
and supplied with imported coal delivered by
ship or barge
the National Grid distributed this electricity from these locations
in one sense - perhaps not ideally
offshore wind power could be plugged into the national grid by
laying cables on the beds of those rivers and canals that brought in
imported coal
cheapest solution
little change to the existing grid
what will happen is that new cables will be installed
connecting wind farms fairly directly to a nearest point on the grid
and that will be overland not on riverbeds
the shortest route not being a river or canal
the factor that is not pubicised is
1,000 miles of pylon supported cable ADDED
but wht length of pylon supported cable will be
REVOVED
because it connects
muddy fields that used to host coal fired power stations
to the grid?
1,000 miles added
what length removed?


we accept that we may have added to confusion over
'local authority' green (garden0 waste collections
the bottom line is
Council Tax is - for those not getting a discount
around £2000 a year
and this charge is an extra £40 for one bin
and an extra £20 for each extra bin
and each bin registered could be emptied up to
16 times a year
hence, it is not financially significant for
people who are not on benefits or low incomes
the non-financial dimension is
the people who would be using this service
mainly the collection of grass clippings
are people who should have a compost heap and don't
what is to be collected is
compostable vegetable matter
grass clippings and hedge trimmings
the material will in all probability be collected by
an external contractor - not council direct labour
and the compost produced will probably find its way to being
sold back, at Garden Centres
to the people who paid for it to be taken away
a further small cost that perhaps could be offset by
employing somebody local to
cut the grass and tend the compost heap
along the lines of employing a window cleaner

18th March 2024

we've mentioned our Ricker's mum saying
I don't smack him because he enjoys it too much
that was a defence
an excuse
we hear these people Earl Spencer
some shock jock on the BBC mdid morning
trying to say
they had been sexually abused as a child
the whole thing revolves around the concept of
spare the rod and spoil the child
as a parent and teacher
you were guilty of dereliction of duty if you did not
'clatter' a child who stepped out of line
this whole thing is mass amnesia regarding what was the norm
and instead of saying
corporal punishment - punishment applied to the body not the mind
ws the norm and
take the example of the couple of parents recently convicted in the US
of manslaughter of the people their son shot
if anything srious happened
and it got out that the child was
allowed by parents or teachers to
hang as they grew
not be moulded by corporal punishment
then the parents and teachers would be held accountable
the child being under age and therefore not having a
functioning mind and brain
and so
to cloak this deletion of social norms in the a society still in
living memory
we get shite about
oh they must have gained sexual gratification from
the state sponsored 'sadism' they felt forced to apply
like National Service - particularly a secondary fear
if I don't get my boys used to this now
it will come as so much more of a shock to them
when they join the army
it's a nonsense
leave 'sex' out of it
and deal with the sadism

17th March 2024

we are really trying - but not too hard
to understand what the UK Conservative party is doing
Redcar should be a clear
Red Wall lesson for them
we have referred in the past to parts of Redcar and Cleveland
hving at one time been part of a Tory constituency
Mr Proudfoot's
Wilf Proudfoot owned a supermarket chain
that still exists but takes its stock from Nisa otherwise the C0-Op
we could research more detail but
what we are saying is
it's a long time since Redcar had a Tory MP
at the time that the steel works was shut
the MP was Anna Turley - Labour and Co-Operative
we think Labour and Co-Operative is supposed to be
One Nation Labour
as op[osed to
the Socialist labour of Andy MacDonald MP in nearby Middlesbrough
but that may be misleadingBR> The Tories faced with shutting down one of three steel plants
chose to shut Redcar because?
it was the one furthest away from London??
the gist being
the Tories shut Redcar steel works because they thought
they didn't have a hope in hell of ever winning in Redcar
beacuse it has a steel works
and completely ignoring the fact that the Redcar MP before
Anna was
Ian Swales for the LibDems
we have first hand knowledge that
in the election when
Sir Robert Goodwill stood for the Uk parliament for the first time
he stood in Redcar and central ofice instructed
Redcar Tory admin to shut down the campaign in Redcar
and re-deploy their efforts from Redcar to Langthingy
now Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
to help now Lord Michael Bates
we imagine that each general election
a dozen or so people have a one hour meeting in central office and decide
which constituencies to fight
essentially they will fight enough sets to get a majority
and to hell with the rest
and what happened?
steel works closes
and the people of Redcar are so overjoyed
at being able to dry thei washing outside
they elect the the make weight Tory
and now we have a regional mayor
banging on about
carbon capture and storage
a system designed to prevent the people of
Billingham and great Stockton-on-Tees
from being able to dry their washing out doors
the Tories have not yet come to terms with
housewives having the vote
we should note that
Lord Bates was up against a steel works engineer called
Ashok Kumar
see Redcar wreathed in shit from the coke ovens
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
nestled in the green rolling Cleveland Hills
where the people who worked at the steel works actually worked
who the hell on steelworks wages would live within ten miles of the
actual works??
and yet
steel works shuts
untied Christian Churches set out to
bring relief to the
redundant steelworkers of Greater Eston
couldn't find any
didn't look in Guisborough
and on the other flank
Theresa May - a tax break for couples who actually marry
succeeded very very successfully by
Boris Johnson - if you want some, come and get it
and what next?
another Tory leader blathering on about
religion and family

16th March 2024

sometimes people seem to act like
moths drawn to a flame
like poltical dissent in Russia
but we have noted that
whenever something becomes the latest
bete noir - black beast
people stop doing that thing
and the people who had hoped to create a new
whipping boy - person you attack without justification
as a form of psychological release
find themselves having to trawl for evidence of
the latest high priority transgression
having been carried out
before anybody realised that anybody found it
objectionable
nd what of the people who say
any criticism of a Black person is
criticism of ALL black people?
this is the
Benjamin Franklin
We must, indeed, all hang togetheror, most assuredly
w shall all hang separately
what we are seeing is one very rare example of
a difference between
Tory and Labour
the Consevative Party is presently seen as
tearing itself apart runing the risk of loosing credibility by
defending adherants no matter what they do
Diane Abbott is a figure in history becuse of
being the first Black female UK MP
who is Margaret Winteringham?
she was the first British born woman to be elected as
an MP in the UK parliament
and what is the most interesting side light on this story
the first woman to be elected to the Uk parliament
wasn't British-born
she was nancy Astor born in Danville Virginia and raised in
Greenwood Virginia
in the USA
some 'tropes' about the British hating foreigners
are easy to dispell
others not so much

15th March 2024

sometimes you may hear the term
universal adult sufferage
in theory it means that all adults in the UK are allowed to vote
in some juristictions people are required to vote - not the UK
ths is not true
Members of the House of Lords can't vote outside the house of Lords
detained convicted prisoners cannot vote
people convicted and held under the mental health act
and such people who are unlawfully at large
cannot vote
alongside this we have the provisions of
age of criminal responsibility
we have a concept of
young people do daft things
we should not let that blight the rest of their lives
so young offenders are given new identities on release
and a tabula raza - clean slate
Diane Abbott has had the Labour whip removed
is no longer - for the time being - a member of the
Parliamentary Labour Party
but like Andy Macdonald of Middlesbrough
she may be re-admitted
the point is
she was suspended for a reason
she wasn't the victim of entrapment or Newspaeak
she dd something wrong - by the account of The Labour
and the question is, is she capable of 'learning her lesson'?
many feel she is not
hence, thus and consequently
we say under 16s and for some elections under 18s
are too immature to have a vote
under 17 too young to hold a driving licence
etc. etc
this was the original arguement against
Votes for Women
too flighty
liable to make a rash decision
like kinda never reach full adulthood
lifelong teenagers
so far as we know - never checked
at no point did UK law state that
people of certain ethnicities were - like teenagers - too immture
having too severe learning difficulties
to be allowed to vote
but it was probably just an assumption that
because there were conditions - even for males
to be for instance a property owner, in order to qualify to vote
then people of slave ethnicities would never qualify for the vote
in simple terms
a some stage we will not research today
if you were not the actual bill payer
in terms of Council Tax
you would not have a vote
but these things have been very fluid
the problem is not with
too many people having the vote
the problem is with too many people being
excused adulthood
constantly having the slate wiped clean
so that they can 'try again'
Summertime Blues
I called my congressman and he said 'quote'
I'd love to help you son but you're too young to vote
and we have not researched the whole issue of
nondoms
tourists, visitors, students all sorts
in the USA legal aliens
it is by no means simple whether a person can vote
in the country where they areat the time of the election
in a country they are 'from' but not 'in'
at the time of the election
in practice these complications are simplified by
you can't vote if you are not registered to vote
and of course illegal immigrants are quite unlikely to
register to vote
as are tourists, but students may
so now a change
Northern Ireland used to be famous for the slogan
vote early and vote often
impersonation
people would turn up to vote and find
somebody else had already voted using their name
so now in the UK photo ID is required when voting in person

14th March 2024

we thought we would tabulate some Voltaire dates whilst we have them
in Teesport 18th January to 29th January 2024
in Teesport 5th March to 12 March 2024
so the turn around in port is getting shorter
down from 10 days to 7 days
the round trip including loading and transporting and installing
around a dozen 14 megawatt turbines took
from 18th January to 5th March
from 5th March to ... we shall see
it can be said that there is more daylight, the crew are more experienced
essentially, on site, each turbine should go up in 3 days
so a months for a ship load
so the question will be
will the entire cycle get down to 6 weeks
in future


our Ricker's fave TV prog is
The Bad Skin Clinic
it has - in a recently aired episode - introduced
melasma
and in some ways it may be said that
melasma is the opposite of vitilygo
in theory melasma is extra pigmentation of the skin
and vitulygo is loss of pigmentation of the skin
both in a starkly patchy way
in a sense the problem is made worse because a patient
can have both at the same time
the basic problem is
infection - probably a virus - escapes from a nerve into the skin
and the immune system reacts and attacks the cells making melanin
on the nerve's patch and this inhibits melanin production
the body detects the fall off in vitamin B 12 availability and
stimlatesthe unaffected melanocytes to compensate
and the unaffected patches darken to compensate

14th March 2024

so, Locke Park Swans
Mum is making a nest
and she seems to only have one string to her beau
beau is 'bestie' but of the opposite gender??
pun , init
we now have the details of the change to
local authority collection of green waste
from homes
14 to 16 collections by appointemnt froM
April to November
for fourty pounds £40
for one bin
each extra bin for the season £20
it has to be said that
in the case of Redcar and Cleveland
if you are planning one spring clean
and one autumn tidy up
a trip to the Dunsdale recycling depot
makes more sense, if you have or even cn hire, a vehicle
for dead heading a few plants in a flower bed in between
putting a small anount of green waste
veg from the kitchen or veg from the garden??
would seem to be the order of the day
we can see a future where the coulcil says
too few people have subscribed
we are terminating the service
and really, thsi seems to be the turning of the tide
in terms of recycling
take food containers..
what would you prefer
wah them and put them in the recycling
or
put them in the general rubbish
have them go through an incinerator
sorry - waste to energy plant
and get picked out all shinny and new from the ashes by a magnet???
the energy waste in putting the recycling through the dish washer
wot the point?
just about the only thing that's easy to recycle is
telephone directories and Kay's or Littlwoods catalogues
who the hell has those??

13th March 2024

it seems nobody has been sent a press release about the
current temporary closure - to road traffic - of
West Dyke Road level crossing on West Dyke Road in Redcar
since trains are running normally we assume that
the West Dyke Road signal box
has been de-commissioned
and when the crossing re-opens it will be controlled from
York
honestly, we haven't checked to see what is happening at
Church Lane level crossing on Redcar Lane
we wanted to add a little about
Halifax bank of Scotland in Redcar
still open
a few decades ago it got expanded and it may have been
some sort of data centre
or dicument repository??
it is BIG

12th March 2024

little tom-tit in The Mikado Gilbert and Sullivan
willio iti willow , tit-willow
is it weakness of intellect birdie I cried
or a rather tough worm in your little inside
is this guy being misinterpreted due to
all leftists being complete dumb asses
or are they deliberately misconstruing the text
in other words the text means
if your only experience of balck women was
expeeience of Diane Abbott
you'd be inclined to hate the bleedin' lot
and so
three groups of UK residents
black people in all black communities
black people in mixed communities
communities where black people are
rare a hens' teeth
if you lived in the last of those and your only
experience of black woman was
'er on the telly, Diane Abbott
you would be fed up to the back teeth with
black women
that's what he was saying
not I hate black women and you should too
but
fro Christ's sake can't the black community
find a better ambassador than
Diane Abbott?

wot kanya saa
in theis post literate era of society
what is a figure of speech?
twelve types? seven types?
alongside simile, metaphore, pun, and others
hyperbole
hyperbole - exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be
taken literally
e.g. mile high ice cream cone
example
I'm gonna kill ya
in the 21st century in the UK
that's a threat to kill and intimidation
and a malicious communication
in other words
'the law ' has climbed aboard
the autistic spectrum
the new rule of thumb is
whaever you say, whoever you say it to
the law asks
how would somebody around a third of the way along the autistic spectrum
react to that?
and so what to make of Grauniad and Labour reaction to the recent words of
Diane Abbott
to paraphrase
she has said that somebody saying to a group
not known to have any connection to her
that she should be shot
is a threat of incitement to kill
and her response was along the lines of
this makes me feel frightened to mingle with
ordinary people
we had been under the impression that
Diane Abbott was in her job and getting her side gigs
as a personification of
Ordinary People
this does beg the question
have we lost contact with the concept of
Oxford University
selects and trains the nation's - the world's
finest brains for
and local electorates choose
from amongst their own number
a representatve to
clue in the egg heads about everyday life

we are a little puzzled by recent constant references to
the Miners' Strike
one comment from a participant summs up the whole matter
shutting the coal mines at the time it happened was nothing to do with
putting an end to coal burning
in light of the availability of North Sea oil and gas
coal burning continued for decades
the reason that UK coal mines were shut
three decades early
and their product replaced by imported coal
was
an overreach by mining union leaders
exemplified during times of
The Labour in government as
beer and sandwiches at Number 10
blackmail and extorsion are crimes in the UK
but when committed by
Organised Labour
must be countered with
Special Measures

11th March 2024

we often assume people know more than they do about so many things
this tree has been
pollarded
trees that repond well to pollarding inlude
ash, lime, elm oak, beech, poplar, elder
it's quite a list
and sycamore is on that list
mostly, pollarding is seen as the opposite of
limbing up
limbing up removing low and overhanging branches
pollarding is restricting height
this form of extreme pollarding is called
copicing
and sycamore respond well to this too
what wil have to be decided is
how many stems and hence trunks
can the roots sustain


if you are in Redcar at the moment
the weather you are experiencing is described as
dreich
dreich is the opposite of
close
close as in close to you
not shut that door
so, dreich dr ee sh
chilly foggy misty
essentially - cold humid
and close is
bright and sunny and very humid
to the point where cooling off by sweating
is virtually impossible
so do be careful with
antipersperants
be sure Sure
that you are not overheating if you use them
because they stop you loosing heat when they stop you loosing water
and
you'll need to pant like a dog
whether it's dreich or close
it is important to note that
being short of breath - er a heart attack
and panting due to overheating need to be distinguished carefully
we like the Australian 'reality' series
Outback farm
showing currently in the UK on Quest
but it is the most log jamed example of an
inventory of
synthetic jeopardy
we can recall
there's a point where you just loose trust
like
the big tractor needs a controller
that's exactly the same as the one on the little tractor it is replacing
so instead of saying
we didn't need two controllers because there is only one person who can drive
either of the tractors
the story line is
we cn't use the big new tractor because
somebody 'forget' to pack a new controller along with the new tractor

anyway
regarding the swans in Locke Park
at the moment we can only see two of the three swans
Mum and Ruffie
that doesn't mean Jaffa is far away but it is interesting to watch
mum wants to nest at jaffa's end of the pond
Ruffie is too scarred to move from his end of the pond to Jaffa's end
in case Jaffa returns
Mum keeps swanning up to Ruffie's end
but he won't follow her down to Jaffa's end
all that pairing for life...
they are a bit more pragmatic
and it's terretory not mates that matter most

8th March 2024

it's been a bit foggy around here of late
we can say that
Voltaire the wind turbine installation barge
arrived back at Greythorpe on or near the Tees
on 5th March at 10.19 pm
so it was away from the last Monday in January
to the first Tuesday in March
but we will wait for its loaded departure to measure one cycle
last time it took 11 days to load a dozen turbines
so maybe it will go out again around
16th March
we shall see

7th March 2024

we forget whether this is a story about
Groucho Marx
some Golden Age movie star
at something like the Oscars
chatting to an equally famous female actor at his table
would you sleep with me for five thousand dollars?
I might
would you sleep with me for ten dollars?
what do you take me for?
oh, we've established your profession
we're now simply negotiating the fee
we don't know the details of the Emma Caldwell case
about which there will be so we will sy that what we are about to say is
fictional
people have put quite a bit of effort into campaigns such as
period poverty
there is much progress in opening up the whole business of
the human female condition
this first bit is definitely not about Emma Caldwell
so one day one of the lads at Coatham Grammar School
we will say in the sixth form
and so
16 to 18
he gets taken to one of the pubs in the Woolie Back
that is sort of Skelton, Loftus or on the moors
so we're saying whether due to him having a birthday or not
this is some sort of
first visit to a proper pub
not a restaurant with an alcohol licence
and after a bit one of the regulars says to the bartender
Hey Flossie, show young Dave your trick
so Flossie puts a fifty pence piece down on the bar
she parts her skirt
and picks up the 50p with her piss flaps
we will now write a story for the
Emma Notherealname character
let us say that living in a close but not wealthy family
Emma is devastated by the death from cancer of her sister
not getting professional help
she turn to illegal drugs
and not having money for the drugs she turns to sex work
first of all
a whole range of institutions and services have failed to
prepare her to cope with grief and loss
but there is a significant
elephant in the room
that is being ignored
even if you do not - like politicians - think that the answer to everything is
maw monay
you may well think that the answer to everything is
more drugs - beyond what your GP will prescribe
to say this - prescribed - amount of drugs will do the trick
and then if it doesn't
say 'no more drugs'
invites the search for illegal drugs
and then the need for more money and the obvious conclusion
sex work will get me drugs the NHS will not supply
what's missing?
grief councelling?
probably
but the room with the elephant has burying your head in the sand when the elephant becomes
your only companion in the room
is
what do you think is the effect of not teaching
little girls about periods and the link with babies
are you hoping that one morning the little girl will
wake up a trans boy?
what is missing is
a GCSE General Certificate in Secondary Education
or replacement
in Safe Provision of Sexual Services
most females have accepted something
a drink or a meal in expectation that some sort of
expectation of delivery of sexual services will follow
even if it's a royal snogg
so why are females not clearly taught how to manage these stuations
as it stands
although around twce a week in the UK population of
60 million
some female comes to a sticky end
most sex work transactions pass off without major hitch
clear guidelins and proper training are the best route to
greater safety
and the Rubicon to cross is to end
victim blaming
not, if she wasn't a sex worker this wouldn't have happened
but
if everybody knew the rules
this would be less likely to happen
over and over again we hear about
what shouldn't happen
we never hear
that's the way to do it
Punch and Judy reference
we don't have ststs for
hospital admissions resulting from
mishaps ina beauty parlour
but we kinda think if there were the same amount of effort
put into actual sex work training as
beauty therapy training
the one or two cases of death during sex work per year
could all but disappear
two females a week murdered in the UK
almost none of them by a stranger
bearing in mind
if you're off your head on drugs, is that the only circumstance
under which you would consent to sex with a psychopathic stranger?
and so
where is public policy here?
do we have a public inquiry over one of maybe one or two
death by starnger incidents
to reduce death by stranger incidents
or to
discourage females from
going out on the pull?
becue we want them to only have sex withing
neat and tidy
arranged marriages?
and the male dimension
in the future will the police take the same view of you and your case
whatever sort of female you have upset?
in reality the public inquiry will probably boil down to
should the police concentrate on 'dangerous men' in society whom
heretofore we have 'tolerated' in order to
psychologically, lock up people's daughters?
keep them
off the pull
even as enthusiastic amateurs
and to what extent did the police
keep Cousins on the force to do
social duty
delibertely to scare the girlies off the streets?
go out at night and a man will kill you
any man would like to kill you, even a police officer
and so you say
Ok I'll see whether I can meet the man of my dreams at work
and they say
no BR> that would be an inappropriate relationship
and we want to preserve the cast system
of only breeding within your own class
married or not
sober and at work
that still has you on the pull and
liable to undermine the
arranged marriage plans of your family



just for a wider audience..
a pic of the strange 'bridge structure' of
Cancer Research UK's Redcar High Street store
we did a little item about the
AngloAmerican Woodsmith Mine Tunnel
and it seems The Sun have caught up
they are now saying - quite sensibly
if you dig a 26 mile tunnel under the North York Moors
to avoid harming the environment
you don't truck materials in and spoil out
you use the tunnel to service the tunnel as you build
hence
there cannot be a 26 mile conveyor belt
trains take in tunnel sections and bring out spoil
and this means....
in a year or two
Wilton International in Redcar
will have a Channel Tunnel style link to
Whitby in North Yorkshire
there wouldn't be much of a view for tourists
but how should we say
the Redcar - Whitby link
will be smoother - for indurstry at least - than
the Whitby to Scarborough link
this means companies could set up in Whitby to
service industry in Redcar and around Teesside
and perhaps a 26 mile commute from glorious North Yorkshire
to industrial Teesside
becomes worthwhile and beyond the remit of
the South Tees Development Corporation
bunch of wankers

5th March 2024

we have no idea how long this arrangement will last but
as of now Tesco are continuing to run
Tesco bank ATMs
the current state of affairs being
if you got Mini Statements from
NatWest on the High Street until it closed
Halifax and Morrisons ATMs will give you a current balance
Tesco bank ATMs will give you a mini statement
This should also apply to Barclays customers???


we should note that the boat in the frieze
is not a fishing boat
it's the world's oldest lifeboat
The Zetland
and it lives in its own museum on the sea front
not that we care much since they took the lifeboat from
the South Gare
we've got dingies these days
none of yer 'ocean going'
mainly because ships, rigs etc. have their own on board lifeboat service
aside from that
and the miner hiding behind a lamp post
there is should we say
plenty of space for something commemorating
the steel works
we assume they have heard of steel works in Bradford
not that we know what Bradford is famous for
apart from the






a long long time ago when
morrisons supermarket was still
just hanging on to the status of
family firm
by its fingertips
they built a supermarket in Redcar
and our ricker had the honour of a little interview with
the sculpter who created the art work that runs along the boundary
between the car park and West Dyke Road.
and he was supposed to be doing homage to the hitory of Redcar
so we suppose there was a meeting in Bradford, Yorkshire
about what is Redcar famous for?
so they came up with
horse racing, mining and sea fishing
there was a reason for this
if they had asked the local council or the local people
the old motto was
Mare et Ferro
sea and iron
so you produce a wonderful wonderful wall sculpture for Redcar
that has no reference to iron and steel
as we said there was a reason for that
they chose a very gifted sculptor who was
a miner's son
so a an art work dedicated to Redcar
turned out to be a sculpture dedicated to the sculptor's father
in essence what we did was
shame about the lack of a blast furnace but let's say
that's not a coal miner
he's a ironstone miner
the North East of England is a many splendoured thing
but Bradford doesn't qualify as North East
Northern but not North East
and when people speak of the North East they speak of
Northumberland and Durham
when we speak of coal mining
we may speak of Sunderland
and in the Sunderland venacular...
there is a term
impeddent fond
and this is a version of the universal
impudent
fond is a term of particular significance
languages devlop in strange ways
profound
deep
I have become very fond of you
you can say that without registering that you are saying
my affection now runs deep within me
to be impudent fond
is to take a sort of
'a cat may look at a king'
approach to life cocky youth regards all authority figures with
deep disdane
all of which feeds into
all sorts of social discord
the thing about what we may call
left behind communities is that
impudent fond
giving the finger to police officers and such
becomes
ignorant fond
the deeply rooted opposition to
knowledge, skills and experience
and so we have two groups of
unemployables
the human zoo detritus of the
keep my baby alive at any cost
and the perfectly formed youth
pmplacably resistant to
education and training
and as such
burning coal is a filthy habit but
what can you say to people who will
spend fortunes
destroying their own lungs
by smaoking
in an impudent demonstration of their
inalieanable human rights to freedom
smoking in the light of medical advice is an example of being
impudent fond
but being the government and refusing to ban smoking
is an example of a government being
impudent fond
in defence of
'democracy'
and thus you find UK Prime Ministers
Mr Johnson in particualar
so obsessed with being
popular
that they lead a nation astray

3rd March 2024

this is the deal we have been gven
there s a date for the beginning of
Ramadan a Middle Eastern religious festival
consider the gap between
Shrove Tuesday and Easter
same thing
eat up all your perishable food on
Pancake Day and
Old Clays and Porritch
until easter Sunday
OK same difference
we'll have what you have but we'll call it something different
in the Christian Calendar
Ramadan is called
Lent
and Christians are supposed to eat frugally during Lent
no meat
as for the present Prime Minstaer fasting one day a week
Christians - no meat Fridays
a fish supper on Friday - fish not being livestock and so not 'meat'
Roman catholics werr obsessive about no meat Friday
particularly the Friday of Easter
within living memory
but time of day is not specified
in detail
back in the day our Ricker was on some sort of forum about
medical school entry and some Moslem member said
we Moslems should be set lower pass rates in our exams because
of all this fasting and doing exams
co-incide
and in detail
we are being told F1 wanted to get a couple of
Middle Eastern Grand Prix out of the way
before Ramadan
and then naff off to Japan and Australia during Ramadan
the conceit being that
it's about Ramadan and not about
Sunday being the first day of the working week
for the people with the money
there was a mountaineer called
Chris Bonninbton
it took a long long time to realise that he wasn't
Christopher Bonnington
but
Christian Bonnington
and so to Christian Horner Fi team principal
will the few raw about his HR human resources
outlast it's utility as a distraction for the media from
the fact that F1 has changed the calendar
for the sake of Ramadan?
it does make you sit up and ask
why do all this medical research and such
and have the powers that be turn around and say

it is interesting how the two groups with the most to loose
from the closing of the coal mines
the miners wives
and
Arthr Scargill - union leader
are the ones 'celebrating ' the fight to
keep them open
we've mentioned this slightly at a tangent
the miners were people who did a mucjy dangerous job
and provided
leverage over government to union leaders
and fat pay packets to their wives
for the record
during some of the miners' stikes
1973 76
our Ricker lived in a village in Durham
Croxdale
that housed some of the striking miners
and the nearest lived a couple of houses away
the miners were under pressure to keep their jobs
from the people who didn't do a job anything like mining
the wives not only had miner husband pay packets to spend
but they had jobs in
the Co-Op and other businesses that would feel the chill
when the pits closed
miners died young
some died in accidents
most died from
pneumoconiosis
the widows got tht pensions
but to be fair the wives of some mine workers died young from from washing their husbands' work clothes
all that wealth in minding communities was
danger money
shut the coalhouse door, there's blood inside
danger money, not a skills premium

2nd March 2024

this could get tedious
we've checked up on
Cancer Research UK's Redcar shop
if we go back a decade or more
the first thing that is odd about that shop is
it has a three phase electrical supply
but only one phase is wired up
our conclusion from that is that
at some stage it was a part of
The now defunct
Clarendon Hotel next door
the second thing is
there is a chunk of the sales floor walled off
on the opposite side
in effect there is a corridor in the shop that is
not accessible to the shop - no door nothing opening into the shop
and this exists to provide access to the rear of the
csh machines ATMs automatic teller machines
in the Halifax - bank of Scotland next door
in that sense it is a bit of space between two buildings
with a roof and a front door
we won't even get started about the at the same time
that Imperial at 84 was closed
it had just had a refurb - we suspect it belonged/belongs to
The Co-Op
nearest tranding store Marske-by-the-Sea
new concrete floors set becuse
next door 82 was
Co-Op opticians - closed soon after
Jhn Reece was the dispenser andour Ricker was signed up to be
the preregistration optometrist
two weeks before it closed
spin one a decade or two
one day working in number 6
our Ricker and Kevin discovered that
the stairs were collapsing
Kevin rang the appropriate number and
some bloke came out and put a handful of screws into ti
and naffed off
the reason for the closure of Cancer Reserch Uk Redcar is that
the stairs are now colapsing into the basement/undercroft,
disused coal bunker, whatever
as such the shop could stay open becuse the floor of the sales floor
well it should be Ok because the carpet tiles were taken up
and vinyl put down a decade or so ago
meaning the floor is rotten but only rotten enough to be
uable to support the stairs
and so the salesfloor could be reduced to provide a small
stock preparation space on the Halifax side
it would be difficult to trade profitably in so small a space
it worked well enough with all of the ground floor for sales and
the other two floors for stock preparation
so we could give a shout out for volunteers to fix the stairs
but it would be
sticking plaster on the Titanic





we guess we could say the collapsing slipway on Redcar Esplanade has collapsed
this is where you get
this hit about
highly skilled, time served etc
have you ever seen a sheared off - snapped - scaffolding pole
some time sererved fuckwit decided that when building the sewer
diversion away from the new Regent Cinema
insted of installing a rebar cage
a steel reinforcing structure to engineering specifications
they'd use
CAD
cardboard assisted design
and buried some scaffolding poles in the concrete
instead of rebar reinforcing bar
no foundations and no rebarBR>

thiss is a ball breaker for our Ricker
and Mark Knofler on the telly has reminded him
BSE
mad cow disease
bovine spongy encephalopathy
it is a prion mediated disease
deeply complicated
essentially
on the hieracrchy od
It's life Jim, but not as we know it
Start Trek reference
a prion is the next step down from
viruses
bacteria, viruses, prions, enzymes
there was this bloke whom our Ricker used to know
his name seems to have dropped out of mass circualtion but we get it
Christopher Higgins
Christopher Higgins was Greyman when our Ricker was in Cuths
Christopher Higgins played the violin
Christopher carried his violin around campus like a tablet or 'phone
Christopher Higgins studied violin at
The Royal College of Music
and dropped out sharpish and went to Durham Uni
same cohort as our Ricker
and you know what
at the end of their first year...
they were split up
our Ricker to do joint animal ecology anf physiology
young Higgins to do joint plant ecology and physiologyBR> so Ricker's background - Newcastle med school
Higgins's background - Royal College of Music, London
at some point the Higgins sets himself up in a broom cupboard
at the university of Edinburgh
and sticks a BSE research Institute sign on the door
you see the chattering classes being able to relate to
a violinist
that's really clever that
so this is the point the epiphany
the damascus Road experience for our Ricker
not
what a bunch of wankers listening his drivvel about
BSE being an infestion...
the realisation that
Christ hat guy is regrded as God's gift to medicine
and I'm way smarter than him...
that's a big responsibility
and that's where Mark Knopfler came in
our Ricker just had to keep saying to himself
I may be the world's greatest living bio-medical scientist
but I'm not Mark knopfler


we're trying to figure out why the United States is
making food drops to
HAMAS troops
perhaps they think if the get fat enough
they'll get stuck fast in their tunels...
the whole deal is
if you want to give food aid to Palestinians...
how do you get it DIRECT to women and children
and not have it ytaxed by terrorists
bearing in mind
almost everybody living in Gaza
is a child
by modern definitions
how many 'children' in Gaza are grandparents?
it's a bit like the disqualified
oldest living dog
in reverse
'I've been a child these past thirty years'
gets you anything, anywhere
but there is a serious dimension
if the men of Gaza have had a crimp put in their
tunnelling
they need a role
go down the chippy and pick up a fish supper will you

1st March 2024

here is the question of the day
which picture have been
'photoshopped'
the ones of starvation in Gaza
or
the ones of starvation in Brgen-Belsen concentration camp?
hijacking trucks orBR> building The Bridge over thr River Kwai?

29th February 2024

looking at the Couzens case..
what was not available to the justce industry was
a charge ofBR> agravated manslaughter
carrying a mandatory life sentence
it would be applied where the actions of the defendent could edecsribed as
beyond reckless
and it could be 'non-contact' in the sense of
causing death by dangerous driving
he drove a car into a crowd of pedestrians and we see
no eidence of a medical event in the driver
that could be murder
the flat inevitability that some would be hurt
some fatality very plausible is clear
but
he drove down a twisting country road with high hedges...
he's playing Russian roulette with other people's lives
if somebody does die
agravated manslaughter
becaue he was doing something he should not have done
because of the high probability of fatality


we suppose that over time many soldiers
and far less non-military people and for a long tme that would be bare knuckle fighting
so we have the boxing ring
we assume that essentially, boxing had rules before it had
equipment
and we also assume that many bare knucle fights were
between people who did not
train
very much
and so to have a fight between two contestants
the fight would happen in some sort of shallow pit with the
crowd expected to stay outside the pit
so that it was a fight and not a brawl
so that a victor could be declared
and that would be important for betting
we are imagineing that when this boxing became more organised
and people wanted more rules to keep their bets fairer
people would want to train
when they weren't fighting as
prize Fighters
they would want some consistency between
training conditions and fighting conditions
and in training there would be no crowd to
define the edges of the ring
to standardise training and fighting conditions
we assume that the ropes were introduced to stand in for the crowd
and they had to be ropes not railings
so that they would not injure the athletes
and so that they could be easily set up and taken down
hence the 'ring' would become oblong, rectangular so that
it would only take 4 trainers to hold the ring
one in each corner
and so despite the trainers being replaced by
inanimate padded posts
at least in that part of their duties
we have the minimum practicable number of corners - 4
and from this we have the idiom in UK English of
the poilce were able to hold the ring
the idea behind that is that
even if the fight becomes a brawl
there is a police line between
the combatants and passers by
and so we see two functions of authority in the case of
public disorder
a police line to contain the action
and what were once referred to as
snatch squads
to act a referees and
send off participants who
went too far...
brought in weapons, set about islating individuals for
extreme attacks
but the referees would also be able to sanction the removal of
individuals or groups who
committed criminal damage
or surged in a way to
push out the police line so that
a public nuisance - blocking of the highway etc - occured
and the deal is all this wthout
stopping the fight
a joint responsibility of
referees and trainers

27th February 2024

Saint Ambrose had a more famous pen pal Saint Augustine
Saint Ambrose is credited with being the first to write
When in Rome, do as the Romans do
and this is a take on Jesus' saying
Render onto Caesar that which is Ceasar's
relating to Roman taxation
in countries where this is the core belief
there can be tensions with people seeking to set up
reservations within an established society
the point being
when First nations people were driven into reservations
it was the immigrants being colonists
constraining the activities of the
people who were there first
when AfroCaribbeans came to the UK
on the Windrush
they were concentrated into limited areas
but it is a different thing when immigrants
take over a district and dominate it
and expect rather like Americans
wanting US law to apply on military bases in the UK
the woman who claimed diplomatic immunity after
driving on the right in the UK and killing a local lad
that sort of immigrant behaviour
when it comes from people not so rich as Amerians
will eventually lead to tensions...

most people in the UK right now are probably too young to
remember the days when throughout the UK there was a running joke
used in Faulty Towers
if ever there was any prospect of a Brit
meeting a German
the reminder was given
'don't mention the war'
and it is difficult to see how the people of the Uk can
gain an understanding of immigration if
colour
Islam
Jewdeism
poverty
a whole list of things are
beyond
'not up for debate'
but are gaining the quality of blasphemy
not just don't mention the war -
because it may be embarrassing
but the requirement that
differences
that may be
plain as a pikestaff
there is some sort of quote from a husband who is supposed to have
may by now have been convicted of
throwing his wife off a cliff in Edinburgh
you may be in Britain
but you are not a British (style) wife
and I will kill you for not behaving as you would have done back home
be blurred out of discourse
verbal or tele-published
it is quite a while since people stopped saying
'an Englishman's home is his castle'
but there does seem to be some evidence that
the home of a male immigrant into England
is his castle
even if in broad terms his street may not be
a no-go area for the authorities
it appears to us that the Bbc are under the impression that
somebody important
and probably royal
is about to die
we would not be surprised if this were
The Princess of Wales

it seems inevitable that the
First Nations People
ot the British Isles
will wither on the vine
not least due to official opposition to their
having sex
but in their twilight years
what should their approach be towards
the new owners?
should they regard them as
guests
recruits
or
an occupying power?
that seems to be the essential political debate of the present
when the Britsh invade Spain
they do so as customers on package holdays
and they bring their culture with them
and to some extent they take it back home with them
at the end of the holiday season
but then in bothe Spain and France they may
a few years later
settle smi permanently for the
healthier years of their retirement
they represent - in cultural terms
a splinter group CofE, Anglican, Methodist etc.
of the established church of
France and Spain - Roman Catholicism
despite this splinter status there is an overall
Christianity
the schism between
Christianity and Islam is broader and deeper
beause so many Moslems arrive in the UK
for work not recreation
it is hard to know how long the intend staying
broadly speaking the
Natural Resources of the British isles
are not all that impressive
and so the case is not as in
sould we say Africa where settlers may arrive
strip the mineral resources and leave
it is easy to conclude that one of the main reasons for
immigration into the UK is a nostalgia for the
social stability that worldwide communities experienced
when so amny of these homelads were colonies
a new trend is developing in world politics
this is to say that in pre-colonial days
places that became colonies were harmonious
and it was the British who
set one sect against another
and that the process of decolonisation involves
dissolving the artificial conflicts between 'native' sects
that were set up by the colonists
since there is often little objective written history of
pre-colonial conditions
this is difficult to evaluate
as a counter to this
there is anthropology that records ancient myths and traditions that
clearly became quite elaborately evolved in the absence of
the input of techicologically derive informtion
what does it take to develop and end such concepts as
the Earth is flat?
moving from a flat to a spherical Earth is real
in terms of saling off into the sunset and
not falling off the edge AND arriving back where you started
other questions such as
does the Earth revolve around the Sun
or
does the Sun revolve around the Earth?
rely on
trust in experts
because despit all..
people on Earth experience
movemant of the SUn
as a useful extra note from anthropology
down the years it has always been the majority assumption that
when human remains are found and they person was obviously
deliberately killed
that this was some sort of expulsion of an undesirable
or threatening person from the community
what is developing is a slightly different concept and it
toes in with Islamist fighters being keen to
die in battle
or in the venacular of the UK
if not in battle at least 'at work'
in the phrase
to die with your boots on
and this is that communities in stress would
make human sacrifice of their most precious colleagues
perhaps braves warriors or prettiest young females
sby way of sending them
urgently and prematurely
as emisarries to their Gods
for help NOW and not when the Gods chose to take them
this plays into the idea that
when things go wrong - disaster strikes
it is because The Gods have forgotten about the mortals
and need a message to remind them of their
responsibilties

26th February 2024

as we understand it
a Professor Clare McGlynn
a professor of Law at Durham University
gave evidence to a
House of Commons committee on 21st February 2024
whatever the committee called itself
it was collecting evidence of
non-contact sexual offences
another Professor - from Lancaster University
was doing the standard uni thing
'I'd love to answer tht question but we've been turned down for
research funding in that area
we assume that a Durham university professor would not intentionally lie to
a committee of MPs
the gist of what she said was
we have not found convincing evidence of
escallation of offending
many people have said and we had a recent case report in a newspaper
this woman killed a person and a bit back
she live screened the killing of a cat
and there is something there
killing a cat to get views is a serious offence even if it is regarded as
criminal damage
that has benn or is in process of being changed
we need to step back from some of the assertions
on that same day that same committee had taken
rather a lot of rather repetitive evidence from a woman who's daughter had
been murdered
the law is what the law is
but we consider that
murder follows after
I want that person dead
and there are a load of other crimes that cover
I was there and she died and I had something to do with it
I want that person dead comes in two categories
he/she was in my way or I was mad with him/her
and
it was important to me to experience killing somebody
there are clearly cases where the facts support
manslaughter due to gross negligence/recklessness
where the verdict - at the behest of the jury is murder
because the jury took considerable account of
a witness impact statement
echniclly victim impact statements relate to sentencing but
victims get the chance to give evidence before verdict
what Professor McGlynn said was
'we've' kinda failed to make a strong case for escallation of behaviour
and so we should take lesser offences more seriously
and this is where the change in emphasis in court proceedings is important
in a civil case it may be
Gradgrind versus Gradgrind
but in a criminal case it is supposed to be
The Crown versus Bloggs
to reduce
legal aid costs
in broad terms
civil legal aid - government funding of people suing other people
has been replaced by
no win no fee
case funding
the gap this leaves is where the plaintif wants revenge
but there is little hope of there being any compensation for the
no win no fee lawyers to take a cut of
this gap has been filled by
legislators undoing their efforts to cut costs by
making matters that would have been civil matters
into criminal matters
thus returning those matters to be
legal aid cases
destroying the funding saving
and packing the prisons
if a chap has consensual sex with a female and both keep it secret
so long as no pregnancy results
no harm done
but if he runs around the town singing
I 'ad 'er, I 'ad 'er and then...
her family may consider that he has
damaged her reputation and marriage prospects
the point being
at one extreme sax could result in death
manual strangulation causeing an unsurvivable fracture of the hyoid bone
at the other extreme
a text asking a person out on a date
could constitute an affront if
came from a Capulet
Romeo and Juliet
the question is
should the significant others of the
survivor of the incident
chose the charge
we already have them influencing the sentence
justic is not so much about
words and deeds
but about family traditions and honour

26th February 2024

the brick building beyond the town clock was the NatWest
and the rendered block near was
The Clarendon pub/hotel

25th February 2024

we are utteryly fed up of hearing about
big Russia and little Ukraine
estinated miltary personnel.......active soldiers
Russia 141,698.923......Ukraine 43,306,477
active soldiers
Russia 1,320,000.....Ukraine 900,000
this is not parity
but not far off, and
in theory the Ukrainians are in an existential conflict
and the Russians are fighing for glory
in theory that should give the Ukrainians
more then the edge
in the context of
Ukraine plaeding for more support
they would be expected to exaggerate casualties
in defence of pride Russia would be expected to
downplay losses
around 40 percent of the Russian economy is dedicated to
refurbishing stored military equipment such as tanks
they remain of early design no matter how much they are
tinkered with
Rusia GDP $13,000 per capita
Ukraine GDP per capita $4,835
about 6 million people live in the bricks in Ukraine
roughly 6 cities with a population of round one million each
that is out of 43.79 people
so we have La Ukraine profonde as well
Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe
and so in light of the 'failed' spring counter offensive in 2023
Ukraine does stand accused of
'Te Mouse that Roared' status
picking a fight with a neighbour rather than rolling over
in hopes of a Marshall Plan of reconstruction
essentially Ukraine has not put up enough of a fight
to deserve trillion dollr reconstruction funding
whatever the actual casualty figures
what we see looks a lot like a
snowball fight
looks like none of the munitions - shells, etc
are actually being targeted at anything
military
just a load of soviet era brutalist tower blocks
we - Ukraine - do the demolition
you - the west - build us Los Angeles



OK OK
it don't say National provincial bank on the NatWest building
i says
NPBE
National Provincial Bank of England
created in 1833
and because it became
National Provincial and Union Bank of England
in 1918
the bank has been in that building since before the
First World War
it was probably the 1962 merger that
our Pete wrote forMaxwell Batley
and they would probably also did the final 1970
merger that finalised the name as NatWest


half a century ago in the UK
culture wars were represented by BR> first nations yoofBR> going out of a night
Paki Bashing
and
Queer Bashing
spot of off pitch training for rugby teams
the essence being
no real concept of what a Paki or Queer were
there was just a role for a group of people
it was ligitimate to harass and assault
things have moved on a tiny bit
in the sense that more recent generations
kinda think that is not quite right
but it is the nature of the change tht matters
essentially, for some people - probably not rugby players these days
and in the detail it was probably the people who were
suppressed by the 'jocks' the rugby players
who handed the punishment down the line to the
super weedy Pakies and Queers
we say no persecution of ethnic minorities or
any sort of neurodivergent - for instance autistic
trans, homosexual
a whole range of people
now protected by law
females?
a work in progress
the significant glitch is
we have a justice industry that
by example doesn't sentence the vioent to
sessions in a boxing or martial arts venue
the thing that isn't happening is
divert frustration and energy towards a regulated sport
and what is happening is
a search for
ligitimate targets
and so we actually have police officers
paid to paedophile hunt
and this is in response to a belief that
the frustrated need a ligitimate outlet
and so lonely fat fifty year old males
can ligitimately be entrapped into the role
of public punch bag
survivors of all sortd of abuse complain that
the justice industry concentrates of the perps
not the survivors
perhaps they are correct
but they would not be correct if the advice to a violent man was
leave your partner along and go beat up her dad
because we've seen him doing the school run

24th February 2024

we've checked...
the French would say
the war in Eastern Europe
is being fought in
La Russie Profond
we had guessed it would have been
La Russe profond
apparently Russe or Russie can be either male of female
so on a bas day it could be
Le Russie Profond
and this is the dilemma for the President Putin media machine
there are three cities in Russia but also some
silly cities the like of City of Sunderland
more than half the population of Russia live in
three cites
Mock bar in American, moss cow 13 million
Saint Pertesberg 5.6 millon
Samara, never heard of it 1.2 million
Novosibirsk 1.6 million
that's the sum of Russians living
in the bricks
the remainder live in the sticks
143.4 million total
so about 130 million Russians dispersed
in rural poverty across a vast landscape
and what do the peasants want
a strong leader to protect them from
the monster over the hill
the problem for Russian media is
since Ukraine has over the past two years
proved to be a paper tiger
in the peasant mind won't it be easy to begin to think
we are surrounded in the east and west by America
President Putin has failed to set fire to
Ukraine's paper tiger
perhaps we need protection against America from Europe
America and Europe are both in OTAN
but they are fighting like rats in a sack

Saltburn Cliff Lift or tramway
is out of action again
our impression is that whenever
Redcar and Cleveland Council
up work on the lift out to tender
they allow or even encourage contractors to
'put the apprentices on the job'
so they can put something iconic on their CVs
it would make a person spit feathers
it it weren't so routine
if you use an installation as a training aid
it will never be safe and reliable
this mechanism
couldn't be simpler
it takes great ingenuity to
fuck it up



this is like the sheet piling under the regent Cinema
so relax

this is just to show how quickly the sand could return



these two show how timber has been driven into the sand to
hold up shuttering to contain concrete poured to
reinforce - widen - the slipway

and this one is to show how the slipway concrete was
plastic filament reinforced
as the sewer concrete wasn't
which is why despite concerns the slipway is
still whole and the sewer has collagsed
in this case the concrete has been laid
not on the sand or wooden shuttering
or peat
but on the red boulder clay that contributes the
red to the name Redcar
famous but it is like
unfired clay, soft as, well almost

22nd February 2024

the big square grid is the out flow for what is effectively
mainly the surface water from the Esplanade

the pipe that runs down the beach is the black water drain
taking sewage from the Esplanade Newcommen Terrace area
out across the rocks

essentially there are two problems here
the massive surface water outlet has no foundations
and it has been built on top of three layers
sand
peat from the drowned forest
shale
do not be concerned
the foundations of the cinema were sunk into the shale
the 'rock' that is exposed as the Scars on the beach
Northumbrian Water hired some 'old gaffer and his sons'
with a transit van to build the surface water drain
and they had no gear to dg foundations in the sea with
they just shuved up some shuttering and filled it with readymix concrete
same idea that has lead to the nearest slipway being closed
when you treat the beach like it was some farmer's field
you get thes results


this week the NatWest bank branch on Redcar High Street
permanently closed
in a world with different priorities it could get a
Blue Plaque on the wall
to commemorate
Peter Robson
who lived for a while on Corporation Road
and attended Coatham Grammar - Sir William Turner's
for a little while and aftet time at Oxford University and in the Royal Navy
navigating destroyers in the Russia Convoys
became a commercial layer in a
now gone
London City law firm called
Maxwell Batley
and as such did the contract work that created
The NatWest out of
The National Provincial Bank and the Westminster Bank
the Redcar branch building still has
national Provincial carved into its stonework
but we live in the worl we live in


this is where we do a bit of public gaming
or wargaming
wargaming the coming decade in geoploitics
Trident Nuclear weapons are made for the UK by America
it has long been in our minds that if the UK every took
Trudent
anywhere near the USA and tried to deploy it
it would automaically abort
any of the people who assassinate people for
President Putin
could more easily assassinate President Putin
we think there is a good chance that a year from now
America will have
a more full throated President Trump
it is very much on the cards that
when President Putin is assassinated
he is replaced by a pro-European Russian President
the bottom line is
the UK should right now or sooner be
going through anything military in its arsenal
that has an American connection
with a fine tooth comb
to check for
bugs, cookies, whatever that my hamper the UK if they
find themselves in armed conflict with
The United States of America
however, briefly

21st February 2024

the inspection chamber lids are the clue that
this is a sewer and not foundations


we can't give a full acccount of
Les versus CRUK
Ang was the paid manager and she was off sick a lot
Kevin was the paid duty manager
our Ricker was the volunteer duty manager
when neither Ang not Kevin were there
so redundant steel worker turns up to volunteer
and even after reputedly starting mini cab or taxi driving
we do doubt the taxi licence but
who knows what RCBC - Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council
would do for a redundant steel worker
after a while
of Les having the run of the store
Ang approaches our Ricker and asks
would you (like to be) the staff union rep
our Ricker declines
soon after he is asked to leave
the assuming bit is
we assume that it was Les who suggested
a charity shop should have a union rep
we assume that Les was made union rep
probably not USDAW
we assume it was as union rep that Les
required that our Ricker leave
we think it may extend beyond Les leaving???
that Kevin was removed
it does seem that Les rather fancied beng the only
male post holder in the shop
even perhaps the only male staff member in the shop
and perhaps
Sharyn was made of the stuff to put a flea in Les's ear
all way too late for Ang
and one issue she should have been concerned about was
Les was 'PAT testing' electrcal items for sale in the shop
and he had no qualifiacations in
PAT testing, electrical contracting or
weel as we understand it his idea of
PAT testing was to plug it in and it it didn't blow the fuse
he slapped a sticker on it
he definitely wasn't doing a functional test
checking that it worked
it's across the board
all sorts of
blue colar workers are being 'trained on the job'
in safety critical roles and if
qualified people raise objections
well all sorts mainly
harassment, malicious communication, stalking, paedo
whetever
to get the
'by the book' people out of the workplace
and when you look into it
what influence doe the NUJ
national Union of Journaists
have on representing
coal miners and steel workers as the
only working people worthy of a good press


there is a root and branch underlying problem with the NHS
the UK national Health Service
There was a chap called Beveridge who was working in
Whitehall
actually the government offices
not the Whitehall theatre where the
Brian Rix farces were played
at the beginning of the Second World War
Beveridge was tasked with assessing
leading an inquiry into Social Services
and he came up with what he called
what's that coming over the hill is it a monster?
no he didn't
he came up with a list of five giants
idlesness, ignorance, disease, squalor and want
never took off as Punk Band
the essence of Beveridge was
that these could be eradicated
destroyed, eliminated
essentially if you provide good education and training
a minimum wage - conditional on doing a fair day's work
for a fair day's pay
and you provide social housing and adequate utilities
clean water and effective sewage and rubbish disposal
disease will evapourate
and so
although it is often said that politicians
don't spend money on the NHS because
projects in the NHS don't bear fruit before the next election
actually
the whole concept was that the NHS would be
temporary because
why invest n fighting diseae when it's days were numbered
as the war against the other 4 giants began to work?
the NHS has always been seen as a stop gap
tiding the nation over until general wealth
lead to general health
hence
maw monay
not more science

20th February 2024

these massive lumps of concrete on Redcar beach
have nothing direct to do with
the foundations of the cinema
a sewer used to run under the pier
then the cinema was developed on the pier
so the sewer was under the cinema
and building the new cinema
it couldn't be built with a sewer running under it
so this lot is to protect a
12 inch sewer as it swerves around the cinema
but it could sink and fracture the sewer
but it couldn't harm the cinma

these igloos were not a part of the original design of
The Beacon
they are not bespoke
they are a commercially available design
they are just little one table dining pods
and you can see the sea as well from them as from the
now closed viewing platform
perhaps one day
taller glass screens will be installed on the roof
so that the terrace can be re-opened
but this is your mitigation for now


back in the third quarter of the 20th century in the UK
there was an organisation called
The Observer Corps
they were kinda post war Dad's Army
and they had to sign the Official Secrets Act
and essentially they were a bit of a sop to
thwarted ambitions
young lads who wanted to join the Air Force
and were medically unfit - poor eyesight
this is kicker
eyesight too poor to be pilot
volunteer to
keep an eye out for enemy aircraft
anyway
increasingly
al of the emergency services are becoming
observers
building on fire?
Fire and Rescue will turn up and get some
great shots for their X account
but this morning we had a magnificent example of
police brass neck
PC Plod turns up on Bbc breakfast
to tell us
seein' as cos' there is no
drug dealing, cable theft, robbery or burglary
on our patch
we have time to attend
Monster Truck shows within private arenas
to make sure
everybody is safe
since we clearly have no takers for
actual police work
we have to assume that the watchword regarding
actual crime
as opposed to neighbourhood disputes over land use is
give ghem enough rope
and they'll hang themselves
fascinating how
every time some drug dealing tyke is
assassinated
the filth come out with a line about
mistaken identity
never
he had it coming to him
and another thing
Faenheit 451 style
mums in parliament whinging on about
there should be a law against
my daughter knowing more than I do

19th February 2024

this is a small example of the
baleful influence of the media on
charities
there were three generations of
one family of strong women associated with
6 High Street Cancer Research Shop
the midle generation was
Sharyn Clarkson
married mother of two
retired psychiatric nurse
52 in 2005
to quote the Northern Echo
Redcar had and stil has a
Boxing Day dip
so this was a summer time event specifically for CRUK
in one period of six year the Pink Dip raised
£20,000
Ang - Angela - the shop manager was having some difficultiesBR> and having had our Ricker removed from the staff...
she went on to attempt to resign herself and claim some
disability benefits
but the rules changed at that moment
and instead of being on disability
she ended up on
Job Seekers' Allowance
and Sharyn was appointed as the new manager of the shop
and Kevin was for a while retained to open the shop
on Sundays
and then CRUK said they wanted to shut on SUndays
and so Kevin had to leave
and then CRUK resumed Sunday opening
and then one of Sharyn's children got pregnant
and she lost interest in the shop
and a young lad got the job of manager andkept it until recently
all along the watchtowers...
what we are getting at here is that
decent hard working professionals can find their
world turned upside down by the whim of somebody whom
the media regard and a
bankable human interest story
charity shop, medical research - not very interesting
cancer surviver, pink dip, redundant steelworker
oh yes, part of the stress that Ang suffered was
Les one of the blokes who drove the
high lift shovel that cleared slag from the
foot of the Big Blast
decided that volunteering in CRUK would be a break from his
taxi driving
it all gets twisted up in
what will sell newspapers and generate web site clicks
so
our Ricker got invited to Manchester to visit
CRUK's labs
but then somehow his invite to
the Newcastle labs got diverted to
Sharyn and her mum
and when they got there the area manager asked
what are you doing here?
the best laid plans of mice and men
can often gang a'glie
essentially
'banks'
have blown charity shops out of the water
by the poverty platoons
at one level it is a case of
cheap versus free
the charities have to move to their three remaing
charity sources - discounting the 'charities' that are actually
NGOs - unofficial arms of government
legacies, cash gifts
sell it on ebay or vinted and send us the profits
at another level charity shops collected locally and spent
at The Christy or GOSH were the money would do most good
it's not
heat versus eat
it's evry thing's free in America - or the UK
versus medical research
and everybody in the UK is poor
if Tony and Cherie Blair are your benchmark

18th February 2024

we forgot something
our Ricker's shop was 6 High Street Redcar
no forgtting Kevin and Ang and a whole lot more
but our Ricker did work the odd day in the other shop
he forgets what the actual address was but
at one time CRUK hd two shops on Redcar Hgh Street
the other shop was something like 32
There's vape shop in that unit now
we checked it's 84 the Festival shop
and so
we don't know whether 84 got a certificate...
but it got shut down
nd the reason there were two Cancer Research UK shops
on Redcar High Street?
because Cancer Research Uk and
Imperial Cancer Research
merged
and for a while after the merger the two shops were kept on
so our Ricker and his crew made that
even though they weren't even the only
CRUK charity shop in the street
just sayin'
when we look at factual entertainment shows on Tv
there do seem to be two approaches
there is always a dork
be sometimes it is an employee such as in Bitchin' Rides
but mostly it is the boss as in
Henry Cole and Mike Brewer
the character presently attracting our attention is
Guy or Skiddler Woolason in the Henry Cole show
we have puzzed over whom he reminds us of
and the answer we now havee is the
Carry On era actor
Peter Butterworth
all of which begs the question
when will President Putin dig out the
hat and cane
and bust out into a song and dance routine?
how does he hold together the image of
strong protector
and
a fool like us
that modern electorates seem to desire
unless Henry Cole has had a stroke or similar
he is flat out acting
if you recall his
World's Greatest Motorcycle Ride series
on the other hand
perhaps it is just
pre and during marriage
decisive and then
wrong about everything
if you take the physique - build - of
President Trump
and the demenour - bearing - of President Putin
you have
Les Dawson
a late lamented standup and comic actor who would
walk majestically on stage
in tails - a step up from black tie
sit down at a grand piano
and
play chopsticks - an elementary tutorial piece
played with two finders and mainly playing
the same notes repeatedly for different durations


all the references...
to paraphrase Churchill...
not so much
an Iron Curtain is falling across Europe
more
a Golden Curtain is falling across the Kremlin
it must be very strang to be Russian these days
there are around 200 'countries around the world
billions of people but only
a 'handful' of people in power
what the world does not need at this time is
someone in Russia
brave enough and strong enough to
topple Putin
if the world hs learned anything about international relatons
in the past half century it is that two concepts lead to disaster
regieme change
and
boots on the ground
this Ukraine joker is doing everything he can to
get OTAN boots on Ukrainian ground
from a distance it would appear that he may be doing that
on behalf of President Putin
perhaps the movie reference is a bit off target but it is
Peter Sellers in Being There
the overall impression is of
Russians stupid enough or cowed enough to
in the spirit of the
Pals Battalions
in the UK army in the First World war
whistling popular songs of the day as they
proudly marched towards
the meat grinder
of the Trenches
versus the somewhat more savvy Ukrainians
enthused to various extents to go play with
massive and high tech kit
but without getting too close to their
more brutish cousins the other side of
a rather artificial front line
all the things we have, endless
from Gore-Tex clothing to
haute cuisine food rathions and personal video 'phones
one side on a massive camping trip
the other at the end of life's jouney's end
Russia will come out of this changed
but it is both the decimation of the criminal class
and the decimation of dissent
that will constitute that change
what is the new paradigm for
after care of a failed state
clearly the new Russia should be
more like the New germany or the New Japan
than the New Libya
there are people who will espouse any cause you can think of
but
there is a case for repaeting
Hiroshima
it was the ultimate
no boots on the ground solution
it's all very British to be
embarassed to win
but we don't much haver over taking drastic action
against a patient's cancer
we don't much haver over
amputating a limb to save the patient
is there a
drive these people to come to their senses
solution that does not involve a
long term clean up?
can we separate
the short sharp shock
from the long term consequences?
so our advice at present is
don't attack President Putin
just quietly remove something
inaneamate, iconic and collossal from
Russia's back yard
if we are playing James Bond here
don't remove a city from Russia
remove a remote but possibly touristy
mountain from the map of Russia

17th February 2024

the saga of Locke Road, Redcar continues
wehad a small scale new telecom duct installed a few months ago
this week new plastic liner for cast iron gas pipes on the
southern enbankment
note the actual bridge was built so recently that the deck
already has a plastic gas pipe
we suppose the next thing will be plastic inside
the cast iron gas pipe along the northern embankment
and thence up Trafalgar Terrace to Coatham Road??
the question now is
is that it
or are these all preparatory works for some sort of
road re-alignment?
the show goes on?
or are these

16th February 2024

we don't follow F1 motor racing these days
back in the day
our Ricker used to have the live covererage on the TV
because it soothed him and he got a useful nap
because for an hour or so he knew
exactly what was going to happen - relaxing
we note a change?
the first two race meeting will be held over
Thursday to Saturday
most are Friday to Sunday
shows you where the money is
at a different level
this is symptomatic of a move to
a three day weekend
so that some people can have
SUnday on a Sunday
and some people can have
Sunday on a Saturday
those people have the problem that at present
leisure things happen on a Sunday but for them
Sunday is a Monday and they are back at work
the wealth of nations is such that
a three day weekend is viable

15th February 2024

you see things from time to time and they leave an impression
and when you check it out
it seems not quite supported
quite a long time ago
our Ricker shared a train compartment on the Middlesbrough - Saltburn run with
what looked like a young man transitioning
she was carrying an Accessorize shopping bag
as far as we can tell there is no Accessorize in Middlesbrough
but there may have been way back then
62 Linthorpe permanantly closed
we started out this little piece thinking of
Body Shop
and being out of touch
if you are Body Shop in particular and perhaps Accessorize
your whole business depends on
hooking your customers young
and keeping them for life
so why in God's name make youngsters too young to drive
treck from their home town Redcar
on the train, on the bus
to enter the wonderland that is your store
never mind no fast food outlets outside schools
why would you put Accessorize or Body Shop
in a child free zone such as
central Middlesbrough
and not on redcar High Street where a slight diversion
would allow any kids walk home
pass an enticing store
no grip
and Cancer Research UK Redcar shop is closed
for the foreseeable
because?
it was re-branded as a pound store
and people didn't want their donated items
given away for a quid
2009/2010 that store made £115,000
mainly because our Ricker was working there but
substantially because it was there to make money for
cancer Research UK
not to be a clothing bank


we wanted to tell about permission to marry and we got distracted
we wanted to say
neither of our Ricker's aunties had children because
Auntie Eunice was a hobbledehoy
and Auntie Mabel was past having babies by the time
her boyfriend Wilf's mother died
and then we looked up hobbledehoy and decided the internet concept didn't fit
Auntie Eunice
awkward bad manner adolescent boy
so
Auntie Eunice
drank beer and was bald as a coot under her
Carter Bequest wig
not amaking babies sort of a woman
so to the point of Mabel and Wilf
it was quite interesting to casually talk to young women in the 1980s
and drop the fact that
Mabel, Eunice and Wilf
had a house share
and Mabel had had polio and
although she was the postmistress at Portrack
she wasn'r strong enough to do housework
so - before our Ricker's time
Wilf ws hs mother's carer
and Eunice was Mabel's carer
then Wilf's mother died and the remaining three set up
home together in Junction Rd in Norton, Stockton-on-Tees
and hence to make the point that a marriage is normally the
transfer of ownership of a carer from
her parent or parents to her husband
sometimes the committed carer is male or maleish
out of fairness we should say Uncle Wilf was
his mother's carer but also
the transport manager at the cement works on the
north bank of the river Tees
that moved to Weardale around the time he retired
quite a lot of the Robson clan were Methodists
our Ricker's Uncle Wilf was
like our Ricker fter him CofE Church of England
but our Ricker never went into his Uncle wilf's church
it was St John's in Marton Road
in the very heart of The Boro
and he was some sort of
Church Warden
he was actually
Wilfred Scollick
but he and Mabel went by
booking restaurants and such
Mr & Mrs Robson
because it was easier to spell

we want to produce some words about
economic growth
take two shop owners
each starts out with one shop
one runs her shop very profitably and buys
nice things
a nice home and toys and
shares in other people's businesses
in this case the shop owner's wealth grows over time
but the business does not grow
the other shop owner starts with one shop
and takes every opportunity to open more shops
but that may involved renting shops and
borrowing money
the business shows growth
but the operator can only gain significant wealth
by selling the business for more than they have borrowed
a stagnant economy may be coining it in
and although a government can borrow money
it can't sell the country to pay it's debts
which is why
as wth Russia at present
the obvious answer is to
confiscate a neighbouring country such as Ukrain
confiscating a neighbouring country to avoid the chaos of economic decline
is not quite the same thing as being
mega flush and investing in a navy and deciding that the best way to
secure trande with a far away country that has
something particular such as sugar, coffee, chocolate, tea
is to govern that country
you don't collonse Ceylon - now Sri Lanka - in order to sell it
but in order to buy it's tea in a regulated market, accrding to law

we just want to put down a small marker about
what we are hearing about the energy transition
the term that seems to be being settled on is
electrolizer or electroliser
in 'local terms' meaning Europe including the UK
ThessenKrup a German company with some pressence on Teesside
has floated off a division to manufacture
electrlisers - the plant that splits water into
hydrogen and oxygen
they have a dseigen and they are having it made in
South East Asia
could be Vietnam
they are delivering these around the world but
not quite as fast as they had hoped a year or two ago
there's been a lull a hiatus but things seem to be back on track
the point is
they are dedicated to shifting production from
South East Asia to 'Europe' and since this is
manufacturing of big things for worldwide distribution
Redcar has to be in the frame
just so long as
representatives of major players
don't get hassled by
police and security guards as they go about their business
at some time you may have heard somebody say
never in a month of Sundays
and perhaps wondered what a month of Sundays is
all down the days these days
they may be cute
they may make life worth living...
give life a purpose
but they are not seen as an asset
be nice to your kids because
they will choose your nursing home
it was not always so
when, up to around one to two hundred years ago in the UK
most people made their living in some sort of
farm work
the more children you had
the more land you could manage
and hence
going to the father and
asking for the daughter's hand in marriage
hence
the father of the bride giving her away
at the start of the marriage ceremony
and a month of Sundays?
a father would agree to the marriage on condition
the son-in-law worked a month of Sundays
tht's 30 Sundays there being around 30 days in a month
on the father-in-law's land
as a form of compensation for the loss of the daughter's labour
and so
in a time when one may say the daughter's father
approved of the marriage but had not consented to it
the couple would be granted a form of
courtly love relationship
a not contact relationship
courtship
a story about Tommy Robson
1916 Tommy Robson goes off to war and he
is in a rush and he hasn't time to buy his girlfriend a gift
to remember him by
so he gives Milcie Sinton
a little cash
a little later Tommy's mum writes to him asking
do you know Milcie Sinton used that money you gave her to
buy a ring
and she's flouncing around town
Haverton Hill and Posrt Clarence - Stockton-on-Tees
saying
Tommy Wopson's gonna mawwy me
he didn't
even though he came back from the war

14th February 2024

Courtley Love
a highly conventionalised
medieval tradition of love between
a knight and a married noblewoman
The love of the knight for his lady was regarded as an
ennobling passion and the lelationship was typically
unconsumated - non-tactile
some would contrast
courtley love - marriage not an issue
with
romantic love - love between marriage partners
but perhaps in some ways it was a compensation for the necessity to
make marriages to cement alliances between kingdoms and estates
in a sense
marriages of convienience
what we now have is some sort of
mass group think where
agencies - especially the police
seem wrapped up in a sort of
courtly love affair with women
hey that's a woman
I can't fuck it but
I can mount my charger and defend her
person and her honour
like the knights of old
whatever she is actully like and has actually done
most famously..
Sir Lancelot
prancing around at the beck and call of
Guinevere
who was married to
King Arthur
in a slightly more modern context
1966 in the UK
no opportunity for a woman on the pull to be
on the pill
what is at question here is a possible link between
courtly love and courting
and in the ancient case - Sir Lancelot, mythical
woman married to much older man
no touch physical support now for her
possible widow for him in the future
however
Valentines day so we direct you to a song about
courting in a pre contraception era
notwithstanding Madness and House of Fun
The Hollies
Bus Stop
Bus stop, wet day
She's there, I say
please share my umbrella
Bus stops bus goes
she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella

all the summer we enjoyed it
wind and rain and shine
That umbrella we empolyed it
by August she was mine
Graham Gouldman

13th February 2024

I'm a union man
amazed at what I am
I'm not very hard
but the sight of my card
makes me some kind of Superman
pretty much the only people in the UK
of working age at present who believe that are
police officers
n the USA it was mainly
teemsters - dockers
and
ironworkers - construction workers
you don't get me I'm part of the union
you don't get me I'm part of the union
you don't get me I'm part of the union
'til the day I die
and that to some extent is the source of
some bitterness
ninty year olds saying to The Labour
I paid my dues, I went out on strike for you
where is my gold plated retirement?


the most blatant use of
Newspeak
is the whole debacle around
flamable - flame proof
inflammable - capable of being set alight by a spark or similar
flammable with the same meaning
and enflammable same as inflmmable
non-flammable non-inflammable, non-enflammable
the entire point
coming from the fossil boys in the USA...
was to put a 'warning label' on petroleum products that
nobody understood and so would ignore
twe warned them and they took no notice
we have no liability
that is a way od example 1970s
the one that really grates these days is,BR> unique
if you use unique to mean
rare or in a different construction few
what do you use for unique?
unique isn't
rare as unicorns
it is
the one and only
a unique set of circumstances
means
somethng that happens every day but
nobody bothers to report it
not in English but in Newspeak


we've never heard of
Yevgeni Preobrazhensky
well if we have we've forgotten what we do remember is what he said
or something similar to what he said
he said
control over the commanding heights of the
economy
would ensure primitive socialist accumulation
then somebody we have heard of
Vladimir Lenin
started to use the phrase
seize the commanding heights of the economy
in speeches
a little more recently UK union leaders
such as the NUM National Miners Union leader
Arthur Scargill
clarified the concept
it is somewhere between
shocking and hilarious to see
especially in a UK election season
journalists - probably retired and independent journalists
flock 'Up North'
to get some 'vox pops' vox populae, voice of the people
people in the street, and the working mens' clubs
to talk about the desirability of bringing back
real jobs
like coal mining
they turn up and discover that
the only people with the slightest interst in
real jobs
are in their 80s and 90s
the whole point of real jobs is that they
commanded the pivotal elements within the economy
coal mining wasn't sexy because you got
hot seweaty and filthy
although grimy miners did look lush
the attraction of
Primary Industry was that you could
leverage the threat of depriving the nation of
coal and hence energy
by calling a strike
the problem is not so much
killing the goose that lays the golden eggs
but
starving the goose that lays the golden eggs
the logistics of this elude many
for the most part it took a long time for the concept and reality of
the Big Pit
to emerge
for a long long time
caol came out of small pits
dotted all over the green and pleasant land
essentially
the people who dug the coal
burned very little of it
they sent most of it off by rail to
industrial conurbations
for really quite early on
women and children were not allowed down the pit
men = males over the age of 14
worked down the pit and in the pit yard
what resulted was a concept of economics where
the 'coal owners'
were mythical creatures who owned the coal
and all the money
somebody once asked a miner
what do you think of
Lord Suchandsuch?
he's a very fine chap
he buils libraries and such
he's Ok
it's then coal owners we hate
and of course Lord Suchandsuch was the local coal owner
except that
the coal owners didn't own the coal
thye held coal extraction licesnes from the
owners of the local mineral rights
and in Durham
that would be
The Bishop of Durham
the for the time being incumbant being
the Bishop Palatinate
A Prince Bishop
so
when you bought coal from a pit in Durham
it was the bishop's coal
and the coal owners and the railway bosses and all of them people
just added a bit to the price
and some of them added a bit to the price of
a lot of coal
but none of them
owned a gold mine
and so
coal owners such as the father of
Gertrude Bell who lived t red Barns in kirkleatham Street in Redcar
had a habbit of
going bust
because the miners thought that all the price of the coal as delivered to
the people who paid for their coal because they
weren't coal miners who got their coal for free
went to the coal owners and so
they could afford to pay higher wages
in short
the sincere belief of the miners was
no matter how hig our wages
the coal owners will be able to afford them
from their
mythical gold mines???
and then
alongside the miners who believed in the
endless wealth of the coal owners
there were the miners' union leaders who thought
we don't need to limit ourselves to improving
wages and conditions
which will ensure our endless
re-election as miners' union leaders
but we can put any demand we can dream up
to government
and if you don't do ths
like ationalise the coal iron and steel industries
we will ensure that there is no coal for the nation
bread and circuse for the workers
and
world domination for union leaders
and hence
by 1948
a chap called Blair writing as George Orwell
was writing in his
chldren's version of 1984
Animal Farm
all animals are equal
but some animals are more equal than others
and through the years the language of the book
1984
Newspeak
where familiar words suddenly take on new meanings
partially for partly is Newspeak
decimate for devastate
flammable for enflammable
if politicians didn't read 1984
the public Relations departments of
Major Corporations - did
in short, it is said
New Labour in the Uk
took the cautionary tales of
1984, Animal Farm, Farenheit 451
and turned tthem into
playbooks
and when we see people trying to control the internet
and citing protecting children from
knowing about sex - fail
and suicide - jury out
we look to Farenheit 451 where
everything is made of
New Brutalist concrete and
there is no combustible cladding or anything else
on or in buildings
and so
firemen
with no fires to fight
are people who roam the streets and burn any
books
they find
451 Farenheit if the temperature at which
paper catches fire
again a book written befor
Tinternet
Room 101 is a 1984 spin off
room 101 is where you meet your deepest fear
and the point being to break down personal loyalites
the only loyalty being
loyalty to Big Brother
and they would take
couples into custardy and into room 101
and terorise them until tehy cried
do it to her
I am so afrad of what you propose to do to me
I beg you to do it to my lover
rather than to me

12th February 2024

at this point in time we may help by offering some further commentary on
the Clapham incident
it is assumed that at the critical moment there were
two adults and two younger females
in the car
without prejudce we can say
one of the adults knew what was in the bottle and the other didn't
leaping forwards to CCTV
we can assume that the man may have caught sight of himself
reflected in shop windows etc.
but given his relaxed style
it is reasonable to assume that he may not have know
how badly inured he was
however
consider you are in a car and it catches fire
it is almost stationary and you stop it because you are the driver
you know there is a child in the back seat
would you consider
opening the rear car door and throwing the child as far away from the vehicle
as you could?
we can imagine a woman in the front passenger seat
with a bottle of liquid she is squiring all around the inside of the car
why would she be doing that if
she had just wrested the bottle from the grip of the driving driver?
maybe she gripped it so tight that the top flew off
it still sounds likely that she was the occupant who
broadly 'knew the score'
knew what was happening
if you were in a car and a passenger started
spraying liquid around
would your first thought not be to assume t was
a fire accelerant not a caustic


it seems to us that
within a generation
schools - in the UK and perhaps elsewhere will revert to
offering
respite careBR> and not education
any child who shows 'tallent' for anything vaguely positive
is seen as
an embarrassment
by schools
a problem for uniformity and inclusiveness
Zager and Evans
in the year 2525 if man is still alive
if woman can survive
they may find
in the year 3525
aint't gonna need to tell no truth tell no lie
everything you think do and say
is in the pill you took today

now it's been ten thousand years
man has cried a billion tears
for what he never knew, now man's reign is through
but through eternal night
the twnkling of starlight
so very far away, maybe it's only yesterday
number 1 album in UK and USA 1969
it appears that this is about
mankind on Earth being on a course that leads to
extinction
but that there may be other planets where
the dominant lifeform makes a better fist of
managing their planet
and so in a way this vision is a little along the lines of
Bleeding Heart Liberals
so as not to upset
vulnerable people
will arrange to have not just
Stepford Wives
but an entire world population
men women and children
zombified
to eliminate conflict and
hierarchy
it reflects an era when
mass medication
and not
mass communiction
was seen as the
unifying force
it is a little like the politics of Teesside in northern England
a ritual public self decapitation of the society
nobody who knows their arse from their elbow
is allowed any kind of prominant role within society
like you earn your place on the council by
clearing blocked drains for at least ten years
because then you can represent
real salt of the earth people
anybody offering even the slightest insight into
effective governance will be
locked up for
malicious communication
one 'verse' may bee seen as inspiring the movie
WallE
but to us...
you won't need no husband, won't need no wife
you'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
from the bottom of a long glass tube
which - probably without much sense of the details
probably presages
gene editing
and the rather farcical belief of the generation who
fought the second world war
that they could come home and
knock Nobel prize winning kids out of
anything that had a womb
Grammar school boys - the next generation - were told
they've all got one you know
in other words
if you've got the right stuff
which as grammar school boys you obviously have
don't matter what you marry
get on with your career and
the school system will take care of your
burgeoning Einsteins
frankly since he was 'German'and you're British...
Ninesteins


we think we should set out the most likely scenario
for Clapham
the core to this is that the woman has been described as
under sedation rather than intensive care
the police have a direct and fairly reliable witness
in the form of the elder of two girls
what in God's name persuades the Bbc to hire
'journalists' who don't know it is
elder of two, eldest of more then two etc.
we understand that King Charles has two sons
an elder and a younger
what is this Bbc campaigb to butcher the English language?
this means that what with that and loads of CCTV
they know what happened
and the description of the condition of the woman is
consistent with
sedated AND sectioned
the younger females are apparently
in care
not at their mother's bedside
and she would not need to be in bed even if
her injuries were twice as bad as the man's

10th February 2024

a company called Clover make an
oven cleaner called
Vanquish
it has a ph of 13.5
as far as we know the scale only goes up to 14
it is a devastatingly caustic liquid
it is supposed to be diluted
ince it is supposed to be diluted
it cannot be used without
decanting it
we want our fast food outlets to be
spic and span, gleaming
and so professionals need access to products such as this
most people familiar with oven cleaning
expect to use a
hand sprayer
to apply the material which in the case of
domestic, supermarket sourced cleaners will probably be
acidic - like lemon juice
vinegar
from time to time
cleaners decide to mix up their own formulations and
that can result in evacualtions of sports facilties
swimming baths in particular
where chlorine based products are mixed with
something else that s readly available
if the Clapham guy was driving when sprayed
he must have been the first person to be sprayed

there are two ways of looking at the police handling of
the Clapham incident
on the one hand we could say
they are being thorough
on the other hand they have female perp
and we need to build a case against the nearest male
essentially
custic soda in a semi industrial cleaning agent
we suppose that the wman was not employed but may have had access to
the kitchens in some hostle or other
we understand the incident happened outside a refuge
we have a male with a caustic wound
on greeing to meet with the male
instead of taking a knife for protection did the woman
take some cleaner in a squeezy bottle
and did she squirt first?
hence the scrabbling around in home and workplace of the male to
find some evidence that the male had access to
caustic cleaner
we might say
at one time a wife could not be forced to
give evidence against her husband - now abandoned
nobody would expect a child's evdence against her mother
to see the light of day
reference the kid dobbing mum over
stealing from friends
in the current ad for a computer game
so the scenario to scotch is
woman squirts man
he wrestles the bottle from her and squirts back
never gonna get to court
even worse if the child took the caustic into the car
without the knowledge of either adult
how does a 'blinded woman' manage to
squirt caustic into the man's face?
did he attack the woman and the child wrestled the
bottle from him and attacked him?
none of these questions will ever be answered

we have had a thought about the Labour U turn on
Green Investment
massive investment promised on the basis that
the carbon free transition will be
'very expensive'
if you do your due dilligence and discover
the transition will be dirt cheap..
it's one of those have you stopped beating your wife
scenarios
why did we think that investment would be necessary?
because the fossil boys told us
so cut the spending
because it isn't needed?
or because we can't afford it?

7th February 2024

it's very easy to take the same small set of facts
and weave very different stories
we can say that for a range of reasons
our Ricker's mum never bonded well with him
and as she declined she appeared to react to him along the lines
oh there's a very handsome young man in my house
oh, is that my son?
but this message is about earlier times
the core quote here is
I never used to smack you because
you enjoyed it too much
on the one hand
you could say she neglected discipline
and let her son
hang as he grew
on the other hand
we are looking at a coping mechanism by
a little boy with a clueless carer
perhaps his mum just wasn't doing it right and he really did enjoy it
but the lesson is
if confronted by
unlooked for behaviour
from for instatnce a work colleague
the first thing you should do is
not confront the behaviour but seek to discover
what reaction the behaviour was intended to elicit
the major distinction to discover is
have you devloped a reputation for being
the office bike
the person everybody turns to for
tension relief through sexual activity
or is htis
sexualised contact the human equivalent of animal
sprainting
classically little towers of dog poo in prominent locations
but also weeing on lamp posts
in essence is this sex for sex sake
or a signification of ownership
I 'ad 'er, I 'ad 'er
and then
I 'ad 'er and ad' 'er and ad' 'er again
' to show who is boss not for sexual gratification
the worst thing anybody can do is
have sex, enjoy it
and then pretend it was horid
the main problem being
a woman with a non sexual relationship with a
low grade authority figure
like a woman relating her sexual experience to a sister or mother
and the story reaching the father
who then seeks to assert that it was ether
the daughter's or the daughter's partner who was
responsible for
a breach of the father's arbitrary limits to
socio-sexual behaviour
by people whom he had no sexual relationship with but
considered he had ownership rights over the woman
you toucha my car I smasha yer face
or even
I won't drive a car that has been messed with by mechanics
and thereby the keeping of children
away from school and medical services....
in the one sense
a man regards his car the way a woman regards her own body
but before there were cars...
a man regards the bodies of his wives and daughters
the way a woman regards her own body
and the baby is sick in the car
the dad sells the car because it is dirty
and so
the daughter does something forbidden
and there is a 'honour killing'
and all the while
females are suffering over
'objectification' sex
thou shalt not objectify women and children
becomes
thou shlalt not have sex with women and children
even with their wholehearted consent
to that extent
the scenario is
if you don't make a statement of complaint
there's an honour killing in the offing
to react to this by introducing
wholesale bang to rights prohibitions is kinda
throwing the baby out with the bathwater
there may be a disagrement about
respectability
but the official response is
way too close to the cultural norm
in other words
two people happily have sex
somebody finds that abhorant
how close to an honour killing do we
want the response of the court to be?
a lot of people around the world think
even in a devout Roman Catholic country such as Spain
that a little overenthusiasm in a
moment of glory
should result in more than
a bit of a ticking off
a few points on the licence
two things here
the darkest hour is just before dawn
and there is this problem of
when a theory of regulation seems to fail
some people say
nothing wrong with our traditional response
when it fails it will be
because it hasn't been enforced
rigourously enough
back to Draco
and his Daconian responses
and again
simple (minded) law enforcement officers
demand simple laws
and if fuckwits like Sir Tony Blair go saying to
law enforcement
what laws would you like?
they will sure as hell break out Draco's playbook
we are not referrng to Draco Malfoy
Draco Athenian Ancient Greek Legislator
7th century BC or BCE if you appease the rabble
Before Draco Athens' laws were not written down and
essentially, if you were annoying you were dragged before
all the citizens of Athens
and they decided whether you needed to be punished
not whether you had broken any laws
because there weren' any laws written down
tody we call that
tried in the court of public opinion
like a cross between a Grand Jury
and a football crowd
soo
today's UK courts tend to
get the complainant off their backs
rather than take much notice of the accused
but many complainants never give up whinging that
they have not had justice
so
the general rule is
don't upset the nutters
because the courts will concentrate on
nutter apeasement
not law or justice

6th February 2024

we have the impression that there was a time when
archers were an army's most deadly weapon
most people are right handed and so if you captured an archer
you would guess they were right handed
so in order the neutralise them as an
enemy weapon you could
enslave them or simple burden their tribe with a
defunct asset
by removing the two middle fingers from their right hand
or to be safe from both hands
and so
giving somebody the finger is
I'm still a viable military asset
I still have the fingers to operate a bow
and that degenerates into
up yours Delors
a sexual reference
and so to
indecent exposure
most people today would read
male genital exposure as either
an invitation to sex
or
a demand for sexual services
in the primitive state of the drunken mind...
the message of exposure of male genitals is
look, I've got boy bits
I am not female, I am not a eunuch
I have not been castrated
I am a man
an intact man
and that entitles me to respect
to the services - domestic services
food, cleaning etc
of somebody who does not have
boy bits

4th February 2024

get out in that kitchen and
rattle those pots and pans
the more I work the faster my money goes
Shake Rattle and Roll
Bill Haley
roll my breakfast 'cos
I'm a hungry man
we do know that fast food outlets use
turkey instead of ham or pork
but a man with fastideous eting habits
may want a life-in chef
the lyrics prefigure
Ruby - don't take your love to town


it's difficult to know sometimes how
people see themselves and what they
think is epected of them
we have a justic/reigious axis of evil
who assume that a man's interest in a woman is
purely sexual
what they miss in their obsession with
sex is that many men with little or no interest in sex
regard themselves as entitled to
a personal slave
a general factotum
and they expect this person to be female
and when a male sees their
dogsbody slipping away from them
they do seek to disfigure that person to
make it difficult for them to find another mate
hence the chemical, and less pubicised knife attacks
on female faces
and to some extent the lower level
insistance on complete face covering in public
short of actual disfigurement
to suppress any facilitation of
infidelity
in the Western World
infidelity is still a dog whistle term
the essence being we still have a
justice industry that believes that
female infidelity should be a crime
not to mention a
what the eye don't see, the heart won't grieve
approach to
indecent exposure and child access to the internet


on a slightly different track...
if you have a hit list of
five people you intend torturing to death
and you wander away from the first incident
without a care in the world
to plan your next attack
we suspect that people in the
get out of jail free card
female, minority ethnic, neurodiverse, card
while we are 'at it'
are schoolboys who discard their school (neck) ties
in the street
trans?
but those who 'get away with medium to serious crimes
because of their age
or whatever
are being messaged that
no matter what they do
t will garner them a little attenton - even fame
but no real hardship
or disruption to their plans

we're going to take some information about the
Clapham chemical attack
and build a scenario beyond the published facts
we don't know how we had images that appeared to show
the man wrenching a child out of a car
if it was his car
why was the child in it? in a context where he wanted her out
we are working with a suggestion that htis chap bought
two cans of drain cleaner and decanted them into a
different container with no warning labels
we conclude from htis?
he planned and meant to disfigure the woman
but he did not plan to attack the children
he cast them aside to gain access to the woman?
we do want to comment on the grief in the media
tht this was an asylum seeker
and a huge collective sigh of relief when they found out
they could stop referring to him as an asylum seeker
and refer to him as a sex offender
we want to consider the medicine regarding the major victim
across time she has been described as
under sedation
that has not been repeated more recently
being hypothetical about a similar fictional case..
cuastic soda breaks down fat deposits in drains
and we assume that any product marketed as drain cleaner
has suitable warning labels
we would expect an image of the back of a hand with
outstretched fingers and a chunk missing
onto which a liquid is being dripped
the fact that we are talking about
life changing injuries and sedation
suggests a particular scenario
chemical injuries to the eye can be various but
strong alkali is a particular threat to the window of the eye
the cornea
short of complete destruction of the eye...
essentially a caustic chemical burn to the cornea
will tend to change the window of the eye to
in whole or in part
take on the appearance and properties of
the white of the eye
quite a bit like the transformation of
the white of an egg going from
transparent to opaque
when heated
we have no idea how bad the injury ti each eye is
but it is a reasonable scenario that
the patient is at least being considered for
one or both eyes to have
a corneal transplant
it would be quite reasonable to sedate the patient
from admission and assessment until
after the transplant has been done
to reduce her panic over being
blind
temporarily or permanently
in the wash if things go well
this MAY turn into a story to
encourage people to donate their corneas after their death

3rd February 2024

we have a bit of informtion about hydrogen that
you can check out
we are going to do our
we read something somewhere and we may have misunderstood
or misremembered
it revolves around a make and model of car called a
BMW iX5
we don't index our snaps so if we don't use them straight away
we don't keep track of them
and so
we will have probably published a pic of a BMWiX5
because it was parked outside the
hydrogen trial showroom on Redcar High Street
a few times
these cars were made in a smalll batch and leased to
preferential customers
and they were on the road throughout 2023
the essence is that they were powered by
hydrogen/atmospheric oxygen fuel cells as
self charging hybrids
no warranty with these details look them up for yourself
if interested
they were and possibly still are
fuelled with
1.9 kilos of very cold compressed hydrogen
and had around 300 bhp - horse power
and around 330 miles range of a fill
this was a trial
for 2023
the crux of this is
it was a spin off from a trial by
Toyota in Australia
BMW had these cars fitted with
Toyota hydrogen fuel cell technology
and...
as far as we can tell the outcome of the trial was
thanks but no thanks
so far as we can tell
BMW have decided that
they still intend rolling out a hydrogen powered car
for consumer use
in the second half of the present decade
but
we have referred proviously to Cummins developing a
hydrogen fuelled internal combustion heavy truck engine
but there is no sign tht the BMW hydrogen car will use
fuel cell technology
and we simply repeat
if you can run a petrol (gas) engined vehicle on
LNG liquified natural gas
you can run it on hydrogen in almost exactly the same way
LNG conversions do not use fuel cells

2nd February 2024

this is a public message for the people who
train senior police officers in public relations
you should know that precision of expression as well as
clear diction are important
it may be that in this day and age
few people will say of an evening
I think, now, I'll turn in for the night
what they will not say is
I think it's time for me to hand myself over to the bedroom
when they mean
time to climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire
the major concern here is that a statement thatincludes the phrase
hand in
could be interpreted as an incitement to
an attempt at a
citizen's arrest
and this is absolutely what we do not want in so many of these cases


we are trying to drill down into this persistent problem over
if you want to torture and kill somebody
do it before you are 18
we've had a think
and what we've thought
thinking about the mum in the USA
on trial for involuntary manslaughter over the
murders her son has been convicted of
we are starting to think of
the age of consent
as being the age after which your parents are
no longer to be held responsible for your actions
and hence, anonimity for
peoploe under 18 is to protect the parents and siblings
not because it is assumed that anybody who is
naughty before they are 18
can be starightened out and
after a seond chance
behave in an exemplorary fashion


we have a little story to illustrate why it is
difficult to attract investment to
North East England
many many years ago our Ricker tarted up his mam''s house a bit
he fitted a new kitchen and that included a new kitchen work top
the work top had been made in Shildon, County Durham
by a company owned by a chap called George Reynolds
he was another DeLaurean style character
as the business grew George nvested in more equipment
and one day set somebody on to operate a particularly
large and expensive machine
a few days later George visited the shop floor to see
how his new baby was working
and he saw it installed and working but
the operator had rattle canned - spray painted
KEVIN
on one of the panels
so George took the manager into the car park
and asked
which is Kevin's car
haing identified it
George spray painted
GEORGE
onto it


we don't have any inside information on F1 and
Lewis Hamilton
but we recognise two possible scenarios
alongside the apparent need to put a fictional bomb under the arse of
the demented owner of INIOS....
we could believe that the deal is
if I win the drivers championship with Petronas this year
Petronas are the owners
Mercedes are the name sponsors
i will retire at the end of this 2024 season
but if you don't get your arses into gear
you will have blown your last chance
and I'm off to do horse prancing
the other deeper conspiracy theory is
because Red Bull were the only
non-fossil boy sponsored team
the FIA will always seek to arrange for
Red Bull to win
we do note that Lewis Hamilton has been on TV recently
apparently 'working out' some promotional responsibilities to
his sponsor Petronas
we do not know about any other link between
Petronas and INEOS
we have developed the idea that the INEOS
the EOS bit of that used to stand for
ethylene oxide specialists
we are beginning to see the motor as a bit of a latter day
DeLorean
this Grenadier
features mostly in push bike racing
and that brings us to another INEOS superstar
Garaint Thomas supposed to be riding in
the Tour de France this year for INEOS
what we had in Redcar when ICI went tits up
was mainly a company called Huntsman bought it
and they still run some of it
but
INEOS seems o be
the long long tale of the
managed decline of ICI
Imperial Chemical Industries
we have made some mention of
Cleveland Bridge and Engineering and
the almost total lack of interest by the media in it's demise
a coke works can be a cause celebre
but them at Cleveland Bridge
load of toffs
hell loads of 'em knew ho to wield a welding torch
far too middle class for a wave of public sympathy
and that brings us to a particular line in the media about
steel works
people in perhaps the unions talk about
a highly skilled workforce
our somewhat more local perspective was that
the reason for the final closure of Redcar steel works was that
the highly skilled workforce were
resistant to the point of
intransigence
to accepting new methods of working
not related to job or wage cuts
but to a range of little bits of
21st century technology
rather aas back in the day
steam engine drivers did not adapt to driving diesels
even thouth the pay was the same and the work
much easier

1st February 2024

our Ricker is ten years old and is
sitting in the top class at Newcommen School
Mr Fox's class
and he's trying to prepare for his 11plus
and Mr Fox hands out these entry forms to some of the girls
they are single sheets around A5 - not invented yet
with a blue printed border
and they are entry forms fora
hqndwriting competition
and our Ricker has to sit quiet and not make any disturbance
like asking a question
because there are a limited number of entry forms
and if the girls are distracted they will maybe make a smudge
and have to start again
so each year had three streamed classes
and it could be that this was before
the reorganisation when some of Mr Fox's class were
swapped for some of the second stream class
and MrFox concentrated - probably in the final term
on 11plus prep
anyway
because of the non entry in the handwriting competition??
our Ricker's dad
partly because he was confusing our Ricke with his older brother Gordon
got the impression that our Ricker was a numpty and likely to
fail his 11plus - grammar school entry
he hired Harry Hindle's head of English
name will come back eventually
for extra tutoring and
the tutor - lived on Redcar Lane
get back to Mr Fox and sez
this lad will ace thisBR> why he gettin' extra tuition?
and Mr Fox gets livid and
tackles our Ricker over it in front of the whole class
and makes our Ricker cry
if Mr Fox had been honest with our Ricker's parents
about our Ricker's potential
he could have had the glory of the excellent performances of his
star pupil
and we are not familiar with modern goings on at school
but in those days
each class had to do PE once a week
and the girls had to come to school that day
wearing PE - physical education - knickers
and they would 'change' in the classwroom at their desks
for PE by
tucking their skirts into their PE knickers
so the woman sitting next to our Ricker would say
perhaps only said once
in a loud voice
to our Ricker
'go on them have a good look'


this is a tricky one
we wrote somthing that made perfect sense to us
to our Ricker
but on reflection
we cn see how it may ahve seemed a bit odd
it was along the lines of
in his med school anatomy exam he was asked
is that the ureter or the urethra?
didn't cross our Ricker's mind that
a morbid anatomy exam was at the time
the first viva a medical student would experience live voice
med school exams are mostly
candidate goes before a board of one, two, half a dozen
people who fire questions at them
ad it brings up a different 'problem'
our Ricker has only the one God child
and so a little bit of concern there
we can run through a little of the lad's Cv
he's always been healthy without being sporty
he went to Surrey university and met his wife there
so
did goes 'up' to Surrey university to read some maths orientated course repeat the year
half way through repeating the year he is
required to withdraw from the course
retains his links because of the girlfriend who mostly because she didn't do her placement at Harwell
with the afore mentioned Gwynneth
in his role of Godfather our Ricker contacted some guy called
Peter Beardsley
asking if there was any help he could offer
he got no reply
having done a work experience in the technical department of
the Bbc
the lad went off to be a lighting engineer with
touring rock bands and such
did that for a bit
then his boss decided to go staffer at the Bbc
so the lad did an accountancy appreticship
as it goes
he travels the world
setting up clinical trails
on the back of his accountancy qualifications
all sorts of places for a company you may have heard of
Moderna
long ago his wife gave up her career to
raise their three children
what a farce fo athe universities to
spot potential and seek to crush it at every opportunity
but there's another dimension to this
if Jacob Rees-Mogg
wrote a Ph.D. thesis
it would probably be hand written on velum
however it seems a significant question
how many Ph.D. theses are handwritten?
given the need for multiple copies we gusee not many
but
in a traditional unversity
a Ph.D. student has to go before a board and in person
defend their thesis
what can we tell you about the chap who
'got into medicine' through accountancy
is handwriting is shockingly bad
so we have people teaching premeds and medical ancilliaries
who are not medics
and are failing candidates because
all this science, I don't understand - rocket man
but I can spot neat handwriting at ten yards
lke Mr Warne and his emerit for science for our Ricker
don't draw what you see, make a technical drawing of what
it could idealally be
expressed as annotating a drawing of a deflagrating spoon with
use a straight edge
and there you have it
people in the top jobs because of the top marks
for neat presentation
indulge in
fantasy medicne
and why do the best mnds have terrible handwriting/
becaue teachers put the worst pupils next to the best
so the worst ones can copy
nd the plagerism victims
begin to write
'in code'
or cypher

31st January 2024

there is a strain of feminism that will not converse with other than voluntary lenght of heair on the head
between genders
but despite them
there are major differences between the male and female
urinogenital anatomy of the male and female
however there is one common factor and that is
the presence and location of the
urinary sphincter
there is a tube on each kidney clled the ureter
it drains urine into the bladder
our Ricker got asked in his anatomy exam
is this the ureter or the urethra
he had to guess, he may have guessed wrong
the term ureter is for the piss pipe between kindey and bladder
we don't know why but after the bladder it is called
the urethra
and the female has a urethra between clitoris and birth canal
anf that has a tap with a sphincter -tap
straight no nonsense pipe and tap
but there is a bladder neck sphincter that is
purely automatic
the one outside - in the garden wall
is part automatic, part voluntary
line for a hose pipe in the garden
being as the tap is essentially
an outside tap
a urine collects in the bladder
it collects in the urethra
and against the tap
and so people spending quite a time
vertical
as other animals spend most of their time horizontal
on all fours
sediment can settle from the bladder into the urethra
th thing is
for the male
not so simple
not remotely so simple
the male has a prostate prostatic urethra and a penil urethra
stacked in line
if you are male you can have a urthral cuff
in place of your penile sphincter with a pump in yer scrotum
anyway
if allowed by the bladder neck sphincter
urine can stack up in the urethra
but because the male urethra runs through the body of the
prostate and the penis
and the sphincter is
between the prostate and the penis
urine and sediment in the urine and if it has a toxic element...
trouble
and so
you want your urine to be as dilute as possible
drink often and well
we are supposing that with age
the bladder neck sphincter - the automatic one
begins to fail
and the urethral one gets more responsibility
dribbling after voluntary urination is a
communications fault between the two sphincters
usually, once you start you can't stop
because you consciously decided to start and you shouldn't stop
before your baldder is empty but sometmes you don't know
that is a whole load of urinary symptoms that are
nerve related
and sorry about the broken record
but nerve problems in old age - shingles
not so much cancer
logically an enlarged prostate shouldn't put pressure on the
prostetic urethra
it should grow outwards
it will hit obstacles eventually and perhaps press on the urethra
that brings in all sorts about
how independent is urination from defacation
if you are madly constipated
there is no ironclad wall to protect your bladder from compromise
it's always the same
if you have disease x, you will have symptoms a b c etc
but you can have those symptoms from other
often benign even trivial causes
so here's the rub
female simple uncomplicated urogenital anatomy
clitoris a vestigial penis
like Hartlepool
a port but no river running through it
external meatus of the urethra - urine evacuation
birth canal
various baby making related items evacuated here
redundant womb wall tissue - period
baby
after birth - placenta
no urine
and then anus for discrded foodstuffs
all very logical
on the other hand
the male
the male ejects both urine and
baby making juice
through the same urethra
and
to avoid pissing up a person's chuff
you can't as a male
urinate through an erect penis
a male can get
piss proud
the thing goes wrong
and a chap can be so
bustin' for a piss
he gets an erection and he can't piss
because he's got an erection
this is a minor medical emergency
it's important to
take a piss when you need one
in extreme you could, otherwise, rupture your bladder
a male may find that a few beers get him an erection
but that is not beer goggles - females suddenly looking lush
however, as a revers to what we said proviously
little boy story
holiday
pack the car
right
go have a wee before we set off
so we don't have to stop
never mind first spotting - of blood - in female panties
I can't get a wee
it's gone hard
an erection can be a response to
quite a range of exciting situations
not just a glimpse of stocking
mot males will experience their first erection in
far from sexual situations
and
this is the origin of many
a fetish
we got distracted a bit there
to the prostate
it is like a mixer tap in reverse
there are several things that can get into the
penile urethra
urine, seminal fluid, semen
and part of the prostate's role is to make and add some of those things
and part is only to release both the inputs
and the locally generated material
into the penile urethra
that are appropriate for the time, situation
and to some extent
the symptoms of prostate cancer or a more low level
prostate related problem is
the prostate gets confused or overwhealmed and ends up
not letting anything into to penile urethra

30th January 2024

we may trawl back to find the previous
eon next key meter electricity charges but
probably not
to current ones are
24/7 35.17
off peak economy 7 14.61
we are expecting a reduction from these numbers
from 1st April
and we're expecting the announcement of the new numbers
in a few weeks time
the standing charge is over £ 4 at present
the lower number would be 8 if we were
back to normal
but given overall inflation 10 would be a target
12 is more likely
for price per killowatt hour for heating electricity

29th January 2024

our understanding is that
Andy McDounald MP for Middlesbrough has
attende parliament today for his big day
on the Teesworks scandal
he was able to give an interview to
Bbc North East and Cumbria
it was misty on the Tees today and so
we could not be sure whether
Voltaire was still in port although we couldn't see it
the tracker says it left at around 5.00 am
stop the clock
time from previous sailing
15th November to 29th January
start the clock
when will it be back
a dozen turbines took 10 weeks to install
around one a week
except they probably went in in one or two weeks and
the ship has been arsin' around ever since we'll see how long it is until the next shipload set off


this is a bit complcated
we'll start with one of our Ricker's friends
we won't go into a lot of detail - just the relavant
our Ricker's friend's dad
was told that he had and was dying from
bladder cancer
towards the end the nurses came to his home to regularly
stick a tube up his dick
to drain his bladder
see the thing
males and females can get bladder cancer
only males can get prostate cancer
and
relivant stat
half of bladder cancers in the USA each year are
attributed to
smoking
the base load of symptoms in both bladder and prostate cancer
are the same
blood in urine more likely to be bladder
no blood in urine more likely to be prostate
it's kinda likely that if the route from smoking toxins to
cancer in the bladder
will deliver the same cancer inducing toxins to the prostate
we know a guy who's father died of prostate cancer
but he is not showing any symptoms
but the father's wife was a chain smoker
we mean SERIOUS, she had at least one leg amputated
honestly
nobody is putting forward a
cause of prostate cancer
but smoking - including 'passive' smoking
being in the frame for bladder cancer
could well be in there too for prostate


well girls
that rather nice young man who hangs around
Majuba Road car park
says he's not homeless
he goes home at night he says
so might be worth a chat up if he's getting paid to be there
perhaps he's a key holder for contractors who
don't have mobile 'phones
si if he's working is he working for
the council
the land agents
the contractors
time to go home Mr Seymor before people start confusing you with
Mr Swweny (Todd the BArber

28th January 2024

sometimes things happen in family life that
go right over the heads of the little people
our Ricker has a half sister who lived in the same home
until she married when he was nine
his sister is married and so topics of conversation can be
restricted
so far as we know there is still a soap brand called
Camay
we never see it promoted but so suppose it has its devotees
there is a family tradition that
presumably when our Ricker was a todler
his dad had some expenses over his daughter
he had various including clobber to pay for because
his daughter entered a beauty contest called
Mss Camay
the issue here is
it is said that she was declared
runner up to the winner
and when her dad enquired as to why she had not won
he was told
she was too old
she wouod have been in her early twenties
and naturally we would expect that the winner would have been
a teenager
how much courage and self belief does a twenty something
who is not trans or a drag artist
need to enter in a beauty pageant?
the issue perhaps is
if your youth is your only asset
should you listen to those who advise you to squander it?
from a societal perspective
from a genetic perspective
should we encourage young scrubbers to
catch a dose of somebody worthwhile
whilst the are still cute enough to pull it off?
like the scheme to encourage people like
Mr Scott at Cleveland Bridge
to breed a little more
we are making some progress in terms of the demise of
the blunder bus
a blunder bus is a form of shotgun
and the transport in which girls who had
fallen pregnant out of wedlock
were carted off to some religious institution to
carry the latter part of their pregnancy and give birth
was in some quaters called
the blunder bus
any way
these days in the UK and although the fathers may get pursued for child support
that is not emphasised as much as previously
when we talk about
in work poverty
we are obviously talking about
inequality not poverty
the fact that a twenty something got to
runner up to Miss Camay in the 1950s
was probably motivated by a concept of
with Camay a raddled old hag can look stunning
but how that got twisted into
the older you are before you first get pregnant - the better
we can't figure out


we have had a little more of a look at the pics of
E Jean Carroll
and we forget the date of the incident
it must be a generational issue but
we - in the position of President Trump
would say
well
this is news to me
this woman mut have been very attractive in her day
for me to take so much trouble over her
however, I don't remember this incident
this matter remins us of the Prince Andrew debacle
if we sit back we understand that there may be
no win , no fee lawyers involved here
but concentrating on the principals
the first and second parties
we asked regarding the Prince Andrew case
was the woman's initial motivation to bring the case
simply the wish to say
I've had that Prince Andrew up me you know
and then somebody says
how old were you
and then sombody say kerching
there was - we haven't quoted
The Other Victorians
for a long time now
in that there is discussion of middle aged and elderly men
seeking help from sex workers
but basically insisting that they
get the opportunity to fuck some female but
only if she was
still dripping with spunk from some
handsome, athletic young man
is a middle aged woman more attractive if she can
list some notable sex partners from her youth?
perhaps so
whether or not she has been fucked by Trunp or Andrew
where's the harm in letting her say so
so long as she does not suggest it was non-consensual
there still seems to be a culture of the norm being that
except by wedding vows
a female is never assumed to have consented to sex
regrding the specifics of the incident
we may have this wrong but we gather that the sex
took place in a fitting booth in a department store
perhaps this is a solution to the relative demise of
High Streets
perhaps if more often a person could wander into a department store
pull back the curtain of a fitting booth and get a free sex show
people would return to in person retail

27th January 2024

cakeism
the wish to have or do two good things at the same time
when this is impossible
from
to have your cake and eat it too
example
you can't be the president's daughter
and an advisor
at the same time
so we have
E Jean Carroll
expecting to be accepted as a thoroughly professional
newspaper? columnist
an independent and professional person
but at the same time
claiming to be 'vulnerable'
because a former president who
as the orange man baby that E jean Carroll is not?


we do feel the need to point out that our
food mixer analogy of weather is not a complete picture
as an example of other causes of weather onshore and offshore winds
when it is the appropriate time of year
what we have to take into account is
the temperature of seas and coastal waters
varies more slowly than the temperature of adjacted solid land
the solid land does not generally churn
and so not far below the surface the temperature of the strata
rocks, sand mud layers
is affected much less by the insolation
sunshine
and heat from the sun penetrates much deeper but not to the bottom of
seas and oceans
thus in the sunny times - even a sunny spell in the more wintery months
the land surface heats up much more quickly that the sea surface
thus the air above the sea - shall we say an hour or two into a sunny spell
will be colder than the air above the nearby land
and that relatively warmer air above the land will tend to rise
and draw colder air in from above the sea to replace it
an onshore breeze
sudden cloud cover or the fall of night will cause the land to cool
and with it the air above it
and to a lesser extend by really
the air above the sea will be warmer than the air above the land and air from above the land will flow out to replace it
giving an offshore breeze
these things matter to sailors
but not to the operators of motor boats

we have been looking at doctors and access to med school
we used to have two groups of doctors
when mainly looking at hospital doctors in the NHS
doctors who became medical students in
South Asia - india and Pakistan
we have no idea how these are chosen or trained but
we trust they can do the job when they get to the UK
this group is around a third of UK hospital doctors
what has changed the NHS is that the other two thirds have been split
essentially, the home educated doctors are
the ones who started traning less than 20 years ago
had their selection influenced by the UKCAT
those who started their training more than 20 years ago
were selected by A' leval exam results
and to a greater or less extent by a variety of
entryism activity
by the likes of religious groups
which affects both UK home grown groups
essentially, the motor mechanic generations will tend to refer to
the hernia in bed 6
and the more recent intake
may refer to
Glays in bed 9 who is fretting over the care of her pet at home
in other words
motor mechnic
versus
good bedside manner
this leads to a differnt sort of conflict
two other groups converging
nurses who say
I'm a graduate, don't do sick
and doctors who amy well say
oh I'll get that cleared up for you
junior doctors are beginning to be
out teced by the supposedly subordinate nurses
that is not doing much for their morale
and it is the doctors who feel sidelined by
the likes of nurse practitioners

26th January 2024

from time to time our Ricker catches sight of
Stephen N Pearson
in Redcar Tessco
we thnk he was one-time finance director at
The University of Teesside
can't find him on Google
his dad was
TGP
Tom G Pearson
one time our Ricker's physics teacher
our Ricker put
TP on the tutor line of his exercise book
book came back marked with
a G inserted betwen and above the T and P
one day TP asked in class
how did you get into this school?
are you related to a member of staff or something?
our Ricker explained - to the class - that he was
the thing about Tom Person was
he got really good results with slightly dimmer pupils
mainly because in his spare time he was
an A' level examiner in physics
and taught ridgidly 'to the test'
the idea of the UKCAT
the clue is in the name - aptitude
was to short circuit cramming
and not to let the universities administer the test
imagine given the universities obsession with
rigging exam results
if the universities administered
driving tests
wel Mr Nijinsky
you did crash three times during the practical test but
a person from your ethnic background is allowed
three major errors and so
congratulations
you have passed
the thing about London is
in the provinces if you enter a graduate profession
you will get a moron for a boss
if you enter a graduate profession in London
you get a chippy moron for a boss
chippy meaning arrogant
not I'm God's gift because I'm FROM London
I'm God's gift because I'm IN London
we looked it up
shortly after our Ricker stopped doing the UKCAT
the 'out of' number chnged to 900
and 650 is considered a good result
and so a 60 year old Ricker was scoring good against
18 year olds
five years later he COULD have tried again and could perhaps
as a pensioner
been able to do the course livng off his pensions
instead of from optometry session fees


this is one of those
law of unintended consequences
deals
we will try to integrte something about the UKCAT
UK Clinical Aptitude Test
but the main idea here is about the clash of
schools pushing maths because it is cheap to teach
and people with straight A's in
physics, chemistry, maths and further maths
dominating med school entry
the UKCAT is a test that was
the usual disclaimer about being out of date in our knowledge
this s quite a departure from maths
in the sense that to do some of it you would need to instinctively know that
speed s distance over time
but an important element was
perhaps still is
flashing up a text
giving a limited length of time to read it and then
asking questions about what the text said
this is quite important
we know that as we go on
AI Artificial Intelligence
will be able to do this
except that
AI has the problem that in essence it would look for patterns and
although it cn very quckly make comparisons
it is a bit of a problem knowing what data to harvest
before you are given the question
if the golden nugget in the dat and the
history given by the patient
does not seem important until after the consultation
will the computer have made a not of it?
in our example
the computer may routinesly measure and record
intra ocular pressure
but just to take an example we are pretty sure is
not clinically significant and so the computer may not record
does the patient have
heterochromia irides
heterochromia irides is not a known symptom of any illness
but a human examiner would not forget it if they saw it
what we are saying is
three medical practitioner types
computer using or not using AI
motor mechanic
medic
if you are a maths, maths and more maths kind of a guy
nobody remembers the dominance in the CoViD 19 panic of the
guy with the algorhythm
my statistical model sez...
so if you take a reading of IOP
the motor mechanic medic says
slam dunk, the patient is
out of tollerance
treatment prescribed
the medic who can cope with
who was the third wife of Henry the 8th
twenty seconds after having seen that information
flashed up for ten seconds in a 300 word text about
The Tudors
may think
it's a bit high, but what else do we know about this patient?
full disclosure...
our Ricker did the UKCAT several times
the score is out of 800
in these cases at least and
you could do it without consent of your school
without indeed telling your school
but you could only do it once a year
4 sections at that time
verbal, quantative, abstract, decision analysis
and an overall score
in that order
we have not dug out the actual scores
we have read them off a graph
2006 525, 550, 550, 480 550
2007 660, 660, 540, 400, 575
2008 680, 710, 520, 500, 600
2009 600, 680, 550, 690, 630
so
our Ricker is better at sums than anything else
his problem with
too much maths is not thaat he's not good at it
what may be surprising is that he gets the hang of
deision analysis by 2009
so
no indication here of any sort of
dementia
and we are kinda guessing 2009 was the year he was offered
a med lab tech course as a sort of
1st MB - as previsously referred to - at Hull med school
we forget the number but when it started
Newcastle med school decided to base the whole of the entrance decision on
the UKCAT and not A' level grades
goes without saying
UNCAT is for medics and dentals
something for nurses to do if they feel
stuck in a rut
just to clarify about how official this test was/is
every time our Ricker did the UKCAT
he went to the place where you did the
Driving licence theory test
and took your passport with you for ID

24th January 2024

THIS IS IMPORTANT
the people who are going to make the
full size monopod foundations
momopiles
in South Bank
have been building the factory nd they are now looking
to hire staff
you won't need to be a
time served boiler maker
but the work involves
rolling some really quite steel sheet to
make tubular legs
there will be a number of
jobs fairs across Teesside
but
THE FIRST ONE WILL BE IN sOUTH BANK
ON 31ST JANUARY 2024


you may ask yourself
why is it so bleedin' windy?
we will try to explain
imagine a simple version of a
Kenwood food mixer
imagine it sngle speed and without planetary gears
imagine it fixed and not mobile like a hand mixer
the beaters are the Earth
the bowl is the universe
we always have trouble getting our Ricker to remember
Gulf Stream - Jet Stream
he mixes them up
says gulf when he means jet...
poor old sod
anyway
jet stream is in the air like a jet 'plane
gulf stream in in the ocean
simples
you switch on the mixer
that's the Earth spinning on it's axis
you put water or gin in the bowl and the beaters
whip the liqud up into a vortexBR> our problem with weather presenter speak about the
jet stream
they talk about the speed of the jet stream
a it flows across the Earth
relativity dear boy
the 'speed' of the jet stream is a measure of the extent of the
lag of the air as the Earth - friction and gravittional attraction
between the atmosphere and the planet
we say the jet stream is travelling 200 miles per hour
west to east
actually the atmosphere is travelling
east to west 200 mph more slowly than the planet is
and so why is it suddenly so bleedin' windy?
you add a load of solids - flour that sort of thing to
the water in the mixer bowl it slows down and the bit inside the beater spins at the speed of the beater
but the stuff near the wall od the bowl
hardly moves at all
that is why 'quality' food mixers have planetary gears to move the beaters but what is happening in the weather/ it can hold more water
and there's a lot of water and quite a lot of atmosphere
so the lag between the spinning planet the relative speed difference gets more
and the catch up speed of the wind gets greater
do we get a gold star or a lollipop?
every action has an equal and opposite re-action
and so
although global warming won't alter the length of a year
it will slow the speed of rotation of the planet
so that days get longer and
the planet won't be able to fit
365 and a quarter days into a year
global warming could
kill the leap year
but probably not
the change will be hard to measure
just imagine being a constituant and trying to discuss with
former Cabinet minister
Sir Simon Clarke
when and if there should be a
leap second in universal time to
keep GPS working properly
but the dea of a leap second informs us that the
Earth spins ever so slightly irratically
NOW do we get a gold star?


there used to be a jobbing steel erection company in Darlington
called Cleveland Bridge and Engineering
they did a few jobs before they went bust
The Victoria falls Bridge Zimbabwe
The Wembly Stadium Arch
The Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Shard in London
trinkets like that
Trafalgar House bought it in 1982
and also bought
Redpath Dorman Long
last known identity Kvaerner Cleveland Bridge
and one of the bosses there was a Mr Scott
he lived in saltburn
we are kinda thinking Mr Scott was involved therefore in
Spit bridge Sydney, Auckland Harbour Bridge
Tamar Bridge, Forth road Bridge, Severn Bridge
Wye bridge, Bosphorus Bridge, Rio-Niteroi Bridge
Ballachulish Bridge, Humber Bridge, Kessock Bridge
Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, Tsing Ma Bridge
some others later including some time in around the late 1940s - early 50s
there was some sort of
tax break scheme that
if an important engineer or similar
produced four sons
they would get some kind of reward
because of on account of 'im livin' in Saltburn
when he produced 4 sons
and they were a National Asset
they went to school at
Coatham
Sir William Turner's School
and our Ricker ws there to witness
the pressure these lads were under to
each and every one of them get into
Oxford or Cambridge
one of them, born around 1950 was the 'softest of the lot'
and he was to go to Oxford to read medicine
the thing was
that was a bit of a change of plan
Ian was the same age as our Ricker
and the putative medic was the nest one up in age
a year older
so...
the thing was all the complications and that
there would have been some confusion over
A' levels and 'Common Entrance'
which of them did what we are not sure but we think
they may have done both
thing was
they all did Physics, chemistry, maths, further maths
and the place Ian's slightly older brother got at med school
was dependent on him getting A' level biology
in his gap year was to tutor the medic through A' level biology
it seems that although they othe stayed in uniform at Coatham
most of the deal was arranged by their mothers
people may say from time to time
why doesn't Teesside Uni have a med school?
they had a joint venture with Durham and shut it down
what was the cmotto of the NHS in the 1960s? whether or not you think Teesside is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church
it was more so in the 1950s
there are two considerations on Teesside regarding biology
ecology costs jobs
and
any mention of unmentionables is
obscene
the NHS was fine when fully clothed doctors sat near fully clothed patients
and wrote
sick notes
and
drug prescriptions
pain kllers, antidepressants, tranquillisers
no mention of anybody's 'insides'
and so
anycomunication regarding
insides or bodily functions is to this day
regarded as a malicious and obscene communication by
Cleveland Police
so the paedophile hunters have banned
public events - bike races, batton tours et
from central Teesside so if they happen they have to happen in
Saltburn and Guisborough nd Brottn and that

23rd January 2024

energy 'backfire' chapter 2
a little while ago
probably 18 months
the people who operate gas fired electricity generating stations
got a weather forecast for a prolonged period of
calm - no wind
and decided
were instructed by government??
to take a bunch of gas fired electricity plant
off line
summer, demand low right time?
if choosing a shut down period BR> perhaps you would chose a time of low demand but not
a period when wind turbines would struggle to cover you
and at that stage of wind generation devlopmentBR> some effect on supply was caused
and so to chapter 2
over the past few weeks there has been a sort of
product recall on some ancilliary at some nuclear power stations
in the depths of winter - mid january
it has taken quite a lot of nuclear electricity off line
including
both Hartlepool reactors and
and???
not a flicker
so
Calder Hall - Sellafield
shut down
because of the bad weather
still not a flicker
we conclude
18 months ago
see what would happen if we can natural gas
today
see what would happen f we don't build more nuclear reactors
backfired more this time than lastBR> just sayin'


at this point we want to introduce the concept of
plauslible deniability
it is nort an official legal term but leglese
In a sense
somebody please rid me of this turbulent priest
Henry II says
who will rid me of theis turbulent priest?
or he could have said
will anybody kill this man/
the utterance is not a direct order but a suggestion
rght now it matters a lot in terms of
was that action
accidental
sociable
or
sexual/
the problem often lies with a third party observer
seeing an action and classifying it as sexual
when the parties involved
either see it as social
or both intended it to be sexual
however that is not the point we want to explore here
since there were five or six uiversities in the UK
offering optometry courses in our Ricker's day
and there are now 16
optometry seems to have ridden the trough that caused
the Co-Op
to lose all their optician shops in the 1980
however
we don't have figures for how many
students the five
and the 16 had and have in total
The University of Teesside has
provisional consent to run an optometry course
so they an put it on their web site
but will it run
is it running?
the rather separate notion of plausible denyability
relating to medical courses in general is
I had full attendance at my course
and we didn't cover that topic or skill
so i can't be expected to know about it
or perform t
so the fact that I failed to do what the patient needed
was due to that being
above my pay grade
not on the course that I did
going back to our Ricker's time at DandA
he was told - out of the blue....
the only director of DandA who is not registered optometrists
is the finance director
and so you have rival factions
the ones who want to limt the medical content of their training course
to limit their liability
the ones who want to do as much medicine as possible
to cement their individual identityBR> vis a vee, for instance, pharmacists
and the universities who want to employ
staff with limited expertise
so ifyou have been taught optometry at Teesside uni
you point to the 1989 Optician Act that says
only a doctor or an optometrist can legally
examine a patient's - a person's - eyes and
produce a prescription for specs
but as to pathology
glaucoma, trauma, macular degeneration, diabetic retiopathy
these are the only pathologies an optometrist can diagnose
and record in tht pathology box on the form
so the pressure is on
if you are not a doctor and you see something is wrong
you don't really have a
something but none of the above
option
so when City presented our Ricker with a patient they knew
had keratocornus
he could diagnose that but he couldn't report that diagnosis
so he should withdraw from the optometry course 'cos
he wastoo clever by half
and the optometry profession would be
under pressure to diagnose keratocornus routinely
no chance
so how do peope with
retinitis pigmentosa
get referred to hospital?
nudeg nudge hint from the optometrist to the GP
in other words for most purposes
ptometrists don't refer patients with pathology t the hospital
they refer them to their GP General Practitioner - family doctor
which is why we say they are
nurse practitioner grade
and if the GP's eye medicine training was
45 minutes on a computer running through a
progrmmed text
a text where like a security guard pressing buttons around a museum at night
you click on boxes to show you've seen taht page of the text
is the GP going to have any idea what the difference is between
a subconjunctival haemorage
and makeup?
or a splash of tabasco sauce
we should just point out
f you are not on the general medical register
or the general optical register
by law you should not offer any assistance to
a customer in choosing
the power of the lenses in a pair of
ready readers

22nd January 2024

of all the unreliabilities we suffer from
being an unrelaiable source of info on
the Bilsdale transmitter and Arquiva
is the worst
our current theory is
the mast is fine and good to go but
it is constantly being
powered down
for safety as
equipment related to 5G 'phones is
added to the mast


to clarify
when our Ricker dropped out of
medical/dental school
his dad was 75
and his mam was 56
the local authority were aware that they needed care
and so they wrote off their costs in the med school year
in those days university grants were a matter for local government
and set their contribution back to zero
for the course at Durham University
this was not a personal individual
drop out decision on the part of our Ricker
and the plan would have been to go back to med school
when Tommy died
Tommy died at 84
Maisie died at 68
not a drop out or burn out situation
absolutely no hard feelings but
Tommy's other sons and his daughter
lived hundreds of miles away
Gwynneth Dakers perferred to
go work at Harwell
rather than be a dentist's wife so
our Ricker took a medium term view
and got hammered by an optometry department that...
wth his medical background and zoology degree
our Ricker fetches up ay City University
and sets about the optometry and Visual Science degree
a three year course
at the same time
Ron Douglas and Terri Griffiths were taken on to
help Professor Ruskell the professor of anatomy
in the department
they were bothe taken on on three year contracts that would
end as our Ricker graduated
Ron Douglas was know to have mental health problems and
it could be that Ron decided that he would be replaced
by our Ricker after the three years
this may be why - probably was why
our Ricker was
required to withdraw from the course
first the suggstion was that our Ricker
not do the honours module - a research project that
Ron would have been expected to supervise
but use the time in clinic
at the London Refraction Hospital
but that suggestion was short lived and replaced by the
requirement to withdraw
by this time Ricker has decided that
no deal he had would ever hold
and despite visits - Keith Davey and his sister Jackaline included
coming up from London
she being the PA of the boss at
BUPA
nothing that made sense to our Ricker was
hammered out
it's all about not upsetting
vulnerable people the likes of Ron Douglas
now an Emeritus Professor at City
rather than providing facilities for
capable people such as our Ricker
I want tat genius but I want him
nailed down
and so our Ricker learned how to build
web sites
driving a capable person into
internal exile
is proferable to having
a vulnerable person driven to suicide because
they wanted their
interim role
converted to tenure
Ron and Terri got tenure
not so long after Terri married a dentist
so she was probably OK

21st January 2024

and today's question is
why is UNICEF buying advertising space
asking people to donate to UNICEF to
Feed the WOrld
?
the United Nations is
not a charity
it is a supragovernmental authority
we suspect that it is using arms such as
UNICEF and
UNHCR
High Commission for Refugees
to buy media coverage for its political views
it may not be a direct UN clone but
Water Aid
'dirty water'
a lot of people drink and use water from
aquafers
rain falls in the mountains and soaks into the rocks
and seeps downwards through the rocks to
rocks or sand or mud just below ground level in the valley
people dig wells and collect the water
and if the ground where they dig their well is
chosen because it is soft and easy to dig
sand and mud will come out of the well with the water
this water fell as mountain rain
seeped through rocks that have no life - not harmful
pathogens, bacteria mould, viruses
in them
and is drawn from the well as
dirty water
so
the people draw up dired - muddy - water
and let it stand for a while and then they can
draw off from the top
water as clear and pure as any other spring water

as we see it
the UN is trying to be
The Roman Empire of the 21st century
bread and circuses
shove endless mountains of food into these refugee camps
and hire some of the young men to be
gladiators
to provide the circus action
this is why the authorities
even in the UK
don't 'crack down on'
anti-social behaviour
Cleveland Police have 6 officers dedicated to
managing
not eradicating anti-social behaviour
because anti-social behaviour
is even in the UK
the circuses element of
bread and circuses for the lower orders
they would say
we police by consent
by consent of the thugerati
in essence
different strokes for different folkes
if people stay in their goulags
their mad house behaviour will
pass for normal
NfN
on a medical record
normal for Norfolk

20th January 2024

journalese
hammered out agreement
called for tighter restrictions
words rarely if ever used outside journalism
axe, bid, clash, revellers, slam, mercy dash
there was a time in the USA when
any white male in uniform and wielding a deadly weapon and
a bull horn
was described as a
good ole boy
around the wold the term has morphed into
any sort of
blue collar activist
a working class male set in their ways
it sort of softens the edges of
people who may become unpredictable due to
age related dementia
and there is a version that relates to
historical figues who may in small numbers be still alive
the term we are thinking of is
moonshiner
a creator and distributor of
distilled alcohol made under two provisions
tax evasion
prohibition evasion
and moonshiners have become
in jounalese
as well as fictional entertainment
plucky little fellas standing up to
over weening authority
like
people defying a ban on
feeding the ducks in the local park
we could get technical but
moonshining illustrates how the appropriate level of
regulation is necessary
for the most part
wine making an be done very easily and successfully
as a process hard to distunguish from
cookery
to dip a toe into the technical
if you try to make wine you will either get
wine or vinegar
and the same applies to home brewed beer
however
beer and wine - alcohol
vinegar - acetic acid
no acute medical risk there
chronic over use, a different matter
and so in essence home brew is not regulated in the UK
not actively at least
a bit of tax avoided but no big deal
the problem lies if a person or business decides to
distill wine or beer or similar into spirit
still not essentially for the lost tax but because of
the nature and effects of the distillation process
when you brew - not as in tea or coffee
but as in wine and beer
if you get it right
you get alcohol and not vinegar
the thing is the sort of alcohol you get
almost every version of brewing produces
at least two sorts of alcohol
a mixture of ethanol and methanol
distillation in essence separates
all the alcohols in the brew from the rest
the bits, dross, flavour and water
wine and beer will probably contain traces of methanol
in that sense - probably - gin is safer to drink than wine or beer
it can be used to separate the
methanol from the ethanol
what happens is that
the methanol 'comes over' before
is more volatile than
the ethanol
any responsible distiller discards the first part of the product
because it is methanol and
methanol can make you blind or kill you
moonshiners would just as happily sell you
methanol or ethanol
they weren't going to throw any of their product away
and they weren't going to
blend
the early product with the main flow
so a bit or Russian Roulette
is the bottle you've bought early and main product?
and so it is with drugs
prescription medicines have been produced under controlled conditions
street drugs could be anything
and the point of journalese we are aiming for is
them god ole boys with their moonshine
is being replaced right here and now by
those plucky vulnerable young lads
on the County Lines
county lines is the moonshine of the 21st century
glamourising
Disnefying drug trafficing

19th January 2024

we think we've made another mistake
at newcastle the 'vets' weren't called vets
they were called
Agrics
so we suppose that they were studying agriculture
not vetinarary science
not studying pet care
we are completely at a loss to follow current
qualification structures in medicine
but we can offer a little about our Ricker's CV
we can't track all the certs he has had like being
a registered Electrical Test Engineer
but aside from O' levels and A' levels
Physics, chemistry biology
just the one A grade - biology
now...
search
2nd MB
there are in particular universities three
'medical' courses
they are
medicine, dentistry and vetenary science
some 'proper' UK med schools offer
either or both of dental and vet
back in the day
Newcastle-uopn-Tyne Uk university had
and still has all three
however
2nd
does not refer to a second class honours degree in this context
in our Ricker's day
medics and dentals did their
pre-clins
together
same lectures, same exams
and so Newcastle med students would
normally start with a 2nd MB - medical bachelor
but some people - especially those converting from
arts A' levels to medicine
would do a 1st MB
and what our Ricker did at newcastle was a
2nd BDS
a pre-clinical course in medicine for potential dentists
we have no idea what a medical student of today
studying at the University of Sunderland does,BR. but at Newcastle in the 70s
medics and dentals worked together on
for example
morbid human anatomy
that is six students to a gurney
spent a year of session
gradually dismantling somebody who had
donated their body to science
a lot of pre-clins probably including Sunderland
perhaps now even including Newcastle
do pre-clins on line and in virtual reality
our Ricker kinda got to know Walter
inside out
to help with care for his elderly parents
kept them out of care
our Ricker switched to
zoology at Durham
in essence
pre=clins was normal uni timetable
clins was nine to five 48 weeks a year and
our Ricker couldn't keep an eye on his parents in Redcar
and do a full time 'job' in Newcastle
however
as it's turned out
he has been able to help a lot more people through
research and more generally public education
than he could have done in clinic
if he had been a slam dunk fast track
London consultant he may have had similar 'influence'
but we have seen that
Secretaries of State for Health
believe they out rank
consultants and professors of medicine so
and they call it democracy
Sliding Doors
but
our Ricker's dad had seen his first wife die of
laryngeal cancer
and had fought in the First World War
so he wouldn't 'allow' anything about
war or surgery on the Tv at home
so with a mum who wanted him to be an architect
and a dad who wanted him to be
an industrial chemist - like his son-in-law
Smith and Nephew, and Unibond
Martin got a company car at Unibond
just like his father-in-la had had at Hodsmans -
most famously, later, a part of Ready Mixed Concrete
Tommy was very disrespectful of the fact that
one of his sons named his daughter
Catherine Mary Clare
Cement Marketing Company
Katie didn't get the LAST laugh but she did marry a
maths whizz from clare College Cambridge
For the Record, Nial Teskey
our Ricker met Nial for the first time about a year ago
didn't talk to him he's 'well deaf'
and some
and so
afer his father died our Ricker being older now
thought
optometry
and optician's shop second best to a
hairdressers
for his mum
she probably regretted getting pregnant
definitely had post natal depression
and almost certainly - what a weirdo
would have preferred a daughter
see, almost every profession, in our Ricker's day was
do good if you
didn't like difficult sums
in honesty
maths is just about the cheapest subject to teach
provide
chalk and talk courses
don't even have to buy footballs
so kids were and still are encourage to
take up the frugal courses
now
through virtual reality
medicine - not dentistry
switches from
the most expensive course to offer
to
one of the cheapest

17th January 2024

there was this old fella who
lived in Turner Street
on his own except for his dog
you can tell what generation he was from because
he named his dog
Tara
after Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
and they strolled the streets of Redcar for many a year
then one November Tara died - either two or three years ago
the old man knew he was old
thought
I'm too old for another dog
so he took to feeding peanuts to the wildlife in Locke Park
and then the
twaterarchy
decided to ban the feeding of wildlife in Locke Park
so we knew what would happen next
that was around August 2023
in January 2024 the old man died
probably in hospital because a herse brought him home and
there was nobody in so
we gess he didn't get home
we absolutely KNEW this would happen but
whatever we did
the damage was done
the notices said it loud and clear
time you snuffed it you old nuisance


this is the toes anecdote
so whether it be true or not
say there was a little Irish fella called Garry
running glaucoma clinics at James Cook
and whether or not he had
32 letters after his name
mostly made up of masters degrees
the efective element being that he was
working as an optometrist at an optician's shop in County Durham
and doing sessions as a hospital optometrist at james Cook
on the basis that the appointed consultant eye surgeon was on
long term sick leave
a patient turns up at the clinic and is seen by Garry
and is diagnosed with glaucoma
some time down the road
the consultant reaches retirement age or
accepts early retirement
and the scene is clear to appoint a new consultant
and a very nice young local lad then currently
working as a registrar at Moorfields eye hospital in London
is persuaded to come home to take up the consultant post
he specialises in
the laser oblation of the trabecular meshwork
the immune system
within the eye
saves having all those eye drops
he is to quite an extent a well meaning
one trick poney
aka pony
so Garry goes back to Ireland
a patient with some medical background
our Ricker
has a little chat with the new consultant
our Ricker says I know it's not your specialism but
see these spots?
I've got shingles
so the follows a dance
consultant says
I can't step on other people's toes
where are the days when consultants were Gods?
I can't step on other people's toes and you have been diagnosed
with glaucoma
so that will stay on your record
but he did not actually say what follows, but
'I will have a quiet word and
make sure you get an invitation for a shingles vaccination'
so the patient 'gets the correct treatment'
without the NHS admitting that a wrong diagnosis was initially made
the NHS motto
we'll do our best for the patient
short of admitting anybody who works for us
throw the private medics under the bus
short of admitting that anybody working for the NHS
made a mistake


you may know that
the BMA
is the British Medical Association
and it is the main union for doctors in the UK
you probably don't know that
the AOP
is the main union for optometrists
and it is
the The Association of Optometrists
go figure...
it was, of course, previously the
Association of Optometric Practitioners
and they stuck with AOP despite the full version name change
and at about the same time
the General Secretary of the AOP was told
his title had to be changed to
Secretary General
like NATO being OTAN in Europe
as far as we know the structure of the profession
has stayed much the same for half a century
half a century go you did three years at uni and
a pre-registration year normally in an optician's shop
now it seems all four years are done in university but
we have not untangled UK and US regulations
so we will dive back in time to the 1980s
so we are talking about London City University
doing the three year bachelor degree in
Optometry and Visual Science
at one level the university saw a vocational
degree such as optometry
as an opportunity to provide a little part time employment
for 'academics' with no full time job
the tutors for mandatory further maths
a man beyond retirement age and a woman who was doing a bit of work
to avoid being a stay at home mum
to nail the era down
our Ricker remembers a class in arts
where the lyrics
and the ban of those lyrics on the Bbc
'relax, don't do it'
relax don't do it, if you want to come'
that was a nuisance but more important was
a mass of stuff about optics
the essence being
to divert a little
the Dean or Head of Department was
during our Ricker's second and final year
in process of dying from heart faiure
he had had a heart attack
and he had the timerity to introduce
a short demonstration of
some sort of CPR into one of his lectures
cardio pulminory resuscitation
anyway
we are assuming that the 4th year of the course of today
has devloped out of the
LRH
The London Refraction Hospital
and at one stage it was proposed that our Ricker do most of his third year
in clinics in the LRH
anyhow, retruning to the routine
at that time
three years at uni and a year in a shop
so although the university could
recommend a student to proceed to the pre-registration year
without completing their degree
broadly the adminustration of the
registration process fell to the College of Optometry
but the confiring of registration lies with the
General Optical Council
like they can put you on and take you off the register
Like the General Medical Council for doctors (medical doctors)
so you get to be a Doctor of Optometry but you are not on
The General Medical Register
you are on the General Optical Register
so anecdote from the 1980s
there was this pre-reg student
she had been working under supervision in an optician's shop
for quite some time
she kept getting the same adjudicator in her final
registration assessment
and he kept failing her
eventually she plucked up the courage or was encouraged by her
supervisor
to write to the adjudicator and ask this retired optician why
he kept failing her
he was clear
remember we are talking 1980s and there were
private frames
and
NHS frames
for specs
she's a candidate for registration as an optomtrist
not dispensing optician
not an optical technician
he said straaight out
I felt your re-pinning of a joint in a spec frame was
not neat enough
for opticians a spec frame has a fron and two sides
patients tend to refer to sides as arms
back in the day if you were a medium sized chain
such as Batemans
you had a factory and if a patient had
trouble with NHS frames - because they were a child
or had hearing aids
the branch may sent a standard pair of specs to the
factory or perhaps an outside contractor to
have the sides or one of the sides
shortened
actuallythat would mean a fresh side cut down to the appropriate length
and oles drilled in the plastic of the side
and pins tamered pins, driven into the holes wher you may think there would be screws
pins for screws and screws for pins, screws join the two halves of the hinge
pins join the hinge to the front and the side
and if you drilled too big a hole in the side
the pin would perhaps have a bit of gap between the pin and the plastic
Ok for optometrists to prescribe shorter sides
but why in God's name were they being tested on their ability to
shorten them themselves?
but that's the power of the Wisdom of the Ages
When I were a lad I was a member of
Worshipful Company of Spectaclemakers
a London Guild
I'm not going to ask you about pathology
I always put NAD in the pathology box

15th January 2024

we see a bit of political kite flying by The Labour today
on the one hand
they appear to have in North West England at least
a core vote or more precisely core activists, door knockers
leaflet deliverers
who rather than - as perhaps in London, anti AfroCarribean prejudice
anti Asian tendencies
the message seems to be
we have nothing against South Aisans
except the ones who have sex
it's a bit like
we've nothering against AfroCaribbeans
except the black ones
it remains to be seen how well this serves The Labour in the up coming General Election
as a 'point of difference' from The Tories
Tories being notorious fro having so last century
we mean... positioning themsleves as the anti-sex party


there is a suite of NHS UK National Health Service
forms referenced
GOS followed by a number
most of the ones easily available on line relate to
aplcations for vouchers for eye care
GOS stands for General Optical Services
GPs, optometrists, hospitals have these
there is one that is a general report of the details of an
eye test or eye examination
it's a while since our Ricker had a look at such a form because
most people don't use a paper form these days
so things may have changed
hence we aere depending on memories from long long ago
there used to be a box on the form for
pathology
an optometrist is supposed to check for
eye disease as well as generate a prescription for
glasses if needed
a modern opticians has some
computer heavy kit
back in the day
Keith Davey's dad was
a pharmacist with the Co-Op
at one time pharmacists did eye tests
Mr Davey Senior became
the Co-Op's chief Ophthalmic Optiian
as a qualified pharmacist he probably did a bit of
nigh school to get extra credits
on the appropriate GOS form there was
probably still is
a box titled
pathology
almost every GOS form with a pathology box
signed off by an Ophthalmic optician
would have
NAD
in the pathology box
NAD was supposed to mean
No Abnormality Detected
and a lot of the time Optometrists would put
NAD in the pathology box
however
when an Optometrist put NAD in the box
it meant No Abnormality Detected
when an Ophthalmic Optician put NAD in the pathology box
it meant
Not Actually Done
it means
I did my best and my best was zero
I have had no training in the detection of pathology
as time went on reasonably cheap
bits of kit came along and the very inexpert could meansure
something called IOP
Intra Ocular Pressure
here's rub
although equipment to measure IOP was easy to use and not
too expensive
another piece of kit had also come along
the autorefractor
and autorefractor will give you a prescription for
specs if you need them
this meant that for a few thousand pounds
a pharmacist could have a machine that could
take them back to the days of prescribing and dispensing spectacles
this put quite a lot of pressure on optometrists to
offer specialist services beyond refraction
refraction is the test to see what glasses prescription you need
essentially, without going to medical school
and withut extending the training period
optometrists became regarded as
more expert in eye pathology than
pharmacists or GPs - family doctors
but that precidence is based more in the
access to fancy machines
than to any hint of medical training
in truth they have the competence - in another specialism - of a
nurse practitioner
but their reports are taken as gospel by GPs and hospital doctors
because, honest truth, most opticians on Teesside have better
whzzy kt tham James Cook Hospital eye department
for instance, going back just a handful of years
Boots Opticians had and have a Topcon Maestro 2
eye scanner - the one you can pay an extra £25 to be tested on
tht producesa report in colour
james Cook's scanner - at least up to a few years ago
produced a similar report on a black and white monitor
and they tested for IOP with a tonometer tht looked exactly like a
penlight torch
not a lot of penlight torches you would pay £399 for but...
we are not so up wth the workings of Specsavers but we guess that the
extra private fee has been set to cover the cost of
a lease agreement on those Maestro scanners
and sine they have had them a while
we guess they Boots, Specsavers, etc. have renewed their leases
the main problem is
the eye department at James Cook is not accepting
the Maestro files as a substitute for
NAD in the pathology box on the GOS form
to be more precise
GPs and James Cook are automatically accepting that
a report of elevated IOP is a slam dunk for glaucoma
but they are not willing to review Maestro findings
the imporant element here being that there are
TWO major possible reasons for a slight elevation in IOP
glaucoma - poor internal (not tears) fluid drainage
an eye infection, internal but a symptom of shingles
if you have shingles and a slightly elevated IOP
you probably have
mild secondary glaucoma
in this case secondary means resultant, in cosequence
not more or less advanced or severe than primary


despie the readout of the rather naff ship tracker
Voltaire has made it into the Tees
We suppose that in backwaters such as the Tees
Pilots, tugs and dockers
don't work weekends
the owners of Voltaire are on the whinge
they want people to stop building turbines they can't lift
Alfa Lift appears to be up to the job
but Voltaire? struggling a bit
here's the thing
why should an electricity supply industry
that is set up to build
whacking great coal fired power stations
be restricted to building
executive toy scale turbines
just because they are wind turbines
Drax -coal and Hinkley Point - nuclear
were and will be
craned into position
so why should wind turbines be smaller?
the Brits will put up with anything but
if you want to build wind turbines in China
you need to tool up to build at full size

12th January 2024

despite what our naff tracker says
Voltaire was as of lunchtime today
at the Echo Anchorage off the Tees
waiting with a tug for high tide
to get to Greythorpe
what we have to address at this point is the question
why are a handfull of companies such as Fujitsu
on a very short list of companies invited to
'tender' for government contracts
in the words of the venerable Bob Johnson
good enough for government work
The Horizon administration system was introduced
a long long time ago
the essential characteristic of systems of that era was
'touch screens' were in their infancy and
the gen 1 - first generation - Horizon
depended on
dedicated, hard wired, buttons
not on touch screen icons
this meant that the contract had to go to a company capable of
producing the software AND the dedicated terminals
now we have a different perspective
a very large proportion of people in the UK
and around the world
come armed with at least one
contactless card
contactless was 'forced onto' card issuers by
Transport for London
in a very successful attempt to speed passengers through
The London Underground
by - essentially - making almost all
credit and debit cards compatible with
TfL's Oyster card
a combination of touch screens and contactless id - personal identification
means that
whatever the system
the software and the hardware will be
programmable and not hard wired
and so
the company writing the software can be
entirely unconnected from
the company making the hardware
and thus there is a
two pairs of eyes dimension on any
testing and trialling protocols
and organisations can concentrate on
what they do best
and those who do
lobbying best
slip down the list somewhat
to clarify
if you lve in London or commute to London
you have an Oyster Card to pay for journies by
public transport
if you are an infrequent visitor or tourist
you can use a contactless card that isn't an Oyster Card
as if it were an Oyster Card

11th January 2024

We should make a minor disclaimer
a very very long time ago
our Ricker's Auntie Mabel
was the sub-postmistress at
Portrack
a no heavily industrial area of
Stockton-on-Tees
more directly illuminating is
for a little while - a year or so
our Ricker was a
forensic book-keeper
for now defunct Opticians
Dolland and Aitchison
now subsumed into Boots
the point we want to make here is
about computers
back in them dark days
very few people had computers
banks had computers
so probably Post Offices had them too
but most shops on the High Street didn't
in those days there were two types of optician
ophthalmic opticians OOs
dispensing Opticians DOs
The actual company our Ricker worked for was
Dolland and Aitchison South East (London) Ltd
and he didn't work for
Dolland and Aitchison South East (City) Ltd
London was divided into London and City as maost people
would divide it into
West and East
So a rare 'normal' day our Ricker would be working in
Brompton Road or Old Brompton Road
but he could be sent to
Guildford or Epsom
so he wouldn't be sent to, say, Southampton
because that would be Southern
as a 'Northener' he was quite tickled to see a
registered office plaque on an office in Guildford that said
Blah Blah Garages (Northern) Limited
for some people Surrey is'up North'
anyway
Ophthalmic Opticians are now called Optometrists
but they may still be referred to as OOs ??
anyway
a branch would get a staff rota
Mary Mary OO
Chris ChoiDO
and
when they were going to get our Ricker??
SVW
nobody knew what the hell SVW meant
in practice it meant
dispenser/bookkeeper
or area manager's little snitch
and the absence of computers?
think of a piece of paper
a pad of identical pre-printed blank forms the size was twice that of A4 - A3
these were called
Day Sheets
one day sheet to be sent to regional or area office
for every trading day
and if the
book-keepers in the office couldn't make sense of
the day sheets
our Ricker was sent to
'cover for the manager's leave
and run the shop for a week
and find out why the day sheets didn't add up
we have two examples but the first was directly day sheet related
a lorra lorra money missing from the day sheet
this was a long long time ago
this was actually a problem with the
veneraable ladies in the area office
people had started this new thing
not sure it would 'catch on'
paying by
credit card
not contactless
not chip and pin
hand the card over the assistand put in into a machine
not an electronic device
more like a Dymo label printer
you put the card in the machine - laid flat
embossed card holder details up
you laid a dat pack - two or more dockets with
carbon paper in between
and then you rn a roller over the data packa nd the card
and the knobbly letters and numbers on the card
pressed ink from the carbon paper
onto the docket elements
the thin one was hande to the patient - customer - and the main one
went into the banking
and because these dockets were
neither cash nor cheques
a lot of the receptionists who filled in the day sheet
did't enter Barclaycard aor Access dockets onto the day sheet
they put them into the banking so the company got the money
but it looked as though the banking was short
on those dates when people bought their specs with a credit card
so it doesn't take a computer to foul up the accounts
and just to give an example of the sort of peoplewho were
making these mistakes
one of the receptionaist at Epsom confided in our Ricker
I had this arguement with Mr Adamson - the area manager
He told me
lens isn't plural
he said it's lens and lenses
is tht right?
this is fucking Epsom, heart of the stockbroker belt
and
the boyfriend of another receptionist
worked in a garage in Epsom
they told him to move a Jag
he'd never driven an automatic before
so he drove in straight into the garage wall

do we have any idea about what sort of person would be called Mrs Oligario
anyway, somewhere in the West End there was a branch opposite a big hotel
and a lot of African visitors stayed at that hotel
in the opticians the frames are displayed on the walls
the display frames have display lenses with no power in them
whilst Mrs Oligario was having her
menopause related sick days???
the receptionist were left to run the shop without
professional help
bothe were from the East End, one was a single mother
they were doing two things
firstly, the Africans wanted to
look distinguish
so they were in the market to buy specs with
no tint - dark in london init - and without having an eye test
so the receptionists were
selling the frames off the wall for cash
and not making appointments for tests and
not putting the money through the books or into the bank
there never seemed to be any appointments at that branch
or very few
so Mr Adamson told our Ricker
send out 500 reminder post cards
the receptionists had spent their days writing them
our Ricker sent one of the girls over the road to get the stamps
she came back and said but they blew away as I was crossing the road
so Mr Adamson told our Ricker to post the cards himself
he didn't have time for stuff like that
he took the reminder cards 'home' and on his day off he went to
Guildford Post Office and
with the reminder cards and cash
and had them franked
assistand said you can't have mail franked if there are less than 500 pieces
There were 500 pieces
and the grump got the job of franking them instead of D and A staff
licking stamps
so the next DO to go to that branch
rang the police
and both receptionists got nicked
the clang of the police station custardy suite door was
quite impressive according to the DO
oh and if you hadn't guessed
SVW stood for
what was happening there was that
optometry was being set up as a
graduate profession
lots of people who owned and ran
Optician Shops
had never been to university
and they had no children or other
significant others who were capanle of
getting into university
and so they were selling out to DandA
and their staff had never dealt with
bookkeeping or any sort of regulation
so long as the customer was satisfied
nobody enquired as to how the shop was being run
until it was taken over bt a multiple
student vacation worker

10th January 2024

our Ricker is stumped
first he thought
tautology
but that is when you sayBR> x=y and y=x
then he thought Mobius strip
that when you put the tongue of you belt
into the keeper upside down
then he thought about
Catch 22
that just about gets it
Catch 22 is where you
feign mental breakdown to get a medical discharge
and then they say
that's a really clever wheeze
you must be super sharp right now
not mentally ill
here's the example of the moment
This is President Trump's catch 22
if you can only serve a maximum of two four year terms and he was
elected for 4 years in
2016 and 2020
he's done
he can't stand again
if he does stand again
he has to admit that he lost in 2020
as we understand it
the Locke Road 'phone mast is 3G and shut down

9th January 2024

Redcar and Cleveland Council may have noticed that
there is a mobile 'phone mast in the pavement at the south end of
Locke Road
we will note that recently a 5G mast for the 3 network
was completed in Queen Street
and there is a mast in Fleming's Field just off
Severn Road
quite a close grouping of 5G masts
and we are not sure the one on Locke Road is 5G
what we are sure of is that there are two
power cabinets
at the foot of the mast in Locke Road
we are also certain that the one furthest away - by cms
from the mast
is redundant
this means that there is a redundant power connection
a couple of metres from
Locke Park car park
available for a simple hook-up to
vehicle charging units
units that have not yet appeared in the Coatham Bowl car park
even though the power is already laid on
we note that Voltaire was due in Rotterdam on 5th January
makes Greythorpe dock look a bit
Billy Nomates
we are supposing it has gone to Rotterdam for
food and other sundries and will be in the Tees for the turbines soon

8th January 2024

this is one of those unresearched mash up stories
our Ricker grew up thinking there were two
weekly magazines
a right leaning Spectator any way
The Spectator reckons to be the world's
longest established publication
at some point
quite a long time ago it invented a term for a sort of person
we now switch to a story from 'nowhere' about a chap
sometmes called
Andrew Loyd Webber
now a Barron we expect
as a little boy - for the purposes of this story
he lived in a posh part of London
and he had a decent wedge of pocket money
the story goes that whilst still around
ten years old he took his accumulated cash to
a posh bookshop or gallery and bought
a Medieval manuscript
this would make him
in the eyes of The Spectator
a Young Fogie
a young person more interested in
cultural history
than in sports
in the political sphere we have
The Right Honourable Member
of the House of Commons
for the 17th century
Jacon Rees Mogg
William Rees-Mogg, Baron Rees-Mogg
was a Bribeginnings
lorry driver, car salesman
to in the end councillor and magistrate in
St pancras and Kings Cross
when they were not as posh as today
in that sense a part of a tradition of
tradition versus evidence
stick to 'the rules' and insist everybody else does
and God will be on your side
it is very difficult to explain anything to anybody who
believes in the
magical power of tradition
the thing is
this is OK when you are trying to construct
a life out of
the wreckage of post Second World War London
we won so God must love us
and a different propostion when you have
antibiotics, vaccines, contraception
and the world is divided into
problems we have solved
and
problems we are yet to solve
the new solutions undermine the concept of
rndom or God driven
winners and loosers
and so the basic question
as the Jacob Rees-Mogg generation of
Young Fogies
mature
where do we look for the next generation
not raises by
'holocaust' or world war survivors?
and all those politicians still in thrawl to
mothers in their nineties
looking for political leaders in their fifties
not surprising that perhaps
South Asia looks like
17th century alive in the 21st century

4th January 2024

we can't resist tellin' ya
the stuffed swan in the latest
Salvage Hunters the Restorers is
a Hooper Swan not a Mute

we have some information about the two ships that are
installing the
Dogger Bank Array wind farm
they are Voltaire a jack up barge
and Alfa Lift a semisubmersible crane barge
the information available to us indicates that
Voltaire has been
'spud cans down'
lodged into the bed of the Dogger Bank
since around 14th November 2023
and we expect that along the way they have installed
a ship load - around a dozen
wind turbines
and weathered a storm or three or seven
when you operate one or two of the largest ships in the world
with legs down
probably more storm worthy that any oil or gas rig
on the other hand
Alfa Lift has only run back out to the bank since Christmas
we reckon Voltaire will be back in the Tees soon for more turbines
Alfa has to install monopiles and junction units before
Voltaire can get back to work

3rd January 2024

this - if there is an image
is our image of
winter 2023
a Christmas Rose spattered with dirt
splashed up by the incessant RAIN

at this moment we can't be bothered to work out what
S.W.A.T. meant in the
1970s? Tv fanchised but it was a
police rapid response unit
swatting is to make a false report of an
onging serious incident in order to elicit
an reponse from Law Enforcement
in the UK referred to as
a report of concern for the welfare of
a third party
a SWAT is a police military Unit
in the USA in poarticular
police services have been sold a
lorra lorra heavy weaponry and
to some extent
just like
firefighters who
turn out to be arsonists
any excuse is better than none
to break out the heavy
helcopter gunships, drones
whatever
without consulting CCTV or sending out a
lightly armed first responder
if you have a police service such as
Cleveland Police in Northern England who
belive it is illegal to disagree with an MP
a lorra lorra
row back
gets suppressed
and a minute search for justification follows

3rd January 2024

we think a New Year is a time for reflection and
we think Middlesbrough should take a moment for
self analysis
Middlesbrough could be
quite an attractive place
however
like a corporate version of
Kim Kardashian sending
her nine year old daughter
North West
to a fancy dress event in a
gimp mask
the politicians of Middlesbrough
can't seem to set foot on stage without donning a
pink gimp mask
say you were a distant relative of a rich person who died
say you were offered the choice in their will
a fully worked up auto racing team
or a
wedding car
what sort of a person
chooses the race team
and uses it to run a wedding car hire business?
and so it is with Middlesbrough Football club
all sorts of machinations in the mid 1980s to
keep The Boro alive
and at first you could say
any Boro match was
Great Britqin - Boro - versus the rest of the world
now Middlesbrough field their
D team
if there is a international tournament
in Africa
and what are Newcastle up to?
they seem to be on a
Hearts and Minds tour of
friendlies across the absurd list of
Premiership venues
this season have they beaten
Luton, Fulham, Bournemouth, Brighton
Brentford, Burnley
we don't know and we don't care but
is this the sport that belons to everybody
when
apparently
Luton can beat Newcastle
perhaps newcastle should
do a Wimbledon
and move to
Newcastle under Lyme

our Ricker hasn't gone completely
ROM
ROM is Read-Only Memory
but all the same details from
past lives can get blurred
the issue today is to try to pin down a Cameo in a
medical drama series
we are almost certain this was not
House
it was probably not the Dick Van Dyke one
so
it ws quite possibly
Grey's Anatomy
there's a story line going on
we need to introduce the concept of
subliminal suggestion
it is a bit like a script for a
panto
a uniquly British form of - mostly Christmas time - theatre
the idea is that the grandprents bring to grandchildren to
the theatre to give to parents a chance to
consult with Santa about what the kids should get for Christmas
the term
double entendre
comes to mind
a line, joke or comment that will be funny to both
a 4 year old and a 64 year old
that is not quite what subliminal messaging is about
it is linked to the
Max Headroom
oh where is Max Headroom when we need him
cocept of
blipverts
adverts so short that we do not realise we have seen or heard them
so
some action is going on and the 'round' is moving down a corridor
suddenly one of the characters grabs somebody they are passing and delivers
the entirely cryptic line
yes we think that is a good idea but
not with a bowlng ball
these two characters are
one pregnant or perhaps the male partner of somebody who is pregnant
and the other is a specialist in gaeny or obstetrics
she is confirming that as part of sex during pregnancy
the introduction of an object
perpaps the size of a billiary ball
perhaps something bigger
but not as big as a ten pin bowling ball
could be
shoved up the birth canal
to get it into trim
to render it fit for purpose
as you walk around the streets or workplace
you have no idea how many of the females or even males
you are meeting are
walking around with
a charger
stuffed up their chuff
it's called a charger in the English version of Papillon

we should just note regarding accident fatalities
particularly motor vehicle versus water
if you are taking any vehicle you intend being strapped into
anwhere near water is a sporting mode
the restraints you wear
seat belts
should be
of the quick release variety
because you are more likely to drown than
die fro blunt force trauma
+&D6.PB