Redcar Cleveland UK

9th June 2023

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28th May 2023

today we are going to try to find time to explain
two very important concepts in social structures
we have recently dismissed 'stranger danger'
but there are three groups of adults in a child's life
out and out strangers
family members - friends and family
people who want acess to the child but are barred from access
these could be random, unrelated paedophiles
but they are much more likely to be
a natural parent or friends and family of a natural parent
who have been deemed to be a threat to the child
once a child has been removed from a family
members of that family may seek to track or trace that child
so as to harm or kidnap them
any time 'the media' are co-opted into a campaign of complaint
against a child being
taken into car 'hundreds of miles' from their birth famiy
the media are disrupting the protection of that child
however, on a lesser level, somebody who feels they have a right to
access to a particular child
may seek to discover what school they attend
the routine photography of participants in
school trips
may be an access method for such people
this should not mean that such children should not
for instance a week or so ago
a school trip got a preview of the playpark on Majuba Road
and the event was photographed - not by us
and so we will not disclose which school these children attend
THAt does not excuse anybody from saying
You can't photograph here, there may be children in the background
photogrphs of children are only a hazard if they have some context
for instance
NOT were they ever at such and such a play park
BUT were they there because they routinely attend such anad such school

the other thing is illustrated by the car in Downing Street
there is a chance this is one of those
I was following the satnav incidents
however the introducton of the
indecent images of children dimension
speaks to a tactic
when a person rises to a position of power and influence
and then
develops dementia
their powers of decision making and other general skills
may decline drastically
if you sack them for incompetece
then the lawyers will be out touting for clients
whom they may have harmed
if you sack them for any sort of 'sex crime'
the potential number of people who can claim against their organisation
and the associated cost
are much reduced


in the realm of the lawonsequenc of unintended consequenceng a coldwars
back in the 1960s and 70s in the UK
the authorities were expecting a third world war and
fighting a cold war
and so they invested in the education of the
brightest and the best
now we invest in remedial classes to prove we are not Nazis
however
there is a twist to this
free higher education for the brightest and best
but
families were prone to want to send their boys to uni
and not to invest in the futures of girls
overall parents and government
kinda got the idea that girls should go to uni
not to start careers
but to be better equipped to raise sons for careers
if they were lucky enough to have them in good time
thus
a lorra lorra females got strings of qualifications
followed by imposter syndrome
because rote learning is no preparation for
problem solving
not that females can't do problem solving but if you
pack university freshers week cattle markets with pretty girls
you can end up with inadequate professionals taking up
sacred cow status


and just to add an unrelated line
if we were Ukraine, and the people advising Ukraine
we would advise against a spring or summer offensive
we would hold back for an autumn offensive
so that any counter offensive would get bogged down in winter

we thought a small wedge of reality
in the shellfish washup story
may help over half term

p>

there is a lesson about energy supply
to be learned on a visit to Redcar
there is an aray of wind turbnes in Coatham Bay
mostly one will be still - not turning
perhaps t is being teste or serviced it a random selection
not always the same one
on the other hand
at this time of year
maybe half will be turning and half not
this is NOT because there is insufficient wind
it is because overall electricity demand is
no more than the production of
Hartepool Nuclear Power Station
and that cannot be
turned up an down, on and off, as easily as wind turbines
if any of them are turning, there is enough wind for
all of them to turn
as another of those little indications of
how the world is doing
short trains out of the potash mines have re-appeared
this could be summer maintenence
it could be the UK has gone bac to
importing potash from Belarussia


regrding Rolf Harris
we see an endless stream of
cautionary tales about scams
the latest being people watching you enter your pin at
ATMs checkouts, in the pub
wire fraud
we never hear about people being victims of
gold diggers
because?
scams are the basic human right of females
wire fraud affects people
gold diggers attack men
and women defrauding men is A OK
romance scam men conning women
evil
gold digging women suing men
a vital part of the gross demestic product
and fees for lawyers


our Ricker is not an expert on deer
a little while ago he saw an agitated deer in
Cleveland college car park
and his guess is
Reeves' Muntjac
deer have been spotted on CCTV on Redcar High Street
in the recent past
we have an amendment to make about human period frequency
we said artificial light caused humans to
cycle as quickly as possible
these deer offer a different perspective
we may have the species wrong for this sighting but
Muntjac breed every 7 months
because they evolved in tropical lands where
there is no artificial light but also
there are no seasons
the climate is constant year around even if the weather changes
so there is no good or bad time of year to breed

finally, Redcar and Cleveland council have
held the meeting to elect cabinet members
at a quick calculation
a minority Labour adminstration
all cabinet members are Labour members
so the idea will be to keep as much as possible
away from votes of the full council - just in case
59 councillors
23 Labour councillors - 9 (all Labour) members of cabinet
however, the old arrangement of
Labour councillor - Greater Eston Councillor
opposition councillor - Redcar councillor
not so much
8 Labour Greater Eston councillors
2 conservative Greater Eston councillors
5 if you include Normanby
House building....
there are now three areas in Redcar and Cleveland
Greater Eston - 16 seats
8 Labour
Redcar - 18 seats
9 Labour - seats
plus the 'woolieback'
rural seats
Guisborough 6 seats, Saltburn 3 seats etc
and so
there is no guarantee that a Labour administration will
favour Greater Eston
and no guarantee that Labour gains
outside Greater Eston will be permanent

we've been pondering that little bit of 'street art'
and we have a background of assuming
adults watch Tv while the kids are in bedrooms on their 'phones
and we have assumed that TV regards sex as
double tripple worse than smoking
but the internet is more balanced or pro sex
but this young person - we assume female?,BR> seems to have the message that
even mum and dad shouldn't be having sex
e've always known that young people regard older people
havng sex as disgusting
but not regarding it was 'wrong'

we are kinda wondering whether it was daddy swan who got injured and left
Locke park
because
both males are last year's cygnets
and the female is older
so her wish to nest
may have been scuppered by the young uns
being more interested in terretory

this is nearly the end of our Ricker's annual
will Orla Chennaoui get her legs out today game
she don't get 'em out on Sundays
but our Ricker does try to catch the we have a couple of idustrial stories alongside the
Tata battery plant in Somerset
that is about the
deprivation index
that is about men working in the battery factory and
women working in the tourist industry
it is about not having men
economically dependent on women...
however
Liberty steel - pipe works Hartlepool
developing tweeks to their process
to ensure they can manufacture steel pipes that
can carry hydrogen
technically...
straight off the bat
essentially without an plastic liner
steel pipes are subject to
vulnerable to, hydrogen embrittlement
'cos hydrogen is a metal - honest
and it will in time alloy with and cause craks in
steel
the other story we have lost the details but
somewhere in the UK
somebody is building a power station for
peak cover - not base load
that is described as
hydrogen ready
will run on more than 10 percent hydrogen

she laboured mightily
and brought forth a mouse

the turbine has been moved from the
grassy knole
to a parking bay
btit will eventually be installed on the platform
you may be able to see just to it's right





sooo...

have brought it back
and we suspect
it is temporary
and the disabled one is permanent
the people the council hired the
glam Portaloo from last summer


we've named him Roughneck

we like Hugh Scofield BBC correspondent in Paris
... bewildered
anyway
Philip Schofield
different
Hugh Schofield does have a brother
apparently, Philip no longer does
anyway
elephant in the room time
'nutter' Ant Mcphartland and
down to eart side kick Declan Donnally
are vacating a - the - mega slot on
UK independent TV
so there would be more than a bun fight over
who would replace them - even if for a few years
and so
Philip Schofield is 'up to the job'
Holly Willoughby is not
the question is
is Philip up to replacing Ant and Dec on his own
can he be
ITV's Graham Norton
a major reinvention...

'tis the season...
'tis the season when people
off sink estates who are the only person in their road
who has a motor bike or a car
comes to the seaside
and expects to be treated like royalty
a bit of a culture shock
as we understand it
the current challenge is
can you maintain a wheelie
the entire length of Corporation Road?
the snag is
people in Redcar have dashcams

we have the menu for the Majuba Road
Frosty Penguine's Putting Adventure
�8 per adult, �6 under 14
2 adults and 2 under 14s �25
so ths is major outing
and it should be fun
and it should build memories
and part of building memories is taking pics
so to all those in the local covern of
paedophile hunters
there soild be signs saying
if you object to being photographed
do not enter


and just so you know
there are atleast SOME fun lovin' people in Redcar



regarding yesterday's sculptor story
stand by this story
but we acknowledge we may have the wrong family
Martin Amis has just died and as we recall it
his father Kingsley Amis went on Tv and disclosed that
Matrin's sister Sally had
propositioned their father for sex
to 'complete their relationship'
and Kingsley had said
you'd better run that past your mother
and he never heard anything about it again
happened but may not have been Kingsley Amis
BUT
you should research sally Amis
we have a bit of a Titanic update
we have seen pics of the propellers during construction
and there is no sign of number carved or cast into the blades
The Olympic went into service first
and all three ships were designated
The Olymic Class
the captain of the Olympic was Captain Smith
and with him in charge
Olympic collided with HMS Hawke
in today's money �9 million of damage was done to Olympic
and she was reurned to Belfast for repairs
in due course
Captain Smith was the master of 'Titanic' when she foundered
and at this time 'Titanic 2' was still in construction

smebody has decded to draw attention to the artist
Eric Gill
he was quite an important artist in the first third of the
20th century
he produced sculptures himself rather than
making models for technicians to scale up
and his sculptures look a bit like those of
Henry Moor
he liked straight sex and he didn't like condoms
in the current context he admitted having sex with
one or both of his existing daughters
whilst his wife was in the later stages of her
pregnancy with their third daughter
we are not sure that got him into any trouble at the time
a century ago
however over time one could ask
are the sculpture daagers cross about
the incest or the under age sex?
anyway
they were teenagers at the time
and it is possibe that they were not under age by the law at that time
so it would have been the incest that would have been the problem
except that there wasn't any problem until
much later?? people read his diaries
it is interesting to think that
if he preferred sex wthout protection
were he and his wife using some sort of
rhythm method
to produce only three children if he was so keen on sex
and apparently had no mistresses beyond his daughter or daughters
Petra was the one he mentions
so we suspect a couple indulging in incest
have been transformed into a child abuser and victim (survivor)
for modern purposes
what if his wife had had a sister or friend who had
volunteered to cover during the confinement?
not so easy in an era when most mums were NOT on THE PILL
since it did not yet exist
it is interesting and we are channelling Mrs Mee and her murdered daughter here
that every time anybody has sex with anybody
they are having sex with a 'child'
because we use the word
child for both a person under age
and
a person's adult offspring
and so Mrs Mee was able to garner sympathy and support
in her case to overturn the cocept of
no right to a re-trial
double jeapordy
by referring constantly to the death of her
twenty something daughter
as the murder of her child
it should be noted that
this overturning does not normally mean that
an acquitted person can be
continually re-tried ON THE SAME EVIDENCE
until the verdict is to the satisfactio of
the compainant or a connection of the complainant
everything in the public domain is based on
women only put up with sex because of their
economic dependence on men
one thing we can say is a wife with daughters
COULD
pressure those daughters to offer sex to their father to
distract him from taking a mistress
especially f illness or pregnancy
prevents mum from doing it
their is a 'long lost' TV play about
a wife near death pressurising a maid into
taking her place in the husband's bed
Donald Plesence??


the perils of fame
back in the day there was thing that was and possibly still is
known as a Minogue
it was an adult nappy or daiper
now there is a brand of
absorbant bed pads called
Kylie
and somebody in Redcar is on a box ticking mission


em places
just to the west of Tuned In
on Majuba Road
somebody has installed a one of those
places where carers can change the
incontinence pads of of disabled person

at is point we may say tat to some extentBR> the dust has settled on a range of
major events
this year, across Europe
just before the major earthquakes in Turkey
we advised against emergency services
suggestng people
go nside and close doors and windows
this advice would be calastrophic in some situations
so why is it given?
the bottom line is that
law enforcement and emergency services have not
deeply absorbed a very simple invention in their arsenal
they use it in reality
but the press offices haven't realised that it exists
it is
incident tape
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
the reason in days of old thatauthorities sent
bystanders
nside to cower behind
closed doors and windows was barriers like to concerts
take time to set up
and everybody's own front door became
a police line
this advice is not designed to protect citizens
it can have the opposite effect
it is designed to give the emergency services
a clear field of operations
if the authorities want to live up to the mantra of
policing by consent
not only do we want those warnings that came through on
a lot of mobile 'phones in a recent test
we need cordon tape
and not maniacal - retreat to your incinerators
shelter in place orders
orders that killed so many in Grenfell Tower
there needs to be some learning but also some
VITAL UNLEARNING

there is this story that the late queen Elizabeth
was asked to name and launch as ship for Cunard?
amongst many more in the early part of her reign
and she was asked to anme it QE2
and she said
I name this ship
Queen Elizabeth the Second
the point being that ships get named at launch and not before
so there were three ships ordered by White Star Line
from Harland and Wolf, Belfast??
and the first was the 400th ship they had built
and they were launched a year or two apart and they were named
Olympic, Titanic and Britanic
and although each was a bit different
they were variations on a basic design
so the people producing the latest scans of
'The Titanic'
have majored on some numbers detected on a propeller
of the sunken remains
they look like something that may be a 4
followed by 01
as if propellers fitted a year or so apart might get
'mixed up' on ships that were of near identical design
and so
if Olympic was ship 400
we suppose that Harland and Wolf did not start on any other ships
between starting on Olympic and starting on Titanic soooo
401 must mean Titanic
so the ship in the wreck must be Titanic
this is important because there is a conspiracy theory that
the ship that sank was essentially a prototype that went wrong
and there was a plot to scuttle it - it being Olympic 400
but that the plot went wrong and a thousand people died
it's not entirely convincing that the government hatching this plot
wouldn't have sent divers down before the even
to etch the misleading number into a propeller
in the sense that you wouldn't normally
compromise the safety and efficiency of a prop
by numbering it on a blade and not on the hub
the story has Guy Faulkes and Gunpowder Plot overtones because
although there were a lot of people on board
all the important people originally booked on the trip
cried off at the last minute
and the ship should have been in convoy with potential
rescue ships and
made a navigational error and was miles off course
just sayin'

this one is complicated
ou we will start in our customery obscure way
most people have heard of the Bee Attles
there was a scetch on Tv at the time about two nurds
who had no TV or radio and had read about this
popular beat combo
called the Beatles not the Beetles
we won't research at this time whether the name was an
Epstein - thor manager - invention
because they were a beat musc combo
so they pronounced Beatles, Beeattles
at this point weare driving at the point that almost everybody's
idea of The Beatles is not as a beat music combo
Yellow Submarine, Day in the Life
whatever
Beatles music is remembered as complex and challenging
but back in
The Cavern Club
The Beatles was about screaming teenagers
almost all female
and the public contrast between
the girlie fnadome of the Beatles
and the male and mixed fonadome of
The (Rolling) Stones
what we are gonna say here is
gave converts in
cinema type venues
essentially with the familiar
tip up permanent seating
and one rarely quoted obersvation of cinema management
of the time was that
after a Beatles concert
all the seats would be
sopping wet
so we are referring to today's Nicky campbel show
in essence
one of the fundamental differences between
males and females is
when excited
females can't keep their wee in
and males can't get their wee out
men get piss proud and women irrigate
we have to insert the smoking Sam here
do you smoke after sex?
I don't know, I've never looked
some women are regarded as
squirters
we me who will wee whilst being fucked
societies change
regarding female incontinence
there is no reason why
the public should not relish the display of
a female taking a public wee because she is excited
more attractive than the stench of
talcum powder
and this did not begin with the invention of
teenagers
the female element of Music Hall audiences were expected to
piss their sels a laughin'
and public toilets were known as the gents
bcause females were expected to stand over a drain
and hte curical point here
men needed a female free space because
MEN CAN'T PISS THOUGH A SEMI LET ALONE A FULL ON HARD



sometimes we hit something unexpected that
may be referred to as an epiphany
a point where something comes to light that
clears up a mystery
and we had a moment a bit like that last week
we were just folowing the
Nikki Allan murder trial and something
popped up unexpectedly
a little clip showing just how young
the family's Roman Catholc parish priest was
at the time of the incident was background to this
there was an interview with that priest
now, back in Ireland, thirty years later
and a realisation of just how
frightened that priest still is
of that family
and the people of that parish
we bewail constantly how
'the authorities' disipate so much resource on trivialities
but then we are brought up short to discover how
embedded into communities they often are
this trend towards
dispensing with formality
our Ricker from time to time sees on TV footage of
some sort of parade of judges at the star of a new
term in the courts
judges in their regalia
and through his mind runs the line
these things are sent to try us
the whole point of the regalia, the costimes and wigs
is to achieve some sense of insulation for judges from
people
so that we may say
we don't have a debate about it
school starts at 8.45 am
it is the timetable and not the caretaker that decides
whether you are late
it is, in our opionin, a pity that
The Day the Earth Stood Still
was remade in the way it was
in the original
and here we touch on the recent debate on
the influence of AI artificial inteligence on
human futures
the wetwear
the biological beings
devise and deploy a literal
RoboCop
exemplified by
Gort
a literal metalic Deus ex machina
a version of a
Vogon Constructor fleet
Kalaatu barada nikto
the essence of this is
there are three main characters in the film,BR> the local lass
the alien emissary male
the mechanical Deus ex machina
God beyond the fray
in essence
Gort is all powerful
but when the local lass issues the instruction
Kalaatu barada nikto
instead of carrying out a sentence of retribution
by removing planet Earth from creation
it, he, reverses the death of the emissary
don't shoot the messenger
Gort Baringa
Gort being the robot
probably means
oh can you remember
Fireball Xl5
Robbie the robot
On our way 'ome
Gort baringa
our work here is completed
the planet gets another chance to
sort itself out
and relating this to
gun crime in the USA
imagine
a law that said
you can have as many
assault rifles and grenade launchers in
you bedroom
as you like
but they will all have AI in them that means
they only 'go off' if they decide that you intended use of them
is reasonable
as we

people often say
why can't we have nice things like this...
round where we live
a part of the low hedge around Redcar Morrisons
is a row of rose bushes - wild gelder? - roses and
this time of year they put up rose buds
and this same time of year
the gardeners come along and prune all the rose buds off
before they have time to blossom
why have you got an impoverished lifestyle?
'cos youse as thick as pig muck

snce you ask, did you ask?
the dog in the Cancer Research UK story was called
Misty
now
for those who have read about Nikki Allan here
and nowhere else
we can say the current suspect has been convicted
we can also say two other things
a provious suspect tried at the time
was acquitted
and her natural father is now dead
further to this
all of this is happening
and we say happening because we expect an appeal
al of this is happening becuse Nikki's natural mother
has tirelessly campaigned for an outcome that is
to her satisfaction
and post trial statements by police
appear to predict an appeal and do not claim success
andput the responsibility for the conviction
on the jury
they were essentially saying
we we exclude he suspects the mother didn't want to be
responsible
this is the only person in the whole wide world
we could pin this very thin
tissue of circumstantial evidence on
the system may have got the right man
it may just have recruited some derelict to
get the mother off their backs

we think we have a semi-settled position on the
Allan murder caseBR> we think any half decent police service
if they were dealing with a different ethnicity
would have had the idea of
honour killing
at top of mind
and in all cases of 'prejudice'
the police and prosecution service risk
expending huge resources
actually protecting the domestic abuser and
promoting that hairy old trope
stranger danger

one of the major pitfalls with
long standing unsolved cases is
not just social but medical and technical change
for a long long long time men have had two options to
avoid fatherhood
avoid sex and wear a condom
we know that the female contraceptive is now around
60 years old
nobody of child bearing age now
was of child bearing age before The Pill
but
initially it was only available on prescription to
married women
to promote family planning
not support recreational sex
so
this little girl Nikki Allen
was concieved ball park 40 years ago
given her social class....
it is not at all certain that at the time
her mum was
trying f0r a baby
it seems unbelievable today but
although there are woman alive today who suffered
forced adoption of their child
due to being unmarried
some amy well have regarded their child going into care
with less emotion than today's 'parents'
handing a pet over to a rescue shelter
today's assumptions simply do not fit the world of
thirty years ago
in other words the law relating to
rape
was calibrated to account for two things
the victim having to go through pregnancy and childbirth
and not have the support of a child after all
the state feeling the need to raise the child
having sex was a big deal dem days
and many things and people have not
caught up with the change

we should do our 'daily report' on our response to the
Nikki Allen murder trial
and what we see so far is
no evidence that anybody
none of 890 odd local men tested
had any intimate contact with Nikki
but some evidence - CCTV - that Nikki was
playing out with a man
and a man comes to notice who had played out with girls before
or rather since
kiss the girls and make them cry
however, so far, no evidence of violence towatds anybody
and this was not a game that went wrong
for instance gross negilgence manslaughter through
enticing a a child into a derelict building
where she fell through a rotten floor and
came to a sticky end
this was an attck by a person out of control
and so
we still have available the scenario of
a parent or other guradian
finding out that Nikki was
playing out with grown men
and loosing their rag with her over it
further evidence may clarify
because we have not heard whether her father's DNA was found
on her or her clothes
or her mother's


we have a little something to impart as a rider to the recent
kids playing up at a Morrisons store
one day over the weekend
probably the Monday
security became aware of a couple of
just turned teens in Redcar Morrisons
and they game some sort of chase
what they did not see was that this was a gang of around five
thirteenyears olds - male and female
being herded like cats
by a Fagin figure of a man
in his 40s with a face mask
who retired to the Job Centre car park
and this does raise the concept that
police ignore these episodes of public disorder on the grounds that
since they are kids they wil get nowhere in court
if they cut the adrenaline and the running and
did some detective work
they may have a chance to find out what adult has
put them up to it
in this case it probably being an attempt to
purloin some high value food such as meat or cheese
and force old folk on their estate to buy it off them
I'll do you a favour I'll give you a fiver for that Rolex
an offer you can't refuse
buy this cheese
a tenner a pack
cash only
and this does

Kevin had a dad
at some stage he also had a father
Kevin's dad had a collie dog style sheepdog
not an old Englsh Sheep dog
Kevin's dad used to take her for walks
when the twoof them showed up somewhere
such as the Redcar Cancer Research charity shop
they would be going very slow and people would say
is she all right
she seems very quiet
and those who knew would say
Oh, she's fine
for now
she's in grandad mode
because grandad was in the late stages of
bladder cancer
and so to the predicament of the British public
they can go about their normal occasions OK
but if they sense the presence of police
they have to go into plod mode
don't use any long words nor nothin'
'cos you'll get arrested for
disagreeing wth a police officer
to the cops
everybody who ain't 'job' is
a bit part player, an 'extra' in their
private soap opera
and that probably extends to the detective branch
and the only Bruce Willis characters are in the SPG
whatever these days they call the Special Patrol Group


one more Redcar and Cleveland La our councillor
after Longbeck
so 23 out of 59
Vera Ruder - Independent - was re-elected
but only because The Labour only put up one candidate
and then she onlt beat the wife of the
Tory Police nd Crime Commissioner by 4 votes
people are puttng blind faith n Labour to switch the police from
prosecuting 'sins' to prosecuting crimes
did you know?
Corbyn, Hunt, The Late Queen and the present King
support or supported
the School of Hoemopathy
which may be why we got so much about
hand washng as a cure for a respiratory infection CoViD
this one of those Chinese whispers things
vaccines give you a heads up, a trivial case of the disease
the problem with Homeopathy is it's not about
immunology
it's about
eating a plant that looks a bit like the way a victim dies
then finding it is a lethal toxin not an allergen
and dilluting it to extinction
on the other hand
IF
and it's not true
if during dillution a tiny mount of a substance
'altered the memory of a bucket load of water
as soon as you tip that bucket full into the ocean
all the water in the world would gain that memory
and ay water would be the cure
you wouldn't need to buy a special tincture
these kinds or rich morons
ask
is th electricity from a nuclear power station
radioactive?
no it isn't
no more than you can slake your thirst by
watching somebody else take a drink
otherwise
every time 'they' devlop a drug
all they would have to do is drop a handful into
The Atlantic
and the whole world would be cured
so
chief medical officer who publish a report that said
Homeopathy is bunk
and replaced her with
the hand washing
or is that
hand wringing
guy
who is the only major UK figure from the
CoViD epidemic, still in post
like Dominic Raaab
give me the fundametals
in other words
the executive summary
in other words
The Ladybird Book of Mudsun

this is Greythorpe signal box
and it used to control access to and from the
RHM? Cerebos salt works and that has been flattened
so this modern level crossing links to a couple of hundred metres of farm road
and the haunting remnants of some 1960s style hard greden landscaping
and some connifers planted way too close together for a worker
recreation area - visitor centre
it actually leads to a - RSPB wildlife sancturey
Marsh House Farm
there's also Cowpen Marsh and Saltholm Marsh
and
for those interested in thes things
BTP is still there
if you have anything that is white
the wite came from BTP
but it is no longer called
British Titan Products
it's called Venaor
in essence
titanium Dioxide is like the old traditional
lead white pigment
but it is way, way, way. less toxic
and it is still made at Haverton Hill
Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees
but it is no longer made in
Grimsby


the 70 per cent completed new
Billingham Railway Station

so the cast iron stanchion is the end of the original
Middlesbrough down line platform
the rest of the pic is the extension
and to the right
space for an up line platform extension


there seems to be an assumption that
in local elections
Independent
meas closet LibDem
in Teesville
there are 3 seats
and there were 5 Independent candidates
somebody else could research voting records of
Redcar Independent councilors but
we don't think they are a cohesive group
and most were Labour supporters who
weren't selected or were deselected by Labour
we have no proof of this
however, we want to tell you a story
Sir Robert Goodwill
has sad that he is not standing for the Tories
at the next general election
we wonder whether he will follow
Michael Bates
into the Lords
but we can tell the tale of Sir Robert's first
election
note he has been both an MP and an MEP
Member of the European Parliament
he frst stood for election as a candidate to be
MP for Redcar
at the same time Michael Bates was standing for the Tories
in Langthingy
now Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
and central office sent out a message
to local Tories
stop campaigning in Redcar
and go help Mr Bates
it's very hard sometimes to work out
how political parties divide up resources
which are necessarily limited
as a little side issue
Sir Robert arrived in Redcar from his farm in North Yorkshire
and he brought with him
a deep blue ex-rental Ford Escort as a campaign car
because he didn't want to risk his
daily motor
but at the same time it was all a bit of a front
although he had a farm it was more a smallholding
and he fell between two stools because
although a close relative - perhaps his father
had been a police officer
he had been a Police Inspector
on a slightly different tack..
people don't generally buy new builds on
buy to let mortgages
new build normally means owner occupier
in terms of houses as opposed to flats, at least
so...
lots of new build homes near the former steel works
have risen in value since
the closing of the steel works
labourng jobs at the steel works are a lost cause
quality of life - pollutionwise - is up
Tory capitalisation?
not so much
more - lifelines for Olefin 6
happens to be gay but is former Wilton worker
is the choice of - admittedly successful - Tory
parliamentary candidate
and the Tory regonal mayor stands by
steel works demolition and back tracks somewhat on
airport support
and is wildly popular
and Tory central office say
get him out of there
he's making us look good in palces we
don't want to look good


these are figures we can't vouch for but
Middlesbrough appears to have gone from no overall control to
20 not Labour councillors and 27 or 29 Labour
some of these councilors were elected with
over one thousand votes
some with just over 200
there is a clear divide between two types of ward that will
on occasion vote Labour
sink estate wards are wards where the few people who vote
vote Labour hoping that the party will protect them from their neighbours
expecting councillors to have priestly powers
and the other wards where middle class people vote Labour because
their middle class lifestyles and founded on providing
support services to the underclass
probation officers, social workers, employment trainers
and they think The Labour will fund these things more generously
essentially, Labour power in the likes of Middlesbrough depend on
national and local government providing
INDIRECT support to the under class
if they were to increase work opportunities and
benefit rates
they would cut out the 'middle woman'
and middle class residents would have to find
productive work


we've read another story about a
professional being struck off their
professional reister for having sex
in this case a teacher delivers a pizza to the home of
a woman he had previously met through his teaching work
she having left school quite recently
and they have sex
do you want cock with that?
and we think
first we think
are there any acceptable forms of sex
then we think
strp away the roles as we see them and reconstrut them
through other eyes
a picture emerges of a world where everybody every male at least
who is employed in a professional role
is expected to behave as though they are
a Roman Catholic priest
this is one of the criticisms we have of
religious minorities
entryism
they are encouraged to get themselves appointed to
ethics and disciplinary boards that hold say other
members of other religions and none
and insread of saying
the man on the Clapham omnibus wouldn't like that
they say
His Hollyness The Pope wouldn't like that

we just thought we would show what the traditions of the
Arabian/Islamic world traditionally see as the
structure of a sperm

sooo
thismornin we had in the UK
a monarch
by afternoon we have
a duarchy
agovernment by two persons
duumvirate
not triumvirate
every so funny no?
a queen is crowned alone
a king has to bring the misses along
and is there a hint in the
Anglo-Saxon coin hoard story that
King Alfred of Cakes
King Alfred of Wessex
King Ceolwulf
were according to the coins a duarchy
King Camilla
who will be written out of history?
King Charles III
or
King Camilla?


we ae gonna tell you a coronation story
our Ricker is a graduate of Durham University but
he's a boy
and his mam would rather have had a girl and set her up in
a hairdressing business
so she settled for paying for him to study
optometry
thinking an opticans shop was some sort of
male equivalent of a beauty salon
and so way back in the mists of time our Ricker found himself
studying optometry at City University in London
on a particular day one of the tutors arranged some of the class to
vist the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons
our Ricker tagged along with two other students
and with time on their hands
our Ricker took his pals to visit
Manchester Square to see a museum called
The Wallace Collection
and one of the others dragged the trio somewhere else to
pick up a prescrition from
the Homeopthic Hosptal
and this was around the time that
Charlie Boy put on the pressure to have
The Homeopathic Hospital
renamed
The Royal Homeopathic Hospital
he was there to pick up some
very, very, very, very, dilute tinctures of
something supposed to be good for you
it's not called that any more it's called something that is shortened to
The Royal London Hospital
when the future king tells you that something that is
almost all water is the best cure for everything
it's not surprising that if you sell specs for a living
you don't want a zoology graduate in your profession
that's no way to a Royal Warrant
so when our Ricker's mam died mid course
it seemed appropriate that the boy be required to
withdraw from the course
the Royal London appear now to dabble in
'evidence based paliative care'


we want to comment that less than half the
retiring Redcar and Cleveland councillors
have been re-elected
a couple of minor trends
Independents who were disillusioned with Labour
have been replaced by Labour
Skelton West seems to be
a father and son??
Tories seem to have upset locals and
left them with no alternative but to elect
Labour
59 seats
two up for a re-count next week
22 Labour
overall we can say
Labour have secured seats in wards
where old people live
more exactly
where old people live and where old people have died
and their homes have gone into the
rent out the inheritance and buy to let markets

because we ended up on Middlesbrough station we had
ten minutes to consider the
LNER Azuma direct trains to London
and their one extended platform
frst, they knocked down an old signal box on
the platform - the up - that they didn't extend
it seems to us that plans to extend both platform were cut back
these trains operate
'weekdays' - Monday to Friday
we say 'these trains'
it appears to be THIS train
and it operates Monday to Friday when it is available
it sets off around 7.30 am and gets back around 6.20 pm
and because there is nowhere to park it in Middlesbrough
each morning we suspect it has to
trundle down 'out of service' from
Heaton coach sidings in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
and then trundle off back to bed of an evening
SO
it can't arrived long before the early morning departure
or hang around after the evening arrival
because
platform 2 is the only place in Mddlesbrough it can be parked
so it would block the line if it hung around
just to say, it has three 'station stops'
Middlesbrough, Thornaby, London Kings Cross
we get the message that it would be
'safe' overnight in Heaton
but would be vandalised if it slept overnight
in Redcar wher ethere is a suitable siding
or in Saltburn where there is a spare platform
to be charitable we could say
it can be re-fuelled in Heaton and would rather not re-fuel at King's Cross
and can't re-fuel at Redcar or Saltburn
just the one train...
we are sure a number of people in Redcar would like a job
cleaning and giving a minor service to an Azuma train
perhaps
very perhaps
the extension of the TransPennine Express services to Saltburn
is designe to allow
LNER to adopt the Redcar goods yard for their exclusive use
perhaps that would require the assumed original plan to tengthen
both platorms at Middlesbrough to be re-instated
in effect that would involve raising the level of the
footpath between platform 1 and the car park
to platform level
much less work then is currently 70 per cent done at
Billingham station

on the right here we see a rack full of turbine blades

here we have four turbine pylons next to
an electricity pylon that is
carrying electricity away from
Hartlepool nuclear power station
and lower right we see the remnants of
the Brent Oil Field

foreground, turbine blade stash
distant right turbine pylons
extreme right
itty bitty ship that will carry the turbines
with their pylons and blades
out to sea
sitting in Greythorpe dock

we have a coupe of points to make
if you travel along the Redcar to Middlesbrough rail line
you may think that a ready mixed concrete factory
has been built
not wrong but that is
construction 'falseworks'
they mix the concrete on site and then take the
concrete plant away
that's South bank coke works
there pics are of the Greythorpe Dock near seaton Carew fro the north side and
this is more temp works as
the frilly brown structure is the last of the
Brent oil platform in for scrapping
andtis whole Greythorpe project is to
get some wind turbines up as the
real assembly facility at South Bank
is being constructed
ad we want to refer again to the
Have Got News for You guy corruption story
Carbon Capture and Storage is a bust
it's like
we're running out of Natural Gas
let's invest billions in finding
new markets for it
like the Redcar, Shell
bridge to nowhere
there was goin to be an oil refinery and
Shell just got as far as building a railway bridge
we note that the down line platform at middlesvrough station has been
extended for the London trains but the up platform has not been extended
we assume the trains pull into platform 2 and depart from platform 2
<.p>

these may be the last pics we will have of the
Majuba Road Playpark
because our Rcker won't feel comfortable
getting his 'phone out in the area
once children are allowed in

as of this weekend
the 'smaller' of the two gas holders at
Redcar steel works is down, disappeared
and they are even taking up the
railway tracks
there is a air of the ongoing
vindictive about how thorough they are being
but time will tell whether
anything replaces all this
and perhaps
a completely clean slate means a cheaper re-build
and we note that the Majuba Road development has
moved on to the stage of 'letting' the lease on the
phase 2 'stack' watersports venue
so we will need to see how far
over the coming week
the removal of the
site huts from the east car park
progresses
a bit of final black top needed as of Sunday

the latest on our Locke park boy
the feathers on his neck that he
wasn't able to clean quickly enough
have fallen out
but he's growing new ones


we are getting more ad more distured aout this
Nikk Allan murder case
so far as we can tell
all the evidence seems to be about how shocking the events were
apart from a link from an artist's impression of a bloke who wasBR> white, tall and not bald...
nothing presented so far seems to link
the current accused wth the events
purely based on the published material
we would be looking at the natural father
he was described as having behaviour on the nght
that could be described as
hyper (active)
the probem with a case so cold is
is there any suspect with a history of violence?
so far we have evdence on the violence of this attack
but no information - perhaps it is being withheld to
avoid prejudicing the jury
but
irrelevant details of the actual attack
that could easly prejudice a jury
are being presented
from a criminological perspective
if there is no history of violence
we should seek a trigger for a violent outburst
the prosecution have implied that perhaps this was
before DNA was well developed
and so silencing a witness ws a routine action
a suggestion that the accused may have
had a go at feeling the victim up and she had screamed
and he had sought to silence her
anyone thinking that clearly
would have know that a
frenzied attack was neither needed nor wise at that time
a big bloke like that could achive silence very deftly
we are told that Nikki was skipping along bahind a man
just before the event
if we suggest that the man she was skipping along behind
was her natural father
we could imagine a possibility that
that father was incensed by the idea that his ex partner
had sent his daughter after him to spy on him
is this whole trial intended to
flush out somebody whom the natural father was
planning to meet in that then derelict building
to come forward and give evdence
what we are saying here is
man followed by child
in a style that suggests this was the child's idea
and not the man's idea

it's wind turbine assembly season again in Hartlepool
from the left
two and a half wind turbine pylons, nanny great crane, nuclear power station


there are bits of writing that we seem to repeat and repeat
We like Have i Got News for You
the chap who runs, owns, whatever
the satrical magazine
Private Eye
this is the story
long long time ago
people decided that
Teesside was a conurbation
and for local government purposes it should not be
part of
either County Durham or
the North Riding of Yorkshire
at firtt something called Teesside was established
between 1968 and 1974
it was a stand alone County Borough
then came the Radcliffe-Maude commission
is that Redcliffe? probably
this essentially 'invented' the two level arrangement
of local government
districts and county boroughs
the main feature of this second attempt at re-organisation was
that 1 the name went from Teesside to Cleveland
and hartlepool was added
Hartlepool - or The Hartlepools, Hartlepool and West Hartlepool
is a sea port
the river Tees does not run through it
Darlngton was never in Teesside or Cleveland
despite the fact that the river Tees does run through it
it's all to do with the Whitehall
pin a tail on a donkey
approach to regional government
here is the crunch bit
at that time national government considered Teesside to be
and industrial area
and so
all these matters change over time but
the idea was that
the district authorities would collect business rates
at the time there was a small hospital - Middlesbrough General
and a polytechnic
in Middlesbrough
some but not a lot of business rates could be collected
the basic concept of Cleveland County was
Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool, the rest
Middlesbrough was and is residential
the reason for the present
Redcar and Cleveland
being so big is that
for purposes of business rates collection and
planning etc. supervision
remember County Cleveland was set up at a time when
HASAWA - Health and Safety at Work act
and it's national agency had not fully bedded in
essentially
the boundaries were set so that
all the steel works on Teesside were
either in Hartlepool or Langthingy
Langthingy being the then name for Redcar and Cleveland
and spelt
Langbaurgh
and because some of the were and still are
in Skiningrove - Carlin How
it was though inappropriate to call the district
Redcar
and all the chemical works were put inside the boundaries of
Stockton or Langthingy
here's the essence of the beef of
Middlesbrough politicians
at inception, and now not for a long time
the district councils collected business rates
and handed them over to the county - Cleveland County
Cleveland County then spent these monies
in Middlesbrough
thelikes of Andy Macdonald are
proper miffed that
when ever anything business style is built in
Redcar and Cleveland
such as the replacement for Redcar steel works
the business rates will be shared
mainly equally
between
national Government and Redcar and Cleveland
and none of it will be handed over to
Middlesbrough Borough Council
except some of the National share on application
Mr macdonald is callingn that
corruption on an industrial scale
people in Redcar may say
we put up with a tsunami of shit from the steel works for
half a century
and the 'compensation payments' were shovelled at The Boro


we aren't sure this is a secret or not
buying packed meat in Redcar Tesco
can be a bit embarrassing
the secret bit is that there s a security tag
on the reverse side of the label
the problem is
Tesco have installed and retained inadequate checkouts
when you scan the bar code
you can swipe the item across either the bed of the wall
of the checkout
the tip is
try to remember to ignore the vertical scanner window
scan the bar code across the table top, bed, floor
or the checkout not the window or wall that is facing you
because
the window or wall scanner will scan your item
and add it to your bill
BUT
the window can't cancel the security tag
the bed can
and packed meat
blocks the cancelling signal
between the checkout and the tag
if you put the meat between the tag and the bed of the checkout
there's a similar problem at
Redcar Wilkinsons
you have to deliberately cancel the tag as well as scanning the item
unless they've fixed that recently


the only Dominic Raab story we know is about
civil servants running a sweep on
who, when typing up a letter for him<
could get the most As in the middle of his name
without being pulled up about it
in other words they thought he was
super dim
g
we haven't discovered a convincing explanation of the
origin of the term
gollywog
we know the term wog comes from
wiley oriental gentleman
a direct experence of golliwog in UK culture is
the fact that golliwog did not appear in 2009 editions of
Noddy
given the personal characteristics of the present king
perhaps Bigears was omitted too
our Ricker has vague memories of paper Golliwogs
trapped behind the labels on
Robertsons jam or some such
we guess you pulled them out and they were either
a sticker set
or some sort of
token or voucher
all this is very
intergenerational
to some 'young adults' the character is anathema - unacceptable
and we think perhaps they were a part of
in stories the 'baddies' are always
black or disfugured or ugly or handicapped
by contrast
under eleven female people of
some AfroCaribbean descent
bemoan
why are there no dollies that look like me in
toy shops?
as so often
the Afro folk ignore the steroetyping of
didfigurement and non-pigment related 'otherness'
but there is one Noddy book where
Gollywog (black guy) entices Noddy (white taxi driver)
into the dark forest (the hood)
where he is robbed by other golliwogs
and that was published in the 1950s
and there is a little theme going here
the idea that
on a dark and stormy night
black people are invisible
there is a little story our Ricker remembers from being
a student at Newcastle-uopn-Tyne medical school
there were part time teaching assistants
and one of them was a little old lady in her 70s
and the tutors had been given crib sheets with
mug shots over names on a sheet
and the little old lady says to points out the
African guy's picture and says
it's a good thing Mr Whoever smiled
or the photo would have been entirely black
and a couple of things stem from that
pasport phots are not supposed to show teeth
and there is a current ad in the UK
a woman of African lineage is saying
something about modern cameras or makeup or whatever
back in the day I was always just a brown smudge in photos
there is an assumption that 'white' people can
dead easy distinguish other white people
but all Blacks look the same to me
this is probably wildly overstating the ability of
a white person to distinguish two white strangers

we have a bit more clarity over phase one of the
Majuba Road platpark
it looks like the no pengns bit nearer town - east
s likely to be free
and you'll have to pay to do the penguine based
adventure golf further along

on a rather sad note
it does make you wonder...
a few bunches of flowers laid on a crescent of
litle jewels of toughened glass fragments
and two floors up a boarded up window
Newcommen Terrace
the end of a life
make it safe
make it idiot proof
make it suicide proof
should all upper floor windows be
toughened AND laminated?


yesterday our Ricker saw something worht writing home about
a bloke on a bike
waiting at traffic lights

according to Boswell
Samuel Johnson
made his most famous remark on
7th April 1775
Patriotism is the last refuge of the Scoundrel
we have a modern day version of this
perhaps in terms of law enforcement it goes
Child protection is the last refuge of the
work shy
man had contact with child
must be the very
epitome of
low hanging fruit
if they brought back statutes of limtation
re Nikki Allan
the murder squad would be out of work
since boy kills boy ranks as
dog bites man
man kills woman rates as
a legend for the ages
it's quite extraordinary that the
Ministry of Disinformaton
has to drag up a case from 30 years ago
to try to convince 'the people'
that allowing little girls to
play out
constitutes
child neglect
compare with Sherlock Holmes
Baker Street Irregulars
kids who know what is going down on the streets
and can clue in the authorities
too busy dobbin' each other in for
not being gay
The Cadaver synod
was the ecclesiastical trial of
Pope Formosus
we had been dead for seven months
n 897
what we have now
suspects deemed not fit to stand trial and so
a media circus
called
a trial of the facts
so we see
a trial of the facts
not
a trial of the defendant
essentially
this is a turf war between
coroners courts
and criminal courts
the criminal courts are so short of 'work'
entertainment
that they are
encroaching
big time
on
civil proceedings
and
coronorial proceedings
see the piggies run
coronation or crowning
the American editors of BBC news output
have introduced a word
coronated
King Charles will be
coronated
King Charles will be crowned
vinegar and brown paper
Jack and Jill
went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell bown and broke his crown
and Jill came tumbling after
up Jack got
and home did trot
as fast as he could caper
he went to bed
to mend his head
with vinegar and brown paper
there will be aname for that
rhyme within a rhyme structure
jack and gill are measures of
normally alcoholic drinks
the rhyme may be about
watered beer or beer tax

if we quote the measure of UK inflation that was
used up until 'for january 2023'
it is now 8.9 per cent
clearly there is profit taking
and
people are feeling flush
and have better things to do than
look for bargains
that may change.

weare about to explain something you don't really don't
need to know
if you arrange for a predator such as a human or a dog
to join in a race
they will proceed towards the finish line
if you organise a race for a prey species
such as a horse
they are running away from the start line
and so you need to be very careful how you start a horse race
if the prey species are
startled
or in the jargon
spooked
they will not set off down the track but will
scatter
running into fences and rails
and injuring themselves
and each other

The Eurovision Caterwauling Contest is upon us yet again
our Ricker skips the thrash
and watches the voting
that's where the entertainment lies



governments pass and enforce laws
and they raise and spend taxes
one of the main expressions of
rasing and spending taxes is
the NHS
free at the point of use and paid for out of taxation
that is clear and OK
but is compromised by some people who
take advantage
for example
everybody should have dental care that
keeps them pain and infection free and able to eat normal food
but there is a grey area where people can argue that
a need for cosmetic dentistry
affects their mental health and economic prospects
and to put some sort of brake on those demands
charges apply for some 'non-essential'
healthcare services
that is the basic foundation of the NHS
and is enough to be going on with
however
the growing complication is
the post code lottery in quality of health care
in other words there are two factors at work here
1 if you decide that it is the NHS's responsibility that
every inhabitant of the country is entitled to the same
quality of life
some people come from a very different starting point
some re disabled or handicapped and some are 'deprived'
and cost more to get up to scratch
2 a lot of people are involved in the work to get
everybody's life up to scratch
and those people will vary in competance
it is a fundamental of the much vaunted
levelling up
that
the most skilled must work to help the most
difficult cases
and NOT that the most skilled should work
in the capital city
in London


since this past weekend
Marks and Spencer
have had no clothing outlet on Teesside
there are two M&S foodhalls in Redcar and Cleveland
one in Teesville ner Eston and one is Guisborough
we know that M&S used to have a tiny store on
Redcar High Street
half food hall, half clothing
it's due for demolition before summer 2023
we think
if South Tees Development Corporation don't mind...
an ideal location for a proper M&S for South Tees would be
Kirkleatham Business Park


some of us are old enough to have witnessed chamges in
medical care
we can take an example of a passenger on a train
and she's sitting opposite yer Ricker and chatting
and yer Ricker is a bio-medical scientist
but not the lab tech type, the 'theoretical scientist' type
and Ricker knows quite a lot about medsun
but he isn't licenced to treat patients
and as the long journey - Intercity - progresses
he knows that the young woman sitting opposite him
and chatting to him
is slowly sliding into an
epileptic seizure
and so the question
as it becomes clear that the episode is not going to
pass off
what announcement/appeal should our Ricker make to the
assembled fellow passengers?
and since this is a real world example we can say
our Ricker asked
is there a nurse on board?
not is there a doctor here
because we have a reversal of roles
nurses and in particular
paramedics
are the people with the medical skills
and doctors - medical students - are chosen for their
relatable qualities
when paramedics came in
in Redcar
Dr. Davidson
if he ever came across anybody who was
ill or had had an accident
he'd ring for an ambulance straight awy
and we would say between a third and a half of
ambulance call outs in Redcar
are to GP surgeries
go to the doctors and ask if they think you are
ill or injured enough to be
let into hospital
our Ricker has been in James Cook after hours
and THAT's where the tumble weed blows
nine o'clock in the morning it's heavng with
the cold, bored and lonely
by the time Corrie and Stenders - Eastenders
are on the telly it's a ghost town
we've moved from
doctors diagnising and presecribing and
nurses treating and phamacists dispensing
to technicians running tests
computers diagnosing and prescribing
nurses and pharmacists treating
and doctors
reassuring and consoling


something a bit strange has happened to some
electricity prices
in the middle of the winter we had
eon next
unrestricted 31 pence rising to 36.12
restricted access 16 rising to 18.87
it appears that now
unrestricted has goe up to
39.15 and restricted - available for
seven hours during the night
has gone from
18.87 to 17.96
there appears to be a policy here
the idea seems to be that
people who use electricity for
broadly 'electronic' purposes
TV, computer, electric cooking etc
are being forced to subsidise
peopl using electricity for
heating purposes
we have not kept record of trends in
standing charge but we understand they have
not risen much
currently � 4.37 per week
62p per day
it could be said that for the moment...
it's spring so demand for electricity for heating
will be declining anyway and so
demand for electricity supplied overnight will fall
so cutting the rate will have little impact on bills
what will be interesting will be...
over the summer we expect little or no
expensive gas to be used to generate electricity
and so if the expensive electricity is not being made
the cost of electricity should fall back to
reflect the cost of generating from
wind, solar and nuclear
in that context we would suggest that
over the summer
people with standard - normal - key meters
top up
little and often
as prices should be falling

this is locke Raod railbridge
any discussion of UK rail infrastructure is bedevilled
with a date problem
over the past half century the UK's rail tracks have
belonged to three entities in succession
Brtish Rail nationalised
Rail Track privatised
Network Rail nationalised
at some point Redcar And Cleveland Council
when based in Eston - not Redcar
was approached by one of the latter two on that list
who said
we are going to renew Locke Road Railbridge
we will pay for a like for like replacement
would you like to pay for us to widen the bridge and road
the council declined
but there is a space for that project.....
so we have three project proposals
widen Coathem Road
widen Locke Road
build a railbridge at Redcar Central Station


say you are running an amusement park in the
late 20th century
there wll be kiddie rides and rides for
teenagers
and at first you think
you ask yourself
how can I keep he kiddies off the teen rides where
they may get hurt
so you set up a height limit
perhaps for both sections
over i metre not allowed in the kiddie section
under 1 metre not allowed in the teen section
and an employee of yours who lives with dwarfism...
asks
is that wise?
most people under a metre high are not dwarves or amputees
but some are
some AfroCaribbeans are like David Lammy
some are like Clive Myrie
is there a common characteristic between
black bufoons and non-black bufoons?
so that one can be recognised without reference to
skin tone?
so afr as we can tell
bufoonery is a sort of slap stick comedy
and perhaps the bufoon in a troop specialises in
prat falls and other gymnastic comedy
and therefore - probably - without a speaking part
the most famous bufoon in popular culture would be
Stan Laurel
or Laurel and Hardy
and yet
AfroCaribbean people associate the term with
people of their own race
as a sideline
Stan Laurel - the real man, Arthur Stanley Jefferson
was deaf in one ear
and so Hardy could genuinely talk to a audience at Laurel's deaf side
and there is a crunch in the offing
AfroCaribbean people will have to face a reckoning over the question
you have had a generation of affirmative action
has it broken you through that famous
glass ceiling?




some electricity sub stations are not very big








most of the homes on this part of Coatham Road have
a spacious clean, clear back lane

the Black and Decker Carbon Capture and Storage rig is back

there are undoubtedly people alive in the UK today who
were born before the NHS national Heath Service
was launched
but they would have been too young to have been
involved in the orgaisation of their healthcare
probably
so we have to rely on what we were told by people who
fought and paid for healthcare earlier for insights
essentially
medicine had three elements
doctors
nurses
specialists
essentially if you had a health need you contacted a doctor
the doctor had three options
treat you himself
hand you down to a nurse
refer you up to a specialist
'I've been to see the specialist'
was the phrase often used
and here we have a dichotomy in modern medicine
you do A' levels
you get into medical school
you used to do a
2nd MB
to become a sort of Bachelor of Medicine
and then you progressed to Bachelor of Medicine
like Bachelor of Arts or of Science
and after a while you would
specialise in your training
and there you were, a specialist
but nobody in the old days would have referred to
a visit to the family doctor as
a visit to a specialist
in a way a GP General Practitioner is the
medical equivalent of a police officer
Jack of all trades, Master of none
but now, special skills do attach to General Practice
but this is not the kicker
all of this is fine and dandy
but on top of this
mostly driven by the law courts
we have
Junior Doctor and Consultant
in essence
in law
driven by the insurance and legal industries
the standard defence is
I've been doing this this way for twenty odd years
or
I was working under the supervision of my consultant
who has been doing this this way fro twenty years
it is very recently that a
consultant breast surgeon working for both
Spire Medical and the NHS was found in court to have been
doing it WRONG for twenty odd years
and jailed
it is medical administrators in a vice grip between
insurance companies
and
fee chasing lawyers
who make
any suggestion of objective assessment so difficult
and so recently we have also seen calls for the
inspectorate that oversees education standards
to be abolished
because
being failed is stressful
the GP our Ricker had for many years
was fundamentally miffed because
for some reason he was not allowed to
branch out not minor surgery
our Ricker damaged a finger and allowed that GP to drill a little hope in a finger nail to release trapped blood
Keith was really satisfied to be allowed to do something
hands on
for a change
but here is a deep dilemma
at that stage of selecting a specialism
f a student is selected for
for instance, brain surgery
once selected
no matter how much of a hash they make of it
they will be a brain surgeon for the rest of their career
but not in London, in Great Salop
no question of
switch to something less challenging
always go somewhere where they don't have the internet
and this is when
the shit comes down
when there is nowhere where 'they' don't have the internet
two parts of the problem are
admission tutors have a limited number of medical school places
and their defence is - sometimes
I have a limited number of places and
if I'd turned THEM down
I'd be accused of sesism or racism
the opposite problem applies to our Ricker
his dad's first wife died after having Mr Munroe Black
remove her throat due to a cancer that was mistaken for a goiter
and after his eldest had trained as a dentist
and so
eldest saw Ricker as a potential partner - dentist
and dad didn't want Ricker involved with anything
involving bodies - remembering he had been on active service
in France in the First World War
so, some parents desperate for the cudos of a child in med school
other parents daed against their precious doing that sort of thing
and the other problem
parents want kid in med school
kid goes out of duty to parents
completely in the wrong job


when a thing for example a building
has been in our daily life from the earliest times
we may miss that it is important
we are talking about Coathem Road
and the cost of a railway bridge on West Dyke Road
some os the fact that West Dyke Road is congested s because
locals know that parts of Coatham Road are not wide enough for
on street parking on the north side and
at the same time two buses to pass in opposite directions
the discrepency is not great - a few feet or one metre
and for the most part
the on street parking is for homes on the north side
and on the south side there are mainly
the side gardens of end terrace houses
overall a widening scheme for Coatham Road would be a lot
cheaper than a rail bridge on West Dyke Road
despite Redcar Cricket Ground being
historic and ancient
it could sustain the loss or a metre or two of land
on the north and west sides
the real sticking point is that
Christ Church Coatham
on Coatham Road has a Lych Gate
however
the Lych gate is opposite the Old Church School
now Anchor? supported living and the
head teacher's garden
is very big and fronts Coatham Road
and so a it of a dog leg in a widened Coatham Road
could preserve the lych gate
the whole Christ Church Coatham story is interesting
it was built at the expense of a female member (by marriage) of the
Turner family bacause
as a woman she was denied the full rights of use of
St. Cuthbert's Kirkleatham
essentially a plan to exclude her from the Turner mauseleum
so she had Christ Church built on Coatham Marsh
and perhaps again she was thwarted in her wish to buried in
style in a mauseleum
so she had a lych gate incorporated in the design
a lych gate is a stone and timber gazeebo at the gates of a churchyard
where the coffin of the deceased can sort of
lie in state for a while before the funeral and interment
and that brings us to the
mortuary that was incorporated in the sea wall
just west of the Regent Cinema
before the old sea wall was removed and replaced with the current one
some people may have thought it was just a lookout jetty
but it was place to store the bodies of washed up fishers
until their port of origin could be determined form the
design on their ganzie
each fishing village had a distinctive pattern knitted into
the ganzie or Gurnsey or pull over

all the while we are trying to make sense of
what is on the ground
without having inside information
there is a plan for a 42 bed hotel on Majuba Road
There is also an 'idea' of a prosumably larger hotel
pedant note - an 'otel, a hotel
larger one on Wilton International
both would be
South Tees Development Corporation funded
we are thinking...
a 'boutique hotel' on Majuba Road opposite the projected Arena site
would be essentially for
on and off stage 'talent' working at the Arena


we now have a
ball park figure for the cost of
a road bridge over the railway on West Dyke Road at
Redcar Central Station
incidentally, we wonder whether Redcar East is due for closure???
allowing Redcar central to revert to Redcar
the cost of a simple raibridge of this scale appears to be
between 30 and 50 million pounds
we know of pedsetrians who would rather
wait for the gate and cross on the level
but if rail traffic increases that may seem less attractive
there is already at least one major road through
the Cleveland Hills that has a
crawler lane
for the heavies
more industry in East Ceveland could mean more rail traffic
through Redcar


it is quite interesting that the halving of the floor space of
Redcar Central Library
had not lead to a reduction in the amount of shelving fro books
the idea seems to be
CoViD meant working from home
Belmont House, Guisborough not longer needed
end of lock down more desk space needed in
Redcar And Cleveland House
boot out the library and infromation services..
and the result
halve the floor plan of the library
effect
pre-school library services
no longer at the opposite end of the building from the reference section
it's OK and it's certainly no chore for the kiddy winks
in keeping with the current run up to Charlie Boy's corronation
it just struck us, walking around what is left of the library
and the energy saving lights
automatically switching on like fron door security lights
you could, in romantic mood, feel like it's like
a monarch processing through their realm
and flowers and rushes being strewn in their path

around now our Ricker is experiencing a sort of
Indian Summer
in his health and over the holidays did a tiny bit of tidying up
as a result he discovered a party invitation from decades ago
and an error became apparent
if some many years ago he had put
Elzabeth Pimm cambridge
into Google, instead of
Liz Pym
history may have turned out very differently
ho hum
if still alive the former
Liz Pym-Smith would be 81 years old around now

there has been a bit of a plannning dispute
sometimes architectural preservation seeks to
preserve such as a Cotswold village as
an integrated, pure and complete example of architcture
of a particualr type and era
Coatham in Redcar, England has a conservation area
and it more is an object lesson in
developemnt through history
The Battle of Majuba Hill was a battle in
The First Boer War in South Africa
This building was erected by the family who
dominated Redcar and district up until
the coming of the Railways
They wee the Turner family
later Coatham was expanded and remodelled
by the Pease family

this terrace was built by the Pease family on what is called
Coatham Road
and here we get into a little diversion
Redcar has a High Street East
And
a High Street West
but
High Street West, Redcar is also
High Street, Coatham
some of the houses in the Coatham Road terrace
which were originally constructed of
Pease White Bricks
have clearly had a colour change
the point her is
referring back to thefirst pic
that is The New Inn, Coatham
and honestly it is quite big but
a local couple want to extend it and make a
single dwelling out of two of its floors
and use the third floor as a holiday let
to make the holiday let viable
they want to raise the two flanking wings to the
highest level
they have secured permission for this and some
other alteration at the rear - demolition of stables etc
in face of opposition from conservation officers
our ricker cannot remember the building without
the concrete tile roofs nd pebble ashed walls
but in all his time it has looked like
a reform school or youth custody centre
since half the roof will be higher and new
will they match the concrete tiles
or install a complete new roof in 'modern style'
flat grey concrete to mimic -Pease slate
as opposed to green concret in a form
minicing red clay pantiles as on the presereved
nearby fishers cottages??
the Turner family were in their pomp in the
17th century
Sir William Turner was a Lord Mayor of London
the Pease family in the 19th century











in this sequence
daad approaches from the right
and mum and dad
get close



meanwhile
in another part of the forest...
the boys are touting ofood
we thought - since we could we would
show you what a
low voltage - UK 230 volts - looks like
this is the sort of old stock probaby in use in
any part of Redcar - or similar towns - built more than
multi stranded to make it more like
a 'flex' than a cable
more conductor - less insulation
and in this case wrapped in waxed paper not plastic


and this little bit of petty vandalism is
courtesy of somebody who thinks
looking after the environment
costs jarbs

as previously hinted
P J O'Connor
appear to have taken over from
Erith Group
tidying away the last remains of
Redcar coke works
on Easter Sunday
we had four swans in Locke Park
the two boys

and mum and dad
mum on the right here we think


we - the railway between redcar and Saltburn - also had
a visit from the Flying Banana

the full rig track testing train that appears
no longer to be exIntercity 125 hauled
but a change of livery may have fooled us
East Coast Locomotive
normally run 125s but perhaps as it flashed past it was
a change of livery that fooled us

we probably need to say something about
Junior Doctors' pay
first we should say they should just be doctors
there should be no
'consultants'
the consultant role or grade was invented to induce
doctors who had long been in private practice
at the time of the founding of the
National Health Service
to join the NHS as
consultants or contractors
and not as employees
any such 'established' doctors should by now have
long since retired
that aside the pay erosion
issue is simple
if you bar old time super smart people
from the ranks of doctors
and hire Sunderland University graduates
not Durham graduates
the salery expectations for
doctors who leave the profession
are way less
doctor pay has to become
Sunderland University graduate pay
simples
they aren't smart enough to
leave for a better paid job
smart enough to try, but not smart enough to succeed


our Ricker has had one of those moments
it has long been his hope to move
from the back bedroom to the front one
he has not been well enough to clear a space
for a bed
this weekend past
he set to, to clear away or stack more like
things discarded a decade ago
in the process he found an envelope
it had been sent to him at work by his
line manager
a contentious issue because his co-manager
regarded herself as Ricker's line manager
and so
Ricker's boss was called
Rosanna
and to our Ricker, Rosanna was the only
woman he'd ever met whom he thought
would amke a proper job of
bringing up children
and for years
as is so much the case
he had forgotten her surname
so there it was with her office address
Rosanna Burniston
he's chucked it back on the pile
his time with Rosanna was really weird
once a month she would turn up at the shop
Sue Ryder Care in Thirsk
with another area manager in tow
never the same one
and
glare at our Ricker across the work table
eventually she sacked him
and then
a month or two later
Sue Ryder Care sacked her
the thing was
that co-manager
she had been retail director in charge of half a dozen shops
in Hartlepool that she ran for
Hartlepool Hospice
and her mum had maked from Hartlepool to a
static caravan in Thirsk
and so
this manager wanted a job nearer to her mum so she could live in
another static caravan on the same site
and
well
we wonder
did Rosanna and a fellow area manager make visits to the shop
on the days our Ricker wasn't there
it was a job share so she could look after her mum
and our Ricker got sacked immediately after
there was a mx up and both co-managers
turned up at the shop on the same day
Sue Ryder Care is a charity and so
their retail wing should perhaps be charitable
but it is an example of
a charity may choose to back the employee who
most needs the job
rather than the employee most able and willing to do the job
but this
charitable approach seems to pervade society
we do hope Rosanna got to raise children for somebody else
however, we do note that
she was replaced in that role
by a man
and that may have lead the co-manager to leave
after a further year or so of
being
Queen of the Midden
we found just two references to Rosanna Burniston on tinternet
and they relate to Sue Ruder Care and date to 2013
although Rosanna was living in Knaresborough at the time
the Burnistons are a Redcar family
our Ricker had the impression that a nurse at
our Ricker's local GP practice could have been a sister or such of Rosanna
not that we are suggesting that this lead to Rosanna having any
confidential information about him


we take some of our information from
The Grimsby Telegraph
and their latest angle is informative
they say - to paraphrase
the closure of the Scunthorpe coke works will
cost 250 people their jobs
BUT
around 100 of those people are routinely working
more than 48 hours a week to keep the plant open
in other words
them dick heads in London think by keeping the works open
they are protecting jarbs
in effect
they are costing jobs because
people in Scunthorpe would rather
work at McDonalds than at the steel works
union reps say that
worker shortages are affecting all departments
at Scunthorpe steel works
and another thing
people can'r say
I've been working here fro thirty years
and at the same time say
I've got a mortgage
when Redcar shut
hacks - journalists
scurried around looking for people who's mortgage was threatened
and came up with one guy who had
divorced, re-married a devorcee
and so had a mortgage in his late fifties
other than that
mortgages paid off


our Ricker sez
we may have made a swan error
we thought it may have been dad who got
eriously oiled
but it now appears that it was one of the boys
and the error seems to have derived from
the oiled youngster fluffed himself up so much
that he looked bigger than his dad
we guess he's still pretty smelly
a nd that's why he's being kept away by
the other two
he's solved the head and heck problem by
rubbing his head on his wing
and then preening the wing
in theory he is combing the oil down his body
not deliberately swallowing it
we guess it won't stick well to his legs and feet

we will offer a little advice
on feeding swans - semi-tame ones
if you hold out grain on your hand
a swan may mistake your hand for a
slice of bread
and try to take the whole thing
resulting in nipped fingers
better to put any food on the ground
they will find it
BUT
don't overdo it
if there is too much feed
the birds will leave it for rats
we've never tried it but
in theory
throwing popcorn into the water for them
may be the best - if a little expensive - option

Easter has just passed and Easter is
a springtime festival that is not unique to
Christianity
whatever any particular Church chose as their
Bible quote for the season
we have chosen to discuss
Matthew 19: 13-20
suffer
in this context means
allow
13 Then were there brought unto Him little children
that He should put his hands on them, and pray
and the disciples rebuked them

14 but Jesus said, Suffer the little children,
and forbid them not
to come unto me
for such is the kingdom of heaven

15 And He laid hands on them
and departed thence

then Jesus lists sins
murder, adultery, stealing, lying
disrespect of parents, hatred of neighbours
we need to clarify one of these terms
in this context
adultery
means
cuckoldry
a cuckold
and we think
Ann Bolyn may have been exectuted by Henry 8 for attempting this
she is supposed to have confessed at her execution?
her short speech can be paraphrased as
I did a bad thing for a good reason
and her only surviving child
3 years old at the time of her mother's death
did go on to become
Queen Elizabeth the First
who knows
a cuckold is a woman who marries a man
and gets pregnant by another man
and convinces her husband that he is the
biological father of the child
DNA makes that
Michael Jackson
sorta pre-DNA
'the boy is not my child'
'the kid is not my son'
can of worms
the song Billie Jean is supposed to be about
groupies claiming that MJ's elder brothers were the
biological father of their children
it is said - no fact check - that
Adam West - a most famous 'original' TV batman
delivered semen to fans as
'his form of autograph'
but we don't know of anybody
claiming he was the father of their child
the Ann Bolyn story is that
she was married to King Henry 8
at a time when he was no longer
able to get it up
and she was so desperate to produce a male heir
she touted for a surrogate father

there is a sort of Satanic Verses
angle to this
first though
the local - in time and place - high child mortality
probably lead to a concept that
investment in children under around seven years
would likely be wasted because most would not
achieve adulthood
Roman catholic charities have long tried to counter that
investing heavily in
pre-school and school education
probably in face of dropping child mortality
in times of the Industrial revolution
when we consider
Settlers in the American mid-West
a plot of land, a wife and a dozen children
were the norm
in some cases
only 'family men' would be allowed to stake a claim on land
the wife and children were the Workforce
of each
Small Businessman Farmer
in a sense
takng the short to medium term view
for instance
only the head of household need be able to read
although
i the next step up - in settlement devlopment
a church for the promulgation of the spoken word
and a schoolhouse for the eaching of
Reading wRiteing and aRithmetic
the 3 Rs
would emerge
initially, the US or State governments wereonly
interested in
turning the land over to
Sodbusters
people who would turn the Prairies from
cattle grazing grassland
to
cereal - wheat, oats, etc
'for human consumption
crops
essentially, the wind blew away the soil in the
period of the year
between ploughing and the crop establishing itself
previously the grass had protected the soil structure
n fine terms
a farmer may benefit from having
seven sons to till the earth and seven daughters to
provide wives for the sons of neighbours
but the local blacksmith only had time to train
one or at most two sons in his craft
and so as technology grew
family sizes shrank
and chldren needed to get an early start on
their learnin'
and then there's a problem
if the local blacksmith has nothin' but daughters
somefather or other is gonna have to let
one of his sons be
apprenticed to the blacksmith
and then the tension
does a boy
honour his farmer father
or
his skill master blacksmith?
we can read into that Matthew quote
Jesus was a teacher
his disciples were teachers
teaching men is OK
but teaching women and children
distorts social hierarchies
especially household politics
and so we have
child prodigies
very young chess aces and
mathematical geniuses
learning at seven
things most people need to wait for
university
to learn about
and this is predominantly a feature of
South Asian cultures
parents in South Asian Cultures tend to see
a gifted child as
a gift from God
and not a threat to social cohesion
all very well but
BUT
the major defence against
children getting above themselves
is to suggest that
their teachers are not
educating them
but
grooming them for abuse
and the Bible quote is very specific
it does not say
and Jesus set to to teach the children
it says
Jesus laid habds on them
and the Satanic undertone of that is that
Jesus' discples knew He was a paedophile
and took pains to keep him away from children


the story of Scunthorpe steelworks
hasn't had much publicity
we note that after a bit of a hiatus - gap -
work to remove what we conclude were the
condenser towers
at Redcar coke ovens
has re-started
we are not certain that Erith are still on the job
now the coke oven at Scunthorpe re to be shut down
'in coming months'
and so we suppose that
in coming months
somebody - possibly Erith Group - will be
dismantling Scunthorpe coke ovens
whilst the rest of the steel works
continues to works around them
the way this is supposed to work is that
Scunthorpe will switch from
importing coal to importing coke
and the kicker in this is
people who were working on the coke ovens
will be offered jobs elsewhere on site
this does contrast quite a bit with
protests in Paris, France
where people in the sorts of jobs available at
Scunthorpe coke works
are rioting in the streets at the suggestion that they should
stay on at work from 62 to 64 years old
a huge utterly clapped out steel works
staying in production so that
a few hundred employees can
work out their time to retirement age
this is the essence of
'government' and industrial polcy in the UK
'renewalble energy' becomes cheaper that fossil based energy
so
government funding goes into developing
new markets for Natural Gas
we did not keep track but a little yellow drilling rig was
recently deployed in
Coatham Bay
scheduled to spend three weeks
checking out the suitabilty of the bay for
carbon capture and storage
we didn't keep track but
we think the programme ended early
'good' or 'bad' news?
we didn't watch but we note that recently
one of the 'lesser channel' on terrestrial Tv in the UK the Sir Alec Guinness movie
The Man in the White Suit
essentially a lab scientst developed a
clothing fabric
that was stain proof and very very durable - hard wearing
and at first lionised he was piloried for
putting people out of work
in creating replacemnet garments
this was a post second world war entertainment
and it was essentially about
the percieved need for a gear change from
endless high speed production of
war materials
to a sort of
now that our hero boys are back from the front
we need jobs for them
can we roll back all the scientific and engineering advances
that won the war for us
so that we can win the peace
and to get back to Scunthorpe
we can see the plan unfolding in terms of
them as started at the works 40 or fifty years ago
have to be allowed to work out their time
but their grandchildren will not be seeing any
we're hiring
signs on the factory gates
and in essence
finding modern jobs for school levers
will be easier if the shut down process starts with
the most disgustingly polluting units
within the works - the coke ovens

it's quite amusing to hear hacks spout about their fantasy world
so one of them was on telly saying
well, it would be sensible to open up new
oil and gas wells in the North Sea to
tide us over the transition to
perenial power - our term
that kinda assumes that this transition is
theoretical
in the offing
an option
it's a bit like those people who say
the existing therapy kills 40 per cent of patients
this new therapy kills five per cent of patients
we should stick with the 40 per cent lethal therapy
until a totally perfect alternative is available
if anybody was saying
as a result of global warming
soon all winds will drop
you might think there was a trade off between
less fossil - less wind
but that is not so
wind severity may be related to global warming
but there will still be wind if global warming stabilizes
individuals can get control of large
industrial players
nevertheless
there is a point to consider
oil giants can employ the best people
one of Our Ricker's school friends studied geology
when he went on the rigs - mostly in the USA
he was dismayed to find himself on
not much more than minimum wage
whilst the big bucks went to
the roughnecks
the grunt labour swinging the drill pipes
that sets up a sort of conflict
with geological, seismic and from space surveys
here's the thing
the poor bloody nurds
know how much fossil energy is accessible to techniques
the meat heads can handle
even if there is the geological version of
not low hanging fruit
Deep Water Horizon
showed us
showed the oil giants
that
easy pickings are long gone
limit of technology pickings are
fadeing into history
when, in the media, people say
the government should grant more licences for more
exploration
these hacks seem to think
further fossil fuel reserves are like
brand new cars in a car park at a port and
all we need to do is
give them customs clearance
and they can be rolled out in a snap
tain't so
it's a bit like
Min of Ag - ministry of argiculture
vets saying
vaccines?
too much trouble
just to save a few pet llamas
so amny hacks seem to think
switching from
finite, non renewable energy, impermanent energy
is about
making the flowers look a bit prettier
without the diesel smuts
that's not the name of the game
the name of the game is
the fossil boys
are running out of stock
and the white collar nurds are getting into
permanant energy solutions
whilst the blue collar
'good old boys'
drink themselves into oblivion

whatever the strategy of other governments
the UK government says
we are not about
picking winners
we ar about caring for loosers
that is
a little 'freeport style' tax relief for innovators
but actual cash is to be restricted to
'managed decline' projects
softening the blow of
job losses
let the boffins and nurds get on with it
the govenment will concentrate on
clean up, re-skilling, health care including mental health
that sort of thing
because
government is - aside from charities
the only source of such funding
and we do have two sorts of 'charity'
not for profit organistions that get most of their funding
from government - national and local
and organisation
we suppose RNLI, RSPCA, we are not sure
that run on voluntary - not from tax - donations


rule of thumb
red cables high voltage
black cables - low voltage - 230 volts
so these ar high voltage
they are usually
aluminum with a copper sheath and plastic insulation
the copper is to shield the cable to
prevent it from transmitting
electrical interferance









this is what that septic tank look like now













we have picked up on a proposal from
Redcar and Cleveland Council
to
alter the route of the public right of way over
a part of Coatham Marsh
we don't know what is proposed but one interpretation of the
map with no words....
is that they are proposing to erect
a footbridge over the railway just to the west of
Kirkleatham Lane Railbridge
so that they can close the sidewalk on the main bridge
and widen the vehicular carriageway by the extent of the
width of the current pedestrian provision

and another wandering about the park generally
our Ricker sez...
the one that s wandering looks like it's
one of last year's cygnets and so
could be male or female
we'll just have to see whether any of them build a nest


we are well aware that due to
not nvented here syndrome
this will not catch on...
but...
a more descriptive term for
renewable energy
would be
perenial power
like perenial plants in the garden
they don't flower every day
or even month, of the year
but they
flower in season
pretty much no matter what
and when there are apples on the tree
the number of pples on the tree is
completely independent of
how many apples there were on the tree
last year
no mtter how much solar or wind power you harvest
today
that wiil have no influence on
how much will be available to harvest
tomorrow


the little green barriers along Majuba Road?
Northern Power Grid
there is a high voltagr supply to an
electricity sub station at
Coatham Enclosure Boathouse
the presnt works
onging but due to end 25th March
are to extend the high voltage feed from
the boating lake transformer to a
proposed new sub station at the entrance to the
former Caotham Bowl site
proposed Arena site

the new water supply to the
adventure paddling pool on Majuba Road was
tunnelled through under theremaining half of the
car park
see, water campany can afford the hire
20th century kit
electricity lot
pick and shovel



this is what in England is referred to as a
gully
and this one is the one
a decade or more ago our Ricker saw a
taxi driver not a minicab driver
tip used engine oil into
and that gully is connected to the
Mersey Road Culvet
that is around five feet in diameterand has for around
65 years formed the foundation of the north end of MBR> Mersey Road
on the other hand
this is also a gully
about six metres north of the other one

and this one
discharges directly under the side walk
into the
flood plane
formerly known as
Flemming's Field
opposite Sacred Heart School


a person could turn their ankle
if they stepped on the overgrown outlet
there is no similar hazard opposite the
culvert connected gully

daddy swan is feeling a bit better
and touting from bread
but you can see he has given up for now on
cleaning his 'neck warmer' off
there are presently 4 adult swans in the park
perhaps mum has returned to find out
what her boys have been up to??


'cut and come again gardening'
refers to
harvesting the older outer leaves
of lefy green vegetables
and allowing the centre of the plant to
continue sending out new leaves
It's an easy way to have
succession of harvests
wthout
having succession of planting
acording to the
Royal Horticultural Society
RHS
cut and come again can be done with
Amaranth?, Argulia?, Asparagus, Basil
Beet Greens, Bok Choy, Celery, Chicory
Chives, Collard Greens - a Us thing we think
Corn Salad (Lanb's Lettuce), Cress
Dandelion??
Kale, Radiccio, Romaine Lettuce,
Scallions(Spring Onions)
Spinach, Swiss Chard,Turnip Greens, there are also
cut and come again flowers
including
cosmos, dahlia, marigold, snapdragons
and in terms of
energy supplies
you can have
cut and come again
Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Wave, Hydro
but not
fossil
and so the words blind us
we speak of
renewable and fossil
we could, more helpfully, speak of
renewable and non-renewable
to take a more medical
and perhaps more exact anaology
if we, as we must, drink water
we can produce the non-cellular elements of blood
and we can produce urine
as it goes we made urine much more quickly than we
make blood
and the planet makes wind and waves and sun
much more quickly than it lays down
fossil fuels
and so fossil fuels would regenerate
over millions and millions of years
AFTER humans stopped laying down concrete
on the other hand
if you look at the back - the outside back
of a modern 'fridge
you may see it stamped
PENTANE
that is to indicated that
the refrigerant in that 'fridge is
pentane and not a
chloro fluro carbon
CFC the ozone layer eater
in other words
fossil carbon compounds have
process industry uses that cannot be matched
directly at least
by renewable energy sources
and another thing
renewable forms of energy are
way easier to harvest than
non-renewable forms
it is a no brainer
but
Mr Gove
has two brains
and they cancel each other out
these analogies will only help those who are confused
not those who are determined to
get it wrong
let's go back to your childhood
to a time when
chain smoking was a thing
say you went on a camping holiday into the wilds of Scotland
or more recently
on an expedition to the South Pole
you got yer fags, you got yer gas lighter
and you have a pocket sized
refill cylinder for the gas lighter
the non-renewable energy under the ground is
the gas in the refill cylinder
if you stay away long enough and
smoke enough tabs
the refill cylinder will stop being able to refill the lighter
so you'll have to resort to
rubbing two sticks together
to light your next camp fire
unless you had brought along with you
a lens or a mirror with which to
concentrate the rays of the sun to
get them to set fire to tinder

let's be clear
it's a good thing to have a religion
it's a good thing to
be a memeber of a church
and attend an hour or two a week
at particular times of your life
but quite simply...
a couple of analogies
you discover symptoms you are told indicate
a possible serious illness
do you
1 donate as much as you can afford to a medical charity
and assume that God will see that you have done that
and remove the threat to your health
or
2 do you make an appointment to seek scientific medical help?
a second analogy
you lock up your house every day and leave for work of play
every day although you carry the keys to your house
science
you leave the keys in your pocket and
pick the locks to your house
because
maybe the key won't work
or God will see you cheating by using the key
and punish you

we want to make a comment about
the recent
reservoir fluid leak at an oil field in South West England
the figures may be for a day
maybe for a different time period
the oil field pumps 350,000 barrels a day or some such
at present it is 'producing' in that time period
14,000 barrels of oil
the press release says
there was a leak reservoir fluid that is
85 per cent water
the company has always extracted reservoir fluid
from the ground under Dorset at the same rate
the early product was mainly oil
today's product is mainly water
oil out - water in
eventually becomes
water out - water in
meaning a lorra lorra water that has been
sitting down in the oil saoked rocks
is being discharged as waste from the oil field
what has that water dissolved from those oily rocks
whilst it was sitting down there?
end of life for the oil field
and this is the biggest oil fiel in the UK
we assume biggest with well heads on land


we made mention of the possibility that
British Steel
could convert
Lackenby Mills
to electric induction re-heat of steel
to soften it for rolling
we now note a proposal from 'rival'
Tata
to convert their somewhat smaller
welded steel tube plant
at
Corby
to heat the steel by electric induction
rather than gas
we should point out that
electric induction
is not the same as
electric arc
electric arc liquifies steel
electric induction heat and softens steel
a bit like tking a
domestic induction 'ring'
for heating saucepans etc
a few notches up the temperature scale
we should point out that the
stoves at Redcar ironworks have now been
dropped
felled
and the new date for site clearance is
June/July 2023

as life chuggs along there are questions that
never occur to us
if you are a high milage motorist
such as a taxi driver
you may see to cut costs by doing your own servicing
oil changes feature in routine servicing
however
although most motorists are familiar with the idea that
engine oil changes on a regular basis
extend engine life....
how many people
routinely change the oil in their vehicle's
gearbox and transmission?
if you have a full EV
electric vehicle
not a hybrid
it has no engine
so it has no engine oil to change
EVs don't have gearboxes - for the most part
they may not have differential gears
hence
is it not the case that
the switch to EVs will alter concepts of
service items
and much reduce the need to
dispose of used lubricating oil?






every day's a school day, again
the three swans in Locke Park are still alive
we THINK
they are a daddy male and two of his sons
they are all in full adult pulmage
the brown is oil not jeuvenile feathers
dad is exhausted after a couple of days of
constant preening
one 'son' was unaffected
the other was all over affected but
less densely than dad
the schoolday bit is
dad now has a brown scarf
or neck warmer
because - we never thought of this before
swans can preen most of their body with their
beak or bill
but the top third of their neck
they have to use a foot or flipper
and we guess right now Sunday afternoon
although he can stand on one leg
he can't use the other to preen at the same time
we still think he may die from kidney failure
but time will tell and they are best left alone for now
the other thing does make you wonder about
maternal instincts
when dad was at his sickest
his 'boys' the other two swans
kept away from him
but one of the Canada Geese
stood guard over him

evey day's a school day
we wanted to find an analogy for
inappropriate industrial investment and got called
down a rabbit hole...
apparently there is a semi-ethnc cultural group in
the South of the USA
of African Americans called
Gullah
Georgia, Florida, South Carolina
and in their patois there is a term
juke joint
and so
a joint is a meeting place
and juke is sort of
loose or relaxed in the sense of
letting your hair down
a club offering music and alcohol etc
was a juke joint
and at some stage
probably when interstate highways evolved
a sort of cleaned up version for
white people
motorway services style evolved
and the alcohol was replaced with
soda pop
and the live music was replaced with
machines that took money in return for
playing records
hence
Juke box, jukebox
hence to our analogy
natural gas is the juke box
replacing the live music coal mines
but the point here is
most people who want music now
get it on their 'phone from
a streaming service
and so
if you are a
'risk averse'
investor
on a small scale you may do well by investing in
refurbished examples of the sort of car, autombile
that was popular in the era of the jukebox
but if you think like that and you have
billions of other people's money to invest
do you invest it in
a gigafactory to manufacture
jukeboxes?
investing in
carbon capture and storage
is the energy equivalent of
having a business plan for manufacturing
6 milion juke boxes a year
we like the steering lock story
back in the day before immobalisers and such
if you went into a car park intent on
'borrowing' somebody else's car
you would avoid the ones with a steering wheel clamp
so somebody was selling them in the club
and somebody else got him arrested under
trading standards because
they could be removed using a hacksaw
and were thus not 'fit for purpose'
but it does reflect that experience
'my mates down the pub say
if I made steering locks
they'd buy one
so there's clearly a market'
'let's make 10 million'
'let's get China to make 10 million'
and the reason why the bloke selling the steering locks
was arrested was
part of the steering lock was
cast aluminium
and the clubs he was selling them in were in a
steel town
and selling aluminium in a steel town is
a public order offence
if you were in the postion to buy a home
you would notwitstanding
Purplebricks ads
pay for professional advice and services
relating to how to proceed
politicians do the opposite
they do what they are advised to do by
the sponsors who pay for the advertising they put out
during election campaigns
it's called
'consulting the industry'
banks at the moment qre in a double bind
people - most people who were not
waitressing in coffee bars
during CoViD lockdowns
continued to be paid as normal but
built up cash reserves because they
weren't
going out
in any sense of the term
NOW
people have a choice between
putting it on the credit card
or
putting it on the debit card
they are spending a touch more but
bank bind 1, they are withdrawing deposits
bank bind 2, they are paying cash without borrowing
people will only 'protect their savings'
by taking out credit - even for car purchase
if the interest rate is not
punitive












this is a sad sad story
somebody living on or near Mersey Road, in Redcar
reently decided to change the oil in their vehicle
and in the past we have seen a taxi driver
who used to live on Mersey Road
change the oil in his cab and dump the waste oil
into the gulley outside his home
and so it ended up as a slick on the surface of Locke park Lake
and
now we have a heavily oil swan on Locke Park lake
well. just like chopping down trees
it's one way to thin the buggers out
it's ingesting the oil it is trying to remove
and probably won't survive
lots of toxin metals and such
in used engine oil

we've taken an interest in a BBC story about
soccer players flying rather than travelling by coach
to away matches
we kinda assume that players either
drive themselves in their own cars to the 'home' airport
or more likely to their home training ground
we assume that the journey is then
coach to home town airport
flight to away airport
coach from away airport to away stadium
so the question is
how fr away does the away match have to be
for the trans-shipment from
coach to 'plane, to coach
to be worth the hassle
just to say you
travelled by 'plane?
does the kit stay on the coach and follow the 'plane?


another full disclosure notice
our Ricker is one of those people who
had a Leeds Permanant building society account
and didn't have enough money in it to
qualify for the payout when the Halifax bouth the Leeds
back in the day
a building society was like a
self build co-operative
it had a fixed number of members who
paid subs - subscriptions
and when there was enough money in the fund
one of the members would be loaned the money to
build their own house
and when all the founder members had built their house
or left the association
the c0-op was wound up
hence the term Permanent
when they became more like banks
or credit unions
dealing in smaller amounts of money and
much larger memberships
nevertheless
they remained essentially credit unions
managing members' money
step forward
Northern Rock
Northern Rock styled itself as a building society
and it did lean money for mortgages for house purchases
but
it was not leanding money 'owned' by members
it was borrowing money on the
'money matkets'
like a bank
and lending it to members
a 'Central Bank'
such as The Bank of England
has the ability to, in several ways
print money
cause money to come into existence
the only down side being
too much central bank money printing
exchange rate with foreign currencies goes down
a 'devaluaton' of the currency
'bank rate' is the interest rate
a central bank charges a commercial bank for
lending it printed money
commercial banks only borrow from central banks when
the commercial bank is in deep doodoo
however, commercial banks
even when they have not borrowed from the central bank
set the interest rate they charge to customers as
'bank rate plus'
they pretend they have borrowed the money they lend you
from the central bank but they have borrowed it on the
money markets
since the business experience pf most politicians
amounts to helping out in their granny's coffe shop
or their grandads haulage firm
during the summer holidays
they conclude that
if they raise bank rate they will be
helping out the banks by
giving them a mandate to charge their customers
a higher rate of interest
what they actually do is
mess with the ecology of the money markets
in essence raise bank rate
reduce confidence
increase money amrket rates
and actually squeeze the banks
hence
bank failures in wake of recent bank rate increases
so further full disclosure
back in the day
a very close relative of our Ricker
Peter Robson
working as he did throughout his career at
Maxwell Batley solicitors - now defunct
created the
natwest bank
by amalgamating
The NATional Provincial Bank
with
the WESTminster Bank
the Redcar branch of the NAtWest was originally a branch of
the National Provincial Bank
but the NatWest are now tenants in the building
due to a different sort of financial 'scam'
and the client he did that for was
brought down as chairman of natwest by
The Blue Arrow Affair
The NatWest was brought down by being bought by
The Royal Bank of Scotland
which was in rivalry with the
Bank of Scotland - now part of The Halifax
one of those had a big head office
on Upper or High street in Islington
but their
'Head Office' was in Scotland
neither in Cannery Wharf
that would have been RBS
so they were 'out of the loop'
either way
this was before
Angel (Islington) tube station had escalators
our Ricker used to walk up the hill from King's Cross
rather than trust the lifts at Angel
The Angel was the pup where
in historial times
you went to catch the stagecoach to travel up
The Great North Road
now the A1
to the likes of Scotland
the A1 runs from Islington to Edinburgh
hence RBS head office in Islngton not Cannery Wharf
don't get confused
RBS London head office is now in Bishopsgate
it's arl Essix na

around 15 years ago
a very close relative of our Ricker
married name
Anelise Storrar
was sittin in a small car at traffic lights in
Reading, Berks, England
a much larger carrammed into the back of them and
their car caught fire and they died
the driver of the big car was fine
he had that morning been released from a nut house
he didn't think he was driving a car
he thought he was piloting
The Star Ship Enterprise
the couple left three teenage children
the nut houses in this country - the UK
are full of
picky eaters
'if I'm not anorexic, what am I?
I am nothing
ther 'illness' is their identity
and the psychopaths
walk the streets
'I've been following my favourite
Internet Influencer's
stay at The Priory
and I want my share of that attention
at my local NHS nuthouse'
The Mental Health trusts in the NHS
are not concerned with
protecting the public
the nutters are
on the streets, in the police or in prison
because on a good day
the ME, ME, MEs
can look quite pretty
they don't need mental health care
they should have had lessons in
how to get a life
in Primary School

one of the difficulties with
Government Statistics is
do you publish 12 times a year
or every 4 weeks
and will it always be on the same
day of the week not day of the month
and so
the March UK inflation figures are due to be
published on 19th April this year
we got told that
the February inflation figure was
9.2 per cent
but the newspapers are publishing a figure of
10.4 per cent
we kinda suppose this is to justify a rise in
interest rates on the following day Thursday
setting gifts aside
there are three ways to pay
out of THIS pay packet
from savings
by borrowing
in general the first two are fixed
to some extent
how much you are able or willing to borrow
how long is a piece of string?
people willing and able to borrow to buy
drive up prices because they don't
have to 'find' the money they pay
and so interst rate rises
make them think
I want a lower ticket price because
I have to add the interest costs
the more the interest
the more the pressure on the list price
so, higher interest rates
don't reduce the cost of living for borrowers
but they depress prices for
people buying with savings
so to take rail fares
they are an example of a cost
set by the rate of infation
but if you include rail fares in the
calculation of inflation
what you do is put pressure on
train companies to reduce fares below
the ceiling government has set bsed on
general inflation
overall the UK government is moving away from
Command Economy style
price setting
to
a more liberal economy style
price ceiling setting
this is supposed to encourage business to
increase profits by increasing efficiency
and grow by setting prices more
below the government ceiling than competitiors

we note that in last weeks
Budget Speech
the UK finance minister
made no mention of any sort of
funding for
Port Talbot or Scunthorpe steel works


The Grand Old Duke of York
he had ten thousand men
he marched them up to the top of the hill
and he marched them down again
and when they were up
they were up
and when they were down they were down
and when they were only half way up
they were neither up nor down

what this is saying is
the poor bloody infantry need
clear leadership
otherwise they just get
exhausted to no effect
one of the singular failures of leadership in
the policing of private lives is
the Swinging Sixties
as we have said
lesbianism has never, per se, been prosecuted
but sex work has been prosecuted
lesbianism does not involve the
spilling of seed
sex work involves women
encouraging men to
spill their seed
a solid time immorial distinction
based on a totally fictitious concept of
reproductive biology
and so we have a headless chicken
law enfocement suppressing sex work
without knowing why
then pharmaceutical contraception
The Pill
comes along
and because
Nature Abhors a vacuum
because nobody in authority felt the need to
explain
the suppression of sex work
people began to believe it was to
reduce the number of
unplanned pregnancies
in particular
professional sex workers seemed not to be the
major source of unplanned pregnancies
but
'dolly mops'
shop girls and domenstic servants seemed to be
the people most likely to get pregnant
outside marriage
and so
'the authorities'
shall we say, police inspectors and magistrates
thought
if the dolly mops have The Pill
they will extend their sexual activities and
a flood of amateurs will
put professional sex workers
out of business
and clean up our (back) streets
the link between
sex work and the Biblical Sin of
spilling of seed
had been completely lost
so you end up with
the Liberal Left advocating Free Love
and the Religious Right
Tub Thumping, Bible Bashing
we don't understand anything but we
Know our Bible
we are not going to attempt an essay on
The Ten Commandments
number 7 is
Thou shalt not commit adultery
the problem is
that is a bald statement
in the sense that it does not define
marriage or adultery
and some versions say
if you were asked quote one of the ten
you would probably come back with
Thou Shalt not kill
but
aside from those you
wear a gauze over their mouths so as not to
inhale a fly and inadvertantly kill a fly
Jainism
like veganism but without eating veg
well they would if they could
they try to live without harming
either plants or animals
but unlike vegans
they have to amke compromises
it's complicated but they - Jains - would prefer to live off
nothing but seeds and filtered water
and getting along with
bacteria and viruses - tricky
require kill to be replaced with
murder
and have endless discussions about the definition of
murder
and so
a line to draw between
polygamy - having more than one wife
and
planting your seed in another man's wife
is adultery
having sex with somebody you are not married to
or
having sex with somebody who ived
a sort of cleaned up version for
white people
motorway services style evolved
and the alcohol was replaced with
soda pop
and the live music was replaced with
machines that took money in return for
playing records
hence
Juke box, jukebox
hence to our analogy
natural gas is the juke box
replacing the live music coal mines
but the point here is
most people who want music now
get it on their 'phone from
a streaming service
and so
if you are a
'risk averse'
investor
on a small scale you may do well by investing in
refurbished examples of the sort of car, autombile
that was popular in the era of the jukebox
but if you think like that and you have
billions of other people's money to invest
do you invest it in
a gigafactory to manufacture
jukeboxes?
investing in
carbon capture and storage
is the energy equivalent of
having a business plan for manufacturing
6 milion juke boxes a year
we like the steering lock story
back in the day before immobalisers and such
if you went into a car park intent on
'borrowing' somebody else's car
you would avoid the ones with a steering wheel clamp
so somebody was selling them in the club
and somebody else got him arrested under
trading standards because
they could be removed using a hacksaw
and were thus not 'fit for purpose'
but it does reflect that experience
'my mates down the pub say
if I made steering locks
they'd buy one
so there's clearly a market'
'let's make 10 million'
'let's get China to make 10 million'
and the reason why the bloke selling the steering locks
was arrested was
part of the steering lock was
cast aluminium
and the clubs he was selling them in were in a
steel town
and selling aluminium in a steel town is
a public order offence
if you were in the postion to buy a home
you would notwitstanding
Purplebricks ads
pay for professional advice and services
relating to how to proceed
politicians do the opposite
they do what they are advised to do by
the sponsors who pay for the advertising they put out
during election campaigns
it's called
'consulting the industry'
banks at the moment qre in a double bind
people - most people who were not
waitressing in coffee bars
during CoViD lockdowns
continued to be paid as normal but
built up cash reserves because they
weren't
going out
in any sense of the term
NOW
people have a choice between
putting it on the credit card
or
putting it on the debit card
they are spending a touch more but
bank bind 1, they are withdrawing deposits
bank bind 2, they are paying cash without borrowing
people will only 'protect their savings'
by taking out credit - even for car purchase
if the interest rate is not
punitive












this is a sad sad story
somebody living on or near Mersey Road, in Redcar
reently decided to change the oil in their vehicle
and in the past we have seen a taxi driver
who used to live on Mersey Road
change the oil in his cab and dump the waste oil
into the gulley outside his home
and so it ended up as a slick on the surface of Locke park Lake
and
now we have a heavily oil swan on Locke Park lake
well. just like chopping down trees
it's one way to thin the buggers out
it's ingesting the oil it is trying to remove
and probably won't survive
lots of toxin metals and such
in used engine oil

we've taken an interest in a BBC story about
soccer players flying rather than travelling by coach
to away matches
we kinda assume that players either
drive themselves in their own cars to the 'home' airport
or more likely to their home training ground
we assume that the journey is then
coach to home town airport
flight to away airport
coach from away airport to away stadium
so the question is
how fr away does the away match have to be
for the trans-shipment from
coach to 'plane, to coach
to be worth the hassle
just to say you
travelled by 'plane?
does the kit stay on the coach and follow the 'plane?


another full disclosure notice
our Ricker is one of those people who
had a Leeds Permanant building society account
and didn't have enough money in it to
qualify for the payout when the Halifax bouth the Leeds
back in the day
a building society was like a
self build co-operative
it had a fixed number of members who
paid subs - subscriptions
and when there was enough money in the fund
one of the members would be loaned the money to
build their own house
and when all the founder members had built their house
or left the association
the c0-op was wound up
hence the term Permanent
when they became more like banks
or credit unions
dealing in smaller amounts of money and
much larger memberships
nevertheless
they remained essentially credit unions
managing members' money
step forward
Northern Rock
Northern Rock styled itself as a building society
and it did lean money for mortgages for house purchases
but
it was not leanding money 'owned' by members
it was borrowing money on the
'money matkets'
like a bank
and lending it to members
a 'Central Bank'
such as The Bank of England
has the ability to, in several ways
print money
cause money to come into existence
the only down side being
too much central bank money printing
exchange rate with foreign currencies goes down
a 'devaluaton' of the currency
'bank rate' is the interest rate
a central bank charges a commercial bank for
lending it printed money
commercial banks only borrow from central banks when
the commercial bank is in deep doodoo
however, commercial banks
even when they have not borrowed from the central bank
set the interest rate they charge to customers as
'bank rate plus'
they pretend they have borrowed the money they lend you
from the central bank but they have borrowed it on the
money markets
since the business experience pf most politicians
amounts to helping out in their granny's coffe shop
or their grandads haulage firm
during the summer holidays
they conclude that
if they raise bank rate they will be
helping out the banks by
giving them a mandate to charge their customers
a higher rate of interest
what they actually do is
mess with the ecology of the money markets
in essence raise bank rate
reduce confidence
increase money amrket rates
and actually squeeze the banks
hence
bank failures in wake of recent bank rate increases
so further full disclosure
back in the day
a very close relative of our Ricker
Peter Robson
working as he did throughout his career at
Maxwell Batley solicitors - now defunct
created the
natwest bank
by amalgamating
The NATional Provincial Bank
with
the WESTminster Bank
the Redcar branch of the NAtWest was originally a branch of
the National Provincial Bank
but the NatWest are now tthe thief
to make their escape


Redcar sorta has a
Civic Centre
that's called the
Community Heart
and there has been a problem with the
uplighters that illuminate
the main pathway and the sides of the buildings
these were installed at the time of the construction
and unbelieveably they were not
LED
so they burnt out and got concreted over
so now
it's a really big job for
one man and a van to replace them with LEDs
and the council is trying to recover
some of the cost
under
snagging
from the architects and builders

this is just a bit weird
this is the site of the original
Redcar Swimming Baths
and the contractors have dug what we would call
two transect trenches across what would have been
widths of the pool
and the slightly weird think is they have
separated the removed fill into
sand piles and rubble piles
implying an intention to put the sand back
on the other hand
it could just be a training exercise...
or perhaps they engineers want to assess
how much sand and how much rubble
anyway
depending on
how big a hotel they are intending to build
they will probably need to go deeper to get firm foundations



at Redcar Central..
this is a bit interesting
the TransPennine Express trains from
Redcar to Manchester
seem to have morphed into
trains from
Saltburn to Manchester
and so we now see rust on the points that were used
to switch them from the down line to the up line at
Locke Road Rail Bridge
and those new lengths of rail
suggest that the points are scheduled to be
removed
for use elsewhere?
or to remove a speed restriction?
the sign we have previously shown that said
Trans Pennine Trains depart from
Platform 2
has gone and they all depart to Manchester
from platform 1
and to Saltburn from platform 2
we consider it would be good news for Redcar if
the points just Saltburn side of Locke Road Railbridge
were moved to somwhere
between Kirkleatham Lane Railbridge and Locke Road
or perhaps to the recently part renewed straight section across Coatham Marsh
this would facilitiate a siding/excursion platform
reinstatement
on the down line into the station


other pictures show how
work expands to fill the time allocated to it
The Majuba Road water park work has slowed
so that it is not left derelict before opening
due to a lack of a tenant
and all the plasterwork that was
painted brown to simulate rocks
is nor being painted blue to simulate ice
and a couple of
paraplegic penguins
seem to be perched on top of
rock or ice their lower halves would have
gret difficulty escaping
that is
they appear to be encased in
either rock or ice
and not waves

we can reasonably make the statement
within lesbian culture the term or name
Butch
has long been the name given to a certain kind of
lesbian
there is a whole raft of
'lesbians' who
just wanna get fucked and they don't care
what with
and they have either acces to males
or fear of males
problems with having sex with men
a Butch is a person who is perhaps bordering on
trans male
perhaps
Gentleman Jack
for the most part not necessarily dangerous
'she' is not quite the outright
'stud'
a stud has not got the equipment but has no
hint of femininity
so there's a famous 'female' sports and horseracing
commentator and journalist in the UK about whom it was once said
Thank God she's finally got around to marrying her
girlfriend
now, here's the thing
she was born a long time after
Gloria Allred
but what we see is a similar type
and those peope of that type who are in the earlier generations
are and have
'sublimated'
their genuine feeling
why is such a pretty girl being wasted on a man
surely she would be better off with
a Butch like me
we've said things about the four different weeks
in the human female monthly cycle
and it is often remarked that women
given the choice
would spend three weeks of the month in
all female company
and the other week with a man
modern society's obsession with
'coupledom'
'there is no such thing as society
just (close) family ties
attributed to Margaret Thatcher sometime UK Prime Minister
is this thing about
'faithfulness'
some men
are not only jealous about 'their woman'
associating with other men
but with other women and even
their own cildren
it is a misuse of
state and religious propaganda apparatus
to even at this late stage in social evolution
try to force people - particularly females
to
'choose a bed and stick to it'
it takes a village to raise a child
it takes a village to keep a woman satisfied
we talk sometimes about
siloes
about having strong beliefs and not understanding
the interactions between those beliefs
so too many people blythly
promote marriage and fidelity
whilst condemning
coercive control
here is
your marriage certificate
your licence to exercise coercive control
but we - society - will
interpret it at whim
ClareBalding is a Butch
and her wife is a stud

we may suggest tha the most closely documented childhood
in history
was that of the Sun King Louis 14 of France
and
succession being vital in the lives of kings
there is some considerable attention in reports
paid to the 'regent's' first
nocturnal emmission
his first
wet dream
a situation where he has not
'wet the bed'
but ejaculated semen into his bedclothes whilst asleep
and some note of pride that the stain could be
interpreted as having the form of
a map of France
and so there are two levels of
sperm protection in Islam
n olden days a glimpse of stocking
was thought of as something shocking
now, heaven knows
anything goes
women expected to walk around in their own personal tents
if at all
for fear that some passing man may get a glimpse of
something female
and spontaneously
shoot his load
consignng all them humanculae to the abyss of his trousers
and the second level is
perhaps if we never mention
women's bits
to little boys
they won't have nocturnal emissions
hence people of the female constructon can
frigg themselves senseless to their heart's content
without consequences
so long as nobody ever sees them
at all
and especially not their bits
so the problem with
adult entertainment
is that it incites
male sexual activity not directed at the
transfer of humanculae
from testes to womb
and 'sexuality'
amongst females was irrelevant if
homesexual
that is
it is very rare for
lesbianism
same sex relationships between females
Tipping the Velvet etc.
being illegal or persecuted
n the UK there has never been a specific offence of
lesbianism
so it was never about
having too much fun
however
on a completely differnt tack
in what we could loosly call
Victorian Times
women were not permitted to own property
and so trans men
in lesbian relationships were
prosecuted for fraud
on account of it being assumed that
they had taken on 'male form'
in order to hold property, inherit property
take prperty from their
partner who 'remained' femmale
and also
women have been prosecuted for
indecent assault of 'under age' females
what we see here is
the microscope debunks the humunculous theory
and the legal system does not like to see it's
scope reduced
so we see
new justifications for old laws
and lesbianism not referred to
in a sort of Section 28 style
because
you don't want to be
'putting ideas into people's heads'
'out of an abundance of caution'
perhaps the microscope lies
it's not just accumulating evidence
it's having to wait for
professionals whose entire careers have been built on
a certain form of prosecution
to die
and we have a switch around now
from a time when a husband owned all of his wife's property
to a situation whre a wife owns half of he husband's
worldly wealth
and all along there was a distinction between
a 'fake' marriage between a trans man and woman
and
two women living together as
'companioins'
if a wealthy woman took a 'companion' she would not loose her property rights
as she would to a male husband
so to clarify those comments
women WERE allowed to own property
so long as they weren't MARRIED
marriage vows change
loven, honour and obey
with my body, I thee worship
with all my worldly wealth
I thee endow
not so much these days
certainly in the Uk in the 1960s
it was very common for
wives and husbands to recite and thereby swear
different wedding vows from each other
and so to
with my body I worship thee
that should mean
no rape in marriage
it could also mean no concept of
domestic violence within marriage
you've made your bed
you must lie in it
and so
expartners to a dissolved marriage
are no longer liable for a exspouse's debts
the problem with
civil partnership and simple partnership is
you never had those responsibilites in the first place??
there is this concept
possibly arising from the
sound tracks of porno videoes that
the femmale participant has to
emmit this incessant incantation of
yes, yes, yes, yes
in order for the activity not to be rape
a police offocer was recently criticised for saying
'they only have to say yes once'
that once is your wedding vows
or not
wedding ceremonies would become quite long and tedious if
there had to be a full reading of a
pre-nuptual agreement
as soon as you introduce the concept of
divorce
in a 'just' society
a partner could only report actions
that were
1 outside the conditions of the pre-nup
2 happened after the divorce
essentially, the legal system has switch from
women can't handle their own affairs
they need a husband
as in qnimal husbandry
to
the law is about shovelling as much money
from men to woman as humanly possble
because
women can't actully DO anything
except
whinge
hence
women should only be 'employed' in 'management' roles
and not be allowed to
get their dainty little hands
on the tools
so we move from
women can't be trusted with money
to
women can't be trusted with tools
women are no longer the
weaker sex
they are now
the spending sex
the handbags and the gladrags

the thing about electriity supply is
it's a bit like
line dancing or synchronised swimming
the effect depends on the whole team
as we have said
back in the day
when gas came in
each town had it's own indpendent gas works
there were no
networks linking from town to town
and electricity began in a similar way
but we hav long had a National Grid in the UK
although regions CAN be separated if necessary
and what we are getting to is
take a regional theatre
you would expect the vast majority of the audience to be
living within an hour or two's travel distance
but for a major event
some people from further afield would book hotels etc
to be there
and so your local electricity power station is not
your only source of electric power
and so to Teesside
for decades and decades almost all of
Teesside's electricity has been generated
in Hartlepool
at the Nuclear Power Station
except that
the steel works - the iron works or SSI part
had it's own col fired power station
and Wilton Interntional had a succession of
fossil fuel fired power station using various fuels
and in essence
people and businesses who/that
bought electricity were and are
buying electricity generated from nuclear power
and businesses that generated their own electricity
and exported some to the National Grid
mostly, up until a decade or so ago
were burning fossil fuels
broadly speaking
those businesses that generated their own electricity
have now shut down, been demolshed
so Teesside's Carbon Footprint is now very light
the base loan power for Teesside
as for the past half century
comes from Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station
and it has just had it's life extended for anothe two years
with no indication that it won't be extended further and further
there are businesses on Teesside that use Natural Gas
for instance
lackenby Mills
is a hot roll steel mill
and it uses gas to re-heat cold hard steel
but there are alternatives
Lackenby Milss converted from coal or coke to gas
and they can be converted to
induction furnaces or hydrogen or some such
just as with
peat free compost
buying a bale of peat each year to dress your lawn
was a nonsense
but buying a small packet of peat to grow some
specimen exotic alpine that is
native to peat bogs
is a proportionate use of a
precious resource


there is no doubt about why
men who don't need to 'work' don't
men have put up with
women only short lists
special marking schemes for
qualifications for women
but if a man does not need a job
he will bwlieve that
not having a job is his best insurance against
a metoo conviction

League of Nations - fail
United Nations - fail
what we need is
third time lucky?
an organisation that any nation can join and fund
where no nationor NGO has a veto
but they have the right to publish a
Minority Report

we weren't persistent enough to find the stats we wanted
the answer to
where are immigrants to the UK in 2023 coming from
but we do have some stats on
where were people now lving in the UK
born
and probably arrived UK long ago
we onlu have 2001 census
and 2015 UN estimates
UK 53,923,642 56,254,898
India 467,634 776,603
Poland 60,711 703,050
Pakistan 321,167 540,495
Irish Replublic 321,108 540,288
Germany 266,136 322,220
Bangladesh 154,362 230,143
South Africa 141,405 218,732
Nigeria 88,378 216,268
United States of America 158,434 212,150
China 51,078 182,628
Jamaica 146,401 172,829
Italy 107,244 151,790
Kenya 129,633 151,790
France 96,281 149,872
Phllipines 40,118 139,570
Sri Lanka 67,938 138,752
Australia 107,871 135,786
Zimbabwe 49,524 1352942
Hong Kong 96,445 119,990
Lithuania 4,363 116,861
Somalia 43,532 110,775
Ghana 56,112 102,837
Turkey 54,079 100,956
the onlu other thing to say is
UK census Taiwan 6,588
the utterly gutless waste of space
United nations do not give a figure
so their 'China' figure is disinformation
and if you are willing to publish one lie
we don't need to pay heed to anything up publish
this is geography not Top Trumps
all the others well over 200
are estimated by the UN to contribute
less than 100,000
what the hell is 'Aruba'?
census 0 UN 678
Afganistan 14,875 68,256
Albania isn't even listed - by either
in the twelve months to the end os September 2022 a total of
900 Albanians were removed from the UK
around 7,700 were not

in the normal run of things
the Uk government would publish
inflation rate figures for the UK in February 2023
on 15th March
but 15th March is 'Budget Day'
so the February figures for inflation are schedued to be
published the following Wednesday - 22nd March

notwithstanding the
Primacy of the Peanut Gallery
there are some serious people in
UK government
one of the things the stats tell us is that
the country of origin of
immigrants
changes over time
there are two theories about that
perhaps three
the tird is that over time The Internet spreads to
more and more places and we get a certain
how ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
now that they've seen Paree the second theory is that every country has a
limited supply of disidents
and once they have all shacked up in London
peace breaks out at home
and the main theory is
as a 'better life' become more established in each country
the better life becomes accessible without the treck
and the Mediterranian Basin
is
running out of
places from which people have a driving determination to
emigrate
can anybody guess where the main thrust of immigration to
the UK will be
after Albania?
the skill here is to
promise to solve a problem that is
in the throws of solving itself
regarding Mr Linaker
may not have noticed but he isn't = these days
so promnant in promoting
Walker's Crisps
a couple of years ago
there was a KFC, Walkers, Linaker tie up
and the ads were criticised for suggesting
black people had a crude affinity to
Kentucky Fried Chicken
and at that time
Linaker was accused of
virtue-signalling
this current row relates not to
politics but to
self aggrandisement through
virtue-signalling
what we have here is a
major sports presenter on the
UK flagship broadcaster
the BBC
promoting somewhat unhealthy snacks
then 'conned' into promoting
junk food
in a campaign demening to 'black people'
KFC
and now overcomensating with
virtue signalling
picking popular leftist causes and promoting them
without serious analysis
and perhaps
allowing third parties to write his Tweets
on his behalf??
perhaps - no evidence - Ian Wright

if two cats injure each other in a fight
and their uman house mates
fail to take them to a vet for care
that may be seen as a
dereliction of a duty of care
if two cats have a fight and without being injured
one of them sets off in a huff to
meow at the kitchen window of a nearby house
do the humans in thqt house have duty to let the cat in
or a duty to report the matter to the RSPCA?
or no responsibility in the matter whatsoever?

we are referencing thismorning's
BBC Berakfast segment on
presenter Warhurst's challenges with
a family member with dementia
back in the day
when our Ricker had to withdraw from his studies at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
and switch to academic studies at Durham University
the term dementia had scant currency
and so our Ricker referred to his dad being
senile
and had significant pushback over being so
'disrespectful to his elders
and there has been progress
BUT
we still have the likes of Word
not having
'nutter'
in its vocabulary by default because it is
disrespectful
it's like saying
we don't mention the fact that
Herbert has only one leg
and he seems to get along Ok without us
recognosing that, or
'embarassing him' by offering him
a chair or a crutch
particularly within mental health there is
in pursuit of inclusion and equality
a down right rejecton of
calling a spade a spade
we note as a side line a report on Russian reservists
1 in the Forst World War
British tropps in the Drdenells lost because they were issued
pick axe handles instead of rifles
but in that report
we THINK the reference to shovels and xxx
the xxx should have been
side arms
in other words
pistols not rifles


Centrica the company that owns British Gas has
as at 2010
1.2 million investors
somewhere along the way Britsh Gas
a company formed in the 19th century
as the British gas and coke company or something such
was naionalised
taken into government ownership
many gas works had been local authorty ownned at some stage
and in 1986 it was privatised
that is
launched onto the stock exchange
and there was a publicity campaign
'if you see Sid, tell him to buy British Gas shares
no person or company owns more than rounf 5 per cent of Centrica
and so government is loathe to upset
British Gas shareholders
because there are over a million of them
and most will be Tory voters
hence no swinging windfall taxes and plans to let BG down slowly
incidentally Centrica is not a
North Sea gas holder
it was set up to exploit gas reserves in
Morcombe Bay on the west side of northern England
as of 1994 Morecambe Bay gas fields North and South had
185 billion cubic metres of recoverable reserves
decommissioning work is currently under way at
DP3 and DP4 platforms
they run from Drilling Platform DP
1 to 8
all commissioned in or around 1984
south opened 1984 North 1994
planned life 25 years
some wells extended until 2030
Morcombe Bay is in
The Irish Sea
not the North Sea
the geology makes it unsuitable when depleted
for storage of natural gas or carbon Dioxide

some people say
people who ignore history
are doomed to repeat it
on the other hand
some politicians are
history geeks
and that can get them into trouble
this here is anchient history
even to our Ricker
but there were two politicians who were UK Prime Minister
at the time the Redcar steel works project was
launched and canned
the 1970s were the era of
Harold Wilson Labour
and Ted Heath Tory
and Jim Calaghan Labour
and apart from
Ah Mary - Wilson's wife -
'ah Mary, listen to this'
having heard some tripe from a Trot union leader
of the Corbyn style
and
this devaluation will not affect the value of
the pound in your pocket
the third slogan was
the white heat of the technological revolution
and Redcar's then new steel works was intended to be
a flagship of that revolution
so we have to assume that it was
Ted Heath who canned the project and
decised to keep Scunthorpe and Port Talbot open
because he spent his premiereship
running scarred of the unions
Heath got the flack from Wilson falling foul of
the amalgamated union of Fred Dibnahs
in a previous incarnation known as
Luddites
and so
when it came to demolishing not just pausing development
of Redcar steel works
it was done by a Tory secretary of state whom we assume is
a student of the work and times of
Edward Heath
BUT
the point of Wilson was
technological advancement at any price
but
Ted Heath was
cut taxes at any price
and there never was a term Heathism
but Heath's policy directives came eventually to be called
Thatcherism
and Trussenomics is a variant
Wilson said
borrow to invest in new technologies and to buy off the Luddites
Heath, Thatcher, Truss siad / say
cut taxes and
insread of people with money lending it to
the government
they will lend it to
Dyson and that bloke off the UK version of The Apprentice
and they will modernise the economy without us politicians
catching any of the flack
ad the people with the money said
'on yer bike with that malarkey'
and the pound tanked - again
essentially
the post Second World War Labour Government
set about modernising the Uk Economy
by Nationalising - taking into public ownership
the 'commanding Heights of the Economy'
and introducing a Welfare State that included
a National Health Service
BUT
because this 'ersatz' 'Command Economy'
put the government in direct contact with
'the people'
the Labour Unions refused to
'get with the programme'
despite the offer of
Beer and sandwiches at Number 10 (Downing Street)
because it would
codify industrial relations and
remove the union leaders scope for
personal leverage
and so
they were replaced in elections by the Tories
the Wilson Government can be best encapsulated by
relating to organised labour
'You can lead a horse to water
but you cannot make it drink'
and at the time
in newspaper cartoons at the time
portrayed
the TUC
Trades Union Congress
as a carthorse

here we have to make a slight diversion
the massive quantity of war materials that
America gave to Russia to help them beat the Nazis
gave rise to the idea that a
command economy
was an efficient form of government
and the command econom give power to
the technocrats
and here we have to introduce the
Law of Unintended Consequences
and in the post war period the most notable
that is remembered as opposed to, say,
Charles Clore the Dyson of the day
or the INIOS chap of the day
was
Beeching
Beeching is remembered as Charles Clore is not
Charles Clore is going to give hs son a
chemisrty set for Christmas
ICI
Imperial Chemical Industries
Beeching is remembered because having left ICI
he was set on to modernise the railways
BUT
meeting opposition from mining unions
instead of replacing
steam with electricity and diesel
he devloped an ersatz 'modernisation'
by butchering the network
a kind of
displacement activity
to distract from the failure of his intended
modernisation
he would have been better of to have sat on his hands


it's really quite difficult to
'think outside the box'
when UK politicians scuppered the plans for
all steel production in the UK to be
in Redcar
a lot of the infrastructure was already in place
and a major part of that infrastructure was
Kielder Reservoir in Northumberland
as we have remarked previously
the system for delivering water from
Kielder in Northumberland to Redcar
although periodically tested
has never been used commercially
one of the major trends is towards
larger and larger
data centres
places where your data are stored and processed
a lorra lorra cold water is very good for data centres
computers are the reverse of livestock in that
computers are not at risk of
freezing to death
but
of
melting or frying
mobile 'phones don't have
cooling fans
but lap tops do and desktops definitely do
if you run cold water through a system
you don't need to run the cooling fans
across the piece
North East England is just about the right degree of
chilly
combined with just the right amount of
proximity to
Lancashire, Birmingham, and London
to run data centres that are efficient without
needing so much in the way of
air conditioning for the IT kit
just diverting cold raw fresh water
referencing other issues,
it is soft water that won't fur up pipes
through a data centre on Teesside
uses less electricity than in the warmer south
and darn sarth
they have no water, cold or otherwise
to spare for IT cooling and AirCon

recently our Ricker was out and about and came across
a no entry sign related to the one way system
in Coatham
that emergency vehicle drivers - ambulance
take such delight in ignoring
and noted that some
cheeky chappie had
rotated it on its pole
so that it indicated against following the correct
or intended
traffic flow direction
if people, authorties, don't check and maintain their
road furniture
they breed an assumption that
there's a good chance that that
sign is faulty
'I'm on my own here'
no help from the technology
a road sign should not be constructed such that
a gale of wind or somebody or something
brushing against it
can radically change the message it is displaying
and so Travel Lodge Frimley, very nice
yer Hyundi Tuscan enters the car park
and the display screen shows
red circle white centre three dashes across the white
meaning
this vehilce is unable to to determine the speed limit
on this stretch of road
because
the speed limit sign displays
speed limit 5
not in the car's vocabulary
and so
without clear signage
a shrug from the vehicle
the speed limit displays on the gantries over
UK motorways
are non-compliant in format
vehicles cannot read them
tthe 'matrix signs'
the government probably pay top dollar for these
'war surplus' low res junk so that some contractor has the
proffit margin to
afford a load of dead wood on the payroll
to create jarbs
a speed limit MUST ALWAYS be
a red circle with a white centre and a black numeral in the white
Highways England blatently breaking the Highway Code
ith their installations
a guest with a big van does not know that the
Toby Carvery is an island in the midst of a one way roundabout
and so decides he needs to ignore the one way signs to
leave the car park the way he entered
because the restaurant is blockeing his view of the exit
because 'authorites' screw up on such a regular basis
'good enough for government work'
people ignore instructions from
tin pot dictators
and incidentally,
many vehicles on te road tody have
adaptive cruise control
you set the vehicle to the speed limit
and the car slows below that limit if it
detects a dawdling vehicle ahead
and that Tucson
goes berzerk if you
drift too close to the lane markings
without indicting you intend a lane change

the MOT - Ministry of Transport - vehicle inspection
is a business generator
governments set these up for various industries all the time
1 a vehicle over 40 years old
does not require a valid MOT
because
garages don't have the skills and spares to service them
but
officially because
vehicle that old will do virtually no miles
be museum exhibits
and at the other end of the scale
modern vehicles are 'crawling' with computers and
either refuse to start
or switch to
'limp home mode'
if a fault develops
fraudulant fails
as cash generators apply to
vehicles between ten and 40 years old
and switching to
once every two years is a step to phasing MOTs out
a classic example of
car versus engineer
a car will know if it has a faulty air bag
no engineer could eye ball detect that

Sky news have been running a story about
electricity transmission cables being
in the wrong place for the shift from
gas to wind
this is a bit odd because gas fired power stations as
located on coastlines to be connected to North Sea Natural GAs
or to take shipments of liquified natural gas
there is a hidden story here
IF
the prodicted bacl peddaling on Scottish Independence materialises
there is some sort of concept that
'the sea' is about the sized and extent of
The Englsh Channel
and so
space 'at sea' for offshore wind farms
will be limited
and so to make enough wind based electricity
there will have to be
on shore wind farms
and opposition to those would be less in
sparsely populated Scotland
but the network is geared up to import electricity at
Blyth and Redcar and Grimsby and so on down the east coast
the problem here is
England can probably get all the wind based electricity it wants
from the central and southern North Sea
and if Scotland wants to export wind derived energy
it will either have to invest in
electricity to hydrogen tp electricity technology
so as to be able to export energy using existing infrastructure
designed for oil and gas
or it will have to invest in electricity cables to carry the
raw electrical power
Scotland's problem, not England's





this is the rea of a block of flats in Coatham
at some point in the history of this site there was
a hotel fire with 'fatalities'
we put that in inverted commas because the
'deceased' couple could not be found
just their wedding rings remained
anyway
you don't - clearly - need to be
in the least bit smart
to cause a tradgedy
and
not a hint of CLADDING but every chance
this fire could have spread
uPVC windows
MELT
at the drop of a fag

the clue is in the name
re-charge Industries
we've prattled on about how your
high end electric vehicle will charge
to 80 per ent in twenty minutes but your
affordable system will take all night to charge
battery technology is advancing and there are quite
a number of cars EVs out there that very soon will be
worth less as vehicles than the cost of a set of
replacemnt batteries
the core concept here is
as batteries age
they begin to charge and discharge
both to a lesser extent
and at slower rates
what we understand is that
re-charge industries is a start up
the sort of 'business' that is akin to
arbitrage
or more specifically
arbitrage recycling
arbitrage is the simultaneaus buying and selling of
securities or commodities in different markets
to take advantage of differng prices for the same asset
this is also related to
fullfillment marketing
offer for sale something you don't have in stock
ligitimately - a nuclear power station
not so ligitmately the latest mobile 'phone
and when it isn't delivered, blame your
fulfillment contractor
like not being Amazon but offering something on Amazon
and then blaming Amazon if you fail to deliver
all of that is about what sort of company
re-charge Industries MAY be
the way these two strands come together is
we suspect - without evidence that
re-charge Industries
propose to but failing vehicle batteries
and install them in a wired up warehouse
to provde low grade, inefficent, storage of
off peak electrical energy from the Blyth-Norway
interconnector
to squeeze some 'past their best' life out of
EV batteries that can no longer
pull the skin off a rice pudding
but can store 'SOME' charge
manking the proposal for Blyth
more a warehouse
and
less a factory
there would be SOME employment in
swapping the batteries in and out
but not the thousands of jobs in battery assembly
previously envisioned

one day our Ricker got a glimpse of the file
his bank olds on him
and he noticed a blank next to
date of death
and it puts a person in mind of the question
how famous do you have to be for
news organisations to
keep your obituary - death notice - on file?
and at what age do they set it up?
it is really quite interesting how when something happens
like an leak or announcement about a factory closure
there is a real time crunch to get to see and hear what is
actually being reported
before the editors in the office
trim and edit the output to fit
the pre-prepared script
so we will take a different tack to this week's
employment news
two contrasting stories about retirement and
retirement age
somebody is saying it is
MP Mary Foy
is saying
'the current retirement age for prison officers of
between 65 and 68 is
"cruel and degrading"
and in other news
we have some old codger - man over 60
at Scunthorpe steel works saying
we hope that when the coke ovens are shut
some of the lads will be
re-deployed within the works
in other words
not death by a thousand cuts
death by a handfull of cuts
all the effort being
not to protect the economy of the town
but to make sure that
a few dozen sixty something employees can
stay on the payroll for a few more months
so their retirement isn't classed as we do have a question about cut and paste journalism
if you were Chinese English may not be your
first language
so you may refer in English to a
breading oven
as opposed to a bread oven
and so you may refer to a coke oven as
a cokeing oven
pizzaing oven?
at what point are press releases translated from
'cod English' into Standard English?

one of the major 'tropes?' in the reporting of
industry is that
for example
if a steel works closes
all the activities
in the supply chain
are at risk
we have said before
Scunthorpe steel works is
thankfully - pollutionwise
in the middle of nowhere
and everybody in the 'supply chain'
lives and works somewhere else
South and West Yorkshire in particular
and don't give a damn whether the steel they process
comes from Scunthorpe or Singapore
their jobs WILL NOT NE AFFECTED
hence
we are all waiting for a couple of hundred
old geezers in North Lincolnshire
a 'happy ' band of Fred Dibnahs
to get sick and fall off the twig
so we can 'modernise' - drag into the 20th century
some 'living museum' exhibits
like
an exhibit the the National Rail Museum in York
of some ancient piece of kit that is
WELDED onto it's 'museum quality display mount
when welding as opposed to soldering and wasn't
invented until a century after the artifact was made
diesel and electric locos servicing a steel works
built in the 'age of steam' - steam locomotives
and another thing
hve you ever had female work colleagues who
go to work every day
and leave their early retired former steel worker husbands
at home to keep the cat company?
our Ricker has
it involves quite a range of things
'never to be said'
so when 'we' talk about the effect on
jobs in the 'supply chain'
this is a euphemism - kinder form of words - for
we can't force these guys into retirement before
their wives and partners are ready to retire

it's really a very long while since we last ran through
top tips for making an ace baby
the female lot have all the gen
what is 'gen'?
info
all about getting stuffed within a day or two of
ovulaating as detected by
mood and body temperture
the male side is the less than obvious
we recently said
sperm production is continuous
and so we may have left the impression that no
man management
is necessary
no so
the routine is
you know when you are gonna ovulate
you need to prepare yer man
around four days before the
insemination ceremony
that is around three of four days before
you expect to ovulate
you do whatever it takes to get
every bit of his load
into a condom
you need to start from scratch
then
you make as sure as you can that he does not
ejaculate - cum - in any way for any reason
between then and the cermony
so, cos, what you want is
sprem that are as near 4 days old as you can get
to meet your freshly released egg
deviation from this
risks deterioration or immaturity in the
tiny participants
and the 'worst case scenario'
is to dump a load of random, miscelaneous sprem
up yer chuff
4 to six days before you ovulate
because
most them guys will be tattered and dead on their tails by
the time you ovulate

Ooops Apocalypse
we have a decalaration to make
if you see a bloke wot looks a lot like
Eiric Robson
and that is not Eric Robson
a partner in cbjaRobson property management
wanderin' around Redcar
that'd be our Ricker
ya wanna see Eiric Robson wanderin' the streets
you'd need to be
in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
or on or near a houseboat on the Thames near Tower Bridge
or somwhere in South East Asia
well let's be honest they don't see alot of each other
what we can say is
Eric Robson spent a lot of his earlies holidays in Redcar
and remembers it as being very cold
but that was probably just the home not the town
cbjaRobson don'toften take on new clients
or famous name clients but
a litle over 6 months ago
they took over property management services for
the Waitrose Headquarters Campus
at Bracknel in Berkshire

the Monty Python song
Every sperm is sacred
comes from an era when
in the UK
non-Christian religions
were seen as exotic and fascinating and the likes of
Islamic Fundamentalism
seemed far away
and the immediate threat to
life love and liberty
came from the Roman CAtholic Church's
stand against contraception
You're a Catholic the moment dad came
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate

Let the heathn spill theirs
On the dusty ground
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't b$9million
boxoffice $42.7millon
we can define straight sex between
a 40 year old man and a 7 seven year old female
mutual masturbation
because of the zero probability of it leading to a pregnancy
and by extension
straight sex involving contraception
could be described as mutual masturbation
and hence the spilling of seed
so we are in a middle ground when
the 40 something father is knocking off
the 16 year old baby sitter
one or both of them will probably be using some form of
contraception
and so
the baby sitter is being denied the opportunity to
make a baby for a man who can afford
a baby sitter
this is the only logical way to tie
sex with a seven year old to sex with a seventeen year old
most people - particularly females
would not consider masturbation - playing with yourself
but almost everybody would say
the solitary vice
if a crime, is a victimless crime
but to some
the victim is the birth rate
and hence society as a whole
no unwanted babies --- no low skilled health care assistants
if the sole beneficiary of the production of
bonny bouncing bastards
is the labour market - the lower end in particular
we should
can child support - paid by natural fathers
and restrict ourseles to child benefit - paid by
a stae that is so desperate to see so many
young lasses
up the duff

it is difficult to comprehend that
in the UK up until 1925
a very small proportion of fwmales
spent any length of time as
post menopausal
essentially
in 1765 life expectancy was 40 years
in 1925 it was 50 years
in 2015 it was 80 years
now - suddenly - women aee spending
half their lfe
not just half their adult life
postmenopausal
up to 1925 being post menopausal could be regarded as
an illness or disabilty
and wome with premature menopause would eb described as
barren
bbeing post menopausal is not an illness
just as PMT pre=menstrual tension or modern equivalent
pms premenstrual syndrome
is a condition not an illness
in Iran at the present time
7 (seven) per cent - in a hundred of people in
Iran
are aged 65 or over
in Syria
almost nobody over 65 is alive
these cultures have not come to term with
what do women do with the
no longer having babies half of their lives?
t's a tiny bit like playing th first hal of the match as
rugby or American Foolball
and coming out to play the second half a soccer
trcky if you've never played soccer before in your life

to express all of this in the fewest possible words
when half the female population are
beyond their reproductive years
it's hard to sustain popular consent for the concept that
recreational sex is a sin
and over time we see the evolution of religious doctrine
at present Islamic clerics are saying
you cannot have sex in your infertile period
and fifty years ago you had a Roman catholic pope saying
if you want to have sex and not get pregnant
you must use nothing other than
the rhythm method
having unprotected sex in your infertile period
and here's a bit of related psychological insight
as we say 'troublesome' nations are
dominated by young people
they have no or few
'elders'
to refer to
for advice
so they turn to
scripture
but they forget
those scriptures were written by generations who died
even younger than they are
Jesus was supposed to have died at 33?
'the ancients'
were rearely people of long experience
just teens and twenties who lived a long time ago


we want to discuss
why is Hartlepool re-industrialising
quicker than Redcar?
we have a little story about
Tommy and the quarry in Wales
broadly speaking amongst several quarries
Hodsmans owned and ran
there were two major locations
plus slag reclamation from the
Bell Brothers Ironworks site at Port Clarence
that has a related story
the two main sites were
High force, in Teesdale
and Spaunton
Saputon is now run by Cemex as a
sand and gravel source
Hodsmans were probably taking limestone
that said, this story is about Wales
for whatever reason Hodsmans were contemplating
buying some sort of quarry in Wales
so Tommy went down to take a look
he went into a local pub and got chatting and
the chat throughout the pub was in
English
but as soon as Tommy revealed that
he was interested in the quarry
everybody started talking in Welsh
so Tommy walked out and drove home
and that was the end of that
expansion plan
deep disrespect
like putting secirity on a development site
if the alternative is to
sail you yacht into the marina
and have a good old nosey around
strictly off the record
you will probably keep the faith
and a deal may be done

we like to offer unusual angles on topical issues
there is quite a lot about periods in the news these days
we could list the four phases of the female cycle
for the males...
yer wimin is like 4 stroke enginesBR> suck squeeze bang blow
OK the names
menstrual phase, follicular phase, Ovulation, luteal phase
now here's the thing
females, all the ones menstrauting including most of the
'girls' in secondary school
during their 4 phase cysle are affected
by hormones
BUT
actually they are only AFFECTED by hormnes in
three out of the four phases
during the follicular phase they almosy become like
alsopeople
like men or little girls or old women
here's the angle
women 'of child bearing age' are shall we say
most calm in he phase that comes after the
menstrual or dischargeor bleeding phase
and so this angle suggests
noting this the ancients
up to around a century or two ago
took to artificially
bleeding
patients to try to calm them
especially the nutters
on the basis
blood loss is followed by calm demeanour
the other side line is
many animals come into season at a particular time of year
humans are all over the place - timewise
humans subject to any severe stress
including, but not only, relative starvation
'loose ' their periods - normally temporarily
since most human females - especially in the 'West'
live the life of Reiley
food, warmth, artificial light
all on tap
so in biological terms
just cycle as fast as practicable
and that turns out to be 12 times or so a year
it is interesting that a lot of
essentially 'non-Islamic' nations have recently become
interested in the concept of
'not upsetting the Moslems'
perhaps when they were customers for the Islamic World's
oil and gas they felt the power of being the customer
whereas now they are not so much the customer and
are more intent on
'getting their money back'
by selling to the Islamic world
and so
Islamic teaching on sex and the monthly cycle
some Islamic teachers say
no sex during the period
nor in phase two
in essence to use direct language
you should only fuck the bitch when
she's gagging for it
that may seem 'considerate' but
from the perspective of
the purpose of sex is to generate pregnancy
only having sex with a woamn when she is
in her fertile period
chimes with ths other distinction
female are born with all the eggs they will ever have
males make sperm all the time
and those sperm only remain viable for around 4 days
if like the ancients, you don't know that
you may - referencing Bible edicts - consider
sperm to be - like eggs - of fxed availability
and have prohibitions against
'spilling of seed' - sperm by such as
masturbation and fucking females who are not
in a fertile phase
another reason for
having a a minimum age for females having sex
don't waste your seed in
vessels too young to provide it with an egg
and of course
don't bung it up the wrong spout - buggery
there is a song in one of the Monty Python ovies
every sperm is precious
let's be clear
if a sperm doesn't find an egg within four to six days of production
it will die
the basic tennets of any religion - guesswork - based system of laws
women are 'a womb on legs'
child mortality is high
hence we must
outbreed the rabbits
doses of the so we must do nothing we THINK may reduce fertility
if you have a society that regards
femle humans as
just another form of
livestock
you want maximum fecundity from desirable stock
we may be off the mark with
fertility versus fecundity but
there is a ratio
fertility - potential to reproduce
fecundity (or perhaps a similar word) - actual reproductive success
and hence to that term
desirable stock and another dilemma or choice
this concept
big strong men such as police officers
should or shouldn't
fuck vulnerable females at every opportunity
1 you shouldn't allow the defective to breed
2 take any opportunity to 'strengthen the breed'
we tend towards the second option
what with gene therapy and such
the purpose of the female is to collect
doses of the most impressive men they can get their hands on
and if they can get a really good target
hooked
with trips through the gates of heaven
long before they can releas eggs
that's investing in the future
not such a rare unfiltered comment from a seven year old
'when I grow up, I'm gonna marry Richard'

some of the things we write are a
bit of a chore
so we cut them short
they become as one of our Ricker's tutors once said
pithy
or sound bites
Dr Barnardoes
Tom Barnardo was a sort of
late 19th centiry Boris Johnson type
at some point he trained as a missionery
and as part of that training he did some
bush first aid training
so after that he decided to style himself
Doctor Bernado
and he set up children's homes and
he specialised in
farming out vulnerable children to families
and this was the origins of
fostering and adoption
put that way a good thing
on the other hand some may ask
was he facilitating
child exploitation, child slavery
most of the children who were
either evacuated from London
or rescued from Germany by the Kinder Transports
in the second world war
have nothing but praise for their treatment
but then it was an alternative to being
gassed or bombed to death
what we can say is that
nobody appears to have challenged him about his
use of the title Doctor
and we have a case just now of a woman who just rocked up
in the UK and said
she had qualified as a doctor in New Zealand
andproceeded through a twenty year career
as a psychologist
and never was challenged about her training
and was only busted when she
altered a patient's will in her own favour
and this brings us to
doctors 'farced' into retirement by tax and pension rules
easier to
tax the old timers out of a job than to
open the whole can of worms about
how many patients have they treated since their
dementia set in?


we're offering a little 'colour' on the HS2 saga
so far as we can tell...
despite all that archaeology and grave disturbance
it appears there will be tunnels at the London end of HS2
any bets it will be 'The Charles Line' ?
twin bored tunnels between Old Oak Common
and
Greenpark Way under Notholt
and
and for Not In My Back Yard
NIMBY reasons
separately, under the Chiltern Hills
and the concrete tunnel lining segmets for the
Chilterns tunnels will be made on site locally in the Chilterns
but the Northolt one will be made
in Hartlepool
by Strabag
they are due to start travelling
entirely by rail from Hartlepool to
Willesden Euro Terminal logistics hub
as from April 2023
there are scheduled to be
travelling from Hartlepool
36,000 seven tonne concrete sections
Greenpark Ways one of four
ventilation shafts
on the Northolt tunnel route of HS2
essentially
the parts of the tunnels that will be going under open countryside
will be engineered locally
the 'supply chain' for the more central sections
where vacant, not built on, land is not available
will begin in Hartlepool
work - dependent on deliveries from Hartlepool
is due to begin
23rd April 2023
we can say
this is re-industrialisation of Hartlepool
not envisioned by planners
when they chose Hartlepool over other Tees boroughs
for 'leisure development'
and imposed - amongst other things - the
rod over the Tees Barrage
with hindsight
a little money spent installing a
bascule bridge - as at Middlesbrough Dock
over the lock in the Tees Barrage
may be money well spent
incidentally, we think Hartlepool marina has a capacity of
200 yachts not the official 500
the BEST solution is to reinstate the
Coatham and Redcar piers
and set up a marina between them
but the cheapest solution is to
open up Stockton Reech to yachts by
installing a removable section over the lock
in the road over the Tees Barrage
and to clarify
the Tees Barrage is upstream of the A19 River Tees Viaduct
and that is upstream of the
now bolted down Newport Bridge

a bit less thn two years ago
our Ricker decided to cleebrate his birthday by
walking a short section of
The Teesdale Way a testy confrontantio with
a TeesWorks security guard as he walked
along the route as it crosses the entrance to
the SSI section of the Teesworks site
it makes no sense at all to have people in possession of
copies of the Ordnance Survey map of the area that
have the Teesdale Way marked on
and signposts in the ground if
local security and National Government
bar access
is the Secretary of State still
periodically enewing the order banning use of the section of
the Teesdale Way that runs alongside the railway opposide
South Bank coke works
'on safety grounds?
a note here
when contractors are employed on a site
such as the building of the Redcar Regent cinema
they may ban employees and contractors from
photography on site
because they don't want coverage of
work time pranks
appearing on social media
such band do not apply to
press and public
in nearby public spaces
it should be clear that
walking and photography on the Teesdale Way is
encouraged

we get a bit weary of trying to explain some of the things
people fret about
we have some UK government statistics about
energy from various forms of
food waste including sewage
we understand this is generally obtained by the
anaerobic - in the absence of air
digestion of food waste and animal and human dung
govenment statistics indicate that this increased
from 2015 to 2017 and then flat lined
in 2020 it was equivalent to nearly
a million tonnes of oil equivalent
and was and is fed directly into the
gas mains where it joins natural gas
from wells
Renewable Obligation closure to new generating capacity
caused the flat line from 2017
in other words this was a sort of equivalent to
planting trees to offset carbon usage
but government decided not to allow additon of eatra capacity
as from 2017
between 2011 and 2020
anaerobic digestion created 13,470 gigawatt hours of heat
the problem seems to have been that operators of these systems were
'caught'
feeding 'non-waste' biomass into their digesters
indeed up to alf of the feedstock used appears to have been
material with a more valuable use
in other words
corn that could have been used as animal feed
all along the way
we see schems that represent
industrial scale 'proof of concept'
that may not eventually prove wise in the long run
govenment - in this case - has to find a way
to ensure that anaerobic digesters are fed WASTE
and not valuable food and such
the regulatory burden may not be 'worth the candle'


Jackson's Landing was some sort of
outlet mall
in Hartlepool
it is long gone and the site has been cleared
but the marina remains
we can suggest that perhaps some authority decided that
Middlesbrough and Stockton should not have
marina style facilities
so as to give Hartlepool status as the only marina
between Sunderland and whitby
that may explain the road to - almost - nowhere over the Tees Barrage
the Infinity Bridge
the bascule bridge over the
Dock Cut in Middlesbrough
etc. etc.
we understand that Hartlepool Marina has
500 berths
we don't know how many yachts are tied up there at any given time
but the road over the Tees Barrage may be responsible for
the demolition of the
Castlegate Centre on Stockton High Street
and the failure of such as the indoor ski centre at
Middlehaven in Middlesbrough
may be down to similar decisions
you cannot drive GROWTH into an economy if
you continually divert investment into
areas
where it will not show a return
a woman with one hand can be a
cycling superstar
she may event be good at darts
but she will struggle to make a career as a potter

the police are cheeky beggers
give them more funds to introduce more
foot patrols
and they buy more squad cars
so
offer the police more money for anything and
they say more drivers
they say more officers but they mean
more drivers
and just like President Putin
not knowing what would confront his
forces when they entered Ukraine
the police view of the world is through
a car windscreen
when you store veg, potatoes or fruit, apples
you don't put damaged produce in store with the
whole stuff
you et the windfalls or make cider
you store the healthy stuff
so if you want to spend money on the police
you first remove the rotten apples
before you add any sort of fresh crop
at some point we will return to the A19 Tees Flyover
built around 1970
in 1987
Teesside Development Corporation was founded
and so the rats of Westminster asked themselves
who do we KNOW that on Teesside these days
oh that barra boy from the East End - or sarf of tha riva
Ron Norman is working for Yuill Homes up there
he'll do Chair
a couple of things here
the Tees Barrage was built and opened in 1995
�50 million
Teesside Development Corporation project
the river upstream is kept at the level of
high tide in the estuary
a Thames Barrier knock off
and keeps in a sense, the sea out of the river
to prevent flooding up stream
and there is a drop at low tides
and that provides the water of a slalom kayak course
all good
but t stops ships except for very small ones that use a lock
from navigating up river
iin particular to
Stockton-on-Tees
but they can access
Billingham Reach
where the famous CCF as was, ICI as was
we'll have to shut down at these gas prices
CF Fertilizer factory is
the A19 Tees Flyover is a
six-lane dual carriageway road bridge on Teesside
on both sidea of the Tees...
not a tunnel in the Tees
north-south across the river Tees
opened November 1975
the highest point is 40 metres above the river Tees
so you build a massive flyover to
allow ships access to Stockton-on-Tees
then you build a barrage
with a tiny lock an a road to the
Lloyd Gym on the north side
over the top to
stop even littl ships and boats with masts
from getting access to Stockton-on-Tees
so, that was what the
Teesside Developmet Corporation was set up to do
turn Stockton-on-Tees into a
mini Cannery wharf
Sir Ron normand was appointed to deliver this
and then some
extra money was granted on the basis
we've given you what we wanted you to have
now here's some money to get something you choose
a sum was set and the Get Wet Evening Gazette
asked to run a survey
which of these half a dozen projects do
you, the people, want?
and Ron Norman pipes up and says
to the getwet
can the other projects
wht we want to do
what we are going to do
is
put a roof over the river to create an
indoor rowing course
because
being some sort of cockerney
he had never heard of
rowing machines
and thought indoor rowing involved a swimming pool
two miles long
it never got built
David Lloyd Clubs
rowing exercise machines
need a big pool for that
if yer Ron Norman
the barrage thing was all about
offices on either side of the Tees
and involved building a major sewage works on Portrack Marsh
just down stream of the barrage
and later the
Infinity Bridge
added to obstructions to navigation
we are not sure what sort of businesses were supposed to
set up on Tees Reach and
University Boulevard
but what we have seen were mainly
call centres
and all of this left Middlesbrough saddly served
down stream of the barrage and the sewage works
with little else on the waterfront
Middlesbrough Reach, than
Middlesbrough FC's Riverside Stadium and
most of the rest of the former industrial land
given over to
match day parking
for the stadium
regarding the humiliating failure of the concept of
University Boulevard, Stockton
who the hell do University of Teesside dons
think they are
The Archangel Gabriel?


the question we are asking here is
is it a triumph of modern medicine and social care to
recruit and retain somebody with
ADHD or autism
in an authority role such as
security guard or police officer?
the bottom line here is security guards who locked customers inside
Morrisons Berwick Hills
because they panicked in face of
two or three eleven year olds
acting up
in the supermarket car park
across society the emphasis seems to be on
keeping people in their jobs
not
ensuring that jobs are done well and transparently
as regards the former SSI site in Redcar
what is called for is
conducted tours for interested local residents and press
and not security who call the police if
anybody goes anywhere near
this is not Aldermaston or Porton Down or Greenham Common


an interesting facet of the
shellfish washup saga has come to light
the ministry are now saying
they have no record of a dip in recorded catches
firstly we have to say
are the fishers moaning about a loss of
guvvie or unported catches?
or
were the animals that were washed up
too small to be legally caught?
we have a scenario that fits this new angle
if catches of mature shellfish were normal
as claimed by the ministry
and we could say We never saw any mature shellfish
washed up
the possible actual loosers in this event
were the predators that are not subject to
quotas and size restrictions
as we said
the remains on the beach were
small and soft shelled
having recently moulted
IF
the seabirds were the ones loosing catch
that may relate to
the excess deaths supposedly attributable to
bird flu


The phrase
dead man walking
was traditionally used in US prisons
to announce a condemned prisoner being
walked to their place of execution
it has expanded to be a euphemism for
anyone facing impending and unavoidable loss
and a part of that tradition is the practice of
offering the offender
absolutely anything they want for their
last meal
and in a way what we see all around us is
this set of traditions being
extended to the fossil fuel industries
and the repeat of the
good bank - bad bank
method of transition
from old to replacement technologies
there was this relative of our Ricker's
you cn check him out
he was Wilf Scollick the
transport manager at the
old cement works in Billingham
who incidentally set up the now long destroyed
replacement in Weardale
Eastgate Cement Works
we have to say that
since that works opened in 1991
Uncle Wilf must have been working on it
long before it opened and
probably as a consultant after he retired
anyhow
we are here talking about him being executor for
somerelative's estate - having a lasting or enduring
power of attorney
he old fella was in a nursing home and worried about
how much it was costing and Uncle Wilf
would take him bank statements that were
well out of date
to calm the old fella and keep from him just
how quickly his money was running out
and so it is with the fossil fuel boys
split the companies into good and bad
and keep flashing
shared certificates for the bad bank companies
at the demented old souls
to keep them happy until they get to
pop their cloggs
we're not gonna edit this
we have got this wrong
Wilf Scollick was the transport manager for
the Blue Circle Cement works on Bellasis in Billingham
and in 1964 he organised the tranport for
extracting cement from the Eastgate works
for general rail distribution
so
the cement works in Bilingham closed in around 1965
and from then the cement was made up Weardale
but for some reason
possibly because in 1991 a new palnt was built
t'internet has it that
Eastgate cement works only operated from 1991 to 2002
something called the
speedlink wagonload network
was closed in 1991
by then Eastgate was producing specialist cements
such as sulphate resistant
and not 'ord port'
ordinary Portland cement
so they couldn't generate or afford
trainload distribution beyond
Tees yard
only being able to run a block train from Eastgate to Tees yard
we are assuming Tees yard was
Thornaby
they had Presflo tankers and curtain sided wagons for bagged cement
but that was putting large goods vehicles of dales roads
and that lead to
we've just been wondering what little shit in the
woke wonderland of Whitehall
twenty years ago told
Morrisons Supermarket
you can't build a new supermarket in Redcar
until after you have built a duplicate as an
adventure playground for
the l0cal thuggery in Berwick Hills
and being a duplicate may be the reason why
the shopping experience in Redcar Morrisons
grows every day more like
a visit to a cattle market
Sainsbury
agreed to
BUILD
a supermarket in North Ormesby
but they had the clout to
refuse to open it

thing is
if a company has a store in redcar and a store in Berwick Hills
do they allow staff from Berwick Hills to work in the Redcar store?
and if they have turned the Redcar store into a
glitzy representation of an abatoir
if a member of staff attacks you
what is your escape route?
do they drug test staff?

it's a bit of a bummer to avoid Aldi because
it's on Lakes Estate
and go to Morrisons and find the staff may be from
Berwick Hills
out of the frying pan into the fire

The cow
a sacred animal for the majority of any Hindu community
they amble unmolested in traffic-chocked streets
during festivals holy men take cows around
with foreheads smeared in vermillion
to seek alms - charity donations
and the residents of Middlesbrough, north
Middlehaven etc.
are the sacred cows of
The Labour

eat, drink and be merry
for tomorrow we die
eat, drink and be merry for
for tomorrow we turn 18
and will have a smidge more trouble
convincing the authorities that
we are vulnerable

we need to clarify
the fossil boys can't seel their product
and if they aren't selling their product and
they are paying busuness rates on the plant thet aren't using
they have to remove it or face loosing money
so they are now suffering from
Delilah Syndrome
Tom Jones anthem
if I can't have her
then nobody will
to save bsiness rates the fossil boys have to
vacate sites But
they want to deprive the carbon frees
access to industrial land
so they get it zoned for housing


we've reached some sort of point of conflict between
South Tees Development Corporation
and
Redcar and Cleveland Council
the developemnt corporation has been
itching to remove the
bund
from around the redcar steel works site
and they have started work on that because
they want to
sell or lease off uncontaminated land
and avoid tacking land contamination
and RCBC say
you don't have planning permission
to
turn a bund into
a 'park and ride car park'
Redcar is NOT
post industrial
South Tees Developemt Corporation was NOT
set up Yuill style to
build housing on brown field sites

and another thing
Syria
water water everywhere, not a drop to drink
concrete concrete everywhere
held together by
electrical wiring
not reinforcing steel


this morning just a little bit of frustraton withBR> Charlie boy
King Charles the third
his native real is titled
The United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
but in france it is known as
Le Royaume Uni
there s no pace in English wot is called the flea pit just north of Syria is called
Turkey
in English
if you want to refer to it as Turkieie
do so in a message that is entirely in Turkish

perhaps it is a bit late in the year to be offering
an analysis is progress in 2022
but
we are interested in one statistic
in 2022 the UK produced
one sixth of its energy from
'renewable sources
a slight problem with this is that
because this fgure includes nuclear
it isn't really all renewable
some of it is just 'fossil carbon independent'
but most of it is renewable
we can say that in 2010
10 per cent of electricity used in the UK
came from renewable sources
and by 2022 it was nearly 40 per cent
we think that by the summer of 2023
almost all electricity in use will be
produced from 'renewable' i.e. non-fossil carbon sources
and that electricity is cheaper than
natural gas derived electricity
there used to be
perhaps still is
a company somewhere in Scandinavia that
made fridges and freezers
and they sold most of them in the late spring to early autumn - fall
so they had their workforce work overtime when demand was high
distributors and retailers would
place orders in winter for the following summer
but being a start-up kind of business they got paid lte summer
so they had the workforce work for basic pay when busy
and
bank hours
and not get paid at the time they did the overtime
but get paid despite not turning up for work
in the slack times
and go fishing or something
in the quantities a modern economy needs energy
electricity can't be stored
gas can be stored
so in a simple model
you use electricity, and only electricity, in the summer
and you use half electricity and half gas in the winter
but you can store hydrogen
so in the summer
on the basis of making hay while the sun shines
in the summer you make more electricity than you need
because you need less energy and becuse the sun shines more
and you use at least half of that to make hydrogen
and this means that the answer to getting beyond
around a quarter of total energy requirement from renewables
falls into two parts
installing enough wind based generating power
installing enough storage for hydrogen
and so
you can explore
carbon capture and storage
and then
you use the storage spaces you have developed for
carbon storage
for hydrogen storage
so the fossil boys think carbon capture and storage is
the salvation of the natural gas industry
but it is its doom
somewhere along the way some of the less demented of
the fossil boys may have twigged that
and gone a bit cold on CCaS


Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Rings
lord of the Bins
which is the 'owner' of
Lord of ....?
but there is this appearanace that
'populist democracies'
have all the character of
Lord of the Flies
all the adults have retired to their
country estates and universities
and left the children to run the country
and just for a laugh
they vote Liz Truss as PM
what larks!
twenty years ago
what for a more recent period was
Store 21 on Redcar High Street
was
Redcar Macdonalds restaurant
when Morrisons arrived
it was replaced by a drive through McDoonalds
on the Morrisons service station site Redcar Gas Works
opposite the Tesco that was Safeway
on West Dyke Road
and so
what was once MacDonalds and later Store 21
is now getting some sort of makeover
and we suspect there will be flats on the upper floor
this is a small start up developer with offices
well contact via
what we assume to be solicitors in
Stockton-on-Tees
so again we see
the nationals influenced by the media and the
soup kitchens and tumbleweed
loosing out to locals who
get it
we have noticed that Coatham Beach has acquired
a bit of a slick
back in the days
the days when Lynemouth Pit tipped all its rubbish
on the local beach near Blyth
old gadgies used to go down on the beach at low tide with
a bike, a rake and a few sacks
and harvest
seacoal
so we have sea coal on Coathem Beach
and whether that is due to
dredging the Tees or cleaning up the beach in Northumberland
it's more decorative than threatening






we've been reading up a bit more about
Scunthorpe steel works
we are not clear as to whether the Chinese
paid the UK govenment anything for the business
and we don't know to what extent, at present
Scunthorpe steel works is considered separate from
British Steel
what we seem to detect is that the Chinese parent company
has loaned Scunthorpe �156 million
and has not begun to invest the
1.2 billion it promised when it took over
perhaps the UK govenment GAVE Scunthorpe
or the whole of British steel to the Chinese
on condition they invest 1.2 billion
so the parent company is a secured creditor of
British Steel?
and wants it's �156 million back
before it will part
that would mean
�156 'compensation' to China
plus �300 clean up costs
this is just Redcar all over again
South Tees Development Corporation
had this wrangle with SSI's banks over
the land has a value
but we will only pay that value minus the
cost of restitution
so the way the UK government see this is
we, the UK taxpayer, want the site back and
we will pay
�156 million minus �300 million
that is
diddly squat
and the other parallel is that
just as SSI used Redcar for
industrial scale trials of new technologies
that is exactly what Jinghi had in mind for Scunthorpe
this is largely the legacy of
Sir Ron norman's stint as
chair of the now long defunct
Teesside Development Corporation
a house builder by trade
and his deputy Lord Dormand
come build whatever you like on Teesside
it's such a shit heap
nobody will notice
whatever you do
our Ricker's closest encounter wil Sir Ron was pair of vintage cookery books in
the Sue Ryder Care charity shop in Thirsk
he want both volumes for the price of one
our Ricker didn't give a damn
and let the
famous philanthropist who got his OBE for
services to urban regeneration
and his knighthood for services to Teesside
whilst living near Thirsk
in honesty he only worked for Yuill Homes for fifteen years
but the core point is
his and many other people's idea of
Urban Renwal
is
jobs for smack heads

we're gonna admit right now that we are here
changing tack somewhat
refining our perspective
with regards to
Redcar Steel Works
wgat we have previously made reference to
but without clarity
is that two major contractors were engaged on the site
Erith group
and
Thompsons of Prudhoe
Thompsons of Prudhoe have been engaged in
routine steel structure demolition with
mild to moderate toxic contamination risks
to the extent that we think almost all the
structures they took down
and this month they are concentrating on
the turbine or compressor hall
don't even have extensive asbestos contamination
after Able UK managed to get a couple of
wazzocks from Wiltshire
killed
tackling South Bank coke ovens
somebody thought to call in the professionals
Erith Group
and by the end of 2022 His M Gov
had established the cost of
decontaminating an former steel works as
iro in the region of
�300 million
as a result
HMG is now in a time bind
they are willing to say to Jing whatever and Tata
just walk away and we will pick up the tab for
decontamination of the Scunthorpe and Port Talbot sites
at the estimate of �300 million per site
but we need the work to be
well under way
as long before the next general election as possible
and of course they can do this because they have found
competant contractors
and rid themselves of the spectre of the media
always chanting
give the job to Able UK
the boss is such a cutie
it's very easy for people in high pay high power jobs to
get carried away with themselves
what we appear to have here is a
grand fantasy scheme
so far as we can tell
looking back to June 2022
there was this scheme that
saw in somebody's mind's eye
tanker ships full of liquified carbon dioxide
siling up the Humber to
Drax power station
wher ti would be injected into the ground
and the partnership deal was that
steel would be made in Scunthorpe and shipped to
Lackenby Mills on Teesside
and made into structural steel to construct
an ever expanding network of
Carbon Capture and Storage facilities at Drax
there was another deal
that steel made and cast in Scunthorpe would be
exported to The Netherlands
to FN steel
a steel long products mill
so ths was the idea six months ago
refurb Scunthorpe and
send
some of the product to Lackenby to make 'girders'
and the rest of the product to FNSteel
to be made into wire and rod
the snag was
Scunthorpe needed about �50 million investment to be
able to present rod to FN Steel in an acceptable form
it was a project set up by previous owners of Scunthorpe
an put on hold by the Chinese
and then revived by the Chinese
and in the six months since then
any money spent on the project has gone
to the suppliers of the kit
and not to putting 'spades in the ground'
in Scunthorpe
the manufacturers of that 'rod mill'
COULD just as easily deliver it to Lackenby
if we were managing British Steel
we would be investing in Lackenby
AND
it appears that the June 2022 announced
concast
was not to be a
straight out of he BOS plant
vertical integration
concast
but a remelt concast
something that would fit in well at Lackenby

it is February 1st not April 1st
but West yorkshire Police have given our Ricker
the best laugh he has had since returning from
his nephew's funeral
a tanker has fallen over on the A1M
and drivers are being asked to keep
doors and windows closed
after he stopped laughing...
he considered they may be addressing drivers stuck in standing traffis
but
if you are stuck in standing traffic in a hazard zone
SWITCH YOUR AIR CON TO
RECIRCULATE
DON'T USE THE HEATER TO DRAW IN FUMES
and if they don't clear the blockage quick
you'll die from carbon dioxide narcosis anyway
the old ones are the best
customer rings the theatre and asks
when does the performance start?
the box office reply
when can you get here
seems a bit like that on the railways these days
strike days seem to have become
alt Bank Holidays
we note that the notice at Redcar Central station
that said
Transpennine Express trains depart from
platform 2
has been removed
after several years
TPE appear to have trained their drivers how to
drive from Redcar to Saltburn
give them all a Blue Peter badge
what has occured to us is
do train drivers have tachographs in their cabs?
putting it another way
if train drivers need to do the equivalent of
a masters degree in window watching
every time they switch to a new route
why are they allowed to do
rest day working?
large road vehicle drivers have their
working and resting hours strictly controlled
but train drivers can apparently work whenevee they like
so long as they are
'fully trained'
when there were lots of
rival railways companies
changing to a 'new route'
probably meant changing to
different safety systems and so
being familiar with the working of the
company you were new to
and perhaps becoming familiar with
quirks of the track
may have been important
and we note that even today there is a
hill in the North West where
main line trains have to call up a pusher engine
to get to the top
so, some quirks remain
but we have to say
the railway rules of the road
may be quite an impressive document
but no more so than
the driver manual for a new car
Hyundi Tucson 48V?
at least an inch thick and each page in English
and half the size of A4
'real people'
as opposed to rail monkeys
are just expected to get on with it
once a Class 1 driver
take any large vehicle anywher at a moment's notice
so long as you have
hours on your tacho
more train drivers, less
you can't drive a train
if
you can't play piano
it's just like
cabs v minicabs v Ubers
in theory you can hail a cab
but you have to book a minicab or an Uber
it's a
state sponsored restrictive practice
since, so far we know,
you don't need to have
The Knowledge
to be a registered, hailable cab driver
if you work outside
Central London
so
in essence
cab licences are designed to
limit availability of cabs

we've had a little think about
president Putin and the FSB
Federation of Small Bussiness?
no
Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation
we have commented that
if seen as the Russian equivalent of
CIA in USA and or MI6 or GCHQ in the UK
they can been thought to have performed
very badly
in preparing for the Special Military Operation in Ukraine
but perhapse what we are missing is 'our'
the 'free world's' assessment of the situation
perhaps the 'Russian CIA' are so successful that we
know nothing about them
and the FSB is the
Russian SOE
Special Operations Executive
perhaps their entire opertion is devoted to
sabotage behind enemy lines
and some entirely other Russia agency is the
outfit that failed

as northern hemisphere winter
slowly draws to a close
we should, perhaps, consider the
Russoukrainian conflict
the essential point about the origins of this is to ask
did the Russian High Command
a year ago
genuinely expect that 'visiting' Russian forces would be
met with general, popular jubilation?
in a sense that question is becoming
to coin a phrase
a part of the
First Rough Draft of the History of 2022
to coin a phrase means to nick somebody else's
clever use of words
the question for the early part of 2023 is
if we assume this error was the 'fault' of the
Russian FSB - Russian secret service
this presents President Putin with two problems
first; the FSb are the only people he trusts
and they have proven untrustworthy
in a 'as much use as a chocolate fire guard' type of way
and secondly
since most of them work as second jobs for
the Wagner Group of mercenaries
and most of their number who were members a year ago
are now dead
and replaced with prisoners on parole
despite President Putin wishing to have a
tight inner cabinet
even if they themselves are still alive
their control of
like minded fighters is severely deminished
and so
we should ask
how passive agressive has
the general population of Russia become?
putting tht another way
there is a fear of 'western' armaments supplied to Ukraine
falling into Russian hands
but what if they fell into the hands of
Russian dissidents?
would that be 'bad for' the free world?
in other words what could a couple of dozen geriatric
possibly demented 'yes men' in the Kremlin do
about
personally crewing captured western armaments?
our Ricker has long referred to former BBC news anchor
Joanna Gosling
as
Pretty Polly
we want to register our disappointment at the apparent
lack of care over the human resources management of a
perfectly adequate news reader who has hit
the menopause
at a time when the management are looking to
destaff

there is a concept in weather but more in climate
that so far as we know
so far as Google knows
is not generally referred to as
insolation winter
it is a period of 3 months
starting in the northern hemisphere on
coincidence?
November 5th
when the least energy from the sun is
hitting the northern hemisphere
so ths would begin on 5th May in southern hemishere
and the weather lags behind this effect
so that weather people refer to
December, January, February
as winter and perhaps
astrophysicists would accept
November, December, January
as winter
and Google has something to say about the term
February fill dyke
a rural appellation for the month of February
when rain or melting snow
fill dykes with water
however, a word of caution
Fill dyke can be
black or white
a black fill dyke is a rainy season
a white fill dyke carpets the landscape in
soft snow and that can disguise
deep water as in the tradegy with the little boys
in the late autumn
a white fill dyke is
snow over water not over ice
and a hoare frost or a white fill dyke
may be described as
too glitty to bide
too pretty to last long
because the sun is 'stronger' at this time of year
rime is frozen liquid water droplets
hoare frost is formed when it is so cold that
water vapour freezes direct to ice
bypassing the liquid state

27th December we recorded eon next keymeter costs as
36 unrestrcted, economy 7 18
we now have 36.12 and 18.87
so either we were rounding down before
or there was a tiny increase on or after 1st January 2013
clearly these figures need to be halved in time for next winter
if government help is to end
but we shall see
we have some confidence that we have had the second and last
cold snap of this winter
and we are told that no actual coal sourced electricity was used
although some coal was burned keeping
two or three power stations 'warm'

from the opening of TML
Trans Manch Link
in November 1994
Waterloo was the London terminus of Eurostar
in November 2007
it moved to
St Pancras
our best guess is by 2038
it will hve moved to
Euston
in all honesty
Euston station is
'nowhere near'
Cannery Wharf or Regent Street
the important thng is
to get from Birmingham to
heathrow Airport
in double quick time
you have to change from HS2 to
The Heathrow Express
at
Old Oak Common


not very important BUT
there are stories about HS2
as with all projects that take too long
to some extent HS2
the 4 station High Speed line that is 2
because the Eurostar to Pris is 1
has been gazumped a little
the new plan is
since there is no plan to connect direct trains to
run through without changeing trains
from HS2 to HS1
initially
HS2 trans will interchnge with
the Elizabeth Line
AKA Crossrail
at a junction at
Old Oak Common
Great Western Mainline, HS2, Elizabeth Line
so people will trans-train
at Old Oak Common instead of Euston
in this new plan


the word of the day, today is
peroration
the concluding part of a speech
closing remaks, conclusion,
the thing is
most people who consider they are
experts
are in the habit of
structuring
their remaks
and here is the contrast
a teacher or lecturer is not expecting to
be interrupted
an expert witness in a court may need to get used to that
and so
if the TV interviewer does not say
we have 30 seconds here, or five minutes here
the expert may 'run out of time'
before they get to the crux of the matter
and so we have entertainment without education
there is a joke about this
a quip, a story
consider a translator providing
live translation of a speech
if the translation is
from the German
and the speaker is not used to the requirements of
public speaking
the translator may get very very agitated and cry
;get to the bloody verb man'
in German the verb often occurs late in or at the end of
a sentence
and so the translation will make no sense until the person
providing the translation has found out
what the sentance is about
and will only know what it is about
when the speaker
gets to the bloody verb
and so in many BBC interviews we have
what was called on Music Hall music sheets
vamp until ready
the classic BBC radio play example is
the actor was reading from a script
a script he had not rehearsed
and he only know the first line
and he dropped the script
and whilst he picked it up and ordered it
he repeated the first line, over and over again
can you hear me mother?
can you hear me mother? the play was a monologue of a man talking to his
unheard mother on the telephone
now we get
vamp until the commercial break in the USA
in music a vamp is a repeated chord progression
pr rhythmic figure leading either into or out of tune or
composition
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
album Gorilla 1967
Hi there, nice to be with you
happy you could stick around
Like to introduce
Legs Larry Smith, drums
Sam Spoons, rhythm pole
And Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, bass guitar
And Neil Innes, piano
Come in, Rodney Slater on the saxaphone
With Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax
Hi. Vivian Stanshll trumpet

over time it has become a feature as the
next to last number on stage at a gig
on the BBC this has become
look we can roust up some 'experts'
but you wouldn't want to hear what they have to say

our
Ricker has been thinking about the past
when he was a lad
being driven through Billingham
overhead in places he could see the wires and buckets of
and aerial ropeway
it took material from the
anhydrite mines to
the cement works?
we're thinking it must have crossed
New Road
and haverton Hill Road
we are fairly sure the site of the
cement works is now called
Billingham Reach Industrial Estate
that was there then
but his dad told him about another
'Blondin'
in Upper Teesdale
the company our Ricker's dad worked for
was called
George Hodsman (1928) Ltd.
and when our Rcker were a nipper
they rn quarries in Teesdale
including
Force Garth
and
High Force
and George Hodsman had bought the mineral rights,BR> to the dale from
The London Lead Company
when they went out of business due to imports of lead
and back in they day
that high up the dale
the working materials and the lead ore
couple only be moved by
aerial ropeway
a kind of
ski lift
but with buckets not bars
and there are still places called
Knock Fell ridge
Silverband mine
and Knocke Ore Gill
as far as we can tell the Blondin brougt the ore down the dale
to a smelting mill at Eggleston
from workngs at Newbiggin
we think the ore was crushed near where it was dug
but - complete guess - smelted at point up the dale where
wagon ways could deliver coal
there are probably still people called Wragsdale
doing engineering 'up north'
Ricker never knew whether
Philp
was a first or last name
but these names were associated with the
whinstone quarries of Upper Teesdale
and
an aerial ropeway was known as
a Blondin
because at the time they were in vogue
scores of them around the UK
one of the the most famous entertainers was
a tightrope walker called Blondin

we wonder how people go about constructing a
risk assessment
we have not even checked the spelling of Buncefield
here is the question
if you were on holiday
in an earthquake prone area
and you heard a warning siren
would you immediately
run indoors?
so far as we know
the activities of the process industries on Teesside carry
low to modernate risk of toxicity
and moderate to high
risk of fire and explosion
we say keep away from the windows
but consider
Lockerby
air liner falls on yer house
you'd survive if you weren't home
yes?
if the baloon goes up
your best hope of survival is
get something big between you and the works
and the sky for a roof
UNLESS
'they' KNOW
the risk is toxicity


the NRPIC
North East Process Industry Cluster
have hired a new fire services contractor
called Falck
and they have put us in a difficulty
Falck are a fire suppression outfit from Sweden
there are seeentially two classes of
fire related industrial incident
a lot of companies have grown in situ in back streets
and 'to preserve local jobs'
have over the years been given permission to store
greater and greater quantities of
hazardous materials in back streets
on the basis of
grandfathered in
and then there are
the sort of process parks we have on Teesside
so we'll give you a side bar here that
one of our Ricker's tutors at Durham University was at the time
fresh from Porton Down
we don't think anybody on Teesside is manufacturing
poison gas for military purposes
we could say
in these stressful times it could be a good idea
to drill the people of Teesside to be prepared
should war break out
wearing CoViD masks woud be a dress rehersal for wearing 'gas masks'
not to put too fine a point on it
the safety advce published by Falck on their
community calendar is
appropriate to advice for responding to
a gas attack
we need, therefore, to add a little extra
to cover the much more likely
but still quite unlikely possibility of a
series of
Bunsfield
seach Bunsfield oil depot fire
style expolsions
if the sirens go off
do what the fire brigade advise
but also
CLOSE THE CURTAINS AND
S T A Y A W A Y F R O M W I N D O W S
unless like our Ricker you have
toughened glass in yer double glazing
Bunsfield not gas attack is what we need to be ready for
for now

a couple of things have escaped our notice
who decided to give Germany
a fire arms licence?
and
who decided they could hold the fire arms licences
of all the major european countries?
like we keep sayin'
plus ca change
plus c'est le meme chose


the word of the day today is
hypothecated
and it means
ring fenced
and in terms it means
you can changed the name plate on the fence
without altering the contents
or removing the compound


our Rcker is footling around in his mind for
a particular word
and the nearest he has got is
predicated
we don't think it is the actual accountacy term
but near enough for this discussion
we are talking about
�300 million plus �300 million
this week we expect these amounts of money to be
written into the UK government accounts
going forward
so there will be a solid spending commitment in the
govenment's spending plans
it is to be labelled
govenment assistance for modernisation
but in the real world
that pot of money
can remain in the accounts 'going forwards'
and be re-labelled
re-generation funding for the
towns
of
Scunthorpe - in Lincolnshire, not Yorkshire
and Port Talbot in South Wales
and not the steel works specifically


we have had a thought that hasn't apparently occured to the mass media
there are a few types of energy pre-payment
some people have an app on their 'phone
most people have a key
they take the key to the 'corner shop'
and just like buying a lottery ticket
they pay to have credit put on the key
and then they take the key home and up load the credit to
their meter
and this costs a bit more
the thing people in the media don't seem to have noted is
the extra over a direct debit is?
well we kinda think it's the fee the energy company pay to
the corner shop for the key chrging service
so one of the er is to support local retail

there is one slender escape route for
President Putin
essentially
on condition that everything 'Russian' is removed from Ukraine
the world could send in a
UN
not NATO or OTAN
peacekeeping force to
neutralise
Wagner
thus
helping not confronting Russia as such
and there MUST BE a Un mandated
cordon sanitaire along Ukraine's borders with
Russia and Belarussia
a DMZ demilitarised zone

we honestly don't know what the game is but
one way to see it is
South Tees Development Corporation agree that
by the end of 2022 they will
put beyond further use
destroy
Redcar blast furnace
as a pre-condition for China
investing a billion pounds in
Scunthorpe Steel Works
and Teesside plays the white man
and China turns around in January 2023 and says
we will now shut Scunthorpe
unless we get a �300 million
back hander from the UK government
and in all this
the same Gove character who gave
outline planning approval for a new coal mine in Whitehaven to
provide coking coal to
Scunthorpe Steel works
has now gone the the Treasuary for
�300 million to bribe China to
replace the 2 Scunthorpe blast furnaces with
electric arc furnaces
plus ca change
plus c'est la meme chose
or
rats in a sack

naive and foolish oft I've strayed
what a mistake
like our Ricker used to cars that
won't start
unless the driver has buckled up the seat belt
how many models of road vehicle are there where
the weight of a passsenger in a passenger seat
triggers a demand that the seat belt be done up?
the one piece of advice a politician will NEVER accept is
when yer in a hole stop digging
so we will leave the matter here
an simply request
please Mr postman
sorry
please Mr Prime Minister
leave the amateur theatrics to your kids
and get on with running the country
and PLEASE stop compromising your security by
running around the country in bumper cars
the two burning questions the nation is NOT asking
how did you fit the Autocue onto the back seat without having the door open
and what prayer did you offer to your god
to get the sun to illuminate your face so perfectly
and flicker free
in a moving vehicle?
oh the cynics
all that about
I sat in a car to pretend I'd given up
private jets
people can be so cruel
did you set fire to the driver because in the clip the light is
coming from the back of the driver's seat and causing your gesticulating hand to
cast shadows on your chest


don't ya just love
10, Downing Street, Ministry of disinformation
we will not bet the house on this but
Prime Minister in a car
with
green screen background of
passing houses
like in the weather forecast before
the BBC mortgaged a couple of years licence fee
to buy the world's largest TV screen
how many millions did the mid-CoViD
Downing Street media suite cost?
failure of
continuity
You supposed to be in a car, you birk
not a photo studio
oh, and just in case you're not quite convinced....
at the time the PM was supposed to be making that video
he was travelling in a much bigger
Range Rover
with much bigger and heavily tinted rear seat windows

the difference between,BR> the UK police
and
the UK armed services
is
the police have no
Officer Class
and just at the moment when a plan was put in place to
remedy this by offering
accelerated promotion for
graduate entrants
the 'universities' decided
under the influence of such as Cherrie Booth-Blair
to start handing out
first class honours degrees
like boy scout badges
foiled again

My name is Jack and I live in the back
Of the Greta Garbo Home
With friends I will remember
Wherever I may roam

And my name is Jack and I live in the back
Of the 'Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls'
We all love Jack, we live n the back
Of the 'Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls'


There goes Fred with his hands on his head
'Cause he thinks he's heard the Bomb
And here comes Superman
Who really puts it on

There's lots of fun and I love to run
Up and down the stairs
I make as much noise as I want< BR> And no one ever cares

what we have essentially is these areas is
'open mental hospitals'
and we recruit
trusties
from within the inmates and
call them
Police Officers
and so
they protect their turf from outsides
and don't turn in the inmates
because they are related to them
Lyrics by Manfred Mann
You'll not see nothin' like
The Mighty Quinn


one of those things
'you don't hear so much these days'
adult to misbehaving child
stop that
or I'll call a policeman
the middle class assumption of
the long arm of the law being the
reliable
deus ex machina
the hand on the collar that will restore order
is disappearing
and this parallels something else
these days
hospitals are not called
The Royal
as in the RVI
Royal Victoria Infirmanry
they get called
The University Hospital of our Back Lane
and this reflects
social mobility
and
social and cultural mixing
what is at question is
recruitment of the likes of police on the basis of
set a thief
to catch a thief
people in power are apt to be accused of being
'out of touch'
with
hoi poloi
the 'man on the Clapham omnibus'
it really is very recent for the justice industry to be seen as
out of the affairs of the upper classes
the ernest desire of any right thinking person is/was to be
as 'out of touch' with the lower orders as possible
now the likes of Mirror Journalists assume that
society is and should be
organised and run for the sole benefit of
people with a tragic back story
so to return to the exploits of Dr Snowdon or whatever the name of the
guy who nicked the pump handle in the London slum
employ gutter snipes as
environmental health officers and
and you don't get
cleanliness is next to Godliness
you get
Free Channel number five
for everybody who
can't spell their own name



now
there is a term or concept in retail
in particular
charity retail
it is referred to as
BIG
but first, we referred to
PDSA
we don't expect readers to do their own research
and
PDSAay have more than one meaning, but
the PDSA with a charity shop on Redcar High Street is
The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals
the RSPCA is no doubt considered sufficient cover for
animal protection, but
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
in essence, in theory,
if you are not deliberately harming your animals
RSPCA aren't interested in them
because they are
plastic police
they have investigative and prosecutorial powers
but if you just want a bit help looking after your
belived pet
that's for the birds
or for the PDSA
they used to bring a truck or caravan to the
Redcar Central railway station car park with
either a vet or a vet nurse
to take a look at poorly pets
that was a long, long, long time ago
returnng to charity retail and BIG
BIG is
bought in goods
and Redcar PDSA have
not to put too fine a point on it
posher BIG than Yorkshire Trading next door
and there's the inconsistenty of
Redcar Cancer Research UK
it's a pound shop in the sense that
donated goods are supposed to be sold at �1
but the BIG is
like so much in Redcar Poundland
any price but, �1
Redcar used to have a Poundworld
it's now a onebelow
whatever that means
it may not be the same as
onebeyond
the father and son who set up
poundworld sold it for �150 million and then
bought some of it bck and re-opened it under another name
Chrs Edwards owned the chain ad does now and also owned
the long long defunct
Redcar Halfords building
the block that currently houses BetFred
opposite Wilkinsons
or at least had the same property agents
Halfords only current presence in Redcar is
a tyre fitting depot in Lobster Road

we have no idea what size a supermarket should be
we know that
Morrisons, Redcar
is said to be
70,000 square feet
we suppose that in mid-range
what we do know is that when it was built
the development included outside that 70,000 sq. ft.
Regent Walk
Regent Walk consists of 23 individual retail units
including Argos and HomeBargains
and it was built with a
Department Store
the first operator of that store called it Westgate
but they were East Anglian Co-Op
we think that was around 20 years ago
we think the next operator was Beals department stores
anyway, what was built to be a department store is now
B&M
they having moved from the High Street
where they were in the building below pictured as
Yorkshire Trading
we conclude that
to succeed on the High Street you need to be one of these
service, 'phone repairs etc.
hot food, Costa or Greggs
niche
or have a big store with an enormous range of
good value impulse buys
essentially, in Redcar at least, people are looking for
bargains not tat
what you can't seel on a High Street is
a 'considered purchase'
what people research on line
they buy on line
so although off High Street we have
a franchise white goods store - Birkbecks
a Euronics franchise
but no Currys PC world
our Ricker has a neighbour who used to work in a Ladbrokes
that is now a Betfred
don't know where she works now but
in Redcar there are less betting shops than there used to be
one business that has declined is the one that used to put
fake shop display wraps on the windows of empty units
we haven't seen any of those in quite a while
there is some movement from the High Street into
Regent Walk
Regent Walk lost a number of
Brand exclusive 'phone shops
it has been a regular pattern that it is the
conglomerates, the major retailers that fail
shoe zone or similar
moved into the Dorothy Perkins unit on Regent Walk
high end retailers
Peddlers cycles, Jeff Cust bespoke furniture etc
are well of High Street
probably trying to avoid the business rates
these are the
find it on line and then visit retailers

let's just unpick the Britsh Volt story
Lynemouth Power Station is a biomass power station
that supplies electricity to the National Grid
Until March 2012 it was the main power source for the nearby
Alcan Lynemouth Aluminium smelter
owneship history
Rio Tinto Alcan 1972 - 2013
RWE npower 2013 - 2016
snce then EPH some outfit out of Czechia
The UK has one large 180,000 tonne
primary aluminium smelter
that means makes aluminium from ore not scrap
it is at Lynemouth
it belongs to
the Aluminium company of Canada
Alcan
and that is a part of
Rio Tinto
it is currently
mothballed
Cambois pronounced cam us
is a small vllage in Northumberand, England
Lynemouth Colliery
was a coal mine in Lynemouth, Northumberland, England
it operted between 1927 and 1994
it close because it caught fire
it was demolished in 2005
the site is the one
british Volt were intending to re-develop
but weren't
the 'fact ' of the matter is proported to be that
British Volt wanted to get �200 million from
the UK government to build a lithium-ion battery factory
on the site of Lynemouth colliery
and then spend that money on
a lithum-ion nattery factory
in Coventry
The North Sea Link is
a 1,400 Mega watt high-voltage direct current submarine power cable
between Norway and the UK
commissioned 1st october 2021
it stretches from
Blyth in Northumberland, north east England
and
Kvilldal in Norway
it is a direct current connection
direct current as opposed to alternating current
is what an aluminium smelter uses
we have lttle doubt that in time Lynemouth smelter will
be
re-started
using Norway hydro
and North Sea wind



so, erm
This was built by the now defunct
Frank Dee Supermarkets
and up to a couple of years ago it was
B&M
Bargains and Madness
or Bargain Madness
B&M went into the Department store on
Regent Walk
overall
we would say there is little difference between B&M and Yorkshire Trading
like we said
Barber knock off
wax jacket for �20
not �200
we suppose the stock will be moulded by sales
for now we are happy that the move
from the former Woolworths
makes the High Street look a bit more lively

sometimes the relatively unimportant gets a lot of coverage
because the pics or video are good
we don't know how often people
crash through shop and cafe windows
because they
'press the accelerator instead of the brake'
but our Ricker's experience with the Hyudai may shed some light
this is the Tucson 48v
it effectively - in manual form - has 4 pedals
the 4th one is a foot rest that is presumably there to
discourage driver from
'riding the clutch'
incidentally, this car has a double clutch
it is a bat out hell motor
when you drive manual
and you want to make an emergency stop
you stamp on the clutch and brake
in this car it is very easy to
stamp on the foot rest and the accelerator
essentially
it would be safer if the foot rest was
spring loaded to callapse if stamped on
to direct the driver to find the clutch
speaking of bat out of hell
this car has an electric start
by that we don't mean an electrical engine start
which it does have
it has an electric vehicle motion start
a 48 volt starter motor that drives the car forward
when the accelerator is 'touched'
to get the vehicle
'off the line'
whilst the engine gets its act together
since he never took the car to Germany
our Ricker never got it out of 4th gear
out of 6

we should clarify
this car has two electrical systems
the normal 12 volt for the usual purposes
but a separate 48 volt system
the 48 volt system appears to revolve around the
starter motor which is
we are told a
starter motor generator
engine off the device will start the engine
engine running the same device with keep spinning
to charge the 48 volt battery
perhaps until that is fully charged
the thing here is
this is a 48 volt system
not tht 600 volts of a Lexus
or a Tesla?
it refers back to our earlier comment that
Tesla 'rushed to market' with
off the shelf designs involving syatems that are
operating at a voltage dangerous to life
there is no need to run deadly voltages
in order to have electric traction
incidentally
did you know
modern diesels piss on their exhausts to reduce pollution?
they won't go unless there is juice in the tank of
water and urea
a very refined version of urine
that they spray into their exhausts to
convert nitrogen oxides into
nitrogen
under the filler flap there is diesel filler cap
and next to it
a smaller blue filler cap to
put in the
adblue
wot you bought from Halfords when
the vehicle refused to start

it's hard to know what to make of this particular item but
somebody is asking permission from somebody to
set up a sea grass meadow
under the sea in the area of the coast to the south of the River Tees
that is
off the Coatham and Redcar Beaches
we know sea grass absorbs polluution
so this is perhaps an althernative to
planting trees
for carbon capture
and there seems to be an idea to culture oysters
at the same site
the seagrass captures carbon dioxide
oysters filter suspended particles
it really isn't clear
Redcar, Hartlepool, or in the river Tees
Tees Rivers Trust
seems to be behind the scheme
we think it is from Redcar and Cleveland Council
that they are seeking permission
but they have also involved PD Ports
overall
the scheme seems to be to establish
seagrass meadows and oyster beds in the Tees Estuary
to catch any pollution in the River Tees
before it can reach
Coatham or Redcar Beach

we are very pleased to be able to say that
although the original Frank Dee store on
Redcar High Street
is now a PDSA charity shop
and not a Yorkshire Trading store
the good news is that
instead of the
Goodwins
moving into the much larger
second Frank Dee store
Yorkshire Trading are moving into the big Frank Dee
now
we are hopeless at remembering soap opera stars names
but a couple of Emerdale actors
perhaps the one who played Annie's son
and a young woman
opened the building as Frank Dee
we strated with a Yorkshire Trading n the
Old Woolworths building
and then the local media persuaded head office that
Redcar is now nothing but tumbleweed and soup kitchens
so they re-branded that store as
Goodwins
and took out the
Barber 'knock off' Youkshire Tradng cloathing lines
so now we are back to having a Yorkshire trading
and some people may have learned not to
believe everything they read in the media
the one remaining blot on Redcar's retail landscape is
Cancer Research UK
stll have a 'pound shop' charity shop
right next to the town clock


we think he means
Clive Hornby
actor who played
Jack Sugden
opened the extended Redcar Frank Dee store

on another level
our Ricker recently visited
Camberley town centre, in Surrey
it's leaking
that is
the glass roof over the mall is leaking
he got the impresson that these days
Surry is inhabited by pensioners who
own huge houses
but don't pay council tax
because their pensions are so small
hence, the roads of Surrey are degenerating into gravel tracks
one idea is that since everybody now follows their
SatNav
they don't complain to the council when
the raod surface disappears and takes the
road markings with it


this is probably the poin at which to say
we think the A19 through Cleveland/North Yorkshire must be
one of the most scenic arterial routes in the UK

this week
our Ricker has been mainly
driving a Hyudni Tuscan 48v
and the most notable observation is
the owner's manual
is about an inch thick
he has a couple of observations
if you have to read learn and understand
that amount of data
every time you get a new car
isn't that a disincentive to
chnage cars?
the major point is
it brings to the Ricker mind
the world war 2 poem
Naming of Parts
Alan Michell
To-day we have naming of parts, Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing
To-day we have naming of parts, Japonica
Glistens like coral in all the neighbouring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts


....
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings, And this is the piling
swivel.
Wich in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got

New Statesman and Nation
8th August 1942
this maual substitutes for
which in your case you have not got
with
'if equiped'
Sunroof Open (if equiped)
what you get is a manual that is a cut and paste
anthology
a manual for every part in the parts bin
and not a manual for any of the complete cars
all in all
this does look like a trend towards
ths car is smarter than me
I'll just let it get on with it
softening us up for
driverless cars

our Ricker is away on a mission that is
personal to others
and so his perspective is a little different for this week
today is about the
UK space Port
we always strive to find analogies
we are a bit stumped here
747 airlines are 'cheap'
rockets are medium cheap
satellites are expensive
and they don't belong to the people who own the airliners
and the rockets
to stretch a point
you wouldn't want to buy a car with no MOT,br> a model that hadn't been tested by MIRA
motor industry research association
the term is
crash test dummy
when you propose a new satellite delivery process
you want data about
how far you have to 'push' the system to generate
a failure
it's bit like those lethal dose 50 drug tests
what is the lethal dose of a drug that we
have to keep well below
the question is
how risky a delivery system is
Space Girl?
in essence it is the
insurance industry
that wants a risk - cost analysis
and we are strongly of the opinion that
there were no viable satellites involved in the
recent
test
just the satellite of
crash test dummies
and unlike another recent launch
in this case this case there was no
return to earth for re-use element in the test protocal
except for the airliner
and it did the thing
launched the rocket and survived
that was all they were testing
and simply duplicating that test for
Cornwall conditions

this is one of those
do it NOW
so we can have the jobs NOW stories
we have to give you
search terms
so you can check we are not making it up
so
search
Lamborghini Sian
and read
Power is stored in a supercapacitor
mounted to the rear bulkhead
lamborghini claims that the supercapacitor setup is
three tomes lighter than a lithium-ion battery
one of the things we face in every day life is
products that are designed to
re-assure the user
in having design fetures that are not needed for their
effective operation
most mobile 'phone users don't even know about
many of the features their 'phone could offer
for example
sell a 'phone that offers
digital zoom
and make no mention of digital zoom in the
promotionl material
then launch the same 'phone under a different
version name or number and say
this version has digital zoom
some people will trade up to the 'new' model
and seek out the digital zoom feature
but what we really want to discuss here is
TV remote controls
did you know that most TV remote controls
contain weights
weights that serve no function other than to
ake the device seem more
chunky and hence
reliable?
in theory
you could tak the weights out and sell
the lightened remote as a
disability aid
for people who find the standard version to heavy to control
we are told
lithium-ion batteries are heavy
they are
three times heavier than supercapacitors
so some people may think of lithium-ion batteries as
moe relible than supercapacitors
we heard on old geezer on Tv a few months ago saying
diesel weighs four times as much as hydrogen
and he was implying that this made diesel
a four times better fuel than hydrogen
as Lotus Cars's Colin Chapman
add lightness
for protection add
heavy steel armour to your tank
or add something like kevlar
something light but really good at energy absorption
sooo
as Nissan add weight to their Leaf model with
lithium-ion batteries
Lambo add lightness with supercapacitors
6 Nov 2019 lambo said
The new patented material synthesised in the laboratories of
the department of Chemistry at,br. MIT
by a team lead by professor Mircea Dinca....
supercapacitors are lighter than lithium-ion batteries
and charge and discharge more quickly
in a 'sports model'
press the brake and speed goes from the car into the
supercapacitor
very quickly
and if you then reach the apex of the corner
the speed - energy - can be
fed back from the supercapacitor to
add speed to the vehicle
very quick like
so
do you want to jump in and build a
hyperfactory
to build lithium-ion batteries
or will you wait a bit and think about
developing a factory that can build
whatever energy storage technology is
best at any given point in history
at this time
the tiny supercapacitor in a Sian
0.18 killowatt hours
is experimental
and only stores enough energy to
'keep the power on'
during gear changes
but rich people pay the big bucks to be
first with the new technology
and there seems no reason not to build
bigger supercapacitor energy storage units
and there is another important distinction between
lithium-ion and supercapacitor
lithium -ion is the reverse of
rocket and feather
lithium-ion batteries
charge slow and discharge fast
supercapacitor batteries charge and discharge at the same rate

most human females have a period
around 12 times a year
it lasts between 2 and 7 days
during her period
a woman is advised to change her tampon
somewhere betewwn once every 4 hours
and once every 8 hours
so
most wome will need
2, times 6, times, 12, tampons a year
a year
some women will need
7, times 6, times 15 tampons a year
tampons are generally sold in boxes of
18 or 20
and boxes cost around �5.oo
sooo
sanitary protection should cost a woman
n normal conditions
� 2.50 a month
in extreme circumstances �10 per month
if you charge VAT - value added tax - at 5 per cent
most women would be paying the government
through their retailer
twelve and a half pence in tax per month
so
when VAT was removed in the UK from sanitary products
most pre- menapausal women would have seen thie
weekly shopping bill go down by
less than 4 pence
it's not surprisng they thought the
price reduction hadn't been
'passed on'
most women are fairly regular and know when to expect their next period
essentially
you wake up one morning and there's blood 'in'
more accurately coming out with
your pee
you blot yourself
you stick in a tampon
or you stick a pant liner into your panties or whatever
at lunch you change your protection
at tea time you change your protection
as you go to bed you change your protection
next morning
next lunch time
next tea time
next bed time
next morning you expet to see no blood in your tampon
if you do you keep swapping
if you don't - that's over for another month
you've used 8 out of a box of 20
five quid - probably half that from a supermarket
as opposed to a pharmacy
five quid see you right for 2 months
5 per cent VAT on five quid
25 pence
one of the things about the NHS
the day it came in
all prescriptions free
women flocked to the doctors
asking for prescrptions for
cotton wool
cotton wool for period protection was
the first medical aid to
go off prescription
so the period poverty people were
simply arguing for the right to
talk about periods
not so much the money
people don't want to have periods being regarded as
an illness
so no prescriptions for protection
but protection is an essential so
what other essentials are zero rated?
food - not food service, not confectionary
books
classic arguement
is there VAT on Jaffa cakes
are they a biscuit - zero VAT
or a cake - standard rate VAT
the difference between
zero rated and non-VAT is essentially
if you are not registered for VAT - as trader
what you sell is regarded as being sold
second hand
and second hand goods are non-VAT and now when you buy on ebay
there are so many businesses selling on ebay that
all sales - perhaps only from foreign sellers? -
are regarded as being sold BY not just ON ebay
and so they add VAT
sometimes - mostly when the seller is EU based
and the question is
are they charging EU VAT or UK VAT or both?
energy blls are lower rate 5 per cent
like
'some health products'
and it was under 'some health products'
that 5 per cent VAT was charged on sanitary protection


everybody sees the world from inside their own particular
box
thinking outside the box
is the challenge
or
thinking INSIDE somebody else's box
is the real challenge
and so
some people who have their train cancelled
from within their box
see no differnce between
a train cancelled because of a
cable theft
and a train cancelled because
the workers are
on strike for fame
or because
the workers think it's quite a hoot for
pensioners on 6,000 pounds a year pension
running themselves into the ground to
provide free food to workers on 26,000 pounds a year
because they are
so lonely
they would skivvy for the king
for free
just to give their lives meaning

today the removers visited Redcar and Cleveland House
so we kinda think the
move of the library has begun
it's an interesting comment
in this new era of
warm spaces
that the cafe at Tuned-In has been removes to
make way for the library




we did disservice to
Christine McVie when we said
Olivia Newton John was the only tragic death in 2022

we tink there has to be some serious re-assessment of
First Aid advice in light of
the rise in demand for services
it is plainly ridiculous to
wait 8 hours for an ambulance
and then have it arrive under
blues and twoes
blue lights and two tone horns
only to be parked for another 8 hours after a it is probably fair to say
blues and twoes should be restricted to
category 1 calls
and any service sent out more than
ten minutes after the call comes in
should be instructed to
proceed with care

we've mentioned the term
ambulance
before
most people will have experienced at some time
a knee 'giving way'
leading to a need to take immedate action to
prevent a collapse
like grabbing something
as we get older that reflex is dulled
actually ending up in a heap
is not a good indication of cardiac arrest
in theory
we could set up a list of people lible to collapse
certain young disabled people are never to be seen out and about
without a simple form of helmet
1 vulnerable people should have a helmet of the sort worn by
amateur boxers
to put on during risky manouvers
toiletting, in and out of bed, etc
2 slightly more dramatic
in a home where a person lives who may be subjet to collapse
a sort of slide should be available
the idea is
if the patient is collapsed but not in severe pain
the facility to slide a stretcher type blade
under the patient in order to be able to
lift them off the floor
is a sensible measure for carers and First Aiders
to be trained in
being able to scoop a patient off the floor and onto a bed
is a skill
and a skill likely to be of use
far more often than the ability to give
CPR
our Ricker has noticed that them
diesel BMW rapid response cars
littering side streets with their engines running
because they are the economy version
without starter motors
have not been seen lately
it's very interesting how
old habits die hard
back in the day
when we had winters
up in the quarries in Teesdale
starting the plant of a morning involved
setting fire to oil soaked rags upder the navvie
or the high lift shovel
and then either using an expolsive charge
or hand cranking the engine to gt it started
and what with cheap fuel
there was no sense in shutting the motor down before
going home time
more modern equipment can fire up and shut down
automatically, like a central heating boiler
and start when the 'accererator' is pressed
not when the key is turned
and
Parcel Force
delivery vans are the most
visible examples of that technology

here we go with some
creative research
that's thinking outside the box
and then reaching for the box to see whether
our idea still fits in there
we are trying to determine the origin of
'near Middlesbrough'
and we begin to suspect that something will be
more likely to be described as
near Middlesbrough
the further away it is from
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
the idea being
Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland
and them down south near Middlesbrough
a lorra lorra people
live in Middlesbrough
mostly in two story homes
it is a collection of
housing estates
and those people either don't work
or they work in
Stockton-on-Tees, including Thornaby
and Billingham
Mddlesbrough is a short range commuter town
plus some who travel the world
on contract
so you have a lot of people who will say
i live in The Boro
but very few who can say
my office, workplace, is in Middlesbrough
midde class people commute from Redcar and Cleveland to
work at James Cook Hospital and Teesside University
and working class people
live in Middlesbrough and commute to work in
Stockton-on-Tees


we do wonder about the M disease
and so we thought
what about Google?
so we put near Middlesbrough
into Google
and...
Footasylum and Primark
these are shops IN Middlesbrough
and so we conclude
Middlesbrough isn't a
TOWN
it's a football stadium
the conclusion is
nobody would ever visit
The Tees Valley
unless
their team had an away fixture with
The Boro
there are three reasons to visit Middlesbrough
Universty of Teesside
James Cook Hospital
Middlesbrough football stadium
and they are
apparently
the only reasons for visiting
the Tees Valley
and James Cook is so boring
news crews camp out at
North Tees hospital
without saying it's
near Middlesbrough
it seems to be things
south and east of Middlesbrough that get referred to as
near Midlesbrough
and so
for between Redcar and Middlesbrough
we should read
between the seaside and the Riverside Stadium
it all makes sense now
but for pedants
Lackenby is betwwen Dormanstown and Eston
in Redcar and Cleveland
we would estimate
Unversity hospital of North Tees
is three miles inside Stockton-on-Tees
as measured from the closest point in Middlesbroug
and lackenby is around one and a half miles
inside Redcar and Cleveland as measured from
the boundary with Middlesbrough


lots of people will be familiar and lots of people not
with
autocomplete
especially on 'phones
you start typing and after a few letters
the screen jumps to displaying a complete word
and it may not be the word you wanted
and if you are not paying attention
you may plough on and leave the worong word in place
when this feature first appeared
in the UK there were universities and polytechnics
and the Department for Education
had their word processors set up
so that every time a worker typed
uni
the document acquired
'universities and polytechnics'
because somebody had decided to emphasise
the new equality of status
between universities and polytechnics
and so to the M disease
today to quote the BBc
The Scheme is being proposed as part of a
'new services zone' off the Trunk Road at Lackenby
between
Middlesbrough and Redcar
... plans would be submitted to
Redcar and Cleveland Council
'in the coming weeks'
and this is the crux
if you follow the BBC
you may think that if you have a development proposal for
The Tees Valley
you should apporach Middlesbrough council about it
that would be a wate of time
there are almost zero developemt opportunities
within the boundaries of Middlesbrough
Stockton, Durham, Hartlepool, Redcar
Darlington, North Yorkshire
none have anything whatsoever to do with
Middlesbrough
just a thought
perhaps a popup on hack 'phones and other keyboards
type Midd
and the popup says
do you really think this story has the remotest connection to
Middlesbrough?

Redcar ironworks as at
New year's Day 2023

this is a New Year
but not a special year like 2000 or even 2020
no new century or new decade
but some review is appropriate
the peope making the most effort to
record - their personal recollections of - history
at present are what are described as
baby boomers
people born in the UK in the late 1940s and early 1950s
the one thing they tend to say about themselves
and other famous people is
'we emerged from a working class background'
this is a bit misleading
the impression it gives is that
in the 1950s in the UK
toffs, middle class people...
had
central heating, double glazing, mobile 'phones
colour TVs, the Internet, reliable cars and vans
and the brave working class heroes
secured these benefits
for the masses
in later years
so many of the descriptions of the deprivations of
working class life in the 1950s
are simply descriptions of
universal hardships
'the masses' rode a wave of
technological change
and now they are sitting back and saying
this all came to me because
I could play the guitar and sing
and I deserved it because I could play the guitar and sing
and
they assume
the masses who could not play the guitar and sing
are still using outside privies - toilets
and commuicating by
banging on house walls
actually quite a lot of people who made important contributions to
counter culture
did so whilst attending
fee paying schools
people saying things like
'I came from a working class background, like the Beatles
are - lets's not get into technicalities
talking about
people like the Beatles, who
went to selective schools - grammar schools
and CHOSE music over accountancy
across society organisations
the government in particular
sought out potential in young people
and invested in it
and so there is now a contrast
when investment now goes into
'tokenism' and inclusion
the watchwaord is no longer
we must invest in the education and training of
'the brightest and the best'
no matter what their origins
but we must
shoehorn examples of all
macks and manners
or humanity
into
'top jobs'
and the slogan of the age is
'we've had enough of experts'
and if you suppress excellence as
elitist
there is nobody
driving the gravy train
and it grinds to a halt
and jumping on board is akin to
leaping onto a
rooted play train in a children's play park
nd then people say
the government isn't
doing enough to
improve our living conditions

Happy New Year
We have to say
it looks rather fortunate that
Pope Benedict has
popped off
efore he was put in the position of
should I preside over the funeral of
Pope Francis?
we don't think the demise of Pope Francis can be far off
not a cheerful note to start the new year on
but
we think 2022 didn't have many
shock deaths
compared to 2020 from memory
Olivia Neutron Bomb
is the only one that comes to mind
on the other hand
people who are very ill
and famous
seem to keep quiet about it
and people who are very ill and not famous
seem to have a lot to say about it

we are ending 2022 with a somewhat surprising development
or new twist on international diplomacy
President Putin is clearly now engaging in
an international diplomacy version of the all too familiar
Romance Scam
we think it is
Iran
who have been told
just bung us a few hundred suicide drones
to tide us over whilst we get our
military-industrial combine
into gear
and we'll see you right when we
finally secure
World Domination
and
India weren't genuine takers
Iran bought it and then
saw no evidence of
significant arms production increase in Russia
and so now
it does appear that having drawn a blank with
Israel, India, Belaruss, Iran
we are left with the two great fakers
the two 21st century
Wizard of Oz
characters
braying into the Tannoy
from behind the
green curtain...
the question for
The World
is
do we need to separate
the peoples of Russia and China
from their oligarchs
and we do not mean the
lottery winner plutocrats with the yachts
we mean the people with control of the armed forces
or do we just let countries the likes of
Russia and China
hang as they grow
no attempt at pruning and training
and Afganistan is the
petri dish
the place to ask the question
of various populations around the world
your oppressors share your prison cell with you
the keys to your shackles hang prominently at the waist
are you willing to reach out and take those keys
or will you forever
Waiting for Godot
await the arrival of some - western? -
Deus ex machina
the core question about Afganistan is
are the Taliban just
having a whale of a time
or are they constantly upping the chaos in the nursery
in hopes of
distracting nanny from her favourite soap opera?


just on a slightly more parochial note
we assume that the litter on the strand line in Coatham bay
is the remnants of
a Boxing Day Dip event
perhaps if we had a whip round
we could get Richard and his colleagues to
nip down and do a bit of a litter pick
he's the guy in the flourescent suit who does the litter pick
around the boating lake for t't cooncil

we think we should clarify what follows
people have produced spectacular video of
incidents put down to accidents with discarded batteries
it has been concluded that such batteries are
essentially dangerous
this small number of incidents appear to be lelated to people
discarding batteries and battery powered equipment - devices
without first discharging the batteries
discarding them fully or partly charged and them them getting
chewed up in wate disposal faciliites
in a way that caused a short circuit
leadng to overheating
when discarding devices
1 removed batteries and dispose of separately
2 if possible - connections permitting - discharge
through another device that you will be retaining
in this regard
govenments should consider making it law that
batteries from different brands of device
have compatible connections



on the top shelf of one of our Ricker's bookcases
beyond a heap of half eaten food, discarded packaging
and tools
a pale green book spine is visble
nf CHEMISTY TEACHERS HANDBOOK
Nuffield Foundation
he cn't be bothered to take the risk of a fall
and a visit to hospital to take it down
he remembers
he remembers
Mrs Hamilton
Mrs Hamilton was head of chemistry at
Gillbrook Secondary in Eston
one of the experiments on the
O' level sylabus ws
take a glass trough half filled with water
a pneumatic trough
and with tongs and a scalpel
shave a slice off a slug of
sodium metal
and drop the shaving into the trough
one day
apparently
Mrs Hamilton
put rather too big a shaving of sodium into the water
and the explosion blew the trough
clean in halves
our Ricker's only involvement was to
find a replacement trough for the next lesson
no honestly , just to be told what had happened
after all Mr Hamilton
worked for ICI
down the left hand side of
The Periodic Table
are listed
H
Li
Na
K
Rb
Cs
Fr
so we have
hydrogen, lithium, sodium, potassium, is that rubidium?
caesium, frankium?
whatever
according to the JMB
joint metriculaton board
bunch of Red brick unversities in
North West England
Liverpool Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield
possibly the fifth was Birmingham
not very North West
Mrs hamilton was correct in using sodium
acording to the Nuffield Foundation
she should have used
lithium
all these are metals
incidentally, hydrogen will
alloy with iron and weaken steel if it gets a chance
all these - except hydrogen - when placed in water
will react exothericaly to produce their hydroxide
the further you go down that list...
the quicker and more violent the reaction
using lithium produces a slower display of
the boiling puck of metal darting across the water
and emitting steam
and we have glossed over the question
if water is hydrogen hydroxide
may is it neutral
when all the other metal hydroxides are alkaline?
probably because we define the
acid - alkaline scale around the pH of water
the thing is
is water a molecule
or an ionic mixture
we can't be bothered to diverge into this
but sodium hydroxide with little water is a solid
a crystalne solid
its ions dissociate when disolved in water
and then some
hydrogen hydroxide IS water
so it doesn't dissolcve in water
but the hydrogen and oxygen are
sufficiently loosly associated that
fairly mild electric current can separate them
cut to the chase...
we have lead acid batteries
and they contain lead
and acid and lead dioxide
we have lithium ion batteries
and they contain
lithum ions
in the form of
lithium cobalt oxide
there is no metalic lithium in a lithum ion battery
under normal conditions
the lithium could be in the form of
lithium manganese oxide
lithium iron phosphate lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide
so what's the problem with
lithium ion batteries
making like a science lab experiment?
if the wiring fails
if they get over charged
they can get hot
very hot
and the chemistry can get complicated
and the essential point is
to be a useful battery the
lithum ion battey has to store a lorra lorra energy
and if that will breaks loos at once
sparks will fly
so it's the versions with the
less developed chemisry and electronics
that pose the greatest fire risk
and NEVER use a NiCad charger to charge
lithum ion batteries
they have no control electronics to
shut them off at full charge
NiCad is nickel cadmium

a long long time ago
in late autumn - fall - we reported a random
electricity cost in the UK
eon next
as being
per killowatt hour
31 pence and 16 on the overnight economy 7
now it is
36 and 18
so not skyrocketing as yet but
twice the prewar levels
but in the true spirit of energy pricing
rocket and feather
we are not very confident of a
return to normal any time soon
so far as we can tell
the government have decided to hold back
the vouchers for December key meter credit
so as not to get them
tangled up in the Christmas post
we will await them with interest
perhaps there will be one voucher for
both December and January
sce the October ones expire on January 4th
perhaps that is a day to look out for the
Dec/Jan ones


this is a bit of very local
Redcar and Ceveland Council housekeeping
a game of musical chairs
so far as we know RCBC offices in Guisborough
Belmont House
are now supposed to be closed
when Redcar central library was demolished to
make way for Redcar and Cleveland Community Heart
including swimmng pool and gym
the council's offices on the ground floor of
Redcar and Cleveland House
were removed to make way for a replacement
Central Library
well! they want them back
and so
the proposal is that Redcar Central libraby will
move
to Tuned-In! on Majuba Road
from 25th January 2023
having closed in Ridley Street - the Community Heart
on 17th January 2023
and will stay at TunedIn! until
mid 2025
when it will move more permanently to
the bit of Uptons department store that
isn't a part of The Livery
on the
non-pedestrian part of
High Street East
that is
next to Wilkinsons that was built on the site of
The Swan hotel
in theory
comments should be directed to the every efficent
and admiarble
Jan Able
but she may not like that
there's a bloke on the staff there who's been calling her Jen
for at least a year
but she is listed somewhere as some sort of
contact agent

the Christmas shopping experience in Redcar has been
a bit confusing
we don't know what Tesco were trying to say by
putting a very large
cardboard Christmas tree amougst the reading material
what is qute frustrating is to stand for ages in
Morrisons
trying to figure out how they label
potatoes
it does not seem they know much about potatoes
our Ricker bought
'white potatoes'
he wasn't expecting pink fir apple
or
sweet potatoes to be labelled
non-white
what they don't seem to understand is that
if you are looking to you want a label that says or in some way indicates
waxy
and if you want to boil potatoes you want to pick up a bag of
flouery potates - not flowery
and getting white potatoes home and finding that
no matter how long yu cook them for
you need a knfe as well as a fork to eat them
is frustrating
waxy potatoes hold together as chips, french fries
but they don't mash
overall, Redcar has been swarmed with shoppers
and nothing particularly shouting
Christmas luxury
has been apparent
and shelves have seemed
thinly stocked given the demand
a better show next year please
two things our Ricker looks for in a
quality shop
samphire - on which to steam fish
and
sage Derby cheese
samphire has been available at times in Morrisons
but they do seem to confuse
fresh
with quality
many foods are best
matured
designed to be stored for consumption out of season
wine, cheese etc.
Beaujolais Nouveau is not
pick of the crop
it's a marketing ploy to get a quick buck in
by selling immature wine
it's confusing to have the store
tricked out like Waitrose
and stocked like a bunch of
market stalls
almost as though they sent the guys from
Wooler
the building contractors
and didn't turn up from Morrisons to
check what was selling in Waitrose
there is a sort of
inverted snobbery
we once saw in a Redcar shop
some sort of regional or national manager
instructing the butchery departmant to
stop selling beef bones
haute cuise involves beef bones
for making stock, ya?
in a way they it does not involve
tripe
just for the record
we are guessing that the 'white potatoes'
our Ricker bought in Morrisons were
Maris piper chipping potatoes
and his Christmas lunch was
highlandgame.com
bought in either Tesco or Morrisons
venison steak dauphionoise
sliced boiled potatoes not mash
with aubergine carrot onion and leek
and cold turkey buns for tea
if the 'white potatoes' had been
Yukon Gold
he may have had mash


returning to M disease...
Chris Rea
Wikipaedia has him born in M
but
On the Beach
is there a beach in M?
is there a beach in Redcar?
but
have you heard the Chris Rea track
Stainsby Girls
do you know where Stainsby was?
it was on the same campus as
Gillbrook and Sarah Metcalf
Stainsby is now a housing estate
at the edge of
Eston Recreation Ground
and that's in
You guessed it
Redcar and Cleveland
are we missing out not consulting Wikipaedia
and Rea's was a chain of Ice Cream shops



this is going to be for some a disgraceful
over simplification
and for others
a bit difficult to follow
there are two drivers to
medical research funding applications
1 we have this idea, we need funding to devlop it
2 something MUST be done about this problem
Holy Mary, mother of God
pray me and our Bill
our Bill is very ill
Holy Mary, send him a pill
people very easily fall nto thinking that
the more you pray, the more money you spend
the quicker the problem will be solved
Spinal Muscular Atrophy
imagine a zip in which the teeth are of 4 different sizes
and the two opposing teeth at any point
have to join to make a couplet that is a standard size
four tooth sizes, one couplet size
that is a model of DNA
but
to be more accurate
if you take the right half of the zip and
lay it on top rather than beside the left half
with the top of the right half on top of the
bottom of the left hand side
they will match
none of the under half will show alongside the top half
and the same if viewed fro underneath
this is called
sense
and
antisense
this is a fundamental but a massive over simplification
here's the first complication
imagine that the four tooth types are
near enough divided into
the two big 'uns
and the two little 'uns
and if the wrong little 'un ges lined up in place of
the other little 'un
the zip will not fail to zip up and down
but the two little 'uns code for different
ingredients
amino acids
in the recipe for a protein
zip looks good
protein fails to work
and this applies equally for the big 'uns
and having a base in yer DNA that
fits
but is the wrong base
the wrong letter in the gentic code
is what we call
a mutation
these mutations are individual
and their consequences vary
we have to think
zip up to go out for a walk in the cold
arrive at work
unzip
perhaps both strands are fit for work
and they drift off across the factory
punch into the machinery to make proteins
perhaps shall we say
one strand programmes one machine
and the other strand programmes a duplicate machine
if both strands carry the correct code
both machines will produce the correct protein
if one strand is defective
one of the machines will produce nothing but garbage
when a gentic defect is described as
dominant
that garbage can be
toxic
but if it is described as recessive
it produces useless but broadly harmless garbage
the sense strand come form mum
and the antisense strand comes from dad
or vice versa
and all s often superficially well
but if a defective strand has been producing garbage
in each parent without tham noticing
and junior gets
a garbage generating strand from each parent
they have a phenotypic genetic disease
they have a deficiency in a vital protein
in this case they have spinal muscular atrophy
months to single digit years of life expectancy
and the gene is called SMA
but in the real world
there are
SMA1 and SMA2
oh this is beginning to hurt the brain
OK
there is a lorra lorra junk in a human DNA
a bt like the adverts in a newspaper or popups
on a web site
some of tht junk
one of those adverts may
actually be useful, to some people
and SMA2 is one of those adverts
SMA2 is a defective version of SMA1
SMA1 codes for a protein that motor nerves need to
keep voluntary muscles in line and active
if one of those DNA strands contains SMA2
and it gets to the protein maker machine
if will cause that machine to produce a product that is
90 per cent garbage
and 10 per cent uselful protein
SMA1 and SMA2 are not versions of the same gene
they are dfferent genes located at very different points on the genome
it's just like
trying to use a ork as a spoon
you get some action
but a fork is not a faulty spoon
so
basically
if you have no functioning SMA1 but functioning SMA2
you have
MND not SMA it is the anwer to
why are there 4 or 5 types of
spinal muscular atrophy AND motro neurone disease
it is all down to the complex
belt and braces
nature of our genetics
and people are working on
gene therapy
and the are two essential camps
crispa and viral vector
gene editing and a sort of mRNA vaccine approach
it's in hand
but it is not dead simple to do the
more money is faster development
trick

our Ricker has not followed
University Challenge
the Uk version of College Bowl
recently
and we did previously note that we thought that
the advent of
Only Connect
had changed University Challenge
the Christmas specials this year seem something or a
reversion to the traditional
what we see as the traditional concept of UC
is summed up by the idea that contestants, for the most part
don't know the answer to the question
until it is asked
in a sense a classic
pub quiz
and contests based on that
is
what do you know?
in other words
they put in questions to elicit obscure facts
but classic UC questions are ore about
how do you quickly link reasonably well know facts
in unexpected ways, and at speed
for example
three bonus questions
the answer to each is a word ending with the same three letters
you can afford - almost - to throw away the first bonus question
because unlike in a pub quiz
you get the answer to each question
before you are asked the next question
and that narrows options for the answers to the other two questions
AND
the answer to the first two bonus questions
will be obscure
but the answer to the third will be
the obvious option
withen the constraints of the theme
such as a word starting with p
in other words
UC is a quiz for
Russel Group University graduates who will
after graduation
not be doing
routine jobs without error
but be engaged in
joining the dots and problem solving type jobs

we have a side issue today
we have stopped using
Wikipaedia becauseBR> they are using ookies to track our visits
and we don't object to that
but our visits are via 'phone
and we are pushed for time
and Wikipaedia does not have a
pay wall
but it does put up requests fro funding
and we would love to respond to tham
but using our Ricker's 'phone
there is
insufficient bandwidth
to be able to make a PayPal payment
before time out
and we doubt that is the reason why we are getting
zero Paypal donations
in precise terms
requests for donations from Wikipaedia
always happen when our Ricker is
'on the 'phone'
and never when he is on the office system that
has the bandwidth to transact with Paypal
insread of making periodic appeals
if there was a donate button always available
we could make a payment but
in the nature of things
acknowledgemant of that payment would probably attach to the
laptop and not to the 'phone??
soo
we can because Google tells us a bit about
what is in Wikipaedia
suggest that you - even though we haven't
go to Wikipaedia and search
virgin cleansing myth
and we understand that the latest iteration of this myth
is that sex with a virgin can clear
the HIV virus from a person wth it
so
be in no doubt
as you, if you, protect young people from
having or even knowing about sex
you are complicit in the business of
sacrificing virgins
by tending and protecting virgins in preparation for
ritual cleansing procedures

in the UK there is a concept referred to as
Common Law
the constructon of
The Law Book
in the UK has stages
at first people discover a problem
or an opportunity for
15 minutes of fame
or something to catch the imagination of
casual consumers of 'news'
at stage 2 members of parliament cotton to the idea
that this issue may be a vote winner
making something 'illegal' is cheaper than
building a new road or power station
and so a new law may be passed
that law is then passed to
law enforcement
and charges are laid
and cases come to court
then to some extent
matters divide
in the USA with a very different system
there are two harge concepts
misdemeanour
and
fellony
in the UK
almost all cases are first brought to
majestrates' courts
and they decide whether to deal with them themselves
or paas them on to the
Crown Courts
to be more specific
some cases are tried by a bench of 3 majestrates
and some cases are tried before a judge and jury
and some cases are tried or re-tried before
a bench of a Crown Court judge and a couple of
majestrates without a jury
in essence
judges of varying degrees
make
summing up
remarks
at the end of crown and higher court proceedings
and
Common Law
evolves out of those comments
and this is termed
precident
when a new law arrives the early case will be
tried in detail
over time the courts - judges - say
on previous occasions juries came to
this sort of conclusion
so we'll cut to the chase
this time around
and then
then parliament can say
this law is not working as we wanted
we WILL NOT pressure courts to
change Common Law
but we may pass another new law
that will persuade juries to
'do what we intended'
hence we now have
sholes of
specific laws against the exercise of
trivialities
pointing courts to
'take them seriously'
without a specific law
few juries would convict on
racial hatred when a pale person wears corn rows
but if there were a specific law defining
a range of skin tones
with which it was legalto pair corn rows
convictions are much more likely
here's the rub
judges - the sort that write 'seminal' summing up
are almost always former barristers
King's Councel
from
'good' schools and universities
where they dropped science at an early age
and they do have time
during a trial to think
but they are not supposed to consult
or take into account anything they have note heard
in court during THAT particular trial
so if barristers leave gps in their arguements
judges may well unthinkingly
fill those gaps
and add to their summing up
concepts from
wheatver religion they learnt
at their mother's knee
Pontious Pilot washed his hands
so doctors and patients should wash their hands
Arabs including Jews
in the desert hunkered down in their tents and homes
in a sand storm
and that developed into the
Passover
an ostrich-like approach to threat
we saw police in the first days of CoViD
trying to round people up and send them home
where they could be sure to
cross infect each other
because of the idea
the older the scripture
the closer to God's pure intent
scientists say
coughs and sneezes spread diseases
but God said
go home and those who play out will get shot

there is something odd about a certain type of
residential tenant
it seems that they render any home
damp
our Ricker has a similar problem
his home is not detached
but it is
all electric
and his neighbour has gas fired central heating of
a very traditional type
the neighbour has a gas fire with a back boiler that was
and the chimney needs re-lining
and so, on still days our Ricker's bedroom is flooded with
fumes
no carbon monoxide so not a burner problem
but carbon dioxide
because our Ricker's house is such a tip
he can't be bothered to move to a different bedroom
so he's taken the leftist option
spend money
he has bought a
heat recovery extractor fan
so he can clear the carbon dioxide without loosing
all of the heat in the room
it occurs to us
if there are homes with no apparent leaks
roof, plumbing, etc
that are mouldy with damp
a heat recovery extractor system
hardware cost �150 to �500
lanour at union rates around a couple of thousand
could be the answer
provide empolyment by installing double glazing
and insulation
creat damp
create more employment installing
heat recovery extractors...
our Christmas Gift to UNICEF UK

haaah
big sigh
a press release about
fat bergs in sewers
beef fat on cooling
congeals into tallow
butter and marge are solide when very cold
lamb fat and pork fat are solid when quite warm
however
unless it has been
hydrogenated to make then into margarine
will be liquid at all normal weather type tempertures
olive oil will solidify if freezing cold
so
the advice from Yorkshire Water
let you decanted fat go cold and put it in the bin
is
really only applicable to
animal fats
vegetable fats
oil seed rape, sunflower, saflower, olive wallnut you name it, etc
isn't going to solidify on getting 'cold'
and will still be a problem at sewage works
keep it simple
anything you have cooked and aren't going to eat
absorb any liquid into kitchen towel
and put the result in the general waste
not the reycling
and while we are on about fatty foods
SOME PEOPLE
seem to think that
fat makes fat
and that is that
carbs and proteins can be converted to fat by the body
so you won't stay slim by sticking to a fat free diet
just as salt does not acumulate in the body
unless you have kidney disease

another page from the
ladybird Book of Policing
yesterday in Redcar it was proper cold
round minus two or three degrees possibly lower
today at 12.37 pm it is 14.9 degrees C
shall we say a 15 degree shift
off hand our Ricker can't think of a better nme than
lobby
for the cuubial room between the front door and the inner doors
at 12.37 pm the inside temperature of
the south wall of the lobby was 8.5 C
the outersurface of the same wall
was at 11.1
to step back a bit
the downstairs heating is on
froststat
so it only comes on when it gets propper cold
first thing this morning our Ricker woke to a bed
at 21 degrees and a shelf above the heater at 23 degrees
and he opened the bedroom door and all seemed normal
then he started to walk down stairs
he was hit wih a wall of cold
the temerature in the lobby must have been way below 8.0 C
and he thought
where's this predicted wave of warmth
and he checked the thermometer and it was reading
14.9
and then he opened the front door
Oh, it's proper warm out here
we have a policing bullshit bulletin
as a result of this
whenever the Fire and Rescue call out the police
the police 'suggest' people in the area should
eep their doors and windows closed
what had happened at the Ricker place was
closed the doors and windows for the night
trapped frigid air
downstairs stayed as at Sunday
and the point is
you may gain some small advantage in an emergency from
closing doors and windows
but frankly the instruction is likely to come
at precisely the moment when the toxin concentration in nearby buildings
is at it's highest
and you will spend the rest of the day in a toxic soup
whilst the firefighters are out in the fresh air
not to mention the risk of a later shock wave shattering
all yer glass
it's harrowing to hear about a 10 and an 11 year old
dying in a attempt to save toddlers
it is deeply disturbing to suspect that
professional first responders
have a mental age of 10
mot people have heard of the idea of the trainer or physio
having a
magic sponge
first aid isn't magic
and it's complicated
the badge of 'the doctor' is the stethoscope
with a stethoscope a doctor should be able to detect
gurgling
during attempt to recover a casualty who
has been in water
IF and almost only if
the casualty has either drowned
or at risk of drowning in their own fluids
stathoscope - gurgling
Yes?
recovery position to alternate with CPR
you gotta drain the water out of at least one lung
if CPR is to do any good

this morning Locke Park Lake is
back to 6 swans
given that cormorant popping out of the culvert...
perhaps all these water fowl are
nipping into the culvert over night
and
consider
if you tip your used engine oil into a roadside gully
on Mersey Road or elsewhere
it may land on a swan's head


we pick up snippets of information
and we can afford them too much significance
the other day we were paying some attention to
a documentary about the birth of Jesus
this was a part of a series presented by actor
Robert Powell
he who played Jesus in the Frano Zeffirelli directed
Jesus of Nazareth 1977
the snippet we piked up on was
if a man married a woman who was
not a virgin
she must be stoned to death
this is suggested as a reason for Joseph being
hesitant about marrying his girl
this divides women into two groups
women who have sex without being married are OK
women who get married as virgins are OK
there is something of the concept of
mutton dressed up as lamb
about the apparent concept of
sex workers and widows being safe in the community
so long as they did not
bid for the respectablity of marriage
this feeds ideas such as
a man needs to make 'proper provision' for
an ex wife in their divorce settlement because
she has no prospect of re-marriage
on the one hand
this could be about inheritance
but these laws seem to have applied to
everyone
including those with no wealth to pass on after their death
and so
we come back to the idea that we have proviously outlined
relating to Henry 8th
Ann Bolyn wanting to produce a son so
getting a man in
and being exeuted for doing something in that
that undermined the whole idea
Henry too old and ill to get it up
she needs son
surrogacy of a sort
but stepping back from that specific
the core question is
once inserted into the female
for how long
how long a period without a pregnancy
is a sperm viable?
without microscopes these people had
never seen a sperm but
they would have had the idea that
it's the jiz wot makes the babies
so the woman harbouring one or many men's jiz
then seeks to pass herself off as jizless
and con a husband into caring for her and
some other guy's as jet unborn baby
even if the last time tht other bloke was
up her
was years ago
what seems to be missing here is a provision in the
marriage ceremony for the new husband to vow to
adopt any kids she produces that
don't look like him
and so
we move on to the suggestion that
it's about public health
if you know very little about
vectors of infection
and everybody is
constantly
at it like knives
you could conclude that it is sex
and only sex
tht causes the transmisson of infection
leading to the concept
if you only ever in your life have sex with one person
any infection either of you has
will be restricted to the two of you
and not spread
in other words the prizing of virginty relates to
clean or unclean
a genuine virgin being entirely infection free
there's a twist on this
the trade in Victorian London in
virgins fresh up from the country
the idea was
a stage further
if a man got a venerial disease
a sexually tansmitted disease
a sexually transmitted infection
it could be cured by him having
sex with a virgin
the sheer purity of the virgin
overwhealming the evil of the infection
and hence
the provision with little packets of blood
in the bits
of fake virgins
so a woman could have her
virginity taken
several times in a night
as a form of medicine for the clapped out gent
in other words
sex with a virgin not because it was extra fun
but sex with virgins as a cure for illness
and so
such powerful medicine would have a high price


we are coming up to Christmas
in a way
Tntial days in Chrstianity
Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday
the date of Christmas Day ,BR> is in no way linked to Jesus' Story
it is essentially a celebration of the fact that
the nights are getting shorter
not getting longer, at least
Good Friday and Easter Sunday are always on the same weekend
in mid to late spring
all this unless you are one of those people who
live upside down
in the Southern Hemisphere
SOuth America, South Africa, Australia, New Zeland, etc
we are not much interested in the Christmas story
we would note that until very recently
most people thought that
to put it in modern terms
all of the genetic material of the baby came from the father
parthenogenesis
has been known about for quite a while
green fly pump out the babies without ever having any need for
a male green fly
lots of interesting stories about
gamarids resorting to sex when they are about to die
because times has come hard
just as a dying fruit tree produces a bumber crop
in its final year
sorta
what we can say from that is
the story in that context is saying
NOT
that Jesus was
half God, half human
but that he was all divine
so we come to two factiods about Jesus' death
we can say we know a bit about
Pilot
Pontious Pilot
fifth govenor of the
26 to 37 AD
the important point about this story is that
Jesus represented a liberal wing of Jeudeism
and it was reactionary Jewish priests who
dragged Jesus to Pilot and demanded he be executed for
blasphemy
because he preached liberal interpretations of
Jewish, not Roman, law
they did this at the time of a feast
essentially the day of or the day before
in modern terms
a Bank Holiday
Pilot wanted it out with them but
he was squezed between
a rabble whipped up by the priests
and his own staff who wanted to get away for the holiday
and so he agreed to crucify Jesus
but he clearly wasn't happy about it
and some of the stories support the dea that
Jesus could have been taken down from the cross alive
there's a story of
1 him not being strung up in the heat of the day
2 him being offered 'vingar' on a sponge
could have been vinegar to taunt his
dehydration
could have been wine
how would anybody know
3 he was supposed to have been 'finnished off'
with a sword wound to the side
that would have been most irregular
the other line of thought relates to
Christian imagery
at that time, despite all modern depictions
a cross for crucifiction would have been
X shaped
at some point in Christian PR
the cross began to be depicted as
in the form of a sword
including a pointlessly long vertical
people who died from crucifiction
in the real world die from
dehydration and heat exhaustion
and the family were NOT allowed to
remove the body as in the Jesus story
the cross was essentially a form of jibbet
Gibbet
a gallows is an exicution device
a gibbet is a divice for displaying a corpse after death
so
Pilot
washed his hands of Jesus
including not wanting his remains displayed
on Golgotha
Calvery or Golgothat was a site immediately outside
Jerusalem's walls where people's remains were displayed
pour encourager les autres
the place had a geology resembling a skull
and it was probably scattered with human remains
wat is describedro
all Roman weapons bounce off
more like a guy who kinda
went underground
and the 4th special day
Ascention Day
when Jesus rose to heaven on a cloud
not much empahasis on that in Christianity these days

we appear to be down to 3 swans in Locke Park now
ho hum
anyway
we sent our Ricker out to test the water
he started with the curvert exit and
a corporant oppped out of the culvert to greet him
he measured the water temperature
in the curvert 2.6 degrees C
just beyond the first footbridge 2.1 C
just beyond the second footbridge (over the inlet Fleet)plus 1.9
at the boathouse minus 1.0
at the weir (just before the outlet Fleet minus 1.9
in the outlet Fleet minus 0.2
when a small amount of water lies shallow on the bed
the bed of the stream or pond
keeps the water just that bit warmer
ground source heat

it's a disease
at the start of this winter we had a reporter
on local Tv standing beside a gritter wagon
with a dirty great
around a metre diameter
RC logo on the door saying
here in Middlesbrough
actually in Cargo Fleet
why did they used to call it
Congo Fleet?
possibly because it's next to
North Ormsby
and it's jungle out there
now we are trying to track down a new
road over rail bridge
and it is variously described as
over the Northallerton to Middlesbrough line
and
over the Northallerton to Eaglescliff line
there is dear reader a difference
ther is no Northallerton to Middlesbrough line
There is a Northallerton to Middlesbrougn route
the line runs from
Northallerton to Thornaby
where it joins the Darlington to Saltburn line
and on that line there is a station called
Middlesbrough
in essence
900 homes were built without a railway bridge
to connect them to Northallerton town centre
and now t's open - very late
and it could easily be nearer York than Middlesbrough
but probably not quite
the line in it's section between
Yarm and Northallerton
there were 9 level crossings but most of them
Farm Crossings
and so
Yarm - reopened
Picton still closed
Brompton - still closed
three proper crossing points
so this new bridge
essentially replaces the level crossing at the
still closed Brompton Station
we think
we ain't goin out there right now to check
Yarm has a bridge but it is
litterally single track
traffic light controlled alternate direction of flow
well it was last time we checked
so
despite the 900 new homes
we have the Northallerton to Thornaby line
bridged for a Northallerton Ring Road
the concept of a ring road for Northallerton is
difficult
Northallerton s the point on the
East Coast Main Line where
4 tracks side by side
up slow, down slow, (goods. stopping)
up express, down express
split into
Teesside Up, Teesside down
Tyneside up, Tyneside down
so far as we can tell this new bridge is over
the Teesside up and down lines
there is a nearby bridge over the
Tyneside up and down lines
but an actual ring road may mean a much bigger bridge
over at least 4 tracks side by side
thus what we have now is perhaps half of a
Northallerton northern by-pass on a
link road between
the A1 and the A19
this would be
Leaming Bar - Catterick A1 to Osmotherley A19


as we stand back and observe
sometimes we marvel at how little empathy some groups can have
and we don't mean sympathy
perhaps we are using these words incorectly
perhaps we should say
how little insight some people have into the minds of others
the vast majority of healthcare is delivered to the elderly
and that is not the entire cause of the
synthetic statistic that
80 per cent of the recources spent on a persons healthcare
is expended in the last six months of their life
and so
a couple of things about elderly people and women workers
it should never be forgotten that an elderly person may be thinking
why is my nurse paying bills
surely her husband or father takes care of that
the more analytical may ask themselves
I am supposed to manage my life on a pension of
� 6,000 per year
if my nurse an't manage on �26,000 a year
is she fit to manage my healthcare?

it's probably a bit late for this winter but....
ponds
we can divide ponds into two categories
leisure - boating - lakes
wildlife ponds
it's all about fountains
in the summer you run a fountain in a wildlife pond
to cool and oxygenate the water
i the winter, not so much
because especially in Scotland type places
the freezing weather can be prolonged
and a fountain dredges up that wildlife
and pet fish
protecting dense 4 degree water and it gets chilled
if you have a fish pond with goldfish and such,BR> a lttle heater on a float will keep a patch of surface unfrozen for
oxygen for the fish
on the other hand
on boating lake
either drain it as at Coatham Enlosure
or run the founains because
the turbulance will keep thin ice broken up
regarding Locke Park Lake
observer..
the water enters relatively warm from the
Mersey Road Culvert
ground source heating
and cools to the point of freezing byt eh time it gets to the
Coatham Marsh end


we are aware of the concept in America of a
playbook
most notable in American Football
the idea being just call a play by its
name or number
to avoid 'captains' and caothes having to explain
strategy in the heat of a contest
it is fascinating to see the extent to which
the UK government and media
fall in line wth calls from an American playbook
when you consider the UK Royal Family
if you know a thing or two about
modern social history
you will see that the treatment by
the British of
Prince Andrew
followedalmost exactly the earlier treatment of
Charlie Chaplin
the reason for the popularity of The Ginner in the USA is
he is regarded as the
King over the Water
if those God Damned Brits ever rid themselves of those
Pinko Lberal, Tree Hugging current Royals
Charlie Chaplin was British and worked in the USA
and after a visit to the UK he was
refused re-entry to the USA
and the boot licking Brits
exiled him to Switzerland
well he went at least


we hate to repeat ourselves without variation so
strange press conference at the entrance to
TeesWorks yesterday
we will look back to the shellfish wash-up with
a slightly differnt angle
storm Arwen was a very big deal in
Northe East England
in 2021
it was a sort of cyclone and it had a lot of trees down
and that killed three people
and the wind came from
the North or northeast
that is an unusual direction for such storms locally
as in
The Beast from the East
they normally hit these areas from the east
and although Redcar in on the east coast of England
the beach that got the major wash up
Coatham and Redcar
as opposed to Redcar and Marske
is north facing
so Arwen in November 2021
blew full force
up Redcar beach
and there was no shellfish wash-up at that time
we have not established the wind direction on
the day in October of the wash-up
but it would have been something between north and east
Arwen having a name beginning with A
was the first named storm of the season
and so
whatever wind there was on the day of the wash-up
it was not sufficiently severe to warrant
a name
and that is why the data on it are difficult to find
in our 'alternate scenario'
there are two possibilities
1 the 'not a proper storm' in October
washed all the shellfish out of the sea
so there was nothing for Arwen to get at
2 having moulted just before the wash-up
by the time Arwen arrived
they had scrabbled together enough calcium
to turn their rubber claws into
something sharp enough to keep them on the rocks
during a legendary storm
just sayin'
you may ask
why do shellfish synchronise their moult?
they are vulnerable at the time of moult
hermit crabs have a neat trick to avoid this
nip quickly into a bigger host shell
if the not so smart all moult together they are all
vulnerable together
and represent
a glut of food
predators cannot fully exploit

this is an interesting demonstration of the nature of
radiation frosts
this is the new Coatham Bowl car park on Majuba Road
the white part of the surface is the part that was laid
on Friday
the black part is the part that was laid on
Monday
the photo was taken on Tuesday
it demonstrates how slowly
eat leaks away from the surfaces of
land and structures





eleswhere, strange plant behaviour
these glads are really growing there
and the ones in flower have been brought down by
the weight of frost on the petals
and
Redcar has a rival to the parmo
Morrisons are selling this
stollen stottie
a stollen is usually - as a Tesco - a sort of
fruit/marzipan swiss roll
there are like
flatbreads



we feel the need to improve on our description of weather
to start with we should point out
the way the water spins in a vortex
when it drains after you pull out the plug
we did not offer a sufficently real world analogy of
how the spinning of the Earth affets the atmosphere
we should have said
the Earth drags the atmosphere around
on a tow rope, not a stiff bar
in a sense the triangle of steel between a trailer and the
tow hitch is a 'permanent stiff bar
the actual term stiff bar is a straight - not triangular
steel bar fitted between a howning hith on the towing vehicle
and a towing 'eye' on the towed vehicle
element three is
relative to the Sun the Earth spins so that
the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west
in bulk everybody's weather, in agregate, comes from the west
the bulk movement of air across the Earth's surface
represents the atmosphere catching up with the Earth as in spins
in imperfect linkage
the wind will blow from North, South, East or West
at a particular point on Earth's surface because
it is spinning like the vortex in the plug hole
each 'weather system is skimming across the face of the Earth
like a frizbee
and if it's big enough
your location will only experience wind comin from
one of the cardinal points North, South, East or West
and it is because the spin of the Earth is at a tilt
to a plane passing through both the Sun and the Earth
that we get
Seasons
Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall (autumn)
because the Earth is not just spinning on a tilted axis
it is orbiting the Sun
but the tilt is quite stable because
the earth is a giant
gyrosope

we've drawn another Google blank
you know how Inuit people - formerly known as
Eskimo
are famous for building igloo homes
made of ice or packed snow
our Ricker seems to remember that some
non Inuit trappers built log cabins
and set sheets of ice in gaps to let in light
and keep out wind
we can't find a reference to this
say you had a couple of broken double glazing units
ones where you could get in between the two panes of glass
if you filled the 'air' or argon gap or one
water
and having done the same wth the other you froze
the water in that one
and you set up a heat source between them
the heat would pass through the window filled with ice
three times faster than it would pass through the one
filled with liquid water
because?
you get convection currents in liquid water and not in ice
the other term of relevance is
thermocline
it relates to water in lakes and such being in layers
and it appears quite complicated so
this could be wrong but the suggestion is that
water at a temperature of 3.5 degrees or over
floats above rather than mixing with colder water below
alongside that
heat from the sun penetrates deeper into a body of water
than into the land
and that is the basis of coastal
on-shore and off shore breezes
in the sun the beach warms and air looses density and rises
and drags air from over the sea
an on-shore breeze
when the sun goes down
the sea cools more slowly and air rises from the sea
and drags air off the land
an off-shore breeze
so in the dark days before Christmas
the sea is warmer than the land and
the wind should be mainly off-shore
if it weren't for the Coriolis forces
caused by friiction between the Earth and the atmosphere
tht they call
the jet stream
the Earth's atmosphere is like the fluid in the
torque converter in a drive train using an
automatic gearbox
there is a fluid rather than a solid link between
Earth and atmosphere
as the Earth spins it drags the atmosphere around
but on 'springs' rather than a 'stiff bar'
Australian trucker speak there

this kit appears to have arrived very early for the party
it is quite a thing
designed to lay black tp in tight spaces
eventually
it will resurface the theme park and car park
but so far there are no curbs, whatever









for no particular reason we're gonna do
frost
there are two sorts of frost
one wa called
haw frost
the other
penetrating frost
today in Redcar there was a haw frost
sometimes it is referred to as
a radiation frost
the distinction in simple terms is
you can wipe haw frost off a windscreen
you have to scrape a penetrating frost
watr density changes with temperature
this is not a water related phenomenon
all liquids theoretically will vary in density
according to temperature
water has well known characteristics
water is the substance we are most familiar with
n relation to
phase changes
for instance, in cookery
we see butter melt, chocolate melt
but we see them solidify, not 'freeze'
it's just words
some substances skip the liquid phase
solid or gas
because of the way the
units of measurement have been defined
water is at it's densest at 4 degrees C
as the heat radiates from the land and sky on clear nights
the movement
search Brownian Motion
of the molecules slows down
like snooker balls
if they meet more slowly
they boune off more slowly
they can get closer together the less they are whizzing about
BUT
the molecules have other forces at work on them
take water in a kettle
when a water molecule of water comes into contact with the
surface of the heating element
the surface act like
a flipper in a pin ball machine
and sends it crashing into the other water molecules
the jostling dies down because
static flippers absorb energy from moving water molecules
the process has been - in agregate - been reversed
at some point the kicking about energy gets so low that
the forces inside the molecules become the strongest
and this is like those water molecules were
balls in a pin ball machine but they were
studded with tiny little magnets
when the flippers move very very very slowly
the behaviour of the pin balls
is entirely dictated by the magnets
and a liquid becomes a solid
and
in the case of water
beause magnets both repell as well as attract
the structure the magnets impose on the water
is less dense than the density of the still
bouncing around a 4 degrees C water molecules
consequently
in a pond
it's not the coldest water that sinks
this keeps a lot of pond life alive
because
the zero degree ice on the surface
acts like double glaing and keeps the
water below and the life in it
a few degrees above zero
and the magnets are prevented from taking control
the les heat there is in the air
the thicker the ice layer needed to keep the lower part liquid
a aw frost will just solidify mist and
what we see on surfaces is
precipitated frozen fog
as opposed to precipitated frozen rain
and hyper real frozen fog is
snow
and large scale frozen rain is
hail
there is a saying
too cold for snow
if it's too cold for snow it is this
radiation frost situation
still air not bringing in extra water
what water there is in the air
simply settles as frost
thusly we have
two entirely separate causes of cold
radiation - where there is no could blanket
and
wind chill - where like blowing on yer soup of coffee
the wind don'd nedd to be super old to
chill objects because
heat will be taken from the objects to
convert water in them or on them
to water vapour
YOU need a kettle to make steam
nature can do the same trick at lower temertures


anlic
Old English for
one like
English derevation
only
did Webster when devising the dictionary of
American Ehglish
decide that there would be a limit on
the number of words in the list
is that the reason why
the word
few
does not occur in American English?
Wednesday is the only day of the week to
begin with a W
run to 30 days
it is true that in Standard English we can say
the only months of the year that run to 30 days are...
but September is not 'an only month that runs to 30 days'
it is an unusual month in that it runs to 30 days
we accept that this is confusing
but it does not explain why
people speaking American English
never use the word
few
an only xxx
is no substitute for
one of the few xxxs
we are surprised to find that we can't find
the origin of the word unique
it's French
and from the Latin unicus
only, single, sole
soo
there are no
gradations or degrees of
uniqueness
there is only one of a unique entity
one than one - rare
there are graduations of rareness
speaking of the CBS takeover of the BBC
the BBC seems distressed that it's
rosta of parents of women who have
come to a sticky end
is shorter than its rosta of news anchors
if 100 women a year are murdered in the UK
where are the shirking bereaved parents
to fill up the gaps between soccer football tournaments?

and another thing
we get 'the authorities' having things both ways
they try to reduce antibiotic use by
pointing out that antibiotics don't work on viruses
what they are trying to do is say
individual problems need individual answers
no silver bullets, no mantras
but then they say
wash your hands
as the response to every medical emergency
and
close all your doors and windows
Passover style
in response to any engineering incident
but most of all
when they have a random theory
and it clearly does not work
instead of looking for a new theory
they say
the solution
'wasn't pplied rigourously enough'
tht would be China and the zero CoViD theory

these be the internal supports for the roof of the
septic tank



we wouldn't waffle on about this but
we don't like to see
Surfers Against Sewage
get the wrong end of the stick


we are almost certain that
Redcar Probation Service office was in
the shop that is now
Letting Angels
in Station Road Redcar

Redcar used to have a
Probation Service office in Station Road
it closed the same month that Redcar steel works closed
recently a Humber Ports manager revealed that
The business's zero-tolerance drugs policy,BR> has affected Associated British ports' ABP
recruitment
in one instance seven out of ten
new staff were let go due to
positive drug tests
despit the new coal mine being proposed by
Australians
it is not likely that
if smack heads are not allowed to
operate the Port of Hull
they will be allowed to operate a
deep shaft coal mine under the sea
there is no market for the coal
there is no chance the mine would take
for any period of time
the kind of wastrell the Probation service seeks to
settle in employment
good idea to get them jobs
bad idea to let them loose in a literally explosive workplace
we hear people say
since the steel works closed
some of the lads haven't worked a day
is that because they have
niche skills
or because they have criminal records as long as yer arm?

this one's for Sheffield
they Cordant?
are puzzling over how hige amounts of water from a water main leak
could get into a gas main
you would guess
water in a puddle or even a lake of flood water
would be at lower pressure than
gas in a gas main
and so be kept out of the gas supply
BUT
if you have a bit leak in a water main
and a quite small leak in a gas main
you get an effect similar to a
carburettor
static high pressure gas will keep the water out
a rushing stream of gas in a gas main
entrains water entering and produces a LOWER pressure
at the breach
than further back in the lake
and the water nearest the gas leak is trnasported along
the gas main with the gas
the accererator in carburretor cars
varies the air intake
the acceserator pedal is conneted to a butterfly valve in the air stream
injection petrol and diesel engines vary the fuel intake
and in this case it is also possible that the water got
into the gas main via
a pressure relief valve and not a breach
a pressure relief vlave should be
none return
but it could get stuck
it's similar to the pressure difference
above and below a wing - an aerofoil
what we are avoding here s the term
venturi effect
what you need to do is look for a place on the network where
the gas pipe is under water
and
for some reason
the gauge, bore, diameter of
the gas pipe has been
severely reduced in the direction of flow


this Whitehaven/Workington mine proposal seems
very vague
we first of all don't know is this
outline planning permission
or
detailed planning permission?
we have a suspicion that there are people hoping to
sue the government for
left hand not knowing what the rght hand is doing
the scenario we imagine is
planning permission granted
company invest in working up detailed plans
and they cannot pass
mainly due to
Health and Safety considerations
leading to the company making a claim for
compensation for the money invested in
drawing up the detailed plans
sounds like a nice little earner for
'consultants'
ending in either bankruptcy of a government compensation
but we would be surprised if any
blue collar
jobs emerge


Redcar being what it is
on the odd occasion on the loca roads can be seen
a pick up truck liveried
MINES RESCUE
'cos we got a whole lotta mines in Cleveland
just not coal mines
and the division of
The Health and Safety Executive
that regulates mines is
His majesty's Inspectorate of Mines
so we are not exactly clear where Michael gove fits into that
what we are thinking is that somebody is proposing to
reopen Haig Pit near Whitehaven
there are no pit head structures
there are aitist's impressions of
large polytunnels
there are questions
is any of this
grandfathered in
we doubt that
is whatever pit is proposed for re-opening
flooded?
rusted to hell
whatever
people in Whitehaven appear to think
given Haig pit closed in 1986 at th cost of 3,500 jobs
having run for 70 years
that
all it needs is new pit head gear and a dust suppressing
polytunnel
and it will be as if it were 1985 all over again
including the workforce consisting of
men who left school with no qualifications
we have some doubt about HM Inspectorte of Mines
signing off on that
so...
will the lads from Redcar and Cleveland be getting
poached to work in Whitehaven and doing the
long commute
happy days?
when our Ricker was a young man
his mam's next door neighbour in Corporation Road, Redcar
was an electrician down Boulby Mine
and he serviced electric loaders the size of
a single decker bus
workforce down from 3,500 to 500
do you think any of them will be anything less than
time served and certificated?
this mine is being sold as a source of jobs for
men too stupid to be let loose at Sellafield
not gonna happen

we have concluded that there is loose end we should tidy up
that is congenital infections
the bottom line for this in the UK is
get your kids their vaccinations
don't 'depend' on the natural 'organic' concept of
chicken pox parties
where you delibertely expose children to infections
THAT is fine
what os not fine is if there are
pregnant women who have not been vaccinated in attendance
if mum has no immunity to whatever infection and she catches it
whilst pregnant
serious damage can be done to the unborn baby
three in 100,000 children are born
deaf-blind
there are a range of causes but most are because
their mum caught Rubella whilst pregnant with them
and had no immunity herself
a small known risk but illustrative of the problem
more significant in the USA is
cytomegalovirus
others are HIV, herpes, toxoplasmosis syphilis, Zika
n the USA one in 200 babies are born with
congenital CMV - cytomegalovirus
one in five of those will have health problems in
immediate and later life
for instance hearing loss
CMV can be a significant cause of
miscarriage or still birth
this points up the very important distinction between
congenital
and
genetic
congenital means something similar to
aboriginal
from the very start
and it could be
genetic or it could be the result of
infection during pregnancy
or preganancy or birth trauma
most importantly
parents of a child with a
congenital abnormality
if they fix the problem, get the vaccinations
stop drinking and smoking etc,
can later or earlier produce children
who carry no genetic trait of the affected child's problem
in essence
cerebral palsy is congenital with no genetic component
Down Syndrome in genetic
but not necesserily geneticly tramsmissible
since it is trisomy not a code fault
an extra copy of the genes, not necessarily faulty genes
there are insufficient data
on Down fertility
Down females can have children
Down males are reported to be infertile but
we cannot say whether Down individuals can be
natural parents to 'non-Down' children


we know about a couple of BBC business news prsenters
Sally Bundock and Victoria Valentine sometime Fritz
yesterday for some unknown reason we heard Sally say
90 per cent of hydrogen produced in the UK is Blue Hydrogen
so
if you had a home or office with conventional light bulbs
first since it is illegal to sell incandescant bulbs now
subject to exceptions
every time you had a bulb blow the replacement would have to be
low energy
so you have two options
over time switch as replacements are essential to
low energy
or
buy low energy for immediate replacement of all the heavily used
lamps in your property all in one go and
set the lower energy cost against the 'waste' of still working
high energy lamps
if we do this as maths
sy you have a factory
and you build an extension
you will not be able to fit out the new extension with
high energy lighting - building regulations
if 90 per cent of your lamps are high energy
and you have 100 lamps
every time one blows
one more per cent of your lamps will be low energy
buy ten new bulbs and 80 per cent of your lamps will be
high energy
buy 100 new lamps for your extension and
40 per cent of your lamps will be high energy
if you replace 10 blown old ones at the same time
in other words if you have 90 per cent of the installed capacity
and no sales
your per centage of the installed capacity will fall rapidly
and so to BP
by 2030 BP plan to provide 15 percent of UK hydrogen needs
from
Hy Green Teesside
but they are saying
that will be 10 percent blue hydrogen and 5 per cent green hydrogen
and so they reckon by 2030
we will see a shift from
2022 90 per cent blue 10 percent green
to
2030 65 per cent blue hydrogen and 35 per cent green hydrogen
you may know that ensus on Wilton International produce a lot of the
ethanol that constitutes the
10 percent of 'petrol' pumped into non-diesel cars and vans
that is ehtanol
such fuel is designated e10
ensus has signed up to use BP HyGreen hydrogen instead of
natural gas thus reducing natural gas consumption by 34 per cent
probably
a similar deal has been set up for
Tees valley Lithium
a Wilton International lithium refiner
set to commence constrution soon
CF Fertilizers
the Nitram factory in Billingham that keeps shutting down
because natural gas prices are so high has a similar deal in the works
by 2025 BP expect to be producing 80 mega watt equivlents of
hydrogen on Wilton International in Redcar
and by 2030 15 percent of the national target of
10 gigawatt equivalents
so green hydrogen 5 per cent of 10 gigawatt
but
WE suspect that the green-blue mix will be variable
we think customers - apart for North Gas Networks will
want to feel that the gas won't be cut off
if the wind stops blowing
and so the capacity to have a blue hydrogen back up will be
important for customer confidence for the
short to medium term
Northern Gas Networks
are the gas equivalent of
The Electricity National Grid
and will initially supply green hydrogen to a couple of areas
essentially Coatham and Kirkleatham Wards
from 2025

what we're digging through here is a combination of
'mission creep'
and
'Chinese whispers'
we've mentioned this before
Scottish Seed Potatoes
in Morrisons you can buy three types of raw potato
washed, peeled, and scabby known as wonky
the thing is you have no real idea whether the peeled ones
were scabby before they were peeled
anyway
farmers know that the things that make potatoes scabby
and that is not rotten
don't live well in the colder climate in Scotland
so in Scotland - Abertay - they grow relatively small
clean skinned potatoes
they are then shipped down to England were they are planted
the next year and produce clear skinned large potatoes
probably in Lincolnshire
but if they kept back some of the crop to plant the next year
they would probably turn out scabby
if not the first year
after few seasons
and so to Venereal
relating to the Goddess Venus
I'm your Venus, I'm your fire
what's your desire?
and so a Venereal disease is an infection
caught from, by, having sex
and so, a sexually transmitted infection
so
you make laws that
like the modern China CoViD zero tollerence policy
you say,Br. if diseases are spread through sex
what we need is for future generations
never to have sex with anybody from the existing population
so the initial aim was
this new generation will never have sex with any preceding ones
not that they won't have sex before a particular age
and the damage to this concept is and example of
Chinese Whispers
sent reinforcements, we're going to advance
we're gong to advance
becomes
send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance
the mission creep bit is
adults should not have pictures of children
adult access to children, sexual or not, should be restricted
and then despite all efforts, somehow
a child is exposed to a pathogen they have not encountered in their
formation years
search SELF in Immunology
and they get proper ill
we'll steal the 40 yeqr old virgin joke fro
Mock the Week
that was my birthday
not the anniversary of my birthday
the day I was born
the last time I touched a woman's vagina
and
and now we are seeing studies that show that
people born by Caesarian section
have weaker immune systems than
people who were born through the gates of glory
in the normal way
if you search
colostrum
you may see an arguement that
children who have sex with adults
may be healthier than those who don't



so this setc tnk is being built from pre-cast concrete sections
we have to say 2 things
it's very big
we can't see how there wil be room for a hotel
of significnt size on the R-Kade - Mungle Jungle site
tow posibilities come to mind
it is also for a future arena
the hotel wil be built on the former
swimming baths site
now vacant and between R-kade and Tuned-In
if Scotland is to return to Europe
the European Union should be expected to pay part or all of
the cost of any road improvements
A1 to A1M
customs posts etc.
if Scotland continues to bleet about independence
it is hard to know how to design any upgrade

every day's a school day
there were 7 swans a swimming in Locke Park Lake
and now there are 6
and they are getting a bit short on food
they are getting out of the water and making like geese
eating grass
intereting enough
but
4 of them are congregating in The Fleet
in inflow channel from Mersy Road culvert to the pond
and yesterday our Ricker wathed one of them a
young female not long since a cygnet
and she was sitting in the water
and reahing up the bank of The Fleet nd
picking up dead leaves and putting them in the water beside her
what Is she doing
then he went home and saw another swan doing the same thing on telly
and it had to be
swans eat frogs
she was looking for frogs hibernating in the bank of the fleet
we looked it up
it's true
so, erm, go to Locke Park and feed the swans

David Niven was a British actor and
memoirist
he wrote books about his life
autobiographist
amongst other things he starred as the first
James Bond
but Casino Royale was re-made starring
Tin-tin
our Ricker's grandpa was very keen on
pot permang
pot permang is potassium permanganate
essentially it can be added to drinking water
in place of chlorine
to render it safe
but should not be inhaled in concentrated form
when David Niven wrote about his first visit to
a sex worker
she indicated a kidney dish with a pink liquid in it
he was bemused
it transpired she wanted him to
bathe his wedding tackle in it
before they got down to business
and it is a reflection on
how it was the potential concern over the transmission
of what were called STDs - sexually transmitted dseases
but are now called
sexually transmitted infections STIs
and there were laws that required sex workers to
have their bits regularly inspected for signs of infection
in order to be allowed to work
and special stands so that they could
perch on the stand with their ankles akimbo
so that they could be quickly and effectively inspected
it's not quite clear when
public health concerns
morphed into 'moralty'
and then into
having sex will destroy your life
but the mechanism is very familiar
if there is a problem
rival political parties will vie to be
more Draconian
than the opposition
Tories promise 2,000 jobs
so labour promise 5,000 jobs
even when unemployment is very low
so intimate contact boosts immunity
their efforts to 'crack down on' intimate contact

we have to admit that
the blast furnace flare stack is
leaning over at 6 degrees not 20 as we said before
and perhaps they will blow down the stoves before Christmas
perhaps not

we have to say
this hasn't got permission yet
and if it does
it will begin as a trial in 2025

this is one of those tiny details that may be very significant
there has been a press release to the effect that
Ukraine has shot down Russian cruise missiles that were supposedly
desined to carry nuclear warheads
but that no radioactivity above background was detected
on the recovered fragments
so Russia has nominally nuclear capable cruise missiles
that have never had nuclear payloads fitted
and so
the question is
are these missiles being produced like
cars without engines
why if you have the engines do you not fit them?
this does call into question
estimates of how nuclear prepared Russia is
it's a bit like paracheuting inflatable rubber tanks
into Germany in World War 2 as Britain never did
a bit like the Russian military saying
look, this is how we decieved you,BR> if Russia meant this as a threat
and if they had British grade smarts
they would have contaminated the missiles
to make it appear they had removed nuclear warheads

two sayings come to mind in respect of the
expansion of the university sector in UK higher eduation
regarding the general landscape
never mind the quality
feel the width
and as for people trying to progress the
experiment of human custody of Plant Earth
pearls before swine
a total inability to assess quality
is it neqt, handed in on time, not direct lift from tinternet
no recent contact but
twenty years ago when Teesside first became a university
the obsession of the authorities was with
plagiarism
in the sense that tutors or their bosses
didn't want students to
parrot the greats
but to present to the university
the authentic voice of the gutter
in essence
the university hired from the mental hopitals
and could not believe that
'people from round 'ere could string three words together
so they must be cheating
t's the only way they could be presenting work of this quality


we thought for today we would explore the
flip side of metoo
we tell this story from time to time
we'll have a go at fixing the time of these events
time like an ever rolling stream
bears all its sons away
Teesside Development Corporation
was established in 1987
we think it was wound up in 1998
so that is the era of this story
1992 was the date for Teesside Polytechnic
becoming University of Teesside
this story relates to
Dr Webster
at some point in tht era Dr Webster had two jobs
he was
Director Designate of Teesside Polytechnic
and thus in line to be vice-chancellor of
The University of Teesside
and we assume that at the time 1993 to 2005
Lord (Sir Leon) Brittan was chancellor of
University of Teesside
two jobs Webster was
a bt of an expert in computer graphics
there seem to be two concepts under the term
fractal
but he had worked on getting convincing
conputer graphics using primitive computers and
difficult sums
so he was
Director Designate of Teesside Polytechnic
and
Computer Visualisation Director for
Teesside Development Corporation
and before he could be declared
Director of Teesside Polytechnic
he got sorta ill
and he wasn't turning up to either job
and when anybody asked his PA where he was
Janice
would always say he was
at the other job
and one day he 'sneaked out' of the house
and banked the severence cheque the
polytechnic had sent him
but Janice was his wife
so the University of Teesside
releived of the responsibility of a
Vice-chancellor who was never contactable
compromised by appointing his wife
chief executive of a
semi spun off enterprise providing
visualisation services
you've heard of Heck sausages
you may remember
The Great Heck Train Wreck
of February 2001
Tania Nelson at the spin off company
reated the official police
3D reconstruction of the crash
and she
got in bother with the university
and the police
because
somebody arranged for her to be
one of our Ricker's tutors on an MSc
in multimedia
at once stage Tania asked our Ricker
you don't mind me assessing your work do you?
so we have double metoo
the module was an evening class and our Ricker
attended around six 2 hour sessions
and the link between Tania and our Ricker was
tey had both been students in
Optometry and Visual Science at City University
so our Ricker got a restraining order or whatever
never to contact Tania again
because
he had skills and qualifications in
vision and computing
and the boss of the company that employed Tania didn't
so
cut it how you will
one suggestion
if Ricker and Tania spent more time together
perhaps they would set p their own company
and cut the university spin off
out of the market
like get the Development Corporation contract
as well as perhaps the police one
you can loo up Janice Webster at Companies House
last we bothered she wasn't tradng from
The University of Teesside but from a private house
and we doubt she was employing Tania Nelson nee Robertson
metoo is always depicted as
man preys on woman
but sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose



this is the 'pen'
at Morrisons
there is a bar like a hitching post
it's way too big for trollies
it may be for in-store mobility scooters
but delivery vans seem favouite

we don't expect you to research the John Snow story
and if you do you will know more about it than we do
the idea was
people were dying from cholera
cholera is a gut infection
perhaps the affected people had lives of drudgery
overworked
as it was
some time earlier
before the population got so dense
somebody had built the houses etc. that
they were living in
and the builders had installed
water pumps in the street
so people could - for free
pump ground water up to use in the home etc.
and one of these pumps after a while was
pumping up
not fresh lean ground water
but water that was just filtering across from
the cess pit that those people were dumping their waste into
and the gut microbe was getting from the guts of
people with cholera into the ground and into the pump
so John Snow removed the handle from that pump
and people had to walk further to get water from
a pump far enough from the cess pit that the
cholera microbes couldn't reach it
so the story is a prime example of
public health where
people are put to trouble
carrying water further
to keep them safe
but people would not VOTE to have the pump handle removed
what John Snow did was
autocratic
not democratic
but it put an end to the cholera outbreak
the thing is
nobody was making money out of the people using the polluted water
people make money out of
tobacco
so
a modern day John Snow would not only have to contend with
people adicted to nicotine
he would ahve to contend with people
including the government
adicted to tobacco profits
there's a related issue here
some old bloke has been in a spot of bother over
giving women in his mortuary a traditional send off
and here we have the conflict that can arise when
an issue is too complex for 'ordinary people' to grasp
so priests and the like just say
if you do it you will go to hell
hell is actually a fairly modern invention
it comes in more with big cities where life is
a whole lot more complicated than out in the fields
when it became an offence to give a woman a propper send off
most people who died, died either from or with an infection
that nobody understood
so it was to destroy the infectious agent that
some religions demaded instant cremation
and some demanded quick time burial six feet under
and so lying in state and one last fuck
were trapped in a bit of a void when
quick and effective embalming was not commonplace
it's a fairly extreme example of
this law does not come with explanatory notes
many laws would be better if they included in the text
a clause specifically stating
this law will self destruct if a better solution occurs
they call that
'on the face of' the Bill or Act
this is an expedient act it is not
carved in stone

we have a story about embalming
when people donate their bodies to science...
they get embalmed, although some of their
tissues and fluids may be removed first and frozen
when our Ricker was dissecting Walter's remains
a nearby group of students announced that
their cadaver's brain was mushy
and the demonstrators said
make sure you wash your hands
your patient probably died of a stroke
the clot that stopped blood getting to a the brain
probably also stopped the embalming fluid from getting to the brain



the foundations of the Majuba Road septic tank

The new wing of
Redcar and Cleveland College

and we THINK
within the orange barrier
the foundations for a
teaching wind turbine that will
power the college - like, the whole college

oh and just in case you doubted us
Majuba Road
a stack of septic tank baffles
they keep the solids in the tank
to decompose and await a tanker to pump them out

Third time lucky??
sometimes we think our Ricker should stay asleep, not just in bed
Durham University, John Snow College
transferred from
to the ount oswald site in Durham city and
Thornaby is now
Durham University International Study Centre
and the bit by the river used to be
The Wolfson Building
and there wer two colleges further from the river,
nearer the railway
Stephenson was the other and that is now
on SOuth Road Durham city
and appears to be a modern day Cuths
Saint Cuthbert's Society as it is described as
self catering
although
back in the day
Cuth's is our Ricker's 'college'
Cuths was, live out - eat in
the reverse if you like ,of self catering
John Snow was the doctor who removed
the handle from the water pump in the
London slum
to end a cholera epidemic
University of Teesside
running Durham out of town was
not so much biting the hand that feeds you
but
biting the hand that could cure you
die proud, die young
is the UofT motto?


we think we should offer some further detail on the
Teesside Medical School
issue
there was a sort of medical school
Durham University and Newcastle Medical School
had a joint venture in Thornaby
for Durham University students to study
pre-clinical medicine at Stephenson College
it may seem like a fantasy now but
Durham university Chancellor
Peter Ustinov opened
Snowdon College in Thornaby
or some similar name down by the Tees Barrage
having had a short conversation with a
Cleveland Police Officer
our Ricker came away with the impression that
Cleveland Police consider that
any discussion of
'naughty bits'
is done for
sexual gratification
and should be illegal
and so the project was shut down
Cleveland Police fully paid up members of the UK Taliban


we like a mystery
we have another one from the recent refurbishment of
Redcar supermarket Morrisons
a pen was built - indeed a padded cell
within the U shape of the taxi rank
it so far has no markings and is the size of two
side by side car parking bays
we are wondering
it is far from the
click and collect bays
is it intended for
Deliveroo drivers
if Market Kitchen ever gets off the ground?
they are a proper nuisance at Morrison's drive through Macdonalds
we have to note that what we were calling
Stanley Nixon House on Corporation Road
is now called
The Beeches
and today, domestic bin day - as opposed to commercia bin day
they could only muster one vehicle to blockage access for the
bin crew


we have noted a new conflict
reently the University of Lincoln
opened a medical school
it was opened by Professor Sir Jonathan Van Tam
but...
it is very interesting that the vice chancellor of
the University of Lincoln sai
to paraphrase
the opening of a medical school in an area
is an economic and social boost to that area
and thinking of the places that have recently
'acquired' a medical school
Sunlessland, Lincoln
we do tend to conclude that
perhaps contrary to press presumptions
them in London think
the Tees Valley is
too posh to deserve a medical school
perhaps there just aren't enough patients
for the students to fiddle with
but we must have bad teeth because
although, no medical school, no dental school
University of Teesside is listed as having a dental school
because it teaches
dental hygiene
learn how to do a scale and polish but not
anything needing an anaesthetic
like fillings and extractions
and the conflict?
nurses are now graduates
so they are no longer
scrubbers
so perhaps
james Cook should be shut down
and replace with a hospital somewhere
less posh than The Boro
perhaps Darlo
Darlington
or Whitehaven/Workington
scummy enough for a coal mine
scummy enough for a medical school?
or have we missed there already being one there

there is a difference between
writing a balanced report
as we try to do
and the BBC approach which is
run the text past anybody we criticise
to get their approval
the phrase in government is
'we consulted the industry'
and so we see people trying to draw attention to
the wastful destruction of methane at oil wells
CATS - central area transmission system
wot comes ashore on Tod point Road
was an example of putting in the pipework to collect the
gas not going abord oil tankers in the North Sea
and is what oil companies say is
uneconomic to install in Alaska or Winchester
the Bc consult with the idustry and
some wally on the telly comes up with
a graphic of burping cows
this is what is known
OUTSIDE THE INDUSTRY
as
a red herring
something that mislead or distracts
from a relevant or important question
it may be eirther a logical fallicy or a
literary device
that leads audiences toward a
false conclusion
a right to reply
does not extend to
launching a red herring
it only extends to correcting
provable errors
and example of a red herring is
we can't raise pay
but we do great in kind benefits
the provision of on site parking
distracting from the reduction in the
purchasing power of the wages
comes from
William Cobbett's Rural Rides
Cobbett seeking to put hounds off the
scent of a rabbit
by trailing a strong-smelling smoked fish
1807


we try to strike a balance on
simplfy - oversymplify
regarding
fossil carbon versus animal emitted carbon
if we dig a little deeper
it takes approximately a year for a plant to capture a
carbon dioxide molecule from the air
and have it presented to a cow as feed
the lungs of the cow will breath out carbon dioxide
the digestive tract of the cow will emit methane
the carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
the methane is a 25 tmes more effective greenhouse gas
as the carbon dioxide
plants don't 'ingest' methane
some microbes do
as such
given a staedy state of agricultural activity
the carbon in the carbon dioxide will be baak in a plant
and back in a cow
within a year
the methane will be in the atmosphere for
nine years
before it decomposes into carbon dioxide
and in year ten is back in fodder for cows
there ar several approaches to tackle this problem
breed cows or formlate cow fodder to suppress the
the methane generting activity of microbes
capture animal generated methane for
energy or chemical synthesis
introduce methane lysis microbes
either into cow guts or filters circulating air from cow sheds
what we have at present is
some fodder carbon escapes as methane
that's as bad as digging up methane and dumping it because it
makes oil difficult to transport
that's like saying
in war some people get raped
and that's much more of a problem than people getting killed
because
people remember being raped
and nobody remembers being killed
one of the little mysteries we have not examined is
why, to coin a phrase, are
cow motions so loose?
cows deposit cow pats
we don't off hand know any other animal that makes
quite such as mess
they have kidneys
they produce urine
but they also produce very loose faecies to the point of
almost runny out od both exits at the same rate
and thereby is a problem
collecting horse and sheep dung very easy
pigs more of a problem
cows...
shovel won't cut it
and so
we know that cows eat grass and grass norally has a high water content
and cows fed on concentrate have to have water to compensate
so, we can ferment slurry to generate methane
but we can't collect cow pats in the field and
burn them as fuel - on an industrial scale
in other words
the decomposition of dung
generates methane
it's just more obvious with cows
and so that extra 9 years in the cardon cycle is
'baked in', grandfathered in, taken into account
all part of the natural order
and not a part of
increased biological activity
less whales, more people
but no large scale change
more biota means faster turnover
not more carbon turning over
the only way to increase carbon in the carbon cycle is to
dig it up

Christmas Lights
Paedophile Hunters
kindly crawl back under your rock for the day


for a very long time our Ricker had the same
GP General Practitioner fmily doctor
and then he retired
around three quarters of the way through this time
something singular occured that we will refer to later
but at the end
our Ricker sent his MP a series of three emalis to
Ian Swales the then MP for Redcar
and he CC'd them to his GP - Ricker's GP
also Ian Swales GP? who knows
what was odd was a conversation with a
psychiatric nurse who asked
how did you get the GP's email address?
naturally the GP had given it to him
but it never occured to our Ricker that this was in any way
an unusual ocurance
this was a work email and the emails were technical
but not personal
more recently our Ricker has had correspondence with
James Cook Universty Hospital
and there was an email address in the letter head
when our Ricker wanted to send a
scan file to a consultant he used that email address
and got a very 'cheeky' letter demanding
never use this email again
it is true that the email was that of a
medical secretary
nowhere was there any indication that
communications with medial secretaries must be
restricted to
appointment dates and times
the other issue with the GP was
there was a big drive of publicity about
getting testicular cancer check ups at the GP's
by the way at the time our Rickers were
more than usually different in size
but are now more evenly matched
all these years later, recalling the encounter
it has struck our Ricker that perhaps
the GP had been expecting to
palpate the knackers through panties
as a police officer once did to our Ricker

we should say
gasometer - gas holder - gas storage tank
now the major landmark in Redcar

in the overall scheme of things
we know how petty people can be
particularly in respect of
not invented here syndrome
we are not saying nobody else thought of this
BUT
given the neeed to store green hydrogen
we really really think that f somebody has the idea that
the Redcar Iron Works Gasometers
could serve as both gas storage
and a momument to Iron and Steel on the River Tees
please don't scrap the idea just because we mentioned it
as a triple service
1 store hydrogen
2 memorialise irone and steel making
3 a venue for the Arts Council
or whatever they are now called
projected art work and the like

we are trying to untangle the question
is it just as dangerous to be
in denial that you were born gay
as it is to be in denial that you have type 1 diabetes?
we may be wrong because we almost always rely on
our Ricker's fading memories but
Frida Kahla
South American artst
some people are not devoted fans
some say she faked or exagerated her disabilities
some say that despite dying young from
breast cancer nd having gallstones
Frida's mother lived in some denial that she was
type 1 diabetic
she died around 1930 and Banting and Best
discovered insulin therapy in 1921
so
Frida's mother lived a large portion of her life
without effective treatemt for her diabetes
and Frida was injured when a truck hit the bus she was travelling in
some people think she had far too many operations for her injuries
and that she had unnecessary abortions for fear the child would be
ill
it has been a relatively recent development for some countries to
try to make life comfortable for gay people
especially gay men
we are not suggesting insulin for the gay
we are suggesting that
a very early definitive diagnosis of
whatever form of homosexuality exists in a child
would help everyone to circulate, adult and children, freely
without fear that contact would alter sexuality
we cannot accept that
guilt or fear over bearing or fathering a gay son
justifies violence against the
nearest available gay adult
the idea that gay children should live in some sort of
purdah
at least up to the age of 18
to see whether
'it wears off'
'is a phase'


we've had a minor oops
at th Redcar blast furnace site
a small chimney that was vertical is now
leaning about 20 degrees
we don't suppose it will be much of a problem

we often make reference to
old movies
we have two books in mind toady and they have seen several
movie versions
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
and
Goodbye Mr Chips
the essential plot of Mr Chips is
teacher who hates boys
mellows when he finds a
valuptuous wife
a showgirl
and The Prime is about
a teacher who feels
education for girls is more than
training up
home-makers
and gets a lot of conflict with
the authorities over that
there is a basic conflict over
the influence of educated men over boys
just now we can't think of the exact example but
there is a line that suggests that
either
gay boys won't act gay if they never get to hear about
such things
to the more extreme
nobody is born gay
and if gay men can turn boys gay
we can turn them back again
if re-education worked
it would be supporting evidence that
gay men can turn staright boys gay
but we don't seem to have any reliable evidence
so if reversion therapy doesn't work
we don't need to worry about gay men having access to boys
in a sense Goodbye is sort of suggesting that
reversion therapy does work
so long as you use a woman who is
sufficiently stunning
the Prime story is a bit different in the sense
in England that is to say in fee paying schools in England
down the ages there was a term
pedarast
and there are conflicting concepts about what it means
one is a man who likes buggering boys
the traditional meaning is
being the male side version of Miss Brodie
that is to say
a man trying to convince boys that there is
more to school life than
The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton
in the sense
pretty woman comes along and
perhaps these boys could get more out of life than
growing up a bit and killing other slightly more grown up boys
what is interesting is that for a long time
this sort of social norm threatening behaviour was
described as
pederasty
a long tradition of
war hero versus statesman
it really has been over the past few decades that
pederast has been replaced by
paedophile
and that signals
including girls in the concept of
in their case being
more than a womb on legs
and we could say
pedarast - English
paedophile - American
and overlaine on this is the more modern
Goodwill Hunting
and that has a sharper line
pig ingornce - rote learning - thoughtful investigton
so perhaps Mr Chips and Miss Brodie wer
advocating more the
dedication to rote learning
and Goodwill is sugesting
not so much a good memory but an inquisative approach to life
although one of Miss Brodie's galls
gets shot for being in SOE
Uk WW2 Special operations Executive
we may not have that quite right
but that is bravery
not just ambition


sometimes there is a complete disjunct
dis junction
between the 'classes'
in many countries
and news stories can be utterly misundrstood
so we will go back to
1830 to 1930 approx
retail in the UK
a shop would be a tiny
click and collect operation
except that you wrote down your
shopping list on piece of paper
your shopping list
and you would hand this over to the
almost always male
shop assistant
who would
as in the two Ronnies 4 candles sketch
go off to find the items on the list
but here's the thing
children went to school up to about 10 years old
and school marms
were women
children were home or in the care of female school teachers
and women shopped
in shops divided in two
customer section
staff section
and shop assistants were referred to as
counter jumpers
on the basis that male assistants were supposed to be kept
at double arms length from the female customers
and peering into the shop door
the men of the village/town thought
those counters don't look high enough
I could vault that and get amongst the women
and to digress
a single man and his mother lived in a terrace house in
Queen Street, Redcar around the 1970s
and they kept the front room as a sweet shop
so there was more a till than a counter
and one day a father walked into the shop
an kicked the son to death
because he had been giving as well as selling sweets to the kids
and the issue is not
NOT
grooming with a view to sexual exploitation
it is going far beyond
sparing the rod to spoil the child
but in being nice to the kids
disrupting the
an Englishman's home is his castle
authority of a male head of household
and regarding girls
how ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
now that they've see Paree
if they are destined to marry and
get poked a couple of times between the legs
of a Saturday night
how much more difficult is it going to be
if at some earlier time they had been shown some
genuine affection?
so the toffs think paedophiles have been
ripping the guts out of urchin kids
and in fact they have been
befriending them
and by doing so
dirupting the social order
in the gutter

we think we have abit of a breakthrouh in the
shellfish washup saga
although there has been no public announcement
we sense that at the end of the day
the ASA
the Advertising Standards Authority
will quietly be banning those pesky
CalGon adverts

this is how maron grass growb naturally
on bare rock - in this case tarmac
in the swirl of blown sand


but if you plant it in soil
it grows like this
it's special trick is inapplicable and
it gets out competed



we don't think this is an underground car park
or a swimming pool for
the new Majuba road Hotel
we think it's a septic tank


we don't know whether we've made a mistake
Morrisons have branded their
Redcar Market Kitchen
as
a community room
it is a fully fitted out kitchen
and it does have a huge
board room style kitched table
we are wondering
are they merging the two concepts and
using the Market Kitchen to offer
cookery lessons to locals
we don't think any of the other
community rooms do that
perhaps part of the day it will prepare take aways
and part of the day offer cookery lessons


this tank 'ere 'ole next to TunedIn on Mauba Road is/
a septic tank
well just now it's the excavation for a septic tank
so that
IF
the hotel ever gets built
it's sewage will be pre-treated
before it drains into the sewer

a phrase that does not appear to be in the lexicon of
the toffs wot do social work
like them two that got murdered at a session in
Fishmongers' Hall in London
is
they do it for badness
breaking a shop window is the same
endorphin rush as
winning a match or a race a decade or so ago some young twirp
put in a window at
Cancer Research UK on Redcar High Street
and the probation service
arranged a Christmas day out of season
a meeting with the manger
to slake that thirst for
attention
and on another occasion
our Ricker was the manager and some twirp
lifted a leather jacket out of the window
and he was told to pay for it
and he ddn't
and the court added 3 days to his sentence
and this is what some of these wimin are complaining about
a crime occurs
to hell with the victim
the perp is now a 'social services' client
so the way a crime is managed is dependent on
who the perp is
not the crime or the victim


it may have been due to his being three days old
before his mother met him
we suppose when some hormones had subsided
that our Ricker's mum didn't
bond very well with him as a child
and he tried to be good
as much as he could
but at a different level
they never saw eye to eye on much
she having left school at 14
and he being a Durham univerity graduate
the issue in mind here is
imposed discipline
versus
personal responsinility
the saying at question being
spare the rod and spoil the child
some people seem to grow up with the idea
if you don't get whacked for it
you have permission to do it
on the other hand
the concept of
I can't EXPLAIN to a toddler that
they shouldn't run into the road
I should just give them a small dose of the consequences of
hving the urge to run into the road
the likes of probation officers
releasing psychos because
they have told them
what to do and what not to do
and being terribly sorry
if they don't follow the suggestions
almost no tragic violence
comes out of the blue
the essential contrast is between
taking pride in doing the right thing
and taking pride in breaking the rules
and in circumstances where it is difficult to
reward good behaviour
or respond to any behaviour
taking pride in bad behaviour
becomes its own reward
and we have examples of
mass ivil disobedience such as
smoking
over eating
alcohol abuse
drug taking
first thing you do on leaving home for uni?
take a lethal dose of ketamine
what is perverse is
keeping track of convictions for minor offences
whilst
giving people who hae committed serious offences
a 'fresh start; by
for instance keeping secret the identities
on grounds of how bad they went how young
of the most dangerous people in society
by public humiliation of
driving with a 'phone in yer hand
and
keeping stum about
this person has already killed


Susie Boniface is one of the most impressive people on Tv
well informed and a good communicator
but we do regret this reversion to
Roman Law
a woman is murdered and you
line up all the men in the town and
decimate them
send every tenth man in the line to prison for life
make you feel empowered
wpn't deter the next moron who
decides to release a homocidal maniac
from the nut house because
he's too much trouble to look after

a little rainy day rambling...
althought we don't know
due to so much turmoil in UK politics of late
where we actually stand
we know that of recent times
due to the personal grief and vet bills there have been efforts - successful?
to get killing or injuring a pet
raised to a more serious level than
criminal damage
and we are moved to consider a number of associated topics
we will flash back to the late 1950s and
family gatherings
at a home presided over by a man born in
1897
and the visit of his son born in 1926
his wife and son and daughter
to observe the shock-horror of the hosts
when the younger man set about
effectively playing
Twister
on the living room floor
without the Twister mat
in other words
wrestling with his 8 or ten year old son
we wonder whether Twister was ever marketed in
Arab countries
so we will look at the status of children
we've been reading an article by Peter Turvey of
Anglia Research
5th September 1538
Thomas Cromwell
as a part of setting up
The Church of England
ordered clergy to keep reords of
hatches, matches, and despatches
births. marriages and deaths mainly to form a basis for the settlement of
inheritance disputes
George Rose n 1812 proposed an overhaul of the system
corrupting an entry in a parish register
this being an Act off Parliament
was 14 years transportation
then there was
private or half baptism
to be on the register without attending church
without attending Anglican Service
in sum
now
a child can be welcomed into a church of any religion
BUT
their birth must be registered with/at
The General Register Office
located in Somerset House
from 1836 to 1970
except that it wasn't compulsory to register a birth under
the 1836 Act
Registrars were required to
'inform themselves carefully
of every birth and every death
which shall happen within his district'
and parents were required to
provide information about a birth
but only 'upon being requested to do so'
a bit like
a vehicle must have a number plate but
it conveys information about the vehicle
not the driver
an authorised person must
ask to see your driver lcence
compulsory registration came in 1875
the vaccination act of 1853
tied registration to smallpox vaccination
and so antivaxers failed to register births
there is a whole other world of
home schooling
in 1880 an education Act made
school attendance compulsory
between the ages of five and ten
The Elemmentary Education Act of 1880
the Mundella Act
required school boards to
enforce compulsory attendance
from 5 to 10
and permitted them to set a standard of education
that must be achieved before a child could
be employed
so two approaches
education to a set age
education to a set standard
and so
secondary pupils who were - are? - useless at
addyups and takyways
would not be entered for any exams and
being beyond the age of compulsory education
were/are Easter Leavers
and thi as pig shit dental students who are
required to
repeat a year
Jonnie shall have but a penny a day
because he can't work any faster
and today we have
minimum and living wage
and these constitute
an attendance allowance
many workers being
cheaper to keep a week than a fortnight
but on the payroll for good will
pro bone publico
wood spoilers
so people are not always
underpaid or exploited
but are 'kept on' and over paid
because it's good PR
and assists in
social cohesion
children are not REQUIRED to stay in education
until they are capable of postive economic activity
and we see this in Redcar where
for many generations the unemployed
didn't
sign on at the Labour Exchange
they signed on at the steel works
an automtic basic wage as
compensation for living in a
hell hole of pollution
but there is a nuance to this
the Clown Conspiracy government of 2022 in the UK
beleved that low taxes would encourage investment
this is a kin to booking in at a really posh restaurant
and being expected to
cook the meal, set the table and do the washing up
because there are no staff
no public spending
and to return to our original thread
priest to parishoner
no Fred, I can't baptise your dog
and dogs don't have immortal souls
and to that extent
an unpaptised child was regarded as
not fully human
and chastisment on the same lines as
or a pet or frm animal was seen as appropriate
becaue there is 'no reasoning with a child under seven'
can't argue with stupid
so corporal punishment of children - good
tickling toes and tummies - sexual assault
even in face of repeated
'do it adain'

irrespective of the
pay gap with the private sector
over the past 40 years
the UK civil service - government clerks
would have transitioned to being
front of house for the
actual powerhouse in Europe
a minister graduating from Oxford SHOULD be forgiven for
being shocked at the calibre of civil servants
and the FDA First Division Associated
has work to de to shake off the impression of being the
Fantom Directors Association
Morrisons supermarket in Redcar
has almost completed its revamp refit
lots of green tiles
it also appears to have a
Market Kitchen
like Lincoln
food cooked to order...
not working today
a sort of takeaway with no menu
we don't know

that is more likely to be
23rd Nove a Wednesday
interesting that they will be leaving the
stoves up for a further month
it does bring the idea of hiring-in the
high reach
into question
but
they are leaving the sroves until
a month later
we do tend to doubt that
although they could easily clear away
the superstructure in a month
the actual furnace removed within a month?,br. we are not sure

blow down day - weather permitting for
The Redcar Blast furnace superstructure
25th November 2022



it appears to us...
that Redcar and Cleveland Council are
having marram grass planted in the verges around
the new extension to the Majuba Road car park
marram grass is a maritime species but
it specialises in consolidating blowing sand
what it is being planted into in this case
MAY
be a bit rich for it
time will tell
our Rcker noted a smoke logging incident at The Beaon
we hope all is well


there are new unemployment figures out today but
they have not yet been anaylysed
so we we will look at some earlier data
5th September 2022
Middlesbrough 8.2 per cent of people over 16 out of work
what does that mean/
does that include pensioners?
so
in the same data set we can
compare locations without being able to know
anything much else
Middlesbrough 8.2
Hartlepool 6.9
Redcar 6.4
Darlington 5.9
Stockton North 5.8
Stockton South 5.9
and so we guess this is byBR> parliamentary constituency
and f it is there is no
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
and so we assume that the figure for there is
well below 5.9
but
if it is by constituency
the Redcar figure must include
Greater Eston
if we were to take and objetive view
Wilton Internatonal
is a huge site between Redcar and Eston
it has comprehensive site security
a remnant of ICI having been an arm of
government
and arm of the military
and so
it has a very low
employment density
per area it employs few people
people with some sort of
security clearance
it is not dotted with burger vans
hence
employment in the supply chain
ersatz prohibited place immitation, fake false
if we needed an olefin 6 destruction plant
the justifiction for the security
it would be better placed on
Seal Sands
but
as things stand - the life of the need for such a plant being
limited
the question we would ask if being detatched or objective is
if Wilton International were NOT a part of the Freeport
would it be able to host those
supply chain jobs
presently excluded on security grounds?

the question we are asking today is
is the Teessie Freeport
a Prohibited Place
because if it is,BR> it is not a suitable palce for
retail businesses
Prohibited Places
are inherently senstive sites
that are likely to be the target of
state threat activity
or other threats of smilar magnitude
this relates to espionage or sabbotage there are in Redcar
people described as having
signed the official secrets act
back in the day
a chap living in Redcar could roll in to work one day
and security would visit his home with a message
for his wife that he had been
seriously njured or killed
when he had not been
we're talking about
women in the armed forces nd those who have left
complaining that service was
not as much like
Butlins holiday camp
as they had expected
there is a disconnect
if you are proposing to offer a sailor the opportunity to
for instance
process the release codes for a nuclear strike
you would want to know something at least
about how they would react if
captured by the enemy

there have been developments in the USA
if we wargame the posibility that
the Religious Right
were to dominate American politics
and to add to that the idea that the Uk and Europe
might need to import liquified natural gas
generated by fracking in the USA
this
ludicrious
US woman mowy down and kills a young British boy by
driving on the wrong side of the road
and gets
diplomatic immunity
versus this British Prince may have wined and dined a 17 year old
American woman
you have to wonder
chances of Andrew ehabilitation if
The Religious right flounder
Europe finds it don't need yank gas after all....

During the Falklands War
he flew on multiple missions including
anti-surface warfare, casyalty evacuation and Exocet missile deoy
Postman's Park
is a public garden in central London
there's a building to the south
presumably the former headquarters of
The General Post Office
presumably in Aldersgate
no wrong
our Ricker is thinking about
St. Martin's Le Grand
our Ricker's only experience of
The falkland's War was
a huge item of pre Banksie street Art
on the wall of that building
'FUCK THE ARGIES'
we don't think it was Banksied
not in an art collection
probably washed into the River Thames
we're talking letters a couple of metres high
and it stood for quite a while
alhough some may say they are living victims of
World War Two
because these father had PTSD
to be orphaned by WW2
you would have to be in your mid to late seventies
so we have a switch of focus onto
The Falklands
and a Banksiation of culture
these days we don't appease
The Germans, or the Russians
we appease
the nutters the pilot?
he as a divorced man afte his service
may or may not have socialised with a
17 year old
and he is of course
Prince Andrew

it all Wesh to us
Aberpergwym Colliery
is an underground drift mine
underground with a tunnel not a shaft
and is the Neath Valley
in January 2022 it got a full licence to dig
40 million tonnes of coal
the only source of high grade anthracite in Western Europe is operated by Energybuild Mining
now
Aberthaw coal fired power station needs
if it were re-started
150,000 tonnes a day of coal
so that licence would keep Aberpergyn
supplying Aberthaw for 266 days
BUT
the official line is that that 40 million tonnes
will keep Port Talbot steel works
in coal for the next 20 years
at present it provides 200 jobs
however its history is of belonging to
small or medium sized enterprises that
go bust
how dumb do you have to get to think you can
sink a new undersea coal mine and
drive an old drift mine at Workington out of business?


we always try to avoid misleading readers
events can overtake us
it appears that in March 2022
the UK government did a deal with the operators of three
coal fired power stations
they were scheduled to begin run down in September 2022
we have said before that
gas is used as a standby or top-up soure of electricity
and that operators of - perhaps some - gas fired power stations
are paid to maintain them on standby
it appears that the UK government Kwasi Kwarteng, business secretary
did a deal with these three operators to keep those
on standby
like a gas top up
from September 2022 to October 2024
agreeing that the government - not the power company - would
buy any coal required
what we have to admit is that
regarding Merthyr Tydfil coal mine...
up until 2020 that mine had two customers
it was around 2020 that Aberthaw power station closed and
stopped buying coal from Merthyr
and the thing is
what with the timing
the mine covered the job losses
not as a market loss but as
a response to the need for
CoViD
biosecurity measures
the fate of Aberthaw was covered with the standard
garbage press releases
the power station employed 160 people
according to the bullshit
redevelopment of the site would
result in thousnads of new jobs
if you can replace 160 with thousands
why you dragging yer heels?

we forgot to tell you
this week they blew down the
sinter plant chimney at Redcar ironworks


now, this is not an open invitation to
egg throwers
but
it appears that royalty visit
Stanley Nixon House
opposite Redcar and Cleveland College entrance
and perform the ancient ceremony of
parking on the pavement
and we don't think
the commercial bin the management use to
block the half of the pavement
the cars can't reach
is a hide for royal protection officers
and the ceremony culminates in
the council opertives
weaving the bin
past the cars to the refuse truck
ah Tradition
don't bing a wheelchair or a pram or buggy


there is a a contrast between
entryism
and
a compelling back story
if you want to get into med school
it's probably not a good plan at interview to say
it's proper well paid, and I like big fast cars
like our Ricker's one time friend Mister Davey
oh well when I was ten
I had to go into hospital to have my appendix out
and I've been fascinated ever since
so if you want to recruit police officers who will
serve the community and uphold the law
picking the candidates who say
I was abused as a hild and
I want to protect other children in the future
is straight bang on
aiding and abetting
entryism by nutters
like
Vera Baird who as MP for Redcar
could not be persuaded to lift a finger to
protect the local economy because
she was and is
on a mission to get
as many men in jail as possible
what 'people like that'
fail to understand is they have become the footsoldiers of
the people who oppress women
we saw recently a case where a man
a footballer
genuinely believed that
he had gained consent for sex
by asking the woman's boy friend
whether it was OK
what our Ricker has experienced time and again is
encountering a woman who seems keen on a relationship
and as soon as he makes the slightest move in that direction
he gets contact from
dad, brother, mother, employer, tutor, work collegue
end of
and the most recent manifestation is
metoo
evolving into
concern for the welfare, from a third party
in other words
I'll put a stop to 'my girl's' attempt to escape
serving me hand and foot
employers don't want useful female employees
getting hitched or pregnant
because
that could mean recruiting and training up
another moden day slave
hence the 'official' promotion of
the metoo movement
and some people employ other people
not o much for the profit but
as a modren day hareem
who must attend in person
whether or not they are
economically productive
to return to MPs
nobody wants to transgress against
if it ain't broke don't fix it
but
Hancock in the jungle bad
Baird with the one track mindOK?
as a basic restructure
less, bigger constituencies
but
whenever an MP is appointed to be something
such as a minister
an automatic right for their constituents to do
something akin to a recall vote
not to remove that minister as their MP
but to elect a
suffrogen MP
to focus on the constituency wilt the
actual MP is at play


we have a little side line to report on
it is a little outside our main remit but it may be relevant
we hear from time to time that a deision on permission for
an undersea caol mine off Workington - Cumbria, Lake District
North West England
keeps being delayed
we can shed some light on why
the coal that would be dug would replace coal taken from
an open ast site in Wales at Merthyr Tydfil
and used at Port Talbot Steelworks
in South Wales
that site was due to close 22 September 2022
it has been extended to June 2023
and soon there will be an application to keep it open
for a further 3 years
it is not clear how long after work would start in Whitehaven
that coal would be produced
it is however clear that
there is unlikely to be a market for Whitehaven coal
in the next three years
and it is
within the bounds of posibility that three years is the
time horizon for
Redcar to strat producing steel with carbon of a non-fossil origin

we've had a little think about the need for an analogy for what follows
our Ricker once knew an operating theatre nurse who
gave up nursing after a
massively over weight bloke
a Middlesbrough taxi driver?
died on the operating table because he was such a
blubber mountain
we know that football is
pace Bill Shankley?
far more important than life and death
but
if the woekload of
surgeons and threatre staff and other
people involved in high intensty medical care
had a workload similar to
premiere League Soccer players...
the equipment could be intensively used
whilst the people avoided burnout
through having the ability
not the ability to send three kids to Winchester
but the ability to live happily whilst
doing there medical work
two or three days a week



here's an inflamatory question for the
balance obsessed investigative hacks
how many uk nurses have
a buy to let mortgage?
if you are female and have a family you get
�22,000 a year in benefits, tax free
f you work as a nurse - graduate, not nursing assistant
you get �45,000 a year
so you are working for
�20,000 a year less tax
you are working to have �15,000 a year more than
Jabba the HUtt next door who has their eldest
and the landlord ensure you don't have to lift a finger
the core problem with the NHS is
nurses want a �55,000 basic wage
so that they can go in to work
two days a week for a benefits equivalent income
and spend the rest of the week on their
nice little earner on the side
meaning the NHS needs
twice as many nurses on the books, and trained
as they would if
work paid

we have had a lot of 'stuff' about
a breakdown of the idea of voters
trusting
political parties to represent
two or three potential governments that would be
capable of running the country
if in slightly different ways
there's a sort of
'we haven't checked but we assume'
that some sort of test exists for people wating to
stand for election under the colours of a
major political party
one comment from an official highlights the fact that
in theory
parliament can pass any law it wants and so
logically
even if the comment
'it's illegal to disagree with an MP'
is not actually true
parliament could make it true overnight
and so
the authorities, police courts etc
tend towards
we are empowered
not to protect the people
but to maintain the status quo
laugh about it shout about it any way you choose
any way you look at it you loose
Simon and Garfunkel - Mrs Robinson
what you end up with is a
law enforcement that amounts to
the tail wagging the dog
and over the past few months
the tail went into a frenzy
and the dog plodded on
the UK tested the question
what would happen if
we appointed a bunh of clowns as our government
and the press yelped and
the nation?
Eeaw
you gotta have something to grumble about
the tail failed to wau the donkey
this is UK no Donkey versus Elephant as in the US
whatever happened to that?
but in the UK
politics has moved from tail wagging the dog
to
pin the tail on the donkey
Republican elephant
Democrat donkey
originally some people had a fox for Democrats
the donkey is a publish and be damned response to
Democrat presidential candidate Andrew Jackson
being branded a jackass
1828


another term for Asperger's Syndrome is
autism
and a characteristic of autism is
no filter
so if you have a teenage or slightly older male
being nursed by females
having no access to male advice
with no filter he will tell or perhaps even show
his nurses if he has a persistent erection
to him this is his problem and they are his source of help
but if the nurses - and we assume here we are talking
care assistants not RGNs
may interpret this as a request for
sexual services
and brush it off
we need to consider the balance for MPs between
representing their constituents
and voting into law concepts of universal application
so
a qualified, skilled and experienced teacher
may be turned down for the role of
headteacher in a school in Wales if
they cannot understand Welsh
because leading the school may need that skill
but to turn an applicant down because
they are better qualified than the average parent in that school
and in that way is 'not representative of the local population
gives us ghettos and
just sufficient education to perform
when the pit has closed
is an education approprite to
a miner's wife
sufficient?
should teachers, nurses, etc.
and magistrates and MPs
represent as in be a typical example of
or
lead
the local population
towards an unavoidable future?


somebody a while ago said they were uncertain why
Forty Foot Road in Middlesbrough
had that name
Sir cornelius Vermuyden
designed the Forty Foot Drain in 1649 - 53
as part of his great drainage scheme for
The Fens of Eastern England,br> essentially the Forty Foot Drain was a design for an
artificial river with the distace from
bank top to bank top being 40 feet
and much more recently
The River Tees
was diverted
presumably using a similar design
and so we suppose that
Forty Foot Road was originally
an access road to these constrution works
in the early part of the 19th century
The Victorians altered the route of the River Tees
between Stockton and Middlesbrough
the altered section now runs roughly from
Tees Barage
to
Victoria Bridge
it was intended to let larger ships up to Stockton rather than
to assist drainage
Forty Foot Road as extended as Ironmasters Way etc
runs parallel to the 'new' construction

,BR> we have been here before but
back in the day
on a 'date'
after a meal and before sex
a gentleman would withdraw for a moment to allow
the lady to use the potty
because
men get piss proud
get a better erection with a full bladder
and sex on a full bladder is uncomfortable for the female
but regarding the care of patients
any form of excitement
for example the prospect of an upcoming visit or holiday
could generate an erection
erections are necessary for proper sex
but simply involve pressure on the veins draining the penis
from a full gut or bladder for example

being ex-medical can be a bit like being
ex-forces
our Ricker had a lot of trouble remembering to refer to
customers
not
patients
and so he does go to Google to check what currency a term has
medicine is known for its dark humour
our Ricker was taught that in
A & E, casualty
with a male trauma patient
the sort of person who may have come off a bike
you look for and discuss the presence of
Custer's Sign
apparently Google has no reference to this
Custer's Sign comes from
Custer's Last Stand
if the patient is male and well broken up
if they have an erection
that is a strong indication that they have a
severed spinal cord
and
more generally know to the males of the species
you can't urinate through an erection
so a care home patient in Barnsley, with Asperger's syndrome
would risk a perforated bladder if his
4 day erection was not dealt with
but there it is
it is so often deemed
ILLEGAL
to know about such things



when we said eagle eyed....
the pylons or masts of the Dogger Bnak Array
of wind turbines
are being loaded on a ship
in the middle of this picture
between the blast furnace and the nucler power station
honest
just a streak of white

a closer shot
and on the way
our Ricker stumbled upon a bit of the
sculpture trail...

we note tht the work to repair/renew the roof of
Redcar Central Station
has been abandoned...
we make not about Sacred Heart Secondary School
w also noted that
some bloke was on BBC news yesterday
burbling on about
failed asylum seekers
and looking after them
and he was repeatedly name checked as
a
Je suit
preseners, diretors, editors
never heard of
Jes u its

perhaps
prat
isn't the correct word
but the person we are thinking about is traditionally defined as
socks with sandals
to us it would be better to say
socks with flip-flops
because sandals is quite a wide field
our Ricker remebers beng given sandals
moulded one piece out of plstic
that got se sweaty inside that he yearned for socks
you to stop his swelling skin from sticking to the plstic
that is a sandal should have huge gaps in the upper
at the joint with the sole
anyway
the 'think up your own term' at the BBC
wazzock - pace Mike Harding, pillock, wiseacre
are the sort of jobsworths who would insist on
socks with flip-flops
global warming - yes or no?
human contribution to global warming - yes or no?
UK economy dependent on energy imports - good bad?
even Hartley Brewer may have trouble advocating that
to win in the BBC arena you have to
set out your case in such a way that
anybody disagreeing with you
would have to appear in a
straight jacket
otherwise the BBC will give equal screen time to your
detracters
fact
must be an anti fact
must be as in
feet - socks
never mind flip-flops
no bare feet
no PROVEN facts
what we are asking is
what is the difference between
antifacts
and
disinformation
?
it appears that disinformation is
antifact without the 'balancing' fact
a blipvert is a very brief television advertisement,br> lasting one second
it is a portmnteau word comprising
blip a brief sound or transient in a graph
and advertisement
why oh why do we never see
Max Headroom re-runs?
the idea is
in the name of balance
you state the antifact
and then you do a
Strictly (Come Dancing) run through of the
'terms and conditions'
but as a disclaimer
and all the audience register is the
core message in the blipvert
putting it another way
a mantra can become an earworm
a lecture is unlikely to re-run in the mind
if an idea is garbage
don't give it a hint of exposure or
you will be transmitting a blipvert
the technical term for blipverts is
subliminal messaging
subliminal stimuli are any sensory stimuli
below the threshold of the individual's
conscious perception
most people see through the more obvious examples
Amazon
is that a smile or a whoosh?
is the Coca Cola bottle shape
a non-Islamic representation of the
human female form?

OSFSTEAD rate schools in 4 classes
exceptional
good
requires improvement
inadequate
Sacred Heart Redcar and the associated
St Benedict's Primary
are rated Good
and that is fine but
would you make your child commute across the county
to go to a school that is
merely GOOD?
and the new signs are
black
overall it looks like the schools are now being marketed by the
educational trust they belong to
rather than being driven by internal energy
as of not so long ago

we think that perhaps
Rchard - not our Ricker
is overdoing it a bit
protecting Ebony and Amber from
unsuitable boyfriends...








IF you have a
condensing
not a venting
tumble drier
you can get double duty from the power it uses by
moving it to a room you occupy
choice would depend on how noisy and how noise tollerant you are
but it probably should not be in a utility room
and if it's in an occupied room
you are more likely to notice if it is about to
catch fire....

there was too long a queue in the Post Office this morning
to confirm this
and anyway if our Ricker stands still in WHSmiths
he gets accosted as a possible shop lifter
we are starting from
we assume that PayPoint have decided that
The Post office are the only people who can be trusted to
check ID
how they can know the address to send the voucher
and not know that
the key will only charge the meter at tht address
we cannot fathom
a case study
there is no information available for key holders
there is publicity and a letter
we assume the letter was written by somebody who
does not have a key meter
it probably varies
but taking an e-on next meter as an example
the meter will hold a maximim of �250 credit
the key will hold a maximum of �250 credit
you cannot plug the key into the meter and
upload less than all of the credit that is on the key
thus
if the customer has �133.34 credit on their meter
and �200 credit on their key
they can't transfer the credit from the key to the meter
until the credit on the meter falls below �50
similarly
we assume
if ther eis �200 credit srored on the key
within the headroom of �250
the key won't acept an additional �66
THIS IS WHY
THE VOUCHERS ARE VALID FOR 3 MONTHS
get your story straight
or stop bleeting on

it transpires that the people building the
Majuba Road adventure golf
have no intention of running it
this is levelling up in action
allocate levelling up money to
Redcar
and spend t in
Swindon
the is a theatrcal props building busines on the
Warrenby Industrial Estate
why isn't giving the gig to them
levelling up?
and
next week - Mon to Thurs
a telly about stranded fishing boat wil be made
on Majuba Road car park

in the area of the North Yorkshire Coast
we have got a bit
blndsided by the washup of dead crabs
it happened around a month before the serious storms that
affected the generality of North East England
throw away comments such as
dead crabs that are still washing up
are not based on fact
this was an isolated incident
related to late summer and not winter
we are now back into winter
and real storm threats
the weather people will soon begin to speak of
wind chill
it will only take a change in wind direction and
real problems could emerge
we need to distinguish two separate problems
1 the cost of energy
2 the possibility of power cuts
there is no doubt that to time a household over
possible power cuts
some modest stock of
bottled water as water or soft drinks
and
energy foods such as
biscuits, crisps
and at least one torch with good batteries
to cover a few hours of no power
are always a good thing
these provisions are to be considered as
quite separate from
efforts to deal witht the rising cost of living
in the UK we tend not to have
separate
summer and winter quarters - homes
but there are advntages in thinking
not so much
panic room
but
inner sanctum
it is quite interesting how a luxury can suddenly become
a necessity
regarding and inner sanctum
and contrasting it with a routine luxury
many people now think nothing of having
a hot tub on the patio
if we were facing an approaching ice age
and not global warming
the unthinkable extravagance of today that could be
the routine home enhancement of tomorrow
could be
a sauna
so not so much a panic room as a
snug
a sort of semi sauna
and within constraints such as
keeping children safe
for exampe
boiling a kettle in the living room
saves having the kettle heat up a kitchen
that you will not be spending significant time in
a little breakfast bar by the Tv
as in hotel rooms will make the energy you use to
make a cut of tea or a pot noodle
serve double duty

regarding the geopoltics and
the policies of President Putin
it could be said that we don't get out much
not even as far as Hartlepool
but even from Redcar the eagle eyed can see
wind turbines being assembled in Hartlepool and
ferried out to sea
this coming winter is a pinch point
in the history of UK energy
North Sea wind energy is
REAL
but it is not here just yet
the emphasis is on getting through this one last winter
of depending on imported gas energy
and President Putin saw his opportunity
he concluded that
winter 2022 - 23
would be a point of vulnerabilty in
the EUropean Energy Economy
a last moment when Europe would need to import gas
and that therefore Europe would not want a
confrontation with Russia in 2022
and this would be the perfet time to
make a
landgrab
in Eastern Europe
and
Europe discovered
it and in particular Ukraine
were more resilient
than anyone expected
essentially
from next winter
Europe won't need gas from Russia and
so Europe decided
let's have a dry run
while we could get gas supplies from Russia
re-started
let's see just how resilient we are
a bit like
taking the training wheels off a bike
but not throwing them away or selling them
and so the next few months will be that experiment
in the current jargon
stress testing alternative energy, renewable energy

sometimes a sane person gets an insight into insanity that
other sane people don't get
in his late 20s our Rcker was living at home with his parents
and working in a school
and both his parents were demented
and his dad was around 80 years old
it was clear to Ricker that his dad was about to die
in that sense Ricker was witness to mental illness
but the insight came towards the end of his dad's life
the experiene of those few months was
dreams and reality
most days for a while before his dad died and after his dad died
Ricker would wake from a dream
wake whilst dreaming
and in essence
when his dad was still alive
in Ricker's dreams his dad was dead
when his dad was newly dead
in Ricker's dreams his dad was still alive
and the insight into madness here is the question of
delusion
if you fear that your child will be abducted
you may dream about your child being abducted
but if you are
delusional
you may be to all observers awake but
hustle your child to the nearest police officer or ring the police
and recount your waking dream that somebody has just
tried to wrench your child from your grasp
and here we have what is these days referred to as
a perfect storm
delusional people abroad
and a polce service that prides itself on
never seeking evidence
but out of an abundance of caution
writing every utterance of the
delusiac into unchallenged 'evidence'
and then begins a Kafkaesque
Kafka - The Trial
process where the dream sequence has to be
carved into stone
so we referred to the child abduction at the Dewali celebrations
in the nut house they call Middlesbrough
and suddenly it's all gone quiet
beause?
well perhaps long after launching a press release the police did some background checks on the
complainant
and where is the suffering?
in the reputation of Middlesbrough

two lines of thought here
there can be a policy of excluding excellencemotivated by
don't let the excellent be the enemy of the good
stop people from using best practice because
we need a lot of staff and
people doing the job 'properly' will
'dishearten the
poor bloody infantry
the other point is more direct
we could say that
a lorra lorra people are
routinely
medicated
and a lot of the behaviour we see is
a quite un-natural version of
sleep walking
one of our Ricker's relatives as a child got one of those
my mam tells embarrassing stories about me hits
a little boy
needing the toilet in the night
left his bedroom and got as far as the
landng and mistook the
banster of the stairs for the toilet bowl when his mam caught him
there is no place for
say what you like, we will believe you


a side note for the day
Majuba Road car park
the used tyres are being covered in chicken wire and
cement or glass fibre to form
'rocks'
and the same is happening to the walls that support no roof

we hate to preach
but sometimes the media put out a really really dodgy
bit of advice
the bottom line is
a few LED light bulbs
probably cost little more than
a single set of torch batteries
but for God's sake
the trip hazard involved in
mooching around like
Guy Fawkes in the bowels of Parliament
is there a
pre-dementia adult in the room?
hacks love a juicy scare story but
investigative journalism...
in the past 12 months in the UK
how many people have died of exposure - cold?
how many people have died of heat stroke - heat?
it may disrupt a body's routine but
you can survive around 10 hours without drinking
you can survive around 80 years
without a hot drink
keep the lecky on
forget about the gas
it's a luxury
it is not life sustaining
heat or eat?
no brainer - eat
you can't eat - Charlie Chaplin style - and extra wooly


here's an off the wall thought
litterally
you may recall that
The Regent Redcar cinemq has stood
complete and disused for qute some time
you may not recall that we said it was a
passive building
it is within the bounds of possibility that
the building has stood empty or at least
not open to customers
whilst it charged its thermal mass with sunshine
and now to stay open over the winter
we suppose it will need
people in seats to keep it warm
so if attendances are low and the winter is harsh
it may have to close for a while
on Health and Safety grounds

perhaps the question of the day is
how many members of the
UK Parliament
are
Voodoo Shamen?
are they getting appropriate representation?


there's a concept of
gilding the lilly
a lilly is a beautiful thing
but in the spirit of let's gold plate it
and there is a concept of
out of an abundance of caution
we
overengineer
things
our Ricker has noticed a lot of
pyro
fire resistant electrical cable
in construction
letely
most good things have a down side
pyro has fire resistance but
it is not intended for general use
many because it is
brittle
compared to the correctly specified cable
what we are concerned about with
ban it just in case
is the idea that our present times are not being
recorded effectively and acurately
because people are concerned that if
what we do is photographed or videoed
it may cause some harm to children
????
what are future historians going to make of that?

these days we could say almost everybody has
had or handled something silver
and some people - quite a lot
will know about
tarnish
and cleaning or polishing the silver
silver things get a black coating if unattended
we kinda think - rusting
we thing silver plus oxygen in the air equals tarnish
but there was this guy
WIlliam Fox Talbot
starting around 180 years ago
set out to experiment and dsicovered
silver plus light equals tarnish
photographic plates and later film
were covered in silver salts
and dried in the dark
and then exposed to a pattern of light
and where the light hit
the silver tarnished
then you washed off the silver salts
the tarnish remained as the black bts of negatives
later
a 'developer' was introduced to mean that
the silver particles - crystals - only needed to
tarnish an bit on the edges
and the developer would cause the entire crystal to tarnish
and so
'exposure times' were drasticly reduced
what we are leading up to is
this seems like a 'magic' process
for less than 200 years through all of
history and pre-history
this has been possible
and very few religions have scriptures
that were written in the age of photography
we have puzzled and puzzled over the nature of
the problem with photography
the reason why people can rise to social prominance
and power
and regard photography as
dangerous
especially to children
and we've mentioned the concept of
the camera stealing the soul
now we think we were just a little off target
we think these people
consciously or not
are regarding
photographs of people
as
a modern day version of the
voodoo doll
on Halloween
we are considering
the voodoo doll
commonly describes and effigy into which
pins are inserted
such practices are found in various forms
in the magical traditions of
varous cultures around the world
so, it appears, the fear is that
people fear that if a witch
more likely a wizzard
takes a photo of a child
they can control the real child
by manipulating the photo of that child
and naturally
given the makeup of the current UK government
we can expect explicit legislation of
the use of voodoo within weeks

perhaps we could say
we are well up for accepting we haven't
researched this properly
it is not always the case that
people who drown by accident are
first or second generaton immigrants
but often they are
if your culture were to suggest that you should
at some level of frequency
bathe in the River Ganges
and you try that in the Thames or Tees...
the thing is
cues about regulating your behaviour will differ
from one culture to another
we have had a case of an attempted child abduction
at a Diwali festival
it would be extreme to say
this guy in his thirties
was he raised in the Sub Continent?
in the days and place of his childhood
did people have
too amny mouths to feed and
kinda let a few stray away
to reduce the domestic burden
what we are sayng here is
in the UK there is a level of trust
and a sense of security that may
result in somebody else
interpreting the scene as
an invitation
in this case to abduction
and there is this sensitivity to ever saying
we don't do that sort of thing around these parts
a sort of default
anything goes because
it may be a part of 'their' culture
and we come to the analysis
Normal for Norfolk
when somebody is seen as 'other'
their otherness may be seen as their right
and not a symptom of
some mental illness
and this is the contrast we have blurred
people put children into
child care
and trust that the staff have been 'vetted'
and there will be supervision
we have a a bit of a problem with
'we' expect that supervision to include
CCTV
but 'they' may think any sort of camera will
steal the children's souls
every time our Ricker's mam collapsed
it was in a huge supermarket
she would insist on being taken
within moments of arrival
our Ricker would be searching the store for
the crowd that would have encircled her prostrate body
he would ask himself
how did she get so far away from me so quickly?
nd so it will be with adventurous children
especially when wlking the dog
and supervising a toddler on their first bike
our Ricker can't remember whether he was ever
walked on reins like a dog
but some kids of his generation were
it comes back to
location location locatiion
if you live in an area that is safe for kids
such as Redcar
and you are tempted to visit an area that is unsafe for kids
such as Middlesbrough
you may find you day out thoroughly ruined do we put on events in deprived areas and risk the safety of
visitors
or do we put on events
and build venues
in safe areas
that people on sink estates are afraid to visit
because
the rules seem to be different there
nothing there seems to be
'fair game'
things aren't nailed down
and the temptation is too great


we sent 'im out agen
at this time we can say
in the old time grocer shops
Redar had one called Boagey's
half a century ago
on Milbank Terrace
that's part of Coatham Road
it became and probably still is
a Pizza place
there will still be places where you can buy
freshly ground coffee
as opposed to fresh coffee
at one end of the counter there would be a big red machine
the top half would be a glass cylinder
and the cylinder would be filled with
freshly roasted coffee
and as they ground your order
the beans would sink down the glass tube
so
the coal puveriser
we said it looked like it was an empty shed
that was blown over the other day
well they had left the silo or funnel
in the shed when they blew it up
but the grinder in the bottom we don't know
we think it was salvaged
but honestly we don't care

all the while in our Ricker's ticking rolling memory
terms or words keep popping up
and at this moment
bomb calorimeter
a bomb calorimeter is lke a little pressure cooker on steroids
you put a substance - a weighed amount of a substane, normally a food
inside and you know how much heat is required to
raise the temperature of the whole thing
thick walled metal vessel
small amont of the substance to be tested
the rest of the vessel flushed with oxygen - probably
sealed and an electrical element used to
set the test substance alight
result
calorimeter warms up and
ash is left in the bottom
so now we say
what was put in the calorimeter was 10 grammes of
Morrisons Nut and Sea Salt Bars
the energy transferred from the bar to
the flask - flask is shorter than calorimeter
in this case will be
222.2 kiloJoules
or
53.7 kilocalories
and the ash left in the bottom of the flask will be
a mixture of mineral elements
inorganic chemials of which 0.075 grammes will be
table salt
when our Ricker had
Bernard as a next door neighbour
Bernard would not put anything in his green garden waste bin
Bernard was born before our Ricker
and he didn't have a compost heap
he would collect his garden waste and
set fire to it
because he didn't mulsh his beds
he collected the
wood ash from his bonfires
and spread that instead
and in them days people didn't have
barbecues
they had
braziers
and if you were a op primary school pupil
trying to write about the desciples waiting for
Jesus to be tried
you may find yourself gettng a bit of a ribbing for writing that they
huddled around a
brasier
a woman's undergarment to
cover and support the breasts
anybody out there refer to a bra as a brasier?
reverting to the main story
you note - the computer notes
the maximum temperture the flask reaches
you let it cool release the pressure and
left over oxygen and carbon dioxide are dispersed
when plants grow they mainly take in
carbon dioxide and water and use sunlight to
elaborate them into structures
and those structures include fruits and seeds
that are our food
and feed for the animals we employ and or eat
in a perfect world
all the feed would become food
feed in, eggs out
plant and animal
nutritionists
are supposed to get the outputs as ner the inputs as possible
with Minimum waste
back in the day
people thought
in space travel, people would eat pills
that contained only nutrition and no waste
but that is not good for the health of the insides
gut, organs etc
and so it was soon decided that to be healthy
a person and an animal needed
nutrition plus roughage
and so
Wonderbread or Wonderloaf in the UK
was replaced by wholemeal and sourdough
but there are two elements to roughage
indigestible carbs suc as bran
to keep you regular - give the peristaltic action of the gut
something to work on
and
essential nutrients
trace elements
things you need to build and repair your body
and salts - including table salt and phosphates
form the bulk of that
and they are not to put too fine a point on it
the ashes you are afterwards, if you are cremated
although a lot of granny's askes are from her coffin
so
whatever you or an animal eats
falls into three categories
stuff that goes straigth through you
poo
stuff that gets into you but has to be kicked out by your kidneys
stuff tht gets into to you and you keep
and what you keep is divided into
what you build into yourself
and what you burn for energy
and you get fat if you keep lots of carbs


we are aware of the marine phenomenon of
longshore drift
currents and wave action in the
North Yorkshire coastal area tend to move things
along the shore from the River Tees towards Scarborough
south and east
wedo think that fishers in Whitby and Scarborough are
somewhat stretching the longshore drift concept
when blaming polution fron The Tees
for fisheries problems local to them
all farm animals
including birds such as chickens
have kidneys
and the kindeys regulate the concentration of
inorganic salts such as
table salt - sodium chloride
and phosphates
farm animals will whilst healthy
keep their internal salt levels in the normal range
and so it follows that if there are high levels of
salts such as phosphates in
farm animal excreta, dung, slurry, etc
then there are excessive levels in their feed
almost everybody who is selling something
would like to sell more
as we undrstand it
slurry is being digested to produce gas
methane to burn
but the carbon rich solid material produced by slurry digesters
is not being burnt but is being spread on farm land
this muck spreading is more by way of
waste disposal
thn
a form of fertilistion that is proven to
increase crop yields
to a point
although farm animals have kidneys to
regulate salt content
plants don't have kidneys
if you are
argibusiness
is there a temptation to breed and sell seed of
salt tolerant varieties of plant crops
in order to sell more fertilizer?
so the question is
are we growing varieties of feed crops that
contain and tollerate levels of salts such as phosphorous
way beyond what either the plants
or the animals they are fed to
need
?

our Ricker is very old
so he remembers things that are history
there was this guy on the telly
very popular
until fashions changed
we're just gonna type in a quote before we do any more research
Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there's nothing
we can do to stop these cycles a vast amount of money in tax
to try to solve a problem that doesn't atually exist
the chap who said that died amost exactly
three years ago
aged 86
the prime thing in this person'r mind was
long before there was industry
there were
ice ages
and between the ice ages there were thaws
and in his seventies he thought
getting warmer?
must be between ice ages
other people
have thought on a smaller scale about things sucha as
el Nineo
natural weather fluctuations over shorter time scales
this chap died in a nursing home
aving been diagnosed with dementia
consider Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd
for those born a little more recently than our Ricker
Mr Henty-Dodd was
the real life
Austin Powers
and his stage name was
Simon Dee
when our Ricker were young
there wsn't just
Sir David Attenborough
ITV had nature people too
but nature was never as popular as football
so anybody who made it on the BBC and wasn't a
football pundit
and wanted to be paid
had to go to ITV
one of our Ricker's tutors was
John Coulson
he reckoned the BBC paid so little
including expenses
that working for the BBC was like paying yer TV licence
several times over
so when our Ricker was one of John Coulson's tutees
he was also attending our global warming denyer's lecture course
so he got to know him quite well
small incident from the life and times of our Ricker
Ricker and Jane having a tutorial with Dr. Coulson
Ph.D. student comes into the study
wanting a licene to ring birds
you don't need to ring birds to do your study
so a day in the life of
the other David
ITV's David
up to his very bushy eyebrows in paperwork
mostly requests from graduates to
rubber stamp their applications for
Ph.D. study grants
to do research into topics that our Dave knew nothing about
peer review
means
this has passed over the desk of
somebody famous
and this got started on the life and times of
the North Sea Coast
our Dave was f the opinion that if he could get the funding
all his students would train in
SUBA or Aqualung diving
so they could explore at frist hand
the Kelp Forests
off the north east coast
most of what you see washed up on Redcar beach is
kelp
and if you haven't guessed
our Dave was
David Bellamy


we may have got this quite wrong...
so many agencies sprout
we may have the wrong one
we think we are here referring to having seen a
publicity stunt by
sorry in depth interview with
Haddy Njie
of
York City Council
she described an instance of
heads you loose
tails I win
walking towards a stranger in public place
a sidewalk, a pavement
what is the
politically correct, woke
passing distance?
the officer in question considers that
people exercising
social distancing
are being
standoffish
because she is black
if they moved closer
she would no doubt complain of
being jostled
is a total lack of self awareness
a gentic trait of some ethnicities?
certainly a white person making that complaint would be
diagnosed as being
on the autistic spectrum

there's a lot of strange things going on on
Majuba Road
on the arena site they are definitely
building a car park
overall
we quite sympathise with the idea that
the council have money in a budget that
they will loose if they don't spend it soon
and if they use it to build the arena car park
the arena will be cheaper or better
and we have to wonder about people in a
computer design suite in
Swindon
thinking a rusty sinking boat is a suitble icon for
Redcar
it may turn out successful but that company have in the past
produced brightly coloured designs
so perhaps it will at least get a coat of paint
The Regent stood unmolested for months after completion
less that a week after opening
it appears to be
spattered in sand
somebody not let in for free
or refused a job?
overall
there is progress
but we don't see how any of these projects will take
6 months
or amount to much, for now

the story of
Super Vet Noel Fitzpatric
reached the publc domain today
in essence
in a period when Noel was between
5 a nd ten years old he was regularly abused by
a labouror on the family farm
what is interesting is he had a brother
and five - presumably a little older - sisters
you know the old saying
I've got three kids
one of each
there's an element of
with young girls on the property
why go for a five year old boy?
everybody's got one
but girls have two
in these cases
it is natural to consider a sort of
Stockholm Syndrome
coming to love your kidnapper
in the Noel instance we have a big family where
each child may struggle for attention
and the lonely boy offers sex to the man who
takes an interest in him
but being so small finds the price of
companionship
very painful
and that sets off a lifelong deep seated belief that
how shall we say
sex is as painful as childbirth
and therefore anybody he loves
he does ot want to subject to that pain
and so Noel has many friends
and hugs many people over the days
but thinks
I'm not going inside
it would hurt them too much
and so he is denied a full relationship
and fatherhood


some introductory remarks about the new
UK PM Rishi Sunak
in and of himself he is a
swot
regarding his father
NHS GP - family doctor
married to a pharmacist
could afford to send at least one
perhaps three
sons to Winchester - a fee paying school
essentially, question
NHS GPs are supposed to be
burnt out and under paid and
leaving in droves
with so much money...
perhaps
they got 'things to do' before they snuff it
so you have to ask
what sort of doctor is Dr. Sunak?
clearly not the sort of doctor who could advise his son that
Eat Out to Help Out
could help spread a serious infection
another Dr barnado doctor
learn the bare minimum to qualify
then concentrate on the
fee structure



one of these pics goes with the one about
wind blown sand
wind piles it up
rain washes it down
without any sort of 'drain'
the beach gets quite a bit of
run off from the streets







there is something rather odd about the development on
the Majuba Road car park
the 'hoarding' relating to
crazy golf has disappeared
we suspect that a company 'famous for' cray golf
is branching out into something bigger
what we may call 'props' have arrived
the main componant seems to be intended to represent a
half submerged rusty old steel cabin cruiser
and a whole heap - mountain - of used tyres
the whole thing is quite big
it looks more like a novelty
go cart track
there are walls
but they don't look like the sort o walls that will
support a roof
it looks like
you follow the penguines around the course as they deal with
various elements of
polution and derelction
and it seems to be being built by
Seymour
who are
goundworks specailists
so not actually
builders
so a colaboration between
drainage experts and theatrical set designers
a blast from the past
look kids this what Redcar was like
before the tumbleweed and soup kitchens

we're gonna indulge ourselves in a little
driver psychology
on this one
wnen you approach a roundabout
you look right in the UK, left some other places
to see if there is any traffic you should
give way too
when approaching traffic lights
most of your atention is on the lights
and f they are green
getting past them before they change
and so
with traffic lights - especially the traffic lights
on Corporation Road, Redcar
that are motorway scale
if the lights are green the unfamiliar driver is
likely to race straight ahead to beat the change
we think
if a road over rail bridge on
West Dyke Road is a problem
a cheaper answer to reduce congestion could be to
replace the traffic lights at the corner of
Kirkleatham Lane and Corporation Road
cheap but risky because
roundabouts
only have a
pedestrian phase
in the
Highway Code


we don't doubt for a moment that the new UK Prime Minister
has researched his constituency well
Richmon (Yorks)
could be described as Northallerton
anyway
on the broader scale
there are at least a couple of notable school in North Yorkshire
Roman Catholic Ampleforth where this business of
priests versus boys has had considerable negative publicity
but
argruably the most famous school in Yorkshire
surely not
is
St Peter's York
and Gordon and Peter robson were pupils there
however
they were by no means the most famous
old boys, Old Peterites, former pupils
that acolade goes to somebody
EVERYBODY
in the UK has heard about, honest
penny for your thoughts
Guy Fawkes
at St. Peter's they don't celebrate
bonfire night
bad form to burn an old boy
even in effigy
there used to be a blog or web site called
Guido Fawkes
he was involved in trying to blow up the
UK Houses of Parliament
not just blow it up but do it
during James the first's state opening of parliament
to avenge the increasing oppression of
Roman Catholics
in England
and
the approach of St. Peter's school is spreading
spreading in the sense of?
well, see, Guy Fawkes don't mean nuffin in
The US of A
and at that time - a week earlier - they have Halloween
in the UK more and more we get Halloween and not Bonfire Night
and so
given the religious tendencies of the new PM
especially his new found - 7 years so far - association with
Yorkshire
instead of shifting from
Bonfire Night to Halloween
perhaps in Yorkshire we could switch to
diwali
in honesty it's all the same
rage against the night
festival of lights and fireworks and lanterns
to chase away the dark

when Donald Trump won the election to become
President Trump of the United States of America
soe people had the thought that at his 'inauguration'
his speech would be
I won
I'm done
how close Liz Truss has come to doing just that
there is somehow a sense that politics has become a sport
in the sense
oh not another one
we lost
best of three?
in the sense that most politicians don't seem to think about
the boring bits between elections
like the Premier League soccer players who want
training
to be a kick about with the lads
not an exercise in studying the game style of
their next opponents
because on the mid-terms the Americans have
major elections every 2 years
so a populist such as President Trump can say
not, I won, I'm done
but
that was fun let's
do it adain


we're now gonna make a couple of very
narrow focus comments about the BBC
several programmes on the News Channel have recently been
axed
perhaps the most worrying one is
The Film Review
all across BBC output entertainers are given a
platform to promote their work and careers
The Film Review - mostly - concentrated on the
product not the producers
we are a little concerned in the context of so much talk about
balance and neutrality....
have the BBC pulled The Film Review becaue
rights holders were withholding access to clips
because reviews were not always favourable?
at the other end of the scale
Mock the Week
was rolling in the isles amusing
but the format did nothing for the enjoyment
we are not sure how it lasted 17 years
and, in fairness
Dateline London
began with all foreign correspondents
and over more recent times it has appeared that
the addition of UK talking heads indicated that
the roster of foreign journalists up to the job
had severely shrunk
perhaps that reflects the fact that across the board
the BBC, perhaps quite reasonably, is more concerned with
showcasing the UK to the world
than
showcasing the world to the UK
perhaps dumbing down is inappropriate
perhaps covering topics in a less niche way
is fairer
regarding Martine Croxal
we like Martine
we do admit she did seem a little giddy on the night in question
but she didn't appear to be very clear over what
some backlash from Johnson supporters is inevitable
this new chap has us tring to remember
what was that about
My Travels in the Hindu Kush
?


if we take a medical perspective on
rape and sexual assault
we can divide case into three types
historical - just looking for a compensation pay out
dry humped
juiced up
police surgeons - amongst others - can quite easily determine
that a person who has been dry humped will have sustained a
pattern of injuries that will
not be apparent in a case where the person on the recieving end
was well juiced up
FACT
no ifs or buts
so
whatever
people, man woman child
need to know that to get 'justice'
they MUST report quickly
they must deliver incotrovertable evidence of
having been dry humped
in that sense
with that evidence
the charge could be the sex offence equivalent of
murder
without that evidence
some sort of assault charge could be considered
if we go back
people making this sort of accusation
particularly in the Roman Catholic Church
needed third party evidence
a medical examination would be third party evidence
not he said, she said
and not hearsay
that is to say
bruising consistent with dry humping
AND
DNA
in a 'fair' society
nobody should be facing jail in the absence of those two things
the advantage of treating historical alegations as
civil rather than criminal matters is
in a civil case we look for
was this true
on the balance of probabilities
whereas in a criminal case the higher threshold of
beyond reasonable doubt
applies
in practical terms
a struggling young couple have sex
the man goes on the be very wealthy and his
first or early partner
wants a piece of the action
and cries rape twenty years after last contact
it is nowadays almost impossible for a man to get a
Debbie Mcgee
glamourous assistant
without doing more that quote the name
say a young impoverished man who will go far
has a wife
and a glamourous assistant
stage partner, whatever
to put a fine point on it
should
Just Eat
claim half his worldly wealth
because they kept him fed during
the years of struggle?

we thought we should check out
Redcar
normally in retail
the sort of retail that are in
we expect to see
more females than males in shops
and the reverse in warehousing and distribution
we checked out Redcar and we sort of thought
there's a lot of lads in here
two or three women
we were looking at this in the context of the mumour that
there are paedophile hunters working there
all this is in the mind - no proof
but what we saw looked like a couple of women on checkouts\,br. and a gaggle of blokes looking for all the world like
male rugby players
huddled together
and when our man went through the checkout
his transaction was processed by a young woman
she was efficient and friendly
that was all good
and if our man hadn't been earlier referred to as
a nonce by a man wearing a sweatshirt
we would have thought nothing more of it
it has lead us to broaden our field of thought
we don't know how many paedophile hunters there are
drifting around
but if retailers are harbouring them
we know that they set up conversations on line
and pretend to be under age people
almost exclusively females
taking the whole matter as one and
saying frst of all our visit was on a
Saturday mid morning
and the teller/cahshier was
smartly turned out but with
false eyelashes
we began to consider
have local management taken to recruiting
under age 'Saturday girls'
in order not only to serve customers
but also to
entrap them?
we say this in the context that when organising 'stings'
online
paedophile hunters seem to almost exlusively present themselves as
women just about exactly as much
'under age'
as a Saturday girl would be
in other words they rarely pretend to be
mums offering their toddlers for sex

two parties to a relationship can be very deluded about
how the other party sees tself
Oxford and Cambridge universities are seen as
where the cleverest people work
perhaps the 'ordinary people' Up North
are a bit more savvy
all three top rank universities are subject to
Town versus Gown
tensions
but Durham has not so much been resented as shunned
Northumbria University has it's origins in
Newcastle Polytechnic
academics at northumbria seem to see
levelling up
as
equal status for academics and graduates
in all disclplines
in a Northumbria University universe
a professor of nursing is
of equal status to
a professor of surgery
and to reduce tensions
each profession should have its own
pigeon hole or office block floor
and contact between disciplines should be branded
harassment
stalking
in the broadest terms
Durham is for toffs but with some pretense at education
Oxford and Cambridge seem to see their role as
helping the children of plutocrats
at this time mainly Chinese plutocrats
how to spend their parents' money
and kinda recruiting SOME students to gain opportunities
to gain employment as butlers and such to
plutocrats kids
in other words
smarten up nouveau rich idiots
and the world - particularly the British
thinking
these are the people to solve all them
really ticklish technical problems
when is Drew Pritchard going to become an Oxford don?


sometimes we find the time to
state the bleedin' obvious
in the past we have asked why
judges so often spout utter bollocks when
summng up in sex related cases
these comments may extend also to some journalists
these judges often went to fee paying schools
but the also most likely were
boarding schools
at the very least dropped off at school on
a Monday morning
and collected on a Friday afternoon
possibly left at school for years on end
and so
the
in loco parentis
treat the pupils as though you were their father or mother
teachers may have used buggery as a form of
humiliation and punishment
feeling they had no need to consult the actual
fee paying parents
and in a context more of
stir crazy
than sexual lust
whether they or their school chums were on the recieving end
of such treatment
they may have made an early dedication of their life to
protecting as many people as possible from such procedures
how quickly a phenomenon an receed into history
Fifty Shades of Grey
porn made for men does not greatly appeal to females
they prefer male homosexual porn
in that they get a good look at men and their gear
if one watches 'for men' porn
one gets the impression that
if there is a sound track
it is edited on later
becaue sex in the form of masturbation is hidden
men stand at quite the opposite end of the spectrum from
tantric sex
get the organism quick before anybody sees what you are doing
'have you ever had sex?
I've been given a poke a couple of times
as a basic rule
women like sex to start slow
not a lot of mouth to mouth in porno videos
women like to strat slow and build to a creshendo
and that creschendo would idealy be
ready for some cock now?
want it up yer arse now?
in that sense
a female probably would not welcome anal
as an opening salvo
but normally would see it as a part of the entertainment
you gotta give 'em chance to get
juiced up
nobody wants to be
dry humped


488
OK
at the opening of trading in
UK Natural Gas Futures
on Thursday 20th October 2022
they stood at around 185
they rose during the morning by about ten percent
around 195 at 1.30 pm when the then Prime Minister resigned
at 4.30 pm they rose to
around 488
so
the professionals
those who's day job gas trading is
bid the price up ten percent on
anticipation and reality
when the amateurs get to review their portfolios
after their normal work and before the exchanges closed
they piled into gas
just exactly what the link between gas prices and
prime ministerial resignations is in the
amateur invester's mind...
we re not sure but we suspect that
trading in gas is what they are set up to do
so they did it
as at 4.00 pm today
they price has dropped to 359
around 7 per cent
since all real world customers already have
all the gas they think they will need
we assume this is in very think trading
we await the closing price but
if they follow their paragigm
it's a falling market so sell...

the issue of Sue Ella Brabaman aka Suella
a master degree in law from Cambridge
we can only speak from the experience of
the late Peter Robson at oxford
but back in the day
if you completed your first degree
and you paid a fee
you went bak a year later to have the masters confired
it may have been different for Sue Ella
although the degree was in Law
the fact that she then daffed off to
The Sourbonne in France
makes a person think that again we have
MBA material
Master of Business Administration
an accountant who isn't good at sums
and what we have had over the past month is an example of
I'm just off down to parliament
to vote down the laws of nature
as to the new election we recall
Harold Wilson
as we do on these occasions
'you'll get a free vote on this'
no whips, no threat of reprisals
'and you keep on having free votes
until you get it right'


there comes a time when the balance has to be struck between
confidentiality, secrets, can become the enemy of
security
we have heard some talk about
battlefield nuclear weapons
if properly stored - not subject to corrosion
they are quite safe to store and handle
the shielding around them is significant but
not such a burden that
they cannot fly
without going into any detail about how they are
set off
we need to say that if their components are
widely dispersed
they become virging on harmless
imagine that people go to a mind boggling amount of trouble
to find, mine purify and concentrate
what is called the fisile material in a nuclear weapon
a major defence against such weapons is to
undo that work
the core fact is
when you do
bomb disposal
you use a medium sized explosion to
set off the munition you have discovered and isolated
the mechanism forsetting off anuclear muntion is such that
this will not happen
you will just get a shower of components, some radioactive
the upshot of this is that
faced with a barrage of battlefield nuclear weapons
you best hope is to
shoot every last one of them down
the slightest distortion of the firing mechanism will
prevent them from exploding


Picture Cedit Teesworks
thanks to Teesworks for providing a pic to
show that what was blown down yesterday was
an empty shed

the relationship between politicians and business is interesting
most politicians appear to be mostly
lobbied or sponsored by SMEs
small and medium sized enterprises
like Freemasons type people
it is usually said that
we must continue with fossil fuel extraction because
it's done by big companies that are owned by pension funds
we are not sure of the status of the ativities of
Banks Mining
the local North East England open casters
but they are a
family firm
there is a similar family firm operating an open cast near
Merthyr Tydfil in Wales
and they got a deal to open on two conditions
restoration of the site
and training of their workforce for future alternative work
now they want an extension of the pure mining and
just so you know
pre-war - that is 2021
twenty tonnes of coal - �220 a couple of hundred quid
now - 408 Great British Pounds
and all you need is
The Welsh Government wrapped around your little finger
and three or four huge clapped out excavators
and some tipper trucks of doubtful roadworthyness
say it's protecting pensions
but actually it's a favour fro some bloke you met down the pub
or at the Freemasons' Lodge
what is interesting is
when they got started they were selling to
Aberthaw Power Station
but it's shut
so they must be exporting the stuff
perhaps to England, perhaps not
one of the most interesting reasons why coal is not in demand is
a property comapny in China
has essentially gone bust owing
Evergrande
owes around 300 billion US dollars
in effect
the two markets for steel are
high rise construction
motor vehicle manufacture
when the major property developer in China files for bancruptcy
and people are delaying car purchases
eventually demand for coal for steel making
has to fall
and we note that that price for Welsh coal was probably
July 2022
t the hight of the
Russia panic


we had a whinge about big trucks getting lost in Redcar
This is not
The Source of the Nile
this is the source of the A66


that's Redcar goods yard
and there's a Transpennine Express waiting on the loop
to let the Darlington or Bishop Auckland to
Saltburn local pass

tht is the queue waiting for the Saltburn train to clear the level crossing

that is willmore Road

that is the roundabout at the source of the A66
the issue is
as Redcar has devloped the junction or boundary between
the A66 and the A1085 has not moved into town
two issues
when the Trunk Road was built
it was designated and extension of the A1085
not an extension of the A66
when the South Bank By pass was built
thirty years later
it was designated an extension to the A66
so 'through' South Bank
the A66 and the A1085
run side by side
Having blasted the new A66 through
South Bank and Grangetown
the then version of Highways England
terminated that road at that roundabout
and built
the A174 Redcar by pass
and they gave up on that
just before it reached
Saltburn by the Sea

yesterday
direct injection plant


today?

anyway while we were at it
see the tiny little pebbles that
protect the sand on Redcar beach
being driven like snow drifts into dunes
here the comment on the demolition of the
Redcar direct injection plant and Port Talbot or Scunthorpe were
serious about modernisation
why didn't one of them buy it?

later we may see TV footage and see
but it looks lke that was the blow down of an empty shed
soo
pulveriser?
gone to a coal fired power station in China?
in storage?
gone to Scunthorpe or Port Talbon?


so, half of the Majuba Road car park is being transformed into
a penguine themed
crazy golf course


just a quiet little rumination here
on the status of Redcar
what our Ricker saw was
a very fancy logistics truck
it had six lengths of rail on the trailer
and the driver missed the turn from Corporation Road onto
West Dyke Road of West Terrace call it what you will
he went straight on and onto Thrush Road
he seemed to realise immediately that there was a problem
and turned onto Wilmore Road
then it appeared that he he made a 'phone call
because he reversed back onto Thrush Road
returned to the roundabout and off down West Dyke
there are a couple of points to remark about
first he had six lengths of rail on board and
so bloody long and bloody heavy
he was able to park on Wilmore Road
and reverse onto Thrush in Saturday afternoon traffic
Wilmore Road is the made up cut through
that runs from Thrush Road along the side of
MacDonalds drive through
made up in the sense that it was cut through what had been
Redcar gas works
and for why was he able to do this?
because all three axels on his trailer were
fully steering
he could manouvre better backwards that forad
the other issue is
was he following his sat nav
or had he been given delivery instructions
'cos for
the other side of the north south stretch of Wilmore
is Morrisons filling station
so did somebody tell him
access to Redcar goods yard is
via Morrisons delivery yard
and did he mistake Macdonald's car park for
Morrisons delivery yard?
he should'a turned left at the roundabout
then right at the traffic lights then
treated the left hand bend as
a T junction
and turned right down the back of Morrisons
and past the delivery yard into the goods yard
and he probably did - eventually
all very straightforward but kinda odd
mistaking a macdonalds car park for
a railway goods yard
but there is a point here
every month or two
West Dyke Road level crossing is closed to public traffic
Saturday night to Sunday morning because
Network Rail use it as a road to rail
interchange crossing
that road wagon with it's HiAb crane dropped off those rails
in the goods yard and later that night a crew in a rail train
piked them up are installed them in the track
somewhere between
Middlesbrough and Saltburn
an indication of continuing investment in
maintainance of the line
but perhaps a little underestimate of how much disruption
treating the line as though it were a
tourist line - like three people a day using the level crossing?
not so much

this week 9am Wednesday
the direct injection plant at Redcar ironworks
will be blown down
we should note in its passing what it actually was
it was a piece of kit
in a new shed but we don't know how much life
the guts of the thing had previously seen
it was not steelworks technology
it was coal fired power station technology
it was designed and built to
pulverise coal and blow it into
the boilers of coal fired power stations
it had been hoped to sell it to a coal fired power station
but
it would work with coal but biomass is too
moise and resinous to be 'fluidised' by crushing
so, no sale - scrap it
it paid for itself in one year in 2013 so it
almost certainly was bought second hand
earlier we referred to the
carburettor fitted between the pulveriser and the furnace
that was removed some time ago
and has either been sold or put into storage
since this is the largest brown field site in Europe
there would be no rush to clear it all at once
the schedule that requires all demolition to occur
before construction can begin
indicates that investors age looking for
concrete evidence that
nothing mucky remains that could potentially be
restarted
before they will build anything

perhaps the term
chemical cosh
would be helpful here
it is difficult to persuade some people that they are wrong
to think that no matter what appearances may be
a nice bath, a good square meal and some fancy clothes
and anybody would be transformed into a model citizen
A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick's filmic realisation of
Anthony Burgess's book of the same name
is a dystopian crime film
Alex a psychopathic deliquent is imprisoned for
murder and rape
it is based not so much on
the hemical osh as on
aversion therapy when somebody is
not quite right
some sort of process akin to our relationship with
technology
if it's not working properly
switch it off and switch it back on again
and the reboot will probably fix the problem
the fact that it usually does
probably reinforces the concept that
the misbehaving just need
a good kicking
to get them back on track
science shows us that
a lot of people are simply
not all there
in computer speak
this approach is like
trying to get around a
firmware failure
with software reboots
in other words
you have a computer based facility
and some people will be aware of the instruction
press here to return to factory settings
the idea here is that you have a production run
where the factory settings
the structures defined by genetics or birth trauma
the factory setting are not the gold standard but
plain wrong
and the choice is
bin it - recycling bin or loony bin
or
try to use software
programming or training
to get it functioning in an acceptable way
despite its fundamental flaws
we have people with congenital - from birth - defects
and developed problems head injury, dementia etc
and we are pledged to
keep them alive as long as possible
how do we make their lives and the lives of the
people they come into contact with
tollerable
these days
few people would think that somebody over 60
who is being annoying due to dementia
would come to their senses if given a
good kicking
but in the 1950s that was the
short sharp shock for delinquents
the consequence today is
we don't want to accept that this was ever the case so
we construct this fantasy that
some officers of the law
beat people up because it was their bounden duty
and some people did it for
sexual gratification
we want to pretend it was never legal and since at the time
sex was illegal
we pretend that corporal punishment was illegal
by defining corporal punishment as sex


it does appear that we gave some out dated unemployment stats
recently
so
the full set of 13 regions
August 2022
United Kingdom 3,5 per cent
West midlands 4.7 per cent
North East 4.4 per cent
London 4 per cent
Yorkshire and The Humber ( Humber is Hull, Grimsby
so we think it may include North East Lincolnshire?
3.9 per cent
North West 3.5 per cent
Scotland 3.3 per cent
Wales 3.3 per cent
South East England 3.2 per cent
East Mindlands 3.1 per cent
Northern Ireland 3 per cent
East whatever that means, Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk ???
2.8 per cent
South West 2.7 per cent
these regions can be listed in an order
but the range is not dramatic
and there is absolutely no validity to the idea
'the further from London, the worse the unemployment
it's a bit like saying
this guy needs help going to the toilet
and this guy needs a hearing aid
public spending on these two guys needs levelling up
a much more insightful analysis tells us
4 areas are 'worse than average
they are essentially areas that in former times
attracted large populations with work in
shipping and manufacturing
the take away is that
London having chased being
Singapore on thames
has achieved wealth
but not
hyper low unemployment
perhaps this is because it is the one of the four that is
still attracting immigrants
in reality though
unemployment in the hinterland of London
the suburbs is slightly lower than the national average
0.3 per cent lower
and unemployment in London is 0.5 higher
and so London attracts the unemployed who then move to the
suburbs when they find work?
but
if you cut the working week from
65 hours
to
35 hours
people have time for a daily commute
a high population with low unemployment in
South East England
depends on
salaried employment
employemnt where a good net wage is not dependent on
overtime working
people who need to work overtime
need to live close to their place of work
and so when we talk of wanting good skilled jobs
up north
we are saying
more white collar jobs
not more coal mines
that being said
white collar isn't 'office'
specialist engineers, architects, scientists
accountants
all sorts of professionals
make site visits and work on-line
sooo
no coal mines
few if any more, office blocks
people need
flexible work spaces
and most of all
infrastructure
power, water, telecomms, road, rail, air
and
Up North we don't need
the world's biggest... anything
the world's biggest battery factory
the world's biggest vegan snack bar factory
not really what a
diverse community needs
a diverse community needs
diverse opportunities
we need to be more precise here
it is altogether possible that
the world's biggest steelworks
would be very big but not provide many jobs
we can take that
we have the space
Europe's biggest brown field sites
we can take those mega factories
without the crap about
how many jarbs they will create in the
supply chain
that sort of talk annoy the hell out of us
so long as it's clean, safe and quiet
bring it without the job creation flannel

there is a small element of risk in the current
debacle
in the UK parliament
at base the problem relates not to
the Tory party
but to the
self indulgent Narcisism of
oxford University's programmes devoted to
adjusting the self esteem of students
of course you can you've got a double first from Oxford
upside - Oxford stops fucking with British society
downside - we get a decade of Labour
it's a risk worth taking

the local Tory MP for Redcar
Jacob Young has started a campaign to get the
London to Middlesbrough direct train service
extended to Redcar
we support that
and we think it is very likely to happen
we have a photo of Redcar central Station
currently
getting a new roof

this next bit has been prompted by a rumour that
there is a paedophile hunter working at
Redcar
first reaction is
another place to be careful
what you're doing with yer 'phone
but we want to construct a couple of
fictionalised vox pops
I'm not taking orders from that nonce
I wouldn't let my kids come down here
the latter relating to a group of lads
assumed to be from the Lakes Estate
walking through Rivers Estate
this latter one is interesting beacuse
Saint Alban's Primary of Lakes closed
Rivers is dominated by
Sacred Heart Secondary
and
St. Benedict's Primary
it puts us in mind of child discipline
notice we didn't say
children discipline - Law Society note
hild discipline in and up to the 1970s
nonce is the old term for paedo
we have a suspicion that
partly because of a culture of
proud display of 'war wounds'
at a time when corporal punishment was legal
Roman Priests and some teachers
switched from
belting
to
buggering
so that there was nothing to show
rather than because priests like it like that
not supposening they got their personal relief with their
post menopausal housekeepers
in a sense it can be argued
if corporal punishment was legal and its form not defined
buggering brats as a form of punishment
was technically legal
and so
can we ask
when corporal punishment was outlawed
did priests stop buggering little boys?
we can say from stats that
around 10 per cent of people in the UK who are of working age
are not on any pay roll
and not seeking works
Fog on the Tyne
'think I'll sign off the dole'
is there a stratum wthin British Society who think
I'd rather have me collar felt by the Old Bill
from time to time
than constantly be sent on courses by
The Job Centre
?
these tear aways were sent to
Young Offenders Institutions
for a short sharp shock
to get them bak on the rails because
they had been born too late for
National Service
and now their instructors are doing time for
denying them their Human Rights
if you are
constitutionally resistant to any form of
management or training
your excuses for demonising authority figures are deminishing
more bosses and teahers are female - a difficult target
being gay, being Black or Asian
the list of banned targets is growing
so the awkward squad
getting
Putinised
forced into a corner
and paedophiles and child murders seem all that is left
and who exactly on 'Fleet Street'
redefined befriending to check on metal health
as
grooming for abuse?

we recognise that the current killer nurse case is ongoing
and scheduled for a long run
the initial details seem to suggest
something of a hint of
imposter syndrome
where a person is in a role they feel they
do not deserve or are not prepared for
it is very difficult to know how hard
society and individuals and institutions should strive
as in the case of the mother gong through all sorts of hoops
in the UK courts earlier this year to
keep an aparently dead son on life support
strive to keep people - especially children - alive
not for their sake but for the sake of parents or whoever
we would contend that
as with a Doctor T is it? quote
is the suspect
an arsonist or a pyromaniac?
a arsonist sets fire to things because it will
ause distress to the owner and or the community
a pyromaniac sets fire to things
because they like to watch the flames
when nurses kill children
is it because children - espeially babies are
weak almost defenceless victims, easy to kill
or because they want to inflict pain on the connections, parents
other nurses and doctors
is it because they think resources are being wasted
is it because they think the child has suffered enough
or are they in a position where they take to themselves
too much responsibility?
there are doctors, ethics committees, courts to make decisions
but on the ground, at the bed or cot side
they may seem far far away
there is a different category
the nurse who harms a patient
with the intention of
riding to the rescue in the nick of time
what is of particular interest across the entire NHS
is should there be
special care baby units in small towns and cities?
shpuld all gravely ill children be flown to
GOSH or Newcastle
Great Ormand Street Hospital in London
in one sense the stats people could say
we get x cases of gravely ill children per year
we can attract y people into this business
should we set the standard of care
not to the best of the best
but to the worst of the volunteers?
say there are 1,000 special care baby nurses
should we
in pursuit of
FAIRNESS
rather than sent the best of them to GOSH or Newcastle
ban them from the profession?
so that all babies with the same problem
get the same treatment
even if it isn't the best that could be done
and if we decide against that
should we having invested in training
take away the large goods vehicle or aeroplane flying licence
and redeploy an expensvely trained specialist
to a job she finds less stressful?
if we lower standards
we get a more unform and accesible service
no famlies split between
mum at GOSH and dad at work hundreds of miles away
with the other kids
so if you are
shall we say
Durham University and you have a gem of a student
do you give them rubbish qualifications and references
so that nobody else will employ them
and give glowing references in the case of a
how do wwe get rid of this one
applying for a job in the sticks
without permission we will repeat the story of Dr. Bates
basically he did a PhD in metalurgy
he wasn't awarded his doctorate until he had secured a job
as a physics teacher in the steel town of Eston in England
just as Vea Baird 'took silk' became a then QC now KC
as soon as she was electe an MP
having been a junior councel for decades
people want local services and
there aren't enough compentent people to go round
Dr bates lasted less then 5 years at Gillbrook
and went off to be an instructor in the navy
hoping for more discipline in his classes
and that is the other thing
I am a vulnerable adult
therefore I cannot be disciplined or taught
or told that I've got something wrong
so long as I don't kiss my patients
nobody can touch me
and harking back to Dr Barnardo
if nurses leave work as soon as they marry
or at least as soon as they become mums
the workforce will be
up to speed with the latest techniques
because they all qulaified less than five years ago
and they have no
unlearning
to do
as medicine advances

we should note
we THINK Steve Bates applied for his teaching job in Eston as
Mr Bates and arrived as Dr Bates
in that the school probably wouldn't have given him the job
if they knew his thesis re-submission would besuccessful
and it wouldn't have been successful if
he hadn't secured the job
and teaching in a shortage subject he
wasn't required to do a PGCE
Post Graduate Certificate in Education
and perhaps that had bearing on his discipline problems


we try a bit harder than the BBC not to mislead people
the BBC are the people who regard a new TV show as
newsworthy
we actually think
the BBC put up a map of Skelton in error
when appealing for information about a bike ride that killed
every time our Ricker gets stopped by a police officer he
suppresses the urge to declare to the world
he don't know me very well
and nobody in Cleveland police of the BBC
appear to knpw Teesside very well
this is probably a fairly pointless comment but
The BBC have been appealing for information about a
fatal single vehicle road traffic accident in Redcar
we are fairly certain this happened in
Skelton
and not
DOrmanstown
both have Cotswold Drives

this may be more cycling rour of Britain shots
we haven't checked...
we probably should say
if you are catching a lot of undersized crabs and lobsters
either your gear is wrong
or
you're returning to the pots before all the bate has gone
and individuals who could escape
haven't yet moved on







































we thought we would add a little to the lobster debate
in Scotland lobster pots are known a creels
what is supposed to happen is
a fisher with a licence
puts bate - what is left after fillets have been removed
from a whole fish
into a basket made from traditional or modern materials
into a place where lobsters and crabs are known to live
the locals are attracted by the ate and climb into the pots
to eat the bate
lobsters moult - put on a growth spurt
maybe four or five times a year when young
so
in theory
the licence conditions dictate the size of the gaps in the walls
of the pots
sooo
little baby lobster is used to these pots
being taken up regularly and having the bate renewed
little baby lobster awaits the return of the pots
little baby lobster wanders in and out of the pot cafe
being small enough to pass through the weave
then one day
after a moult
gettng back out becomes a squeeze
eventually there comes a moult after which
getting back out is impossible
and yer lobster is caught
so
fisheries inspectors are more interested in
checking gear, than checking catches
the probalem with catches is
fishers are not supposed to keep
lobsters that are carrying eggs
berried hens
and sometimes they do, and that affects breeding
in order to be able to find their pots
fishers run a rope from the pot to a float
some people say that whales can get tangled in these ropes
we suspect that if fishers are active
they will care for their gear
and that any problems are with discarded gear
and often that is in the hands of
the weather
storms can disrupt any activity at sea
what we had recently was something exceptonal
and the smoking gun was
a bit like the killer nurse was the only one who was always on duty
when the babies died
all sorts of things going on
but the disaster oincided with the Calgon promotional campaign
making it the prime suspect
all the other things
storms, dredging etc.
were frequently occuring with
the disasterous washup being unique
and happening at the same time as the ad campaign


we have never watched TV shows such as
rich kids go skint
but regarding little girls
and advice from royals
we would guess that royal children have
easier access to
ponies and pony clubs
than they have to
washing machines
banned from gettng men between your legs?
rich girl - ride a pony
poor girl - ride a washing machine on spin
when any of these Taliban sposored cases come to court
Ann Summers
ever called?
take a fact from the bad old days when to get photos
you had to take a 'film' to the chemists or post it to Grunwick
or Kodak
and somebody says
the average camera has
ten films run through it before it is discarded
either for lack of interest
or to replaced it without trade in with a better model
how do hey know that?
because
they sell ten times as many films as they sell cameras
and now they know how many mobile 'phones and how many
memory cards they sell
but there are astronomical numbers of images on eah memory card
not a dozen or so
or are there?
nobody collects disused memory cards and CHECKS how many images
except The Taliban
the question in parallel to this is
how many vibratos and dildoes does the average woman possess?,BR> they know how many women there are
they know how many sex toys they sell
but they don't know
how often the typical sex toy is used
it's quite a question for courts
that are operating on the assumption that
human contact is anathama to the
female form and psyche
good God man
surely the human female - if ever - only gets
on heat
on her wedding night
done that
got the 5,000 dollar T shirt
the wedding dress
back to ponies

I promise to pay the bearer on demand
the sum of five pounds
signed by
Chief Cashier of the Bank of England
notes are not
coin of the realm
a fiver is a bond and can be exchanged for
another fiver
or any combinaton of coins amounting to five pounds
bank notes
are
Bearer Bonds
the govenment sells all sorts of these bonds
a lot of them are valued at around 5,000 dollars USD
the high value bonds can
have
coupons
attached to them
when a bearer takes the bond to the government for payment
unlike the like ofr like swap on a bank note
the bearer will get from the government
the face value of the bond
plus
the value of any all all the coupons attached
and the coupons essentially are interest on the loan
agreed by the govenment to be paid to the bearer
but only at the time they are surrendered
and an incentive for the bearer to hold off on
cashing them in
in other words
you can re-mortgage your house
same house, same owner, differnt lender
with bearer bonds
same house, differnt owner, same lender
the deal lies with the bond and not with the parties
whoever holds the bond, owns it
whoever bears it owns it
so you can be convicted of
denying the rightful bearer of cash of posession
but in a way
you have atually stolen
the possessions of
The Bank of England
until such time as its term expires
it ceases to be
legal tender and becomes a collector's item
with bank notes
The Bank of England
to maintain confidence in the currency
will always ALWAYS honour the deal
but with Bearer Bonds
they WILL expire
a typical bearer bond will be for 5,000 dollars or pounds
ad expire after 25 years
claim your money back
claim the money leant to us by the first bearer
within 25 years
or loose it
again
in practice
the claim may take the form of
a replacement bond with a new date
and that could happen at any time
regarding what The Bank of England are actually doing now...
movie reference
based on a story by Mark Twain
Gregory Peck in a UK Ealing comedy
The Million Pound Note
a LITTLE like the
Parable of the Tallents 2 arstos lend a destitute sailor
money in an envelope that
truns out to be a single million dollar or pound note
and they bet on how he will get on as
the owner of great wealth he can't spend
because he can't 'break' a million pound note
so long as he has the note
people treat him to all he needs and more
when it goes missing
he is suddenly declared a fraud
he finds it again


this is all dragging us back into the mists of time
there was a time
when there were no automatic teller machines ATMs
no cash dispensers
Barclays London 1967 first ATM
first PIN and magnetic strip 1972 Lloyds bank
essentially from 1966 you could if your credit was good
have a credit card
but if you had a bank account and money in it
and no credit card
and you wanted cash
you had to go to a branch of your bank
and hand in a cheque written out to
Self Cash
our Ricker had two bank accounts when he was working in London
in the 1980s
and his work schedule took him frequently to
Old Brompton Road
and he kept coming up against the same teller in the
williams and Glyns bank who said his signature
on the cheque
didn't match the file copy
in reality
the teller just wanted him to transfer his aount to
that BRANCH no simply that bank
in theory
even if you went to a branch of your own bank
and presented a
crossed cheque
you couldn't cash it
you had to pay it into your account
and we are saying this because
a cheque or as benefits were one paid out
a Giro
Giro Bank Credit
is not a bearer bond
it is only cashable by the person or organisation written on it
and so
people using cheques to pay AA subscriptions were told
after
PAY
write Automobile Association
because staff were opening accounts in names such as
A Arbuthnot
and adding rbuthnot
to AA and paying the cheques into their own acounts not the AA's
you could also create what were called
post dated cheques
if you were buying something on credit
or more likely if you were renting
and meetings with the landlord would be a nuisance
you could write half a dozen cheques
and put different dates on them
say a month apart
so that the landlord could bank them
when and only when
the next rent installment came due
our Rcker has had a memory fail
he now reckons
the teler would take the cheque and hand him a form
sign this form
then he would compare the
cheque signature with the live signature
our Ricker's signature was pretty consistent so
it was a bit frustratng to be
asked to repeat very time

if you nip down to Majuba Road
the yellow stuff is the foundations for the new arena
so here we are viewing from
Coatham Green

there will be
on Redcar High Street next to the Darlington Buildng Society
a sort of PR venue for the
Green Hydrogen Trial
coming up in Redcar



here's a case to consider
it came up last week in one of the family courts
a ouple in their late 50s, childless but married
the wife appears to have worked
office work? paid carer for her mother
husband former computer geek
fifty years as a type 1 diabetic now
somewhat disabled and out of work
the odd thing is that together they own a home in an area where
property values are high
but
after 40 years of marriage they were still living in a starter home
go in the front door on your left an overgrown cupboard
fitted out as a kitchen
above that a similar bathroom around 2 metres square
in front of you a living room
around 3.5 to 4 metres square
in that room a staircase
not partitioned off
leading to
a meazanine sleeping platform
not partitioned off from the living room but with a handrail
that's it
this is a maisonette
despite the
starter home, student gaf nature of the property
because of the location it is probably worth
nearer one than two hundred thousand pounds
they being over 55
and the property being
both difficult to divide but
worth over �10for
The Chelsea Flower Show
nine times including winning gold in 2011
his first entry was in 1995
he was awarded a bronze medal
when he relayed the news of his bronze
back to Ireland
folk assumed that he had
come third
produced the third best in show
in reality
exhibits of all sorts can be awarded
Gold, silver gilt, silver or bronze awards
and they can come in any number in any colour
and so to university degrees
a double first isn't even the best in subject
never mind best in year
universities
1 make money
2 provide sheltered employment for vulnerable adult
often people who have failed in their profession and need a job
3 educate - mostly a new generation
4 help students to find a respectable
first (job) destination after graduation
they DO NOT
absolutely not
ring tag future Prime Ministers or
Captains of Industry


we've probably made previous reference to
post de-selection interviews
with Ian Swales a one time MP for Redcar
and we refer to that again
in respect of
Red Wall seats
the assumption is
the only role in politics
that is a poison chalice
is Prime Minister
Ian Swales has been pretty clear that
he only stood for parilament as
1 a bit of a laugh
2 to get some respite from his demented - alegedly - wife
this assumption that those
former red wall 80 odd majority MPs
desperately want to
hang on to their seats....
an ill founded assumption
in our analysis
sitting out the next two years as
cross benchers - Lords
independents - Commons
may have considerable attractions
we do detect a sense of
famlies may be reiidled with dementia
but some work places
such as parliament
seem to be outright mental hospitals
aims and objectives?
pervide sheltered employment for
vulnerable adults
parliament
universities
NHS
speaking of the NHS and private equivalents
we loose
'established practitioners'
ever time a medical breakthrough
raises the prospect of
retraining
we're back to
the original UK Taliban
Dr Bernadoes
now that I've qualified as a doctor
I'm done with books and journals
I amy be a doctor but from now on
the only thing I shall read is
The Bible
in some ways
we can see
the NHS clogged up with
patients fit for release
not through lack of care places but
because medical professionals are
more comfortable
offering paliative care
than effective scientific treatment
Doc Martin
no blood
leave me the puke and the poo
when I grow up
I wanna be a nurse and
see lots of men's willies

allocates a student to
PPE
PPE is what any other university would describe as a
General Degree
at Durham in the day
on a General Degree
students effectively did
three different first years
that is two mains and one subsidiary
so our Ricker's first year was
main Zoology 2 units, main botany 2 units, subsidiary chemistry 1 unit
not to mention chemistry consisting of 3 sub units
organic, inorgaic and physical
in our Ricker's subsidiary chemistry exam
he russed into the exam room
and as soon as he got hold of his answer book
he covered half of the inside cover leaf of his answer book
with the formulae he had stayed up all night committing to heart
getting them down before he forgot them
and then spent the rest of the exam time
applying them to the questions
being as how it was a subsidiary unit
an 'open book' exam would have demonstrated
an ability to use the equasions
without the need to commit them to memory
he got the impression that the other candidates
whom he did not recognise were
doing physical chemistry as a main
he is still wondering
did the university want to transfer him to chemistry?
he did some synthesis in the chem labs
for a while he kept his sample of an azurin dye
bright orange it was
in other words, he seemed to be doing an awful lot of chemistry
given it was supposed to be his subsidiary
but then he had turned down a place at Sunderland Polytechnic
to study
pharmacology
that not being the same as pharmacy
it's like getting 100 per cent in yer mocks and being told
we're not going to enter you in the real exams
becuase we are teachers
and we want students we can teach
we are not here to offer students an opportunity to
exhibit their excellence
returning to people on General Degrees
that is they did 101 in 9 departments
and thus we have
Call me Dave
and Liz Truss


this is a little local colour regarding Redcar
particularly
Sir William Turner's School - Coatham School
a boys' grammar
established in 16 hundred and fast asleep
every now and again the likes of
Charity Commissioners take a look at the state of things
and
Sir William Turner - a sometime, perhaps twice
Lord Mayor of London
left his estate at Kirkleatham near Redcar
to Chomley Turner
and a part of the stipulations was that
a school for local boys with potential but
limited resources and it was
and now the building is called
Kirkleatham h Hall
at some point the charity commissioners twigged that
it had no pupils
and so the estate built a school for selected boys
on Coatham Road in Redcar or Coatham take your choice
so that the estate could continue as a charity
the Coatham Road site was quite restricted
there was no room for a sports field
and so
the Sir William Turner Foundation??
provided land on Corporation Road as a sports gound
land alongside was
sold off for housing
we are talking south side, east of Mersey Road
and some of the houses were
decent size
the plot immediately adjacent to the sports ground
on it's west side
became the residence of
Stanley Nixon, solicitor
if you are a tennant of
The Creswell Trust
you are a tennant of his son Peter
in the 1960s
North Yorkshire County Council
decided to build a new
Sir William Turner's School
on the northern - Corporation road frontage of the
sports ground
byt this time
through the acretion of various extensions
Stanley Nixon's house extanded
from boundary to boundary
along the Corporation Road frontage
perhaps both
Stanley and his son Peter acquired
cars
at this point Stanley Nixon or the Creswell Trust
bought a strip of land wide enough to
provide vehicular access to the rear of the property
from the school
along the east side of what was the garage
now
The house is some sort of
house of multiple occupation
and the school has been replaced with
the Mo Mowlam Academy for
children with ADHD or similar
so
visitors to the home are not
availing themselves of the facility
acess to the rear of the property for vehicles
that Stanley Nixon
so cunningly provided

what a very interesting comment by way of a official portrait of the horse in question
regarding
the late queen's
recreation in the latter 15 years of her life
whether or not
golf balls stuffed up her chuff and her arse
getting the legs over a pony
some compensation for
not getting her husband up her chuff???
it's quite a serious matter if in that
inter regnum between
chewing yer pussy on daddy's belt hoops
and having a proper boyfriend
is so tightly policed by the
metoo mafia
that young females resort to
sometimes fatal
self harm
as a substitute for natural
sexual expression
some cultures try to suppress
female sexuality
by cutting off girlie bits
The Britsh?
if she's getting restive...
enroll her in the local Pony Club

we thought we'd explain electicity...
and then we hit a snag
we live in North East ENgland
where people have done engineering for
along long time
so we set out and thought
consider three bits of wood and a length of string
sofa so good
then we thought
consider one of the bits being a block of wood
with a DELVE in it
and then we thought
how can we explain what as delve is?
so we have to say
think of a block of wood a foot by
a few inches and a couple of inches thick
and in the middle of one of the big sides
somebody has made a depression with a
countersink bit
a delve
the other two bits of wood are sticks
so you put the rounded end of one of the sticks into the delve
the third bit of wood is a bent or bowed stick
the string is tied to either end of the bow
and the middle of the string is looped around
the stick with its rounded end in the delve
and by bowing the string like on a violin you
turn the rounded stick back a forwards in the delve
the middle stick - the vetical stick
alternates
between turning
clockwise and anticlockwise
it's alternating rotation
and kindling draped around the delve
catches fire
alternating rotation
alternating current
the string moves side to side
and the electrons move
back and forwards in the cables
and the speed of the bow
is the frequency of the bow
how often it makes a return journey
left to right
in a second
but that's AC not DC
Dc is drect current
and in that
the electrons go
one way only and eventually
get back to where they started
when the system was switched on
and the point of this analogy is
if the frequency of the fire starter bowing is
too low - slow
the tinder won't light
and if the frequency is too high
the sticks will snap

today's technical term is
superposition of waves
modern eletronics is quite capable of taking
what we may call
raw eletrical power and
cleaning it up
for internal use
back in the day if you wanted a voltage different from
mains voltage you needed a transformer
they are probably all over your house and office
the oversized, usually black, mains plugs on very flimsy wires to
Tv, Hi-Fi, whatever
now there's just a bump in the cable because the power of the mains is
cut down by a clipping electronics that
switches the power on and off at high speed
that is by the by
or bye the bye
not buy the buy
in essence we can think of
old school electrical applances as being in
two categories
one lot - cooker elements, rings, electric fire bars
are simply resistance wires that heat up when electricity
passes through them
and in essence
taking into account how much power they can withstand
in terms of insulation both electrical and thermal
they will 'work' no matter what sort of electricity you throw at them
as we say setting electronics aside because
level of sophistocation vries so much...
the other type of appliance has a motor
a washing machine, a corded drill
in the simplest of terms
an electical generator is a an electrical motor
running in reverse
being turned by a turbine of some sort and
sending electricity out the other way
so here is the thing
on all the large scale
National Grids
elecrical power is transmitted as
AC Alternating Current
and in essence
the voltage on the grid is
varying all the time in a
sinusoidal wave
a sinusoldal wave is like a slinky
like a sidewinder snake
the voltage starts at zero
goes up to
whaever
falls back to zero and goes to minus the same whatever
and then back to zero and so on
the frequency
of the power is how long between each time the voltage hits
maximum whaever
or minimum watever
all the electricity generators are running generators
except as we said the electronic ones with battery banks and such
all the coal, nuclear, gas, hydro,
and the thing is
if you put
too much drain
too low a resistance
on the grid
it will take longer for all those generators to
push the voltage through the cycle
and so
the frequency
rather than
the voltage
on the network
drops
and
superposition of waves is
the actual waveform s all the waveforms from
all the generator sets on the network
laind on top of each other
and some generators and more sensitive to being
out of phase
than others
the function of the National Grid is to match
the resistance
a switch that is off have infinite resistance
match the resistance of the total consumer base
to the generating capacity of all the generators on line
they switch generators in and out of use to keep
in the UK and if the resistane in the consumer network falls
too low for the generator network to
keep up
National Grid have to
when there is no more
generating reserve available to
SWITCH IN
reseort to
SWITCHING OUT
according to a priority schedule
customer drain
they switch off parts of the network to get the
overall resistance back in range
get the frequency back to
acceptable close to 50 Hz
so people's motors won't slow etc. etc
in other words
if like gas
electricity were used solely for heating
BROWN OUTS
as opposed to BLACK OUTS
would be acceptable in extreme cases

a mode switching power supply is an eletronic power supply
switch-mode
with increasing use of
LED lighting
these days we don't see
the lights in the house
dim or
gutter
if the local paper mill starts up



it kinda irritates us if we feel we have been
inaccurate
we said somebody was building an
(incy whincy) teeny wheeny
arena
on the site of the
Coatham Bowl
we should say it was built as a bowing alley
and converted into a community centre
the site,
opposite the Coatham Enclosure Boating Lake
on the corner of Newcommen Terrace
and
Majuba Road
was at times the location of
The Convalescent Home
The Coatham Bowl
and
The Club House of Cleveland Golf CLub
and as we see it
at present
on the site of the home there will be a
front lawn the size of a football soccer pitch
a car park of similar size on the site of the
Coatham Bowl
and some sort of arena type thingy
on the site of the club house
half of the majuba Road car park is dug up to build
an enclosure for more
penguine sculptures
in six months
it is supposed to re-open as a much reduced capacity car park
and the other half then to be closed for the construction of a
water sports venue
and the construction of a hotel on
the site of the Mungle Jungle indoor skate park
is
at the scrape up the top soil into a heap
stage
quite significant
DRAINS
are being installed on both sites
and the temporary toilets outside
Tuned-In
have been closed as scheduled

Send in the Clowns / original performance Judy Collins
Stehen Sondheim lyrics
a little night music

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can't move
Where are the clowns?
there aight to be clowns

Just when I'd stopped opening doors
Finally knowing the one I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one was there

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear
i thought you'd want waht I want
Sorry, my dear.
but where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here

Isn't it rich
Isn't it queer?
Loosing my timing this late in my career
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns
Well maybe next year

Lyricfind

today, not every runner was at the
London Marathon
some people were at the
Redcar Running Festival

a flock of seagulls
this is the flock of oyster catchers wot
ate all the pies
sorry
ate all the razor clams

this is where somebody is building a
tincy whincy arena
on the site of the Coatham Bowl


coupla shots of
Redcar Running Festival
just to show
we waz there


we have two technical terms for you today
if we can rememeber both
pernicious contraries
There's a book
issued in 1960 by the
British Waste Paper Utilization Council
and entitled
Pernicious Contraries in Waste Paper
and that is
at one level
staples and fag ends and such
and at the other end
ink
printing and writing ink
so
if you take 'good quality' iron ore
like Australian or Norwegian
it has iron oxide
if you take a lower grade
like the iron ore in the Eston Hills
above Redcar in North Yorkshire
it has a lot of phosphorus in it
so the BOS plant at Redcar was an iteration of processes
for doing two things
adjusting the carbon content in the iron
to render it steel
and removing the pernicious contraries such as phosphorous
and then the Uk started importing iron ore that was
largely free of pernicious contraries
and the only effluent from the BOS plnt would be
carbon dioxide
because the blast furnace would produce iron with
excess carbon in it
and the BOS plant would
in a controlled way
burn off the excess carbon as carbon dioxide
to adjust the carbon content of the steel to be
just so
as in the classic advice when fitting
draft proofing around your windows
first cut a strip you know to be just a bit over length
and then offer it - and not the whole reel - up
and make a more accurate cut
this is in a sense the opposite of
mesure twice, cut once
that often does not work
in this case because draft proofing stretches
that's why 'engineers' are often called
'fitters'
as in gas fitter
so Redcar had this massive plant designed to make
minute adjustments to the chemistry of
3 million tonnes of iron a year
and they start dumping scrap into it
and the shit starts flying in all directions
another term we have used before...
autogenous
Redcar was
an integrated steel works
it produced steel slab and bloom in one
continuous process
stone cold - literally
iron ore was heated in the blast furnace with
carbon from coke and gas
the heating came from
carbon burning in oxygen in the blast
and iron with excess carbon was transported in insulated
torpedo wagons
still molten from the blast furnace to the
Basic Oxygen Steelmaker
basic because the limestone made it alkaline not acidic
acid versus base
low ph versus high ph
ph hydrogen index
likellihood of donating hydrogen
and so
in the bad old days
in a Bessemer conveerter
they blew air through the molten iron
passibly for days
until they had burned off the amount of
excess carbon they needed to to
get the carbon content right
and then it got cheap to separate
oxygen from nitrogen
air being and mix of oxygen anf nitrogen
and a load of other things
and using a lance to push
near pure oxygen through the iron
got the job done in twenty minutes
and the efluent would have been a mixture of
carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide
and back in the day
weather permitting
you could see huge blue flames - like on a gas hob
at the top of the stacks where
you hoped
the carbon monoxide was burnt to carbon dioxide
and the steel came out hot enough to transport to the
nearby
continuous caster
and the bright sparks thought
hot steel
if we add cold scrap
it wil still be hot enough for the concast
and we've melted scrap for free
BUT
in the process
without modifications sucha as filter boxes
as on the sinter plant
'we' have repurposed
flare stacks
as
chimneys
wouldn't it be
ironic
is that a pun?
if the plan were to repurpose the
filter box from the sinter plant
as a filter box for a new BOS plant
incientally
in the death throws
and area of land just west of the BOS plant was
designated
prairie
we never knew why
but prrie was a stack yard for
scrap


we have a bit more to say about the Brtsh Steel industry
there are three communities with a major interest in steel
steel making as opposed to steel using
Port Talbot Tata indian
Scunthorpe China
Redcar same company Britsh Steel owned by China
at present Redcar has only rolling mills - Lackenby mills
Jing whatever the china owners of British Steel
want hundreds of millions from from the government for
new blast furnaces in Scunthorpe
Tata owners of Port Talbot
want hundreds of millions from the UK government for
electric arc scrap melting furnaces to replace
the knackered blast furnaces at Port Talbot
here's the rub
the UK government thought that if it forced the
closure of Redcar steel works
that would make Scunthorpe and Port Talbot viable
genius accounting
refuse redcar a bail out and Port Talbot and Scunthorpe
would thrive
at no cost to the government
trouble was
it's like a county council and there's
three bus companies in the county
and
only enough work for two
so the council withdraws its contracts from the firm that has
put in the highest tender and it goes bust
problem is
the reason that company put in the highest tender was
because they had just bought a fleet of new buses
like SSI refurbing Redcar steel works
so
the two remaining bus companies
submit suplementary contract terms
an increase in cost to cover buying
the busted bus company's fleet
init?
the other point we want to make is
all that smoke and dust and grime that flew up when
Redcar BOS plant was blown down...
not accumulated over the entire life of the plant
when the BOS plant was built 1947 it was intended to refine
raw iron from South Bank iron works
in the 1970s it switched to refining raw molten iron from
Redcar blast furnace
that in itself should not have produced all that filth
what happened was
quite sensibly
they put molten iron and some scrap ito the converter
and over time they put in more and more scrap and less and less iron
and that flue dust
well
a lot of that would be
lead from lead paint burnt off the scrap
toxic we suppose
and that toxic flue gas
is obviously more more more
if you go down the Tata route for Port Talbot
and make all your new steel from scrap
you need a propper system of flue gas scrubbers
with much more capacty to trap toxins that you won't get if you put
sewage carbon, iron ore and limestone together in a
modern blast furnace

we've seen video of the blow down of
Redcar Basc Oxygen Steelmaker
it looked like the explosion of
Mount Saint Helens in Canada
a massive cloud of grey dust
this is down to
Thompsons of Prudhoe
fro not cleaning out the
condensed fume from inside
we have a couple of stories about the fume extraction
at the BOS plant
we said it was built n 1947
around 30 years later
that is when it was being refurbished to
take molten iron from the then new
Redcar blast furnace
one of the most obvious - although not very obvious
amendments made was due to the fact that the
several - 4 or 6 - chimneys
were waving around like palm trees in the wind of dealing with
how should we say
flimsy steel structures being battered by the wind
and they are called
starkes
and they meant that from the mid 70s to the end
it looked like the chimneys appeared to have
spiral staircases around the outside
they are helical arrangements of wind breaks up the chimney
and they are used to calm down a structure that is given to
massive wind induced vibration
but they induce drag
in other words you swap vibration for waving
the second story relates to the
SSI refurbishment
the air quality within the plant as so poor
witness the Mount St. Helens effect today
that to get a renewed operating licence
regarding loss of grandfather in exepmetions due to
pre SSI closure
SSi had to double the number of fume extracting chimneys

and so
we move to change the name of
The Old Nixon House on Corporation Road
to
Catheter House
since they specialise in
extracting the urine
do these people live in Hemlington?

our Ricker is deeply grateful to
the guys at Newcastle upon Tyne university for
doing some reserch on pyridine and it's effect on crabs
we need to clarify and suggest at this time...
pyridine is both naturally occuring and synthetic in origin
in general terms it is synthesised
that means made deliberately by industry
it is synthesised for use as a solvent in some processes
it is soluble in water
and therefore will disperse in water
it will not form 'slicks'
or remain as globules
Hantzsch pyridine synthesis or
Hantzsch dihydropyridine synthesis
is a multicomponent organic reaction between an aldehyde
such as formaldehyde
2 equivalents of a beta keto ester such as
ethyl acetoacetate
and
a nitrogen donor such as
ammonium acetate
or
ammonia
any compound that has ammonia involved in it's genesis
COULD be associated with
coke ovens
it is used as a solvent in NMR spectroscopy
the next question we need to ask is
is the mantra
dilution
is not the
solution
to
pollution
applicable here?
pyridine is a benzene-like substance and is stable
not liable to degenerate into other substances
it therefore has some relevance to
new materials
such as
grphine
it is stable but not inert
pyridine derivatives have been researched as possible
pain killers and sedatives

and so we conclude they are
neuroactive
we have at this point to set out our Ricker's proposal for
a experimental design
pyridine has effects on nervous systems
we repeat the assertion that
pyridine smells of rotting fish
we propose an experiment not so much on
pyridine toxicity in crabs and lobsters
but on the behaviour of crabs and lobsters
our Ricker sez
get yersel the longest bit of roof guttering you can
fit in yer lab and
arrange it as a tank to keep crabs in
so it will need that mesh they use to keep leaves out of gutters
to keep the crabs in
what you do is get a bunch of crabs used to this habitat
and then you introduce a tiny bit of pyridine
at some point along the gutter
one end, the middle, that sort of thing
now
we are assuming that you can aside from this do another
experiment where you take some dead fish
and you sample them over a period of
what shall we say, a month, daily
and measure the pyridine levels
sooo
what does our Ricker want to know?
he wants to know
since things with nerves
can detect pyridine
do things with nerves - such as crabs
detect pyridine and say
oh oh
around here folk like us as dying
we should scarper
lest we die too
in other words
do crabs move from a high concentration of pyridine
to a low concentration
are they regarding pyridine as a
DANGER OF DEATH
notice
like on a fence
and at areally high concentration
do they just die of a heart attacK?
we should explain that the Newcastle guys
have described the mode of death of the crabs
they killed with pyridine
they were in small glass tanks
on first introduction of pyridine
they became very agitated
a sign of nerve reaction to the drug
was this just spasm
or was it a fight or flight response?,BR> providing a concentrration gradient
would help to determine how relevant
behaviour
ws in the matter
so far as we know
Newcastle did not do
LD50 tests
LD 50 relates to
at what concentration of the toxin
to 50 per cent of the subjects die?
Lethal Dose
they did record time of death as
around 6 hours
even a crab can shift qute a way in six hours


this is the deal as we understand it
there's this bloke
studied numerical economics at the LSE
he's a chartered accountant
he 'works from home' whilst looking after his
16 and 13 year old daughters
he's been married for 22 years
and his wife had an affair 16 years ago
so we WE don't know whether he is the biological father
of his elder daughter
overall
we would not be at all surprised if the husband and daughters
are a tight knit unit that the wife needs to
keep sweet
so in professional matters
hubby would be seen as a bt of an expert in economics
even though actually
a through and through accountant
so it would not be surprising if
wifie had the illusion that
there is no discernable difference between
economics
and
accountancy
or even that
'economics'
is a short form for
'home economics'
and if you understand tht this particular wifie is
the current UK Prime Minister
certain things may
fall into place

to some extent it has to be acepted that it will
forever be
'too soon'
to be objectively analytical about
nine eleven
but looked at in a particular way we see around the world
yer standard, demented dictator, getting
more and more Dracko -like as in Draconian
in facing down opposition
but a certain slant on the events of nine eleven
suggests a third way
1 old derepit, dementted clinging on to power
2 fighting for fredom and survival
often these two in the same terretory
and the third way, or cause of
earth shattering and deeply tragic violence
essentially
Jackass Tv by proxy on a global scale
Jackass Tv screened for the first time around
one year before nine eleven
when the likes of the BBC constantly seek to
maintain BALANCE in reporting events
that is fine and dandy if the events are a struggle
between forces driven by cases 1 and 2 above
it is when the events to be covered are pure boredom killing jackass stunts
there is no scope for
BALANCE
in observing word events we sometimes have to employ
what in other contexts would be called
reverse engineering
we are here, these things have happened
what causes could there be for these things?
we see IBS of Saudi Arabia putting himself forward as
a mediator in the exchange of hostages in the
Russo-Ukrainian conflict
he is thus declaring himself as a
player
in the affair
what could he want?
he could want a bigger more lucrative market for
Middle Eastern gas
we then say
perhaps he conned the President of Russia into provoking
Europe into boycotting Russian gas
IF
really big if
IBS contracted the recent blowing up of
Nordstream1 and Nordstream2
is this an indication that IBS believes that
Russia is about to surrender and
regain it's gas market in Europe?
in that sense
IBS is neither a poverty stricken freedom fighter
nor an about to beousted supernnuated dictator
so he is either jst a bit over greedy
remember he held most of the Saudi plutocrats
to ransome in plush hotels util they handed over their dosh
or he is a spoilt brat
having fun with
Russia and Germany and using Ukraine as a playing field


here's the thing
the world's media have been told
Nortstream1 is shut down because of
a compressor failure
and
Nordstream2 is not yet commissioned
so
it that were true
you put a couple of limpet mines on Nordstream1
and another on Nordstream2
what do you expect?
you expect them to bukle and rip, tear
what you don't expect them to
LEAK
who was pressurising them and with what/
was Germany introducing
introducing
back pressure?
seems a lot more likely that Germany was getting gas from Russia
and sombody was being conned to the effect that they weren't
Saudi?

this is the late September 2022
condition of the Redcar coke uvens
we appear to have a couple of chimneys
and some sort of conenser or absorption columns
this could easily be gone by the end of the year
over the weekend that will be the first two days of October 2022
the BOS Plant shed will be blown up
the Basic Oxygen Steelmaker is a vital part of a steelworks
however, what is not entirely understood is that it is largely
a shed
in is like so many of these plants
a lot smaller than it looks
in the sense that
the shed is very big but it contains a small number of things
a crane that is just like another roof rafter
but mobile
a ladle
that the torpedoes of iron were tipped into
and any sort of elaboration of a
Bessemer Converter
that was state of the art when the shed went up
and this shed went up
well.. around a hundred years ago
the BOS plant was a big green shed at Lackenby
probaby put up in 1946
so on the other hand
less than 80 years ago
take yer pick
gone by next Monday
but already completely gutted
what we're noting here is
in the cases of both the sinter plant and thr BOS plant
the method of demolition has been
gut first
then bring down the shed
what is happening at the blast furnace is
guts of the thing is being
disrobed of it's shed
shed first then apparatus
and that is partly beause the guts are
somewhat more substantial


we're gonna have another go at explaining what
futures
are
and so we will list current
wheat futures
UK feed wheat - animal not human consumption Great british Pounds per tonne
May 2023 291
Jul 2023 281.4
Nov 2023 269
Jan 2024 274.6
sooo
these prices are for FUTURES
not for wheat
wheat for feeding to animals in january 2024
hasn't been sown yet
it's no earthly use looking at futures prices
to work out what today's bill shoud be
grain prices are currently dropping
what is affecting them is
grain futures prices are affected by the
Russo-Ukrainian hostilities
that is called 'sentiment'
world grain prices are dominated by
drought in the lower 48
the states of the USA excluding Alaska and Hawaii

we have a question we have no intention of
trying to answer
so far as we can tell
the Tees valley has had three
directly - by plebicite, vote of the common people - elected
or
executive mayors
tmore than that in terms of the actual characters in post
three posts of executive major
Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Tees Valley
the queston we have is
why is there still a directly elected mayor of Middlesbrough
when it appears that the post of executive mayor of Hatlepool
was subsumed, merged, when the post of exectutive mayor of
Tees valley was invented?
we got thinking about this when we started to think about
Stuart Drummond
the only but twice re-eected executive mayor of Hartlepool
he was originally elected as
H angus the Monkey
Hartlepool United soccer team's mascot
he had that role despite being a graduate of Salford University
we look to this and the election of King Charles' spaniel
as examples of
who the hell can we elect whom
the gutter press can't
hound out of office
in a sort of
'Holly Willoughby jumped a queue' kinda way
that's the prime driver in today's politics
who is
press proof?
or who will be press roof for longest?
give them a flying chance to get at least
SOMETHING done
before they get trufed out
for the press, politicians are not
n post to run the country
but to provide column inches

it would appear that the UK civil service is not
about to hang the new Prime Minister out to dry
in essence
she said
I will cut taxes
they produce a budget that consists of
cutting the taxes that nobody pays anyway
because
their accountants
make sure they avoid them
big tax cutting headlines
no significant loss to government income
it is a little too early to say
but
it is unlikely that she - the new Prime Minister of the UK
will be known as
King Charles' spaniel
but she does seem very keen to project that image

sometimes we get a little nudge
we found something the other day
we think it was
DRI
we think it was
direct reduction ironmaking
this, it seems, is the 'German' hydrogen based
ironmaking process
what we are being told is
IF you want to use hydrogen to decarbonise steelmaking
you need to build a lot of water splitting plant - factories
it is quite interesting to note that
in the need levels of the mind
because coal, oil and gas are
dug up from the ground
they are free
so people will say
coal, oil and gas are free but hydrogen costs a lorra lorra money
it's not logical
but it appears to be a dominant strain of thought
here's the thing
there is a free source of energy
well there are lots of non carbon sources of energy tht are in some sense
free
back in the day Tommy bought and sold things with contract terms
one of those terms was
'as and where lying'
in other words
we owned it
now you own it
but we won't lift a finger to help you
collect it
or transform it in any way on your behalf
that distinguishes
the cost of ownership
from
the cost of exploitation
so the wind and the waves and the sunshine are free
and carbon free but they are only free
as and where lying
what NWL - Northumbrian Water Limited BR> have is a non-fossil carbon based energy source
that is free as and where lying
it is sewage
you can take carbon that is the remains of food
after eating - animal, vegitarian ot vegan
do you want to just dump it or burn it or what
or would you like to use it to
reduce iron ore to iron metal?
hence and thus
you can make steel by two methods that involve
no carbon whatsoever
make hydrogen by splitting water into
oxygen and hydrogen and use the hydrogen to
remove the oxygen from iron ore
using renewalble electricity to split the water
or you can use renewable electricity to
power electric arc furnaces and melt scrap
or you can use carbon you already have on your hands
don't have to dig up
to make iron and steel by methods that are
carbon neutral whilst being quite conventional
so f you are Germany
you don't import coal
you import corn
you eat it
and then you use the shit it turns into
as if it were coal
TeesWorks can say
the whole of the Redcar Steelworks will be
demolished by the end of 2022
but the question in our minds is
does that include the
Bran Sands Sewage Sludge Dewatering Facility
or is that to continue to be
repurposed - from it's original role to provide
non-fossil carbon to Redcar steelworks
it's these polticians you see...
traditionlists
marriage should be between a man and a woman
carbon should come from a fossil source

we appear to have a new perspetive on the
Ukraine war
we saw initially that Israel was involved
some sort of New Jerusalem concept
a ore comfortable home for the Jews in Ukraine
now we see IBS
the Regent of Saudi Arabia demonstrating a stake in the matter
one of the essential points about the
oil and gas industry is
oil is easy to transport
gas is difficult to transport
for gas you either need a pipeline or a
liquification de-liquification transport netweork
as a result in a lot of cases
when a well in a remote location produces
both oil and gas the oil is transported and the gas is
vented to atmosphere, thrown away, burnt in flares
it is interesting that it is rarely burnt to
produce electricity to be transmitted along cables
laid alongside the gas pipelines???
if we start from the concept that
IBS Iben Ben Saud
was behind this all along
step back to firefighters
a significant proportion of fires are
deliberately set by firefighters
and so
some 'world leaders' have a tendency to
get a bit bored with overseeing a world that is
rolling along nicely
in that context a bit like
nine eleven being a rich spolit kid
wanting a bit of action
BS and Preseident Putin could just have thought
it - a Russian invasion of Ukraine - could be fun
and it could reverse the deline in the price of natural gas
there is the thing
you can't have the oil without the gas
and it has always been that
demand for oil - petrol, diesel etc - is year round
demand for gas is a winter things
flaring in the summer, not so much in the winter
when the UK took North Sea Gas in the winter
it came as gas
it didn't bring oil with it - so much
and so in the summer, gas production could be
scalled back without
creating an oil lake
when motor fuel demand does not spike alongside
heating gas demand in the winter
at the core
getting rid of low value surplus gas
is easier than getting rid of unwanted oil
oil is cheaper to store than gas - no refrigeration required
but over time it would just build up and up
year on year
car ownership, car useship, vehicle fuel demand
has to platteau
and
the question is
is IBS smart enough to think he could
protect Middle Eastern gas sales by provoking
a boycott of Russian gas?
we think the jury is out on that one

it may sound like a broken record
yet another thing our Ricker used to be
an Education Officer with Tees valley Wildlife Trust
sooo
recently on Redcar beach we have had a couple of unusuals
plus some he don't know about that brought in the twitchers
the two unusuals were
lesser black backed gulls
mixed in with the
herring gulls
the thing we have had that affects loal wildlife
noticably
has been
quite a flock of possibly migrating
oyster catchers
everytime people say
look at all these razor clams washed up dead
we say
the oyster catchers have been at it again
oyster catchers?
raven sized black jobs - i.e. a lot smaller than a crow
but with long long thin orange beaks
to get them razor clams outa the sand
end of

there are probably quite a number of web sites, apps whatever..
along these lines but the one making the most obvious
promotional effort is called
eToro
they are promoting a kind of
group think
there's a distinction here
if you join a co-operative
you can get better prices through
bulk buying
an investor's club
can move markets by concerted
buying and selling
we have no proof of this...
but we see indications that the rather obscure
in world wide terms
North Sea Gas Futures market
appears to move quite dramatically
at times when small investers in the USA would be
hecking their portfolios
the point is
if you set yourself up appropriately
you can trade gas futures
iin crude terms
the people paying hugely inflated parices are not
wholesale suppliers
they are investers
investers you have no intention of taking delivery of the goods
they are doing FOMO fear of missing out and group think
as amateurs they will be doing it wrong
wrong is buy in a rising market, sell in a falling market
he problem is
Wall Street Crash....
when there is no rising market in sight
and you have borrowed to buy
you will have to sell into a falling market
and probably at a loss
and then you will have no gas, only debt

our Ricker has a relative whom he regards as a nephew
and he - the nephew - is involved in an ongoing dispute
so as always this is a fictionalised view of the matter
the starry eyed version of socialism is
from each according to his ability
to each according to her need
but to focus more narrowly
there is the matter of
FARENESS
to the British Judiciary
particularly the Family Division
and example of fairness is
Lucinda keeps around a thousand pounds in her bank account
Miles keeps around a hundred thousand pounds in his bank account
to the British Judiciary
both Lucina and Miles should be paid - cerdited with
the same amount AMOUNT of interest on their savings
NOT the same rate of interest
so we take a point of a married couple with no children and
the husband is some sort of computer geek
and his wife is a care assistant
and when the type one diabetic computer geek has to take
early retirement and the wife has to lend some of her caring skills to
the husband's plight
on one Satuday evening around 9.00 pm
the wife walks out of the house with
her purse and the clothes she stood up in
and after the police find her at 3.00 am the following morning
walking the streets
she is taken to a hostel
and after a few months in the hostel
the people at the hostel say
well your husband's parents - in the eighties
husband somewhat demented
don't live far away
your husband should go live with them and let you have the
matrimonial home
all to yourself
'cos we need your room
for someone who's been battered
and has three kids in tow


just a small note about Redcar
if you were wondering
and we doubt you were
why this past weekend there was a rail replacement service
on the Middlesbrough to Saltburn line
Network rail's contractors have been
replacing the up line as it runs over Coatham Marsh
the wife walks out of

despite all, lawyer strikes, royal funeral etc
cases are still going through the courts
and the ones relating to
consent to sex
are still turning up nuances
there are three entrances to the human
female body
sometimes referred to as
pussy, anal and head
it has to be assumed that
in girl on girl sex
head does not feature
we somehow doubt that lesbian sex is
strong on sticking dildoes down each other's throats giving head as a sexual service rendered
by a female to a male
but it is an extension of
kissing
so we may be wrong
a woman accustomed to giving head to
a man or men may wish a woman to simulate that for her
to attempt one of our infamous analogies
consider first of all the point of
a night out
two essential objectives
a one night stand
an attempt to have a good time with
a stranger you will never meet again
on the other hand
an attempt to establish a more long term relationship
more of a 'getting to know you' exercise
and so
one night stand - taxi ride, or going to a race track
to be driven around by a professional driver
first, hopefully of many, date
I like your car, can we go for a ride?
regarding anal versus pussy
the current issue in law - four years for the wrong hole
imagine on the track day
I like to go fast, very fast
but only on right hand corners
go slow in the left handers
the pro may be able to comply
but how easy would it be for the amateur to
remember in the heat of the moment
what the instructions at the start were?
putting it another way
will we have to design
Alex Comfort - The Joy of Sex - style
specific choreographies for sex
I consent to sex but it must be
The tango
or it must be
The American Smooth
and if you put a foot wrong
you'll be inside for four years

popultion North East England 2.66 million
population London 9 million
unemployment rate North East England 5.1 per cent
unemployment rate London 4.6 per cent
number unemployed in North East England 122,360
number of peope unemployed in London 414,000
fancy sinking a col ine in Burmandsy?
drilling for oil in Chelsea?


we note that her late majesty preferred to worship in
The Church of Scotland
we note that they say
our Father which art in heaven
elsewhere they say
Our Father who art in heaven
we think we should say
if you say our father who art in heaven
you are denying the existence of
our heavenly Father beause you are praying to
our dead eathly father now gone to heaven
which is one of two or more
our Fathr which art in heaven is
addressing the one of our two fathers who is the one who is
our Heavenly as opposed to our earthly father

we have decided at this point to offer some clarification on
our earlier comments about nuclear safety
we said
control rods are carbon so they can't melt
and they won't catch fire if oxygen doesn't get to them
in Chenobyl
we don't know exactly what happened but our best guess is
somebody turned off the water supply
the 'hot water' that is radioactivity contaminated water
that atually goes throught the pile
and then
instead of dropping in the control rods
they re-started the water pumps
this meant water not carbon added to the
overheating pile
and as we have said
water contains oxygen
so hot carbon and water
is water gas remember?
carbon and hydrogen and oxygen
and so a massive but
non-nuclear explosion
now
the spent fuel rods are not the only waste from the plant
but regarding the hot - radioactive - water
the radioactivity in that is mainly
radioactive iodine and radioactive caesium
they represent two very different challenges
radioactive material is 'radioactive' becasue it,BR> spontaneously falls apart
in the process giving off
alpha, beta and gamma radiation
each radioactive substance disintegrates at it's own
characteristic rate
and we measure that rate in terms of
half life
the half life of a radioactive substance is
the time it takes for half of the material present
to turn into something else
the half life of
radioactive iodine is 8 days
the half life of radioactive caesium is 33 years
and children basorb and use iodine
with insufficient iodine in the diet
they get sick
but if they pick up roadioactive iodine
it disintegrates inside their bodies
giving off damaging particles
sooo
this is why iodine tablets have been issued in the
area near the nuclear plant in the south of Ukraine
if the body has loadsa normal iodine it won't pick up
radioactive iodine
the place the iodine is collected is the thyroid gland
and thyroid cancer is very treatable
so
people who were children in the area at the time
had thyroid trouble but didn't die from it
the thing with the radioactive caesium is
since it decays quite slowly is is a long term but
minor risk
since the escaped material was dispersed over
most of Europe
it simply increased the background radiation
just a tad
and almost certainly has over the years been
less od a risk than
ultraviolet UV exposure from the sun
caesium lodges in the muscles
strontium in the bones
the cancers to look for after a nuclear explosion are thus
thryroid, muscle and bone
muscle has a rapid turnover of material and
partly linked to that
muscle cancers are rare
soft tissue sarcoma
but other cancers often begin in muscle
overall
the best protection from adverse effests from
radiation exposure is
copious supplies of
non-radioactive isotopes of the elements that
may make up the released radiation
tht is
alphs beta and gamma radioation are an immediate risk
radioactive isotopes are little time bombs
hence
in the Sellafield fire
local milk production was destroyed for years


around now
the eon electricity eletricity costs - key meter
are rising to
31 pence per killowatt hour
with 16 pence for economy 7
and so for now that is
that's around 50 per cent for
open access
and a third up for time limited
seven hours over night

we blame Barry Bucknell
but we could blame Henry Ford
we are talking about the
imbalance in unemployment in the UK
the places in the Uk with high unemployment are
North East England
London
West Midlands
Yorkshire and Humber
North West
the slogan that may encapsulate this is
Homes fit for Heroes
the main thrust of government investment in the
post second world war Britain was
social housing
the warehousing of people
in other words
in planning terms
zoneing of land use
and then a little later
The Property Owning Democracy
of Margaret Thatcher
so new homes need little maintaiance
no work for odd job men
people encourage by TV - Brry Bucknell
to do thir own painting and decorating and even
knocking down walls to achieve
open plan living
and
London 4.6 per cent next highest after
North East England 5.1 per cent
is increasingly a
no-go area for industry
and the North East has concentrated a tad too much on
protecting traditional industries
but
in the rural areas South West 2.8 per cent
there are schemes along the lines of
subsidised mopeds to get teenagers to
college and to work
but East Midlandslowest 2.4 per cent
something different
High Street banks have gone from High Streets
and in 'Asian Communities'
businesses can turn to
family for finance
in a way that is not traditional in other areas

we were watching the the coverage of the
Edingurgh leg of Queen Elizabeth's last gret journey
we were a little anxious for the female police officer
who was
having a bit of a do with her horse
we don't know the real names but the stage right front
had a star
and the stage right had a blaze
we can imagine HMQ would have thought it quite a laugh if Star had bolted
probably a lack of experience of hooves on cobbles
typical police 'it'll be all right on the night'
but from the previous day
The Princess Royal
Princess Ann
curtsied as her mother's coffin passed her
at the entrance to the palace
Palace of Holywoodhouse?
and her brothers didn't bow
our Ricker has never been one to curtsey
being in origin somewhat High Church of England
in his long gone official role
he was forever...
doing
genuflect and bow
so often you go to Google and expect to find what you need
and sometimes you don't
Roman Catholics do a lot of genuflect and bow
so far as we can tell
Google not having helped much...
genuflect and bow
is a substitute for kneeling that was devised for
people who would probably never have got up again if
they had knelt
our Ricker has a theory about the curtsey
in theory
genuflect means bend the knee
geun - knee flect - bend
so stage one
for arthritis sake
bend one knee not two and bow
you may not have noticed that a couple of troopers
collected the headgear of the
bearer party at points in proceedings
men remove their hats a lot, if they have them
tipping the hat chappeau
females don't remove their hats
mainly because they are
nailed on with hat pins
so females in any sort of formal dress
cannot bow
because if they were to bow
their hat and wig would fall off
so they do the genuflect bit of
genuflect and bow
and call it a curtsey
and so far as we can tell
curtsey is to do a curtesy

and another thing
why - in Westminster Hall - did
Lords and Commons
cover their maces in the presence of the king
but in the Scotish parliament
teir mace remained exposed in his presence?
the mace is there to symbolse him
not impress him


our Ricker's off on one again
he did half a part time masters degree
in Multimedia Studies
does it show?
at
The University of Teesside
before he got chucked out
but something has sparked him off
this reference to
Realms
in King Charles's proclamations
he has just discovered that
a magazine called
Woman's Realm
1958 to merger
is on the sylabus for
A level media studies
it appears that the
metoo generation haven't done that module
it's the name rather than the contents
the contents is a 1950s version of
mumsnet
but the name refers to the idea that
if you can get some man to
put a ring on it
a young female's home will be
her oyster
in the sense that
whatever it says on the deeds or mortgage or
rental agreement
a 'family home' is the province or realm
of the housewife
it and the 1950s in the UK are redolant?
anyway it speaks to the idea encapsulated in the saying
what's yours is ours
what's mine's me own
to put it simply
in terms of meagre property
if the family own a car
it's 'our' car
if the home contains jewelery
that jewelery will belong to the
woman of the house
this is the fuss about weddings
for the female
getting married is
winning the lottery
but we are talking 1950s not 1930s
in the 50s
a housewife bought everything on
the never never
never actually make the last payment
and you
got a man in
if anything needed fixing
and hubby
did what he was told by the wife at home
and did what he was told by the foreman at work
and two things our Ricker noted about
women moving into the
graduate or clerical workplace
open plan offices sprouted
cubicles
and every woman in the office became
officer in charge of paper clips
or photocopy paper
no teamwork
a workplace divided into
Realms
I want a better car or a better house
and I'm willing to go out to work so
we can afford it
but I'm not giving up my independence
we have to admit at this point that we are
not quite sure what a
trope
is
but we are going to say a common trope is
women can't xxxx because they don't get the opportunity
or
the modern version
you've go to see it to be it
so 1952 the Uk gets a female monarch
so
women could see it
all they needed was the opportunity and
in a democracy, being the majority
they could legislate the opportunities
but
the demise of Women's Realm as a title
did that happen because
it weren't that simple?
in other words
were attitudes towards hte role of housewife
different in the 1930s and 1950s and in the 1950s the Uk had a Queen?
and will the likes of
Ukraine
think the UK a
more reliable ally
now that the UK has a King?
there is a story about a schoolboy in the 1980s
well during the Thatcher premiereship
and he is supposed to have asked
can a man be Prime Minister?
he was aking in all seriousness
and over the past 70 years
wimn have never given a thought to
is our dear queen holding back the
aspirations of our beloved sons?
the 50s and the 30s
two runs at the same scenario
a country trying to
reconstruct itself after a war
won at a heavy cost
and the 'other side' of the concept behind the title
Women's Realm
is get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans
we will deal in broad brush strokes here but
the First World War was not fought on British soil
women replaced men in the work place and were difficult to
put back in their place
in the Second World War a lot of armament was imported
building aircraft is much more skilled than
filling shell cases
even though the Bttle of Britain was
ar warefare
bombs were dropped, 'planes crashed
women and children became direct casualties if not
combatants
did the hags mags offer
we'll give you cheap 'fridges and TV and washing machines
if you'll just leave the paying jobs to the men
we can't be bothered to research the time line but
we think in the 1950s and 60s in the UK
a woman who married was expected to give up paid work
a woman, married or not who had children and
a paying job
risked having the children taken into care
this has left a legacy
women confused about whether the government
if they are mothers of young children
wants to see them in paid employment or not
if your default position is
we have mass unemployment
a line of solution is
let's scare all the mums out of the paying jobs and leave thm for the men
except that the UK does not have mass unemployment
it has labour and skills shortages
and opposition to immigration comes from people who
probably genuinely believe that
every immigrant drives an indigenous Brit out of their job
the people who are anti immigrant are not fundamentally racist
in the sense that they mix happily with foreigners
unless they are assumping they are bringing in a deadly plague
so long as they are
tourists
or
students
and thus creating jobs
not taking them

our Ricker's house was built in 1939
and the houses in his terrace now have
ground floor extensions
little ones
seven feet by eleven
mostly they will now be kitchen extensions
their original layout was
back door - solid as the front door
a covered laundry space seven feet square
with one side a wall the other an open space
and a roof
beyond the laundry space on the right
a coal house - a coal store
3 feet by four
on the left a matching building
under the same roof as the laundry and the coal store
the second outhouse contained
the water closet
the toilet for the house
houses built earlier would have had no roof over
the laundry space
and the toilet would have been genuinely an
outside toilet
this arrangement was the result of
the miasma theory
the idea that it was the smell of excrament that
communicated disease
and in 2020 we had all that stuff about
hand washing being the answer to CoViD
but what we are about here, today
is the other name for the outhouse
not the clarty
but
the privy
we looked for a list of
Privy Councilors
it begins with
alphabetically
Diane Abbott since 2017
Privy Councilors are
appointed for life
and they are styled
Rt. Hon. Diane Abbot PC
however
only ministers of the current government
participate in it's day to day business
the head of the Privy Council Office is
The Lord President of the Council
in that sense and in the context that
the Privy Council is accountable to
the UK Parliament
we may ask
in what sense was
Peter Robson
'personal solicitor' to
Kerry Packer?
two things to consider
in 1947 the Privy Council lost its
supervisory responsibilites for
the justice industry in India
some time in the latter half of the 20th century
the Uk got involved in
The European Court of Justice
but in the time that Peter Robson
and Kerry Packer were alive
and to this day
the Privy Council is
the ultimate arbiter in law in Australia
and Peter Robson was
a Privy Council Agent
a solicitor licensed to take a client's
pleadings to the Privy Council

events dear boy, events
Harold Macmillan sometime Prime Minister of the UK
pseud's corner...
a flag staff
is a pole erected expressly for the purpose of
flying a flag
a mast
a ship's mast, a radio, 'phone, Tv mast
is a pole with a day job
suitable for flying a flag from
half staff if purely decorative or for signaling purposes
half mast if
aboard ship
BUT
> as an example
HMS Calliope
is a Royal Naval Reserve Unit
and it is never
at sea
it is a shore establishment
South Shore Road Gateshead NE8 2BE
so it will fly the
Union Jack at half mast
whilst other buildings will fly
The Union Flag at Half Staff
in yer dreams

some will be wondering
but she was so sprightly just two days earlier
it's not a state secret
Queen Elizabeth almost certaily had a DNR
do not resucitate
as her own wish
in accordane with her religious beliefs
but there we have it
you see
proof positive
God is French
seriously though
Queen Elizabth had a deal with God
she was God's anointed leader of the British
but that meant two things
no abdication
no resusitation
her life was for ever in God's hands
and it God wanted Louis 14th to be the longest ever reigning Monarch
so be it
but we suspect secretly she really really wanted to stay around to
sack Johnson

perhaps we will publish the cycling pics
in batches??













































he's remembered
DC Lyndsy Forbes


we have a rather troubling idea that
The cycling Tour of Britain won't be returning to Redcar
we base that on the fact that today they went through
Ratcliff on Stour
so we gess somebody in the scheme of things wants it to be
a tour of Britain's shit heaps
and Redcar disappointed in that dimension
we ae at trawling the shallows of our Ricker's memory
he has recalled a question he asked a
Cleveland Police detective constable called Lynsey
he can' yet recall her second name
gorgeous bit of rough though
in the class of
the side kick in the
Inspector Lynley Mysteries
anyway
the question was
why has it taken Ian Swales a month to make a complaint
about these emails?
Ian Swales was MP for Redcar at the time
it's often difficult to know where to start a story like this
we could reference Call me Dave's attempts to
'satisfy Mre Bone'
Mr Bone is a Tory MP
and his wife is one of those
MP relatives on an MP's payroll
we could go on and on
but if you research Ian Swales
you should find out that he stood and never wanted to win
his wife asked how she felt about his victory said
I feel bereaved
our Ricker - as arranged by the Sam we often refer to
had a meeting with Ian Swales office manager
she was far from communicative
and Mrs Swales was perhaps three times her age
later we found Ian Swales involved in campaigning about
dementia
yesterday Ian Swales attended the Tour of Britain start
in Redcar we have this idea she was his wife
we have devloped a theory that at the time of constable Lynsey
shall we say perhaps
a demented Mrs Swales visited
Mr Swales constituency office and
despite not being an employee
began examining his correspondence
we cannot stand this up
but we can imagine that Mrs Swales set about
getting Mr Swales into trouble over his work
so that she could get him sacked as an Mp
and regain 24 7 control of his life


our Ricker is impossibly old and
things keep occuring to him
and this weather
reminds him of the old wives tale that
lightning cracks the milk
does milk curdle quicker in conditions of
atmospheric discharge?
or was it just that the sudden inclement weather
distracted the milk maids from their duties?


we are notoriously cheap
so we don't have a subscription to Eurosport
sometimes, notably not this Tuesday
Quest let us watch
Orla Chennaoui
we don't know whether she IS a granny
but we suppose more will follow..

OK fess up time
our Rcker went out to photograph
the start of the Redcar to Helmsley cycle race
and he come back wiv
nearly 200 pics
it will take TIME to process that lot

in th absence of any public reassurances from
Teesworks security who think their remit
stretches to the town
and Cleveland Police
we suggest that if you wish to avoid being acosted and filmed by
paedophile hunters
you choose to enjoy the North Yorkshire leg of
the cycling tour of Britain
you head ofr the finish in
Helmsley


we want to address a narrow issue regarding
the new Uk Prime Minster
170,000 people, members of the Conservative Paty
had a vote in the final round of the election of the
new party leader and PM
in round figures
80,000 voted Truss
60,000 voted Sunak
and that means less than half of those
with a vote voted for Truss
20,000 was the margin of victory
whatever happens from now on
analysing what has just happened
if just ove 10,000 Truss supporters had voted Sunak
Sunak could have won
the point here is not
how close was the vote/
but
how much 'tactical voting' was there
what we are gettng at is
was this a version of
Labour and Corbyn?
a little time ago some people decided to
nominate Mr Corbyn to demonstrate
how unpopular he was
the idea being he can't be humiliated if he is not on the
ballot paper
and then he went and won
but he won on the same basis as
the antarctic research vessel being
named by popular demand
Boaty McBoatface
we are asking
how many Tory party members voted Truss
to try to induce within the ranks of
Tory MPs
a serious cry of
Bring back Boris, all is forgiven
we have no doubt the number of such
tactical votes
and in a sense why was there not a
'write in' option
we understand 800 voting papers were spoiled by
being blank or writing Johnson in without authorisation
and so 10,000 voting Truss
not even in an
anybody but Rishi
but in a actual
bring back Boris sentiment
we detect no significant
anybody but Rishi sentiment
but we do suspect that
Truss will turn out to be
a far better
second best
than Corbyn

11.15 am Wednesday 7th September
ITV4
Redcar on the telly
these are the professionals
they have the technology to
blurr out the faces of any children who have
skipped school to watch the bike race
enjoy
a stage of
The Cycle Tour of Britain
to Helmsley?
will start in Redcar on
Wenesday 7th September
keep yer 'phones in yer pockets 'cos
we haven't got premission from
TeesWorks security
or Cleveland Police
or Tees Harbour Police
to take photos

we will wait to see who
Prime Minister Truss appoints to her
cabinet and other ministries
at this point we will restrict ourselves to
expressing a concern that to date
Ms Truss has appeared to regularly
fortify herself for public speaking
by recourse to alcohol


we would like tohave as simple a life as possible
so we would like to say
Ukraine - good
Russia - bad
however
we see that Ukraine has exported
half as much food this year
as in the previous year
if you can export any of it you can export all of it
Russia is trying - not all that sucessfully - to inflate the price of gas
Ukraine is having more success in
inflating the cost of food
always, tomorrow is another day, but
over the past weekend
Russia shut down Nordstream 1 gas pipeline
in an attenpt to raise the world price of gas the price of North Sea Gas Futures rose by
9.97 per cent
there is a problem
we don't know what sort of a winter 2022-23 will be
we do not expect energy demand will be
much more than in recent previous winters
but nobody knows
in that sense
knowing overall demand
and knowing storage capacity
at present Europe's gas storage capacity is over 80 per cent full
in their very nature
futures
refer to buying something - in this case gas
for delivery at a future date
you have three rates at which you want to take delivery of gas
the rate you will use it in the summer
the rate you will use it in the winter
the rate at which you will take it into storage
if you buy it for delivery at a time of year when you won't be using it
you have to store it or sell it
if the winter is mild
supply may meet demand
and storage will remain full and
any futures you have bought for
say - January delivery
maybe
you can't use and you can't store because your storage facilities
are full
and you will have to try to
sell it
or just flare it off
th great thing for participating countries
UK and Norway in particular is
a lorra lorra gas is efectively
in storage
under the North Sea
and so for those countries
a sudden demand due to a fierce winter
is only threatened by
the rate at which you can get it out of the ground
to an extent
it's not loke coal where you can
put on extra shift and install extra conveyer belts
and increase production
if you want a faster rate of production
you need to drill more wells
and they stay
they can't be laid off like extra workers
or moved like extra conveyer belts and trains
however, in the UK energy policy has never been based on
make hay while the sun shines
the bandwidth - production capacity
has always been geared to
production capacity matching peak demand
and peak demand has fallen
Uk natural gas consumption per year in
billion cubic metres
just the highlights
2009 91.2
2010 98.5
2011 81.9
2012 76.3
2015 72
2016 80.7
2017 78.6
2020 73
2021 76.9
the numbers fluctuate but the trend is down
2004 was the recent high 102
in 2 decades demand has fallen by a quarter
and a bit of that will be global warming
but most of it will be
insulation
the most severe winter in the UK in the 21st century was
20010-11
so IF
and it's a BIG IF
winter 2022-23 were as bad as we've known
subtract 2009 usage from 2010 usage - 7.3
add 7.3 to 2021 7.3 plus 76.9 = 86.2
and if we were able to extract
102 in 2004
we should have no trouble extracting 86.2 in 2023
so we should not have a gas SUPPLY problem
some of the wells in use in 2004 may by now have emptied
but we assume theose that have, have been replaced

we note that somebody has been arrested in Liverpool
something to do with the death of a female called Olivia
a suggestion of murder
from what we have herd
as observers of the parallel universe that is Liverpool
we would have thought
in the absense of any evidence of
photography or touhing up
a charge of
causing death by careless diving
would be more appropriate
recently there was a case where a squaddie
shot and killed an firing range instrutor
and it was put down to
not hving the correct specs on
this is the second occasion
a year ago in Portsmouth?
where a casual destruction of a nearby child
on the lines of an incident in
Killing Eve
involving setting a bomb and tipping
an ice cream into the lap of a little girl on the way out
a second occasion where
peope are going about their
unlawful but police sanctioned business
and somebody suffers for getting in the way
was this a bungled police sponsored hit?
if a arrest had been much longer delayed
we would have begun to suspect as much


some people may be wondering
if there is
Global Warming
why is it that it is only now that the UK weather is
recovering to the standards of
the 1970s?
there is an explanation
in the 1970s the Uk was transitioning from
coal to natural gas
coal generates fumes and smoke
gas just genertes fumes
right from the start of
industrialisaton
the Uk had been wreathed in
smog
an combination of smoke and fog
the whole drive of the
Clean Air Acts
was to let the sunshine in
suddenly
heat and light from the sun could reach the Earth's surface
and was not confined to the atmosphere
through the 80s and beyond
insulation was invented
so we had a period in the 70s when the weather was
heated by the sun and heated by
heat loss from buildings
from the 80s onwards
heating from buildings decreased
and so it was not until the 2020s that
heat retention caused by the deepening carbon dioxide blanket
got the planet back to where it was in the 1970s
with the new dual fuel
sun and gas

the final lesson on
nuclear power plants
the essential differene betweenBR> fuel rods
and
moderator rods
the classic analogy is
mouse traps
standard spring loaded bar mouse traps
if you throw a ping pong ball at a
mouse trap that has been 'set'
set the traps
there is a good chance it will snap closed
and perhaps jumps about a bit and set off others
and that will give you a
chain reaction and all the traps in the vicinity will
go off
after that you will have a rod of
spent fuel
on the other hand
there is no spring in a
moderator or control rod
no hair trigger, no spring
hit either a spent fuel rod or a moderator rod with
a snooker shot and
a mild short lived disturbance will result
but with the spent fuel rods
they are only spent to the extent that
it is no longer worthwhile to keep them in the reactor
some of the traps will remain set
and so they need to be stored in cooling ponds for quite a long time
over the years national governments have decided that
perhaps for foreign exchange - money - reasons
perhaps for national pride reasons
they would not send their spent fuel to
Selafield for reprocessing
but would keep increasing amounts of spent fuel
in the roof spaces of their reactor buildings
and then
jarbs for local people
leave congenital idiots in charge

there is a narrow path the tread between
frightening people about nuclear safety
and
making nuclear terrorist sound plausible
possible
tto try to explain nuclear fission in
terms familiar to politicians...
fuel atoms split and release some of their mass as
energy
e equals m c squared
given amount of mass is
converted into an amount of energy that is the amount of mass times the
speed of light time the speed of light
in other words
a very little amount of mass is converted into
a lorra lorra energy
hence
caboom, potentially
if things are not under control
and if you have studied these things you may have
heard of control rods
here's the
politican speak
becuase the rods do something similar to
spontaneous combustion
the thing is to make the decision to start splitting
they have to be
quorate
there ahve to be enough of them together
in a lump
to get the party started
and the control rods
send them to their rooms
party poopers
so to shut down a nuclear reactor
you just
drop the control rods into the core
simples
without cooling
the nucler reaction will still stop
but the core may overheat
hence
metldown
but the control rods is
carbon
carbon don't melt
and carbon don't burn in the absence of oxygen
we'd just like to extend
nuclear power 101
a little
imagine a snooker table but with balls of different sizes
not different colours
and the white ball is very very small
so we suggest that you set up the table for a game
and before anybody can break off
the players are called to dinner
and they leave the table set up
and they don't come back until the next weekend
or next holiday
what with the window being open?
and the cat being on the prowl
the balls won't be where you left them a week ago
that is
background radiation or natural decay
and if you reset or play as is
you fire the white ball into the pack
and balls break all over the place
and then imagine there are a whole load of tables
set up without cushions
in an array like one of those
trampoline centres
and balls can get from one table to another
if the tables are small enough and the balls are big enough
break off on one table
and all hell will break out across the hall
that s the pile going critical
and so the control rods are
cushions around each table that can be raised and lowered
to connect and isolate individual tables at will
just to add
nuclear reactors are designed to
raise steam
to drve turbines to turn generators
at high pressure water boild at a temperture
well above 100C
shut it down and it will not have to cool from
thousands of degrees as in agas or coal fired furnace
but form a few hundred degrees
a particular fuel burns at a specific temperature
we vary the heat output of a burner by
varying the size of the flame
not the temperature of the flame


we may have an answer
you'd have to be very very old to recognise the
description
the TocH car park
soo
the cricket ground car park on Kirkleatham Street
there is a Network Rail
van access from that car park
if Network Rail intend platform 2a or 3
they will have to dig up the hard standing and rmps
they use to get road vehicles trackside
so the new hardstanding
at the end of the southside car park
will replace it
we think







we have 5 pictures here
two of jellyfish on Redcar sands
and three of the platforms at
Redcar Central
two issues
what is that new hard standing
the yellow is reclaimed concrete beams
and why have half of the pictires of
local natables
been taken down?
Miller Daughters, Vera Robinson
Lynda Green
still up


our Ricker does thinking
sometimes he has a thought that he has to
abandon
with this being Bill Turnbull prostate cancer day
a thought about prostate cancer
we had this thought
The Republic of Ireland
has very hard - highly mineralised - water
the rate of prostate cancer in RoI is
1 in 7
in the UK it is 1 in 8
Ph.D. thesis
correlation between living in a hard watwr area
and chances of getting prostate cancer...
calcium plaques in breast result in breast cancer
sma thing in prostate
corelation between living in a hard water area and getting
breast cancer...
soft water in Northumbria Water Area and
lowest rate of prostate cancer in the UK


SKILL SHORTAGE
Mcdonalds are now employing truckies who
can't reverse their trucks
so your burger has to be
portered across the car park
instead of delivered direct to the cold store
you know those car driving licences perhaps large vehicle licences should be
forward motion only
and send out a wrecker if a truck getsnto a one way street


Polyphosphate type chemicals react with
soluble metals
iron, manganease, calcium, magnesium
by sequestering (bind-up)
the metals to maintaine their
solubility in water
we suggest
Reckitt
should have warned
Northumbrian Water
that they were going to launch a
Calgon marketing blitz
forewarned
NWL
could have simply and cheaply dosed their sewage
with limestone or chalk
we assume they are now dong that
and stcoks will recover

there is - we suppose - in the form of
Tim Dunn and Siddy Holloway
Icelandic Holloway as 'stage name'
such a thing as
train railway architecture spotter
and Tim IS gay,br> soo
up of the up line platform at Redcar Central
Network Rail
seem to have constructed a
platform or foundation that
MAY
be intended for
electrification works...
time will tell

sometimes you just have to go with the flow
selling water softner to people
up North
in the UK
is like selling sanitary products to
MEN
you make 'em
you wanna sell 'em
half your potential market isn't listening
anybody in business who is told
give the marketing department a few million quid
and we'll double your turnover in a matter of weeks
is gonna OK the budget
it's a bit too late for this year but
wind back to the heatwave
windows in 40 degrees
the glass would be way hotter than that in the sun
wash the windows
don't squeegee the water off
if you get streaks you live in
South East England and you have hard water
no streaks you live up north
on granite or clay
and you have soft water
Calgon stands for
Calium gone
if you don't have calcium in your tap water
you don't need Calgon
sooo
marketing people say
it's a wase of water to rinse your crockery before you
put it in the dishwasher
so people put plates caked in potato in the dishwasher
and instead of clogging up with calcium
the dishwasher clogs up with spud
dishwaher clogged with spud?
you need Calgon
don't say ham say Wham
to dig
say sausages
Walls
we don't have a solution for people who can't figure out to
scrape their 'dirty' dishes into the food waste bin
and consequently load up their dishwasher with pasta
but we do have a solution for people who
wanna see a box of Calgon in their weekly shop
up North the water is soft
soft water does not 'use up' Calgon
so
dose the sewage with with
crushed limestone
as it enters the sewage works
and that will soak up the
Housewife's Choice sodium polyphosphate
or sodium citrate
in the sewage
and more of the polyphosphate will end up
in the sludge that gets used as fertilizer
and 'free' calcium - calcium not bound to phosphate
levels will rise in the local rivers and
inshore waters
and the local shellfish will get
nice hard exoskeletons
and be able to
get a grip on the rocks
and stay put and alive in a storm

oad A we have a couple of notes to add
one of the strange things we have heard recently is
'beause the price of natural gashas gone up so much'
'we may have to
switch from bio-maas to coal'
we simply can'y get our heards around that one
btu the issue here is that one of the major
steam turbine electricity generators in the UK
has switched from coal to bio-mass - wood chippings
we assume they mean
a lot of wood chippings come from Russia and so
that source may have ended
lots of other places with trees
USA Canada etc
but we do need to point out that
bio-mass is a base load source for electricity generation
what we want to point out about gas is
1993 a power station locally known as
Enron
started up
this was regarded as a natural gas fired power station
methane
it was at the south end of Wilton International
in Redcar
for those who dove past...
it was the plant with the short chimnies that were
clustered in sets of four
best seen from Greystone Road A 1053
not The Trunk Road
it gorn now
it did run on natural gas but it was also capable of running on
naphtha and propane
in other words waste material from other ex-ICI plant on Wilton
and referencing
carbon capture and storage
that material was described as being stored in
'caverns'
probably in Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees
nameplate capacity - bandwidth - 1875 mega watts
in a sense
it was from the era when gas powered electricity generation was
seen as
base load alongside coal and nuclear
gas is now for peak demand top up
in other words
'Enron' was sold to the local poulation as a
natural gas power generator but was in fact an
incinerator for
oil and gas condensate
stuff from crude oil you wouldn't want to
put in the fuel tank of your car
in a similar way
the power station - chimney still standing
that powered Redcar steel works
was fuelled by waste from Redcar coke works next door
Enron is typical of those companies tht think
the fact that they deal in filth
is a licence to
fiddle their accounts
exit Enron and accountants Arthur Anderson,br.
this is set to be a major explainer
we will set out to explain the energy system in the UK
but we will start with the railways
you may have seen
infotainment shows
shows with little plot but
seeking to entertain whilst infroming
informative entertainment
about
Heritage Railways
and you may have seen
particularly in respect of railways where
more than one train is travelling in more than one direction on
a single track
the signalers and drivers
exchanging
tokens
if the driver has a particular token they are entitled to
be on a particular length of track
to avoid collisions
that length of track is referred to as a
block
you have a token that entitles you to operate on a particular block
there is only one token for each block
this is called the static block system
it is designed to be a foolproof mechanism to avoid collisions
in respect of the central section of the
Victoria Line
the equivalent system is a
moving block
that is
a kind of concept of
each train or single vehicle having what
social scientists may refer to as an
individual distance
the train does not have exclusive rights to be on
a particular setion of track or block
it has permission to move if it is
no nearer than a set distance from the next nearest vehicle
this remains safe but spaces the trains out more efficently
allowing for more intensive track usage
this is possible due to electronics taking over from
cast iron tokens
when the Thatcher government deided to
Privatise the railways
they thought
let's run the railways like the roads
cars and trucks - their drivers - are expected to stay
a distance back from the vehicle in front
that means that in an emergency
they can stop without collision
their gapping should be greater than their stopping distance
this assumed tha 'drivers' of trains
actually drive the trains
as we have said
they don't
they don't steer and they don't judge stopping distances
they obey signals
swapping from track to track
setting speed
all done by signallers
back in the day
when you had a telephone
the only place you could ring was
your local teclephone exchange
where like ringing 999 911 today
a hello girl would ask you what number you wanted to
be connected to
and she would physically plug you into the
appropriate circuit
these days this is all done automatically through a system
sometimes known as
packet switching
whereby
everybody uses the same connetion but
for tiny tiny periods of time in a
taking turns
arrangement that the user should
not be aware of
none of these facilites are available in the supply of
electricity and gas
the electricity of gas put into the system
and taken out of the system is
metered
at entry and exit
but is not tracked through the supply network
although that agregate will be tracked
for purposes of charging transic fees
in other words your gas and electric will pass through several meters
on its way to you but those bulk readings are never
directly associated with your bill
they are associated with your supplier's bill
even when your local council rqn your local gas works
the council bought supplies from commercial suppliers
coal, oil, spare parts, horses, whatever
you cannot entirely 'nationalise' any organisation
there has to be
accounting
even in a command economy
we have said before
energy markets have changed
demand has smoothed out
back in the day when homes had no insulation
in winter a family would arrive home to a stone cold house
late afternoon
and all across the land
everybody would
if they had switched from coal to gas and electric
set out EVERY DAY at exactly the same time
switch on the heating and the kettle and the oven
PEAK Demand
wasa major challenge for energy supply networks
and because of the network
many suppliers and many customers
not like Ford with on site power stations...
the responsibility for
managing demand
fell to the networks
the National Grid
all sorts of complications such as the
Green Levies and fossil fuel subsidies confuse the issue but
essentially
coal fired and nuclear power stations
have to run steadily
they cannot quickly vary their rate of output
they provide
base load
they have to provide power at a rate that will
remain constant
almost regardless of fluctuations in demand
like you see people have to
fire up a steam loco hours before it enters service
then you have renewables
and just like the thermostat on you gas boiler
gas fired - and to some extent oil fired - power stations
can be brought in and switched out
at the flick of a switch
and that is done by
National Grid
so
Natinal Grid KNOW
at half time in the FA Cup Final
millions of people will nip into the kitchen and
get a brew on
and so they prepare to fire up
gas powered generating stations
and shut them back down again half and hour later
they are
stand-by generators
smoothing out fluctuations in demand
and so the the issue of the week
the link between
the proce of electricity generated from gas
and the price national Grid pay for all electricity
you take these half hour blocks and you ask
within a half hour block
what is the highest unit price we are paying?
if, as at present, the most expensive electricity is
electricity generated by burning gas
then in
fairness to the other suppliers
WITHIN THAT HALF HOUR BLOCK
you pay ALL your suppliers the price you are paying
for gas based electricity
as soon as the paek is passed and the gas fired
power station are stood down
some other source will become the most
expensive source
and its price will set the price for all providers
in that next half hour period
which is why
suppliers can afford to charge
12p a unit for leccy that is only available on
economy 7
but have to charge 21p a unit for
electricity on demand
sooo
part of the reason for gas generted eletricity
driving up the cost of electricity is
the market price of gas
and part is the compensation gas fired stations need for
spending so much time
stood down, idle
and the more we insulate etc.
reduce demand
the more time gas fired stations spend idle


now we will mostly be doing
the PC Plod Sam
the inspector buttonholes PC Jones
says,
i've been looking at your record
it's a long long time sine you
arrested anybody
go out and arrest somebody
or I'll send you back to basic traing for a refresher
next shift PC Jones brings a prisoner to the nick
desk officer asks
what's the charge? what did he set fire to
nothing
he was just
arsin' up and down the High Street
if single use females
press politicians for more
convictions
and not less crime
politicians set TARGETS that are
fulfilled by picking the
lowest hanging fruit
and laws intended to tackle serious crime
are diverted into
exploiting trivialities
to fulfill the quota
not to keep the peace

everybody wants to
comp;ete the set
and have a black female POTUS
and Camella Harris was the great hope
but it turns out she steadfastly refuses to
read briefing documents
The white faced Camela Harris
however
we was thinking about
Redcar MP Jacob Young
the idea was
we can't afford to do anything about
storm water discharges
because
it would mean digging up all the roads to
install separate
sewage and storm water drains
there is a concept here that could be regardd as
the reverse of
mis en place
the idea that
work in a commercial kitchen is
not restricted to the time of
service
sewage works need their work flow
smoothed out
and you most easily do this by
installing
storm water storage tanks
and
taking Lilly Park
as inspiration
a modest proposal
all across the populated areas of the land
install storm water storage tanks under
every outdoor sports facility
we will add
not lot of people know this
but
there is a sewage works
under the car park
at Sacred Heart School
on Mersey Road, Redcar
not so much as sewage works as
an Olympic swimming pool sized
septic tank
it's nee bother
they come around during the summer holidays
and pump it out
and the sediment?
goes to Bran Sands sewage dewatering facility

we gonna get technical here
we start with the Sam
woman on train says to maturbating woman sitting opposite
You scum
a'hs come twice missus
in law here's the thing
women can go about with a
ouple of golf balls or equivalent
stuffed up their chuff
and by a certain amount of squirming
gain sexual satisfaction or relief
fully clothed, hands free
so gaining a convction for
outraging public decency
difficult
we take statute law - passed by parliament
common law, etc
when deciding whether something is legal or illegal
if you are a run of the mill bobby of female constuction
you may think that the law on opd
means that if less than two members of the public can
SEE what you are doing -
no opd conviction
the snag is
the concept of force majeure
the thing like act of God that insurance companies use to
avoid payouts
desperately needing a piss is a medical emergency
and regardng opdecency
any bench or jury can make their own decision but with a
decent union lawyer
they would be firmly told that for opd
the urination has to be
direspectful
opd is - in urinating terms - for
pssing on graves and war memorials
in other words needlessly upsetting people
rather than gaining essential relief
in either case
pissing inside a shop when not locked in
isn't opd, it's a public health offence
technology moves on
few people in the UK can have escaped the
adds for incontenence pads
as contactless payment proliferates...
incontenance pad dispensers on
the inside and outside walls of
pubs and clubs...
no brainer
and hitchng up yer skirt to fit one
it's very hard to to see that as
on a par with descrating a war memorial

we find it highly amusing that anybody should suggest that
significant quantities of
storm water
should be entering the sea off Redcar
we can offer the three least impressive
visual attractions in Redcar
three storm water tanks located
alongside Drive Vauxhall on Trunk Road
the south West corner of the Cleveland College site
on Corporation Road
and behind the houses at the Mersey Road end of
Thames Road on Flemngs' Field
they are on the scale of one of those
access shafts for the new Thames Diversion Sewer in London
but they are
UNDERGOUND
when we say these tanks are BIG...
when the building works at Cleeland College began
engineers had to do an inspection of the
storm water tank
to check the new build wouldn't fall in
it's not a case of
lift the lid and shine a torch
every time they inspect a tank they ahve to
hire in a mobile crane and hang a cage off it
and lower the engineers down the shaft
by contrast
the tank under Lilley Park on the Coast Road
is only 2 or 3 metres deep
but it is under the entire west half of the park
and then there's Marske Sewage Works on Green Lane
of all the bars...
of all the places that
sewage could get into the sea...
the only sewage getting into the sea off Redcar is
cow shit


we suggest a search for
bfi year sex olympics
the FBI is the British Film Institute
The Year of the Sex Olympics is a 1960s BBC drama
available on DVD
it is strange how the BBC has changed
there are five ideas suggested as the
point of the play
one thing pointe out is that in the US Navy
men are declining shore leave
and opting for a pot of lube and a laptop
the idea is
if people watch quality sex on the internet
they get satifaction without
1 getting nicked for some perhaps age related technicality
2 catching some nasty ttle disease
if the people who commissioned
Year of the Sex Olympics
were in charge today
would it be the BBC that produced
Naked Attraction?
we have this apparently alien opinion that
police officers sjould set a good example
our Ricker can't imagine consenting to share his home
with anybody who isn't female
and hasn't first demonstrated
how they take a piss
if a female is taken short whilst
on the RAS it s her
Civic Duty
to tand over the gutter in the road outside
and give the world a demonstration of
how she takes a piss
she absolutely should not
go nto a shop and make a smelly little puddle
on the floor of the
fitting romm of a shop
think of the devastating efect on
sales of sanitary pads
of providing
public toilets
do the French call them
pissoires?
bring back
telephone kiosks and
fit drains in the floors
give the night time economy some
colour

we think there may have been a bit of a
miscalcualtion
high reach looking like a Viagra advert to the right

there's a bit of a mismatch here
the cherry picker looks like a
JLG 1850SJ
and that gives access to 185 feet
not a match for the Liebherr's 240 feet
there is a uMag 100MWT that will offer access to 100 metres...
what should we say?
Good Enough for Government Work
from the sublime to the ridiculous....
first the high reach does have a cab
it's one of those that swivels out of sight when
not in use
a 240 foot high reach with a shear on the end
good
but apparently
the shear don't work
so back stree bodgerama
attach a chain to the shear
go up the outside of the furnace in a cherry picker
slam some eye bolts into the steel
take the chain up the furnace
attach the chain to the eye bolts
chain connects furnce steel to shear
we lost patience at this point but we assume the plan is
go up in the cherry picker and cut
the bit of steel with the eye bolts in it
from the furnace with a
gas axe
and when it's free
well the high reach isn't a crane
so to get the scrap to the ground we assume
they have to retract the boom??
sublime to the ridiculous?
Erith Group are giving a master class in demolition
at the coke works
and Thompsons of Prudhoe have hired a bunch of clowns as subs
next door
if it was us we wouldn't be wrecking this furnace
only around 10 years old
BUT
if we had to
we would fix the sear on the high reach
to hell with eye bolts and rivnuts
get a proper grip
we refer to this from time to time
there is a classic US TV series from way back
Luciele Ball
I love Lucy
ran from 1951 to 1957
probably later in the UK
naive and ambitious but lacking in skills
180 episodes
the episode we refer to from time to time relates to
1951 remember
Lucy buying her first 'fridge
and she wants to be sure the
light goes off when she closes the door
railways employ a lot of people
in several groups
engineers design build and maintain and upgrade equipment
front of house sell tickets and provide informton
three groups run trains
signalers, drivers, conductors
having opened in May 2022 we reckon
The Elzabeth Line
100 km across London in three sections
east and west above ground and central underground
the three sections wee not integrated in May 2022
BUT
because a number of the stations in the central section
have platform doors
that is BOTH the trains and the platforms have doors that have to line up
for passengers to enter and leave
although the driver can set off from these stations
they cannot control the arrival of trains at stations
essentially
in the central section
the trains are computer controlled
and the computers are supervised by
signallers not the drivers
this has happened and run safely for 3 months to date
generally
train companies wanted to introduce
Automatic Train Control
as soon as computers were capable
but at the time
ASLEF was sufficiently powerful to insist on
ATPC automatic train protection and control
in essence
the trains drive themselves under the supervision of
signalers
but the 'driver' has to
press a pedal or lever every few seconds to
indicate that they are still alive
a driver would need sanction from a signaler
via radio
to over-ride the system to
make a train move if it had decided to stop
or to exceed a speed limit
or proceed beyond a signal set at danger
the driver
rides the train to re-assure the passengers that
there is
wetware in the system
and so far as we know the only
driverless trains in the UK are
airport shuttles and similar
but it is now comng to the old
airline pilot joke
why is there a dog in the cockpit?
it's there to bite the pilot if she touches the controls
and we have seen examples where it is suspected that
mid-flight
a pilot or co-pilot has deliberately
flown an airliner into the ocean
as a form of? suicide?
you can't commit suicide by crashing a train from within
a signal box

just a couple of clarifications
72 metres is
240 feet
the reach of the Liebherr
and the company have used it to bring down
gas holders
and there are a couple on the coke ovens site...
and of course this brings us to the two sad fatalites
when similar work was happening at
South Bank coke ovens
and
Able Uk took the cheapest quote or bid
half the going rate
and the crew were up in a cherry picker
and got deaded
sometimes
there is a feeling that
people who should be in a
home for the feeble minded
are dragooned into
jarbs
to this day
people are falling to their deaths off cranes in the likes of
Scunthorpe Steel Works
and only Able could wreck Redcar's extremely good safety record
the proper kit is out there
but it costs
we would suggest that decarbonisation of the UK energy sector will
cost a dozen or so lives
due to cost cutting in the demolition industry
operating a cherry picker and a gas axe
in a manner likeley to leade to your sudden death
is within the scope of
the brain dead
and these the ones we want the jarbs fa

it has been observed that Middlesbrough Council is
behaving like
empty nester parents
since
Redcar Cleveland Stockton and Hartlepool
left Middlesbrough when
Cleveland County
broke up
the council has steadily built
MORE council office space
Gurney Street or House has been derelict for decades
now they have moved into the utterly pointless new
office block built beyond the duck pond
Fountain Court
and another huge chunk of Cleveland County Council office space
between
Middlesbrough Town Hall and Teesside Crown Court
will be vacant
we see this all around
massive extension on the side of a semi
to try to encourage the teenagers to
stay home
and then off they flit to
Manchester or London
then
how long do we hang on
until we finally accept
the need to downsize?
how much more derelict office space in
Central Middlesbrough
will we see before
Middlesbrough Council decides to
cut their coat according to their
body
not their
central government hand out
cloth?



ASLEF
Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen
you gotta laugh
at best
these are a bunch of bus drivers
or course some of them will be driving freight
and thus be in charge of locomotives...
NONE of them has ever in their lives
shevelled so much as a teaspoonful of coal
we wonder whether volunteer footplate staff on
conservation railways
are admitted to membership
people who are actual engineers and firetenders
it rather reminds one of the young lad with
wrote to the local
'cycling club'
3nquiring about membership
only to find that it was a
CIU Club and Institute Union
working men's club and not a single
bike amongst the entire membership
you just laugh
but the comductors aren't laughing
they run the trains for half the pay
whilst the 'drivers' sit a stare out of the window
for half their shift
and spend the rest of their shift in the canteen
calling themselves ASLEF
is world class brass neck
engineers? they couldn't swap a light bulb
not like in the old days
uncle John driving Mallard
THAT was work
work that ended in stomach cancer
as a result of contct with the coal

Dem-Master Demolition
is a demolition company based in Scotland
Bathgate
the Glasgow side of Edinburgh
thye don't seem very experienced but they do have
a special bit of kit
for some reason...
their High Reach
completely dwarfs the jobs they have done to date
like it's twice the height of a
ten storey block of flats...
it's just the job for bringing down the
superstructure of the Redcar blast furnace
it is very big
and it don't seen to have a cab
but the crew do have
deck chairs
this leaves us thinking it is
remote controlled
it is atually a
Liebherr R984C Ultra High Reach
Dem-Masters have had it on long term lease
which means Thompsons the main contractor
have had to wait their turn to sub it
it can reach 72 metres
10th August 2022 it is thought to have arrived in Redcar

this is a pond that has finally dried up











this is the high reach
t reaches around four times its folded length








we have a little message from the
canine contingent
from Redcar
they - the dogs - say
that Wednesday evening there were
two or three explosions in Redcar
and we suspect that
they were designed to weaken the
sinter plant shed
so that it would collape on shedule
at a ceremony on Thursday
after moths of stripping out
the shed is now gone
and the chimney and the filter box
are all that are remaining
we have pics but pics of an empty space are not
rivetting...
and
we didn't quite catch a pic of the
High Reach
pulling down the pipework from the big blast
but we have to tell you
across the piece
the blast furnace will be pulled down
not blown up

we want to clarify our rather short note on
Pope Paul VI 6th
we won't say he was copying Queen Elizabeth
but just as she travelled widely across
The Commonwealth at the time of pontificate
he travelled widely around the world to visit
Roman Catholic communites
and so, what we need to say is
this pope majored on good relations with
other religions and enclaves of Roman Catholicism worlwide
and so
his contrived encyclical on contraception was
skewed towards
harmony within the church
carrying with him less developed cultures
rather than being directly
anti-science
in no way was he a demented old goat
communing with God in an ivory tower
with a towel over his head
out of compromise comes
well, nonsense



thie to allow our Ricker to
have a moment
and all this science I don't understand
it's just my job five days a week
rocket man
when you ask the time
I tell you, if I know
you don't come back and ask
how does that watch work?
another
Newton moment
WHY ask a vet about ecology?
they should stick to winning 1,500 metre gold medals


akgae are a group of mainly aquatic - living in water
organisms that have a gene containing nucleus
and the ability to use sunlight and carbon dioxide to
make compex compounds such as sugars
blue-green algae are not algae
they are cyanobacteria
overall they are responding to two things
fertilizer run off - eutrophic conditions
and so they will bloom
and sometimes they get to be such a thick mat that the
parts in the middle die and rot
and the by-products of tht rotting
can be toxic
the salty sea
the oceans have lots of minerals - fertilizer
but without cyanobacteria and similar
there would be no
bottom rung to the marine food chain
so anywhere that's watery
you will probably be able to detect
cyanobacteria or blue-green algae
essentially, the open ocean
photosynthesises by hosting
blue-green algae
so
not an all around bad thing
just sometimes a bit of a problem
genuine blanket weed is
spyrogyra
but blue-green algal blooms as a sort of
finer textured version of blanket weed
when they are massed
you may be confused by reading quotes such as
blue-green algae build up in blankets
on beaches and shore-lines
wrong sort of beach
blue-green algae do not form blankets if
subject to
wave action
waves such as on a seaside beach
especially one with rocks
will disperse cyanobacteria
and they won't throttle themselves
and die from being composted alive
where a lake discharges onto a marine beach
blue-green alga derived toxins may be in the run off water
draining directly from a stagnant pond or lake
onto a beach

we have a sort of bucket list
this is a list of topics we would like to get around to
if time permits
this being the major silly season
'the grid' seems to be suspended and so
not so much bollocks coming from Number 10
Humanae vitae
of Human Life
wwritten by Pope Paul VI 6th
dated 25 July 1968
it clarifies that
The Pill
is an artificial means of contraception
it contradict the findings of
the Pontifical COmmission on Birth Control
established by the immediately previous Pope
John XXIII 23
it's one of those cases where a committe makes
recommendations and an individual overturns the result
in this case we ask
why was Paul VI chosen?
perhaps he was chosen because the larger committee
the conclave
disagreed with the commission
and so
the Rhythm Method
also called the calendar method
a form of natural family planning
to do this you track your menstrual hstory
to predicte when you will ovlate
this helps you determine when you are most likely to conceive
many women may at lest sometimes have
irregular periods
and those made these calculations doubtful
the encyclical states The Pill is un-natural
we are not sure what The Church's view on
pullng out is
is it natural for the man as in most videos
to pull out as he reaches climax and
give the woman a cum facial?
natural family planning is
examining the mucus in yer chuff and tracking your
temperature
better than the clendar method
the moral question here is
if you ovulate and don't have sex...
you are denying your egg the opportunty to
get fertilised and become a person
that seems very little different from using a
barrier method - condom or female equivalent
in a sense
NFP is conniving at denying your egg a chance at life
whereas other methods are up front and straight
if, whenever sex occurs within a relationship
it happens when the female least fancies it
that won't do much for bonding
the suggestion therefore is
that your typical US Roman catholic women will only have
truly satisfying sex
on two occasions in her life
when she concieves her two children
or at least - or is that most
for two short periods in her marriage when she is
'trying for a baby'
the major side issue from this is this matter of
when the calendar method goes wrong and a woman
THINKS she is infertile but still has an egg
up the barrel
that degraded egg may go wrong in many ways
including may develop into somebody
due to prolonged exposure to female hormones
turn out gay
there have always been gay men
but are there more these days
due to the calendar method?
beause of the secrecy it may not be possible to get
reliable data on
have there been more gay male births
since 1968?
because the encyclical does seem to
by the bye outlaw condoms
undenyably artificial



we don't want to be seen as critcal of
Olivia Neutro-Bomb
but there is a genre of scientific research
that appears to seek to discover
what the patient has done to
annoy God
the main themes are
the wrong kind of food
and
the wrong kind of sex
the problem with this sort of research is
so often the researchers light on something that
at any one time billions of people are doing
without ill effects
in other words some reseach builds
food fads
at a deeper level
research effort would be better concentrated on
HOW a geuinely harmful food or activity does harm
but overall the major evil is to think that
medicine - fact based medicine
and objective, scientific, medical research
thwart or interfeer with
God's Justice
and that
Paliative Care is the only justifiable course of action


we have to ask...
has anybody done a trial of
acyclovir Zovirax
in MND motor neurone disease?
so many viruses
common ones are
neurotropic
they grow in nerves
it is all too easy to test a
blood sample
and conclude the virus is not present

a couple of things about the Farne Islands
and sea birds
the evolution of animal behaviour is
suck it and see
that is better than
survival of the fittest
what it means is
a reasonably sized group of a species
when faced with a new challenge or problem
will react in random ways
take twenty thousand kitty wakes
over time
the ones who poo all over their nesting rocks
because by doing so they are
whitewashing their otherwise dark grey rock sites
will reflect extess insolation
and if the weather is suddenly very wet
a lot more than usual of the whitwash will be
washed away
on an entirely different tack
if you nest on rock ledges tht are twenty metres above sea level
they are right up there in the sun
if you want to nest but all the tall cliffs are taken by the elders
you will try your luck on the
outer Farnes
that are more low level
your nest is more at risk of being swept away in a storm
but the rocks you are sitting on will be
sea swept
with relatively chilly sea water
and if you time your nestting season to just after the
equinoctial storms in April
you may not get blown away - your eggs and chicks that is
but the wave action nearby may keep you cool
somoving the the outer Franes may have had nothing to do with
visitor numbers during CoViD
that never made much sense anyway
just sayin'

stating the bleedin' obvious
have we said this before?
ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL
if you hve patient with symptoms of
MND motor neurone disease
do nothing until you have checked or corected
have they had a shingles vaccination?
it's pointless trying anything else before you've
given that a go

life can be frustrating
for now we are going to repeat that oft used mantra
give me the child for the first four years and I will give you the man
and in respect of the concept of
stranger danger
if you want to brainwash little kiddies
you won't want them to get access to two sides of an arguement
it is stunning how much effort the Roman Catholic Church
has put into converting
leaders of the Tory party
Ian and Duncan SMith
Boris Johnson
to Roman Catholicism
keeping the children of religious cults isolated so that
they thik only one way is a problem
suggesting that they are in mortal danger if they
stray off the reservation
is evil

presure of time may have left a confused impression of
secondary schools in Redcar
apart from Sacred Heart
there are two or three other secondary schools in the town
depending on your definition of Redcar
and your definition of secondary school
in other words we are not including
The Mo Mowlam Academy
and there is a big secondary in Marske
for teenagers living in central Redcar there is
Ryhills
and the Redcar version of Outwood Academy
OUtwood Academy Redcar is housed in the refurbished
Coatham West County Modern School building
it has a capacity of 862 mixed gender pupils 11 to 16
it has 560 on roll
it has a 'fresh start status' as of 2017
275 - 50 per cent - of it's pupls qualify for
free shool meals
possibly due to the proximity of the
Mo Mowlam Academy the Outwood has no
Special Educational Needs provision recorded??
Rye Hills is located in a modern building
around 30 years old??
it has 929 11 - 16 pupls
34 per cent achieve 'proper' GCSEs
5 or more at the good to excellent grades
34 % 5 or higher
56 % 4 or higher
don't ask
32 per cent are eligible for free school meals
we'll put up the list for what it's worth
Sacred Heart 39 %
Rye Hills 34 %
St Peter's 33%
that's RC in Eston
well actually open to all comers but RC based
Hillview formerly Gillbrook 23% in Eston
Nunthorpe Academy 48%
Outwood Redacr 38%
by afr the best performing is located in the
posh end of Greater Eston
Hillview is mainly Grangetown and South Bank
Outwood Normanby is located over the order
in Middlesbrough
the secondry in Marske is called
Outwood Bydales
it had 839 mixed gender pupils in 2019
11 - 16
Bydales is an outstanding school
71 per cent got that whatever it is
proper good exam score
it is 11-16 mixed gender
has the highest number of pupils per teacher 20 to 1
824 students
one of the three A classification in everything except
Resources a C
19.6 per cent of pupils entitled to free school meals
88 per cent gcse 4 or higher
71 per cent 5 or higher
we would say
Parent loal to Bydales are opting for Bydales
when they themselves may have gone to
Sacred Heart
and we note that despite this overall excellence
they do have 10 per cent of pupils designated as having
Special Educational Needs
perhaps more to do with a
Normal for Norfolk
approach elsewhere
than a disadvantaged context
without quating the figure for the other schools
which we doubt vary much
the proportion of pupils with
English not 1st Language
is
1.2 per cent
we suspect parents with a non-English background
will seek out the best school
and they have 40 teachers and 12 teaching assistants
overall this school is taking education
more seriously than
any other in the area
but new private housing has sprung up on their doorstep
the secondary in Saltburn is called
Huntcliff
531 pupils
Huntcliff Saltburn was OFSTED Good in 2012
2019 requires improvement
we think
Saltburn like central Redcar is not now a place
where young families live
and with reducing rolls comes some apathy
it's really quite worrying that at Huntcliff Saltburn
with several status changes...
from local authority foundation status to
academy
number of pupils 532
number eligible for free school meals 78
14 per cent
closed a couple of years ago
now part of Saltburn Learning Campus??
we have to conclude that in Redcar there are a lot of
'empty nester' households
and young families are living near Bydales in
new build private housing
and taking their children's education seriously
we can't say that in other areas
single mums are living with the children's grandparents
but the main central area secondary
sometimes, and perhaps at time of closing, called
Saltscar
closed a long long time ago
and schools with falling rolls loose energy
the main choice in town seems to be
Ryehills v Bydales
and we are surprised that Ryhills is not
performing better
we assume it is taking a lot of pupils from
the Lakes Estate where
Chris Cave
was murdered around twenty years ago
knifed as a teen or just older
Ryhills and Outwood Redcar are neither of them
on The Lakes Estate but they are either side
west and east
and Lakes Estate has no secondary of it's own
we suspect that special needs from Lakes are going to
and others who think Bydales is too far away
are going to Ryhills



we think it's called Zaporizhzhia power station???
biggest nuclear power plant in Europe
5,700 mega watt so nearly three times
it has 3 reactors or maybe 4
the bandwidth of capacity of Ratcliffe
38,000 gigawatt hours a year
quite a lot of power
and quite a vote of confidence by Ukraine in their new
American artillery if they have just tried to
use it to flush the Russians out of the
environs - vicinity, car park
of the plant with the big new guns and
the only damage to the power plant was to
bring down a few wires
if that was what happened then
that would have been a massive shock to the Russians
we suppose they were amped as lose as they dare to the
nuclear plant
and if the Ukrainian artillery was accurate enough to
hit them and not the plant
a combination of
nothing will serve as a shield
the accuray
and
they can take their time
the extra reach
meaning returning fire
unless airstrikes
is useless
great for Ukrainian morale
bad for Russian morale
we can't see how Russia can obtain
matching kit
this - if true - would be the over predicted
game changer

Ananda Staveley PCP Capital Abu Dhabi
V
Qatar
those fortunate enough to follow Newcastle United
will know about Amanda Staveley
anyway
back in 2008 the Britush banking system collapsed
and all the major banks except Barclays
in varying amounts - Royal bank of Scotland needing the most
took bail outs from the British government
that had strings attached
to avoid those strings
Barclays borrowed from
Quait and
Abu Dhabi
Amanda Staveley's beef is that
Barclays gave Qatar a better deal than they gave Abu Dhabi
and so
essentially
Centrica are - apparently - doing a Barclays
avoiding being bailed out by governments by
pilling the costs onto British GAs customers
at this time, that seems to be the gist of the situation
if they can, perhaps, succeed in screwing endless money out of
British customers
perhaps somebody will buy Centrica
and so the Bank of England's concern about
'baked in' high energy prices
the Bank of England are making cross assumptions
that the market for North Sea Gas will disappear
and
that the British economy will find itself short of energy
unless they know that Norse Gas is running out...,bR> both cannot be true
are Centrica trying to sell a mine where the gold has run out?

REDcliff

sCARps
the nearest RED cliffs of Redcar to the town are
opposite the end of Green Lane
the nearest sCARSs or sCARps
are opposite the Park Hotel










Ok so you can see how the swallows or whatever have
had a go at digging nesting tunnels in the
boulder clay and then
twigged
that they can much more easily tunnel into the sand
that in former times
the council had collected from the surface of
The Coast Road and dumped on top of the cliffs
rather than on the beach
it's a think enough layer to not risk collapse


as it goes
5 million households - many in the
North East of England
buy electricity from
eon next
eon next is the low or zero carbon supplier
there is another company that used to be a part of eon
and is now 'hived off' bad company no longer called eon
that compny belongs
56 per cent to the government of Finland
26 per cent to the government of Germany
it owns and operates
Ratcliffe on Stour coal fired power station in the UK
Finland has no coal reserves
much if not most of Finland's electricity is generated from
imported coal
that coal is imported from Russia
is the coal used in Ratcliffe imported from Russia?
if it is
and if Ratclffe is due to close in less than 2 years
why are sanctions on Russia not closing Ratcliffe early?
Ratclffe genertes 2,000 megawatts
259,510 gigawats was Uk electricity consumption in 2020
if you run a domestic 13 amp plug at full capacity
you will use 3 kilowatts in an hour
1 megawatt is 1,000 kilowatts
1 gigawatt is a billion watts or
1,000 megawatts or 1,000,000 kilowatts
so we have two things to consider
we said 'if you run it for an hour'
so we have no confidence in any of the figures but
gigawatts is the rate or capacity
and gigawatthours is the total amount in
say, a year
so for Ratcliffe it can crank out 2,000 megawatts
but for gigawatthours you have to multiply that by the number
of hours it is running at full whack
and coal is considered a
baseline source
kept going most of the time
so in say 2021 how many gigawatt hours did Ratliffe generate?
quite a lot but
more important to Russian coal miners than
British householders
there are 31.5 million electricity meters in the UK
so we guess around 25 million of those are relatively low usage
household meters
we have baseline coal
slightly eratic renewables
we have peak demand gas
and the emergency topup is renewalble beacuse it is
from the Electric Mountain - hydro
so
Finland has cotracts with Russia to buy coal and can
ship a bit od spare to Ratcliffe
Norway is bringing a lot more hydro on stream and is
getting hooped up to
North East England to supply it
but
there is significant opposition party leftist influence
in Norway opposing anything that might
hurt Russia

you probably don't remember the banking crash that
Barclays avoided and other banks needed
government help with
you almost dcertaily don't remember that
Royal Bank of Scotland
was splt into two banks
a good bank and a bad bank
and the bas bank was bought by the government because it had
around two and a half trillion pounds of loans outstanding
that weren't going to be repaid
that has been reduced to 750 bllion
anyway
the bad bank has now been closed
and any remaining liabilties - we assume - are now with the good bank
this is just an example of a government bail out that you may
remember, vaguely
a government bail out you almost certainly don't know about
concerns
Ratcliffe on Stour coal fired power station
you may have an account with
eon next
eon next is the good power supplier
unipro is the bad energy supplyer
it owns Ratcliffe on Stour
and it in turn is owned by
The Government of Finland 56 per cent
the government of Germany 26 per cent
maybe, just maybe Ratcliffe on stour will close by the end of
2024
the whole thing of switching power supplies
realy depends on governments smoothing the way with public money
eon next
buys power from wind farm operators and buys zero carbon certificates
and puts electricity into the National Grid
in theory it is the two governments and not eon next that
subsidises Ratcliffe
and neither the god not the bad energy supplier
apparently
uses natural gas
in theory
eon next will buy renewable electricity
pay a transmission fee to national grid and to the local distribution company
and in theory their costs should not be affected by natural gas prices
in theory - at worst - their prices could be affected by the price of coal
but it is interesting that
eon next seem to be able to find enough electricity from
renewable or nuclear sources to supply all of their customers
unless they suddenly get a surge of new customers????
some figures suggest it has 5 million electricity customers
and so that would be around a fifth of the domestic market
darn sarf
the major supplier is likely to be
EDF and that is owned by the French Government
and is more likely to go nuclear than go wind and solar
and the major non-governmental supplier is Centrica through British Gas

have you heard of
the wandering albatross?
they are big seabrids living south of the equator
they don't breed at sea but they are out at sea
nine or ten months straight

we don't - in any way - want to upset anybody who
takes and interest in
bird watching
but
Farne Islands
three species
Puffins
terns
cormorants
you heard of the pre duvet thing
an eiderwdown
their's eider ducks
Puffins
between April and late July
so if you get Aigust weather in early July
it could be TOO HOT
40 degrees in the UK/
40 degrees in APRIL IN THE UK?????????????????
the peak of the puffn farne breeding season is
May to June
for the remainder of the year
the birds fly out to sea
not backwards and forwards
only come to land to feed chicks
they
overwinter on the water
corporants are the big black jobs
herns of the ocean
and the ones with a frilly head
are considered to be
shaggy
so they are a separate species called
shags
on the Farnes, they shags
razorbills an auk like a puffin
gulls, guilimots
what has happened on The Farnes is
pre-CoViD ther Farnes were divided between
birds and tourists
when the tourists were no coming in lock down
the birds spread out
and now they will have to retrench
and another thing
traditionally people - tourists - have disrupted the activity of
things that are predators on seabirds
one theory is
that left to themselves some of the birds have been
less stressed and have
explored islands they had never previously used
if you're a TV journalist and you go to the trouble of
taking a TV crew out to The Farnes to
film breeding seabirds
two months after the breeding season is over
how dumb should you feel?
it's like turning up to cover a carol concert
in March
now, there is a type of bird called a swallow
one swallow doesn't make a spring
martins swifts
so back in the day
when our Ricker got about a bit more
he knew that at this time of year
there would be rotting seaweed on the beach
and flies on that
and some srt of swallow skimming the seaweed ,
cathing flies and feeding them to chicks in the
cliffs on the beach at the end of Green Lane
they all naff off darn sarf by September
'cos we got
red clay cliffs they an burrow into
and on The Farnes
the cliffs are part of the Whin Sill
basalt
tabular layer of dolerite
one huge eruption that took
how do they know?
56 years to cool and solidify
pyroxine and feldspar
if there's grey chippings in the surface of
a raod near you
it's dolerite
whinstone
probably from High Force Quarry in Teesdale
and that was what put food on our Ricker's plate
throughout his childhood
it's dark grey and it gets bloody hot in the sun
almost zero water content
a bit like slate but volcano slate
slate is a sedimentary rock
a mud stone
compressed mud
we do try to understand where the amateur is coming from
so what we have to say in the
'stating the bleeding obvious' category
seabirds don't roost
is that the problem people are having?
and just for completeness
we know puffins burrow
but they only burrow into the top soil
they can't burrow into the rocks below
so if people tramp the top soil off
there will be nowhere for the puffins to hide their young
it may be a change over the years but we are surprised thatis person was not vegetarian until
put on a meat free diet by doctors in 1938
we have a theory
this person had experience of war and
of having bee wounded in battle and would have had
most likely - military style doctors
there is a set of facts relating the
the First World War
that gets not so much emphasis
in the First World War the armies used a lot of horses
and the battles that killed those horses were fought
in countries where people routinely ate
horse meat
soldiers in the First World War died in the midst of
rotting food - rotting horses
so both this famous man and his doctors
in a context where dead men would be buried but dead horses
not so much
would be quite put off their food
and so they would essentially be very glad to be told that
they could remain healthy without eating meat
we take that list as honest
two stand outs
eggs but no fish
fish are notorious for stinking when rotten
a rotten egg is a nasty thing
but you only realise that if you crack it open
this person wasn't Henry Ford who persuaded the world to
drive on the wrong side of the road because he was
left handed
it was Adolf Hitler
he's the origin of your
five a day
he did refer to people who ate meat as
eating corpses
and eggs are not corpses
so Hitler was more 'traumatised' than generally understood
did he witness canibalism on the battle field
was this the basis of
reduce the number of people and
feed those left, on cereal?
and as so often
'the people' find their common sense
in conflict with propaganda
and they add a little fresh fruit and veg to their diet
without going the whole not-a-hog
although we suspect a whole hog is a barrel of wine
or beer and that's
79 gallons
a hogshead
or 63 or 54
in modern British brewing a hogshed is 63 Imperial gallons
and they are bigger than US gallons


we do this thing of noticing a small thing and
making much of it
it is possible that the trains delvering steel to
Skiningrove
run to a timetable
but we just catch the occasional glimpse as they
hurtle through Redcar
this week our Ricker noticed that one of these trains was being
hauled by a loco in
PD Ports livery
and that sort of suggests that if the steel for Skiningrove
along with the steel for Lackenby?
is oming from Scunthorpe
it sn't coming all the way by rail
it suggests that
from
Scunthorpe, Port Talbot, Spain or China
it is arriving on Teesside
by ship

t'interet is getting more confusing
Roy Hackett
CBE Commander of the British Empire
OBE Officer of the British Empire
MBE Member of the British Empire
soo
if you make Hackett OBE in 2009
why make him one class down - MBE - in 2020?
perhaps the OBE in 2009 was somebody else/
there is a
GBE
that nobody seems to get
then it's
KBE or DBE
Knight or Dame
and Knight - Sir
Dame - Dame
Lady is simply wife of Sir - it is not personal
like
Frau Herr Professor Wolf
just Mrs Wolf
nothing for being husband of a Dame
it is all very complicated because
there are entirely separate systems
in theory
for civil servants and the military
but a recently retired Redcar and Cleveland chief executive was made
CBE
in that case a recognition that she did not
cover herself in glory
during the closure of the Redcar steel works
if she'd kept it open
DBE
or even
Baroness
so the definition of 'civil service' may not include
local government
and when you get into
the nobility
the nobility is a rank down from royalty
within the nobility, for instance
Catherine, Lady Parr
out ranks
Lady Catherine Parr
because
Lady Catherine Parr
s the wife of
Sir Numpty Parr
whereas
Catherine, Lady Parr
is he daughter of
Lord Parr or Barron Parr
and it goes one and on and on
oh dear, we've set him off now
two Gwynneth stories
his first and arguebly only girlfriend
she got ribbed at one point because she had put into
the minutes of Teesside BAYS
Brtish Association Young Scientsts
Sir Pilkington came to give a lecture
and not Sir Alex came
and the other item worth mentioning
sge found a fossil on Seaham beach
and they sent it off to the
British Museum
and got the message back that t was a fossilised
tyre track,BR>


PFI
Private Finance Initiative
Publi-Private Partnerships
a John Major scheme expanded by the Blair government
intended to take capital investment
'off the books'
the idea being that it was the private entity that
borrowed the capital cost and therefore held the debt
but they were another form of
reverse Freehold-Leasehold
in that - this is complicated
the public body
James Cook Hospital, Redcar and Cleveland Council
whatever was the Freeholder
but leased the building from the 'leaseholder'
I own this building
I will lease it back to you
so that I can rent it from you
I will take possession of this building
at the end of the term of the agreement
I may at that point be required to pay you a
fee much less than the cost of construction to
release your lien on my freehold
so
PFI came in in 1992
and was popular for quite a while
in broad terms...
these agreements were for 30 years
and so now they are beginning to mature
that is
for instance
Redcar and Cleveland Council
have paid rent for 30 years on
Belmont House n Guisborough
Seafield House and Redcar House in Redcar
and now they have to decide whether they want to
pay the release fee
buy the freehold
if they don't need the building they may decide to
buy the freehold - release the lien
and rent out or sell the building
this appears to be what they have decided to do
in respect of Belmont House
they are no longer contracted to rent the building from
the finance company
they are no longer required to find an
in house use
for the building


we don't know this
we know that Merlin Cinemas are wanting to
manage the Redcar Regent
we know they take over cinemas and introduce
live entertainment
so we THINK the delay in opening the new Redcar Regent
is becuse the council has been looking for money to
enlarge the 'stage' area under the main screen
if this is the case
we may see the builders return and
an opening date of
Easter 2023
but we suppose Christmas 2022 is not mpossible

so
The wages of Social Affairs Journalism
Merlin Cinemas will - perhaps - manage The Redcar Regent
and they are as specialist outfit
they reckon to
support activities to performing arts
but they seem to
operate cinemas
and develop live entertainment
and concentrate on seaside resorts
Cromer, Falmouth Ilfracombe
Penzance St ives
Torquay
lots of other non-seaside places
17 in all
soo
seaside cinema live performance
it seems a good fit
it's a twenty to 30 year old business
it - at the very least - will not stand in the way of
Redcar Regent being developed inti
a Pier Head


if you are a person of some history on Teesside
espeially if you once had a sort of 'girlfriend'
in Hartlepool
you may have heard of
Sappers Corner
and you may have been familiar with one of the
biggest trucks on Teesside
on the sides
Up North Combine
the truck woz wot took the
pigeons away to start their journies home
the Up North Combine is a federation of
Pigeon Racing Clubs
and 'im at the bottom of our Ricker's garden
has got coops and pigeons
so BoB the Pigeon
released due south of
North East England
ends up in rural America
ould have gone part way on a ship but
it seems he got caught up in some weather
westerlies not so common but we don't know much about
continental - non-maritime - US weather



another thought has occured
back in the dim distant days when our Ricker was teaching
he can't remember whether it was
Teesside Polytechnic or
University of Teesside
same place different name
he got told
you'll have to do a teacher training course
so he did some of that
and we guess it wasn't the full thing a
'proper teacher' does
in the sense that
it didn't seem to include whatever it is that
makes teachers behave the way that thye do
his approach was
help the students learn what they can about the
subject in hand
he seemed to miss the modules on
how to turn out
coffee coloured people by the score
the song lyric being
what we need is a great big melting pot
big enough big enough
to hold the world and all it's got
and turn out coffe coloured people by the score
Blue Mink
take a pinch of white man
wrap him up in black skin
add a touch of blue blood
a little bitty bit of red Indian boy
it gets a bit less accceptable as it goes on
there is this contrast between
basket ball - for boys
and
netball - for girls
so in netball - as officially played
the members of the team each have - normally - 2 letters on
the back of their shirts
and just as in soccer
only the goalkeeper is allowed to
handle the ball
what a player can do ona netball court is
limited by what letters she has on the back of her shirt
and this successful England soccer team
play as though it were netball
they SPECIALISE
there are lots of way in which you can teach and coach
and thinking about
our Ricker and his rubbish 'doctor's' handwriting
after he got his head kicked in
he moved from Caotham C of E Primary
to Newcommen
and he had been taught
Italic handwriting at Coatham
and they taught
Cursive at Newcomen
we have no examples of Ricker's attempts at Italic
it involves using a broad knibed fountain pen
cursive uses a narrow nib and looks just like
so in that 18 months at Newcommen
in the school holidays - suppose that was one summer
dad would go to work and say
I want you to do some writing while I am away
and our Ricker would give it a go
and you could call it
occupational therapy or physiotherapy
but the question is
should you identify a child's weakness and make them
concentrate on improving that
or should you find their tallent and hone that
there was recently - in the past ten years
a woman pentathlete who was very good
but she couldn't win because she
couldn't throw a javalin
so she had to waut until the next season to
become a champion
K J T
Katarina Johnson-Thompson
we assume?
so we assume that she was
very good at three or four things
and quite good at one
but as never going to be a 100 metres champ
and would only be a pentathlon champ
if she worked on something she was not good at
because
the pen is designed to test versatility
and in a sense - not excellence
do you throw somebody off an optometry course because
the department wanted to offer work to a tutor who
specialised in diffiult sums?
and you've been tol to recruit students who will be
able to diagnose medical abnormalities
and back to sport
the contrast between
soccer and rugby
in its 'kickabout' form
soccer is about
I've got the ball
should I shoot or should I pass?
nobody wahts to be
left back
left back in the changing room
the dominant players will pick and allow to play
the players who provide 'assists'
on the other hand with rugby
Rugby Union
desigened so that all the boys in a class in a
Public School - being the UK that meant
a fee paying school as opposed to a nanny and tutor
hired to teach the children of one household
America Public School - UK State School
so
rugby WAS designed to divide the palyers into
Forwards and backs
forwads being beefy
backs being nimble
except for the hooker who was a footballer amongst the backs
the hooker was a footballer not ball carrier but also a forward
in other words
the whole game was designed to be inclusive
to have a role for every type of kid
and now
just a case of a full team of
meat headed Goliaths
just a small footnote on our Ricker's condition
we said he had to change pen type
and of course broad knib nig whatever pens are
fountain pens
that aside there was a curious note in his condition
before he had had his heat kicked in he had learned
to form his letters and numbers
and he sort of translated that into a
cursive scrawl
but he had not learned to form
symbols
pound sign, ampersand
� &
so in some way he had lost the ability to establish
new muscle memory
on the other hand
perhaps he had lost the stamina to carry out the necessary practice
there is also the possibliity that he was attacked in the school playground
during shool
and so he may have a psychological block over anything
reminiscent of 'schoolwork'
he has leaned to spell seven having been distracted by the
road sign for Severn Road
but Forth Road
all them 4 related words - which have a u in them?
we suppose four is to distinguish from
the opposite of against
so is this an example of
American English becoming Internatinal English?
hack the u out just to be different
and fourty becomes a spelling mistake....
can't say fR> measure the distance from point A to Point B
answer for a grade A star
measure the distance from point a to Point B using a ruler
if you tutor does not know
what is in the marking scheme
you haven't got a hope in hell guessing
what is in the marking scheme

and another thing
when Coatham was set up as a Grammar Technical School
that really meant
the staff from Eston Technical School were
re-deployed to Coatham when \eston was shut down
they had diligence marks
1 good 2 OK 3 inadequate
in all his time at Coatham our Ricker only ever got
one three
in science at his first assessment
because
he produced a drawing of a deflagrating spoon in a gas jar
he drew what he saw
but MR Warne wasn't a science teacher
he had been a technical drawing teacher at Eston
and next to our Ricker's lifelike slightly bent
deflagrating spoon shaft
Mr Warne had written
Use a Straight Edge
and that is why
1 giving Oxbridge interviews to a star candidates is 'misleading'
2 medial schools introduced the UKCAT
UK Clinical Aptitude Test
beause of
1 uneven tuition
and
grade inflation

it's been quite a week in
football - soccer - in the UK
we are asking
since for most purposes we are not
on social media
where are the
HUBs?
a period of around a week
dominated by the Wagatha WAGs
Wives and Girlfriends
football being so much less interesting than
nailbars...
what is the HUB equivalent of
the WAG influencer?
Husbands and Boyfriends
thing is
this is a double whammie for WAGS
soccer boys with boyfriends
soccer girls with babies
should the Football Assocition continue to provide
a platform for WAGs?
we understand that the original idea of
WAGs was to deflect media attention from the players
during tournaments
we don't honestly think media attention
'distracts' Lionesses

Sacred Heart Secondary School in Redcar caters for
around 746 pupils age 11 to 16
around four coach loads of kids are bussed in daily from
East Cleveland, Guisborough Skelton Loftus
16 student per staff member
16 per cent on free school meals
71 staff, of which 48 teachers
down side
few teaching assistants
little - �175 per year
spent on staff devlopment
these are pupils with high parental motivation but only
35 per cent get 5 'proper' GCSEs
it could be concluded that these parents are more motivated by a wish
for their children to have a
Roman Catholic education than a 'good' eduction
a very stable staff, no unfilled vacancies


pupils from the school tend to congregate around
Thames Road Shops
before school
these gates block access to the rear of those shops
the shop nearest the school has a notice in the smashed window of the
door
to the effect
no more than 2 under 16s in shop at any one time
we can fail to keep focus but it is worth
noting an issue when it comes to mind
trees
one problem with trees that are classed as
amienity trees
not grown fro a timber crop
two major things happen to them
where a tree that has grown for decades at an angle
somebody can et it into their head that it is about to
crash down and insist it is removed
the other problem is the reverse where people
survey the trees in a public park in the winter time
many of the trees are without leaves and so they say
they've OK leave them it's an example of democracy as
the power of the everyman or armhair expert
getting their way because
the majority and the experts want to avoid
a fuss
you can never say never and you can't say that tree
growing at an angle to get to the light
WON'T collapse
so if somebody gets a bee in their bonnet about it
it may have to go
but this is somewhat allied to the question of
where do you spend money on the likes of swimming baths?
back in the day when the likes of theatres and music halls were
privately funded
they would tend to have
cheap seats
standing room only sections
boxes
a range of accommodtion at different prices
there is a saying
don't let the exellent be the enemy of the good
if you are a borough and you have a budget for swimming pools
do you spend all of it on one amazing
Olympic Standard
aquatics centre
or do you give each community a local pool to help
local children a pool where they can learn to swim and avoid drowning
that is of course a double edged sword because
learn to swin a length in a heated oversized jakoozi
and then died of thermal shock in a local stream
into this is introduced the concept of
I love Sainsbury's
they keep the riff raff out of Waitrose
if you were Rishi Sunak would you
build a covered swimming pool in your back garden
and build a duplicate on the locl sink estate
to say
look what I've given you is as good as what I have muself?
we notice things
recently we noted Lz Truss getting into an ordinary looking car
with doors three inches thick
she's the Foreign Secretary
she has security
no matter how naff and Ratners her clown costume may be
if you give every littl community a nursery pool
where do aspiring Oyympic swimmers and divers go to train?


sometimes you put a search term into Google and get
a really spot on response
we failed with this
we said our Ricker had a complicated childhood
he was precious
but he never had the opportunity to
learn to ride a bike
for a number of reasons including
he was precious and he lived on a very very busy road
Corporation Road in Redcar
however we will consider Redcar's most famous, recent
murder
it happened to a man living in a flat in
Station Road
and that flat is above or next door to
a former shop
Kelsey's Bike shop
now the family may have moved into the motor trade
perhaps not , but the shop is now a flat
and the shop was important to our Ricker
even though he never went in
his mam had a cousin in South Shields
he's struggling here
the husband was the cousin
the wife was
Dorothy Hall
or was that his duaghter/
or both
Ricker had an Auntie Nance
living in Warrnby
milkman's wife
and an Aunt Nancy living in South Shields
they had a shop
it was probably a bike shop
anyway
our Ricker wasn't all that shy and retiring before he was ten
so one day in the school holidays just before Christmas
the front door bell rang
and our Ricker ran to open the door
and there on the step, so to speak
was a man
and he was holding on to a trike
and it wasn't just any trike
it was a Raleigh Winkie
and it was for our Ricker for Christmas
now
a Raleigh Winkie cost ten pounds �10
tht's �250 in today's money
and the man wasn't the cousin called Hall from South Shields
he was the man from Kelsey's
when you think about it
riding to school on a bike like that
you suppose it wasn't all that surprising he
eventually got his head kicked in
of course he rode it a bit and then he took it apart
and then they threw it away
but if he still had it it would be worth a bit more that was a part of our Ricker's childhood
they say there are two wonderful days in the
life of a boat owner
the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it
our Ricker had a lot of things
'bought for him'
but they were for him to use
he would never know the day
one parent or another would decide to
play lady bountyful and give
some toy hanging around the house
away
the principal items
the trike, a reel to reel tape recorder
a VCR Video Cassette Recorder
not at all uncommon
parents living vicariously through their kids
but onece you got used to it....
oh and it worked the other way as well
here's this busted fire engine with no ladder
my friend gave it to me for you
he already had a fie engine
with a working turntable ladder...
this was the point
nice presents
1 here today gone tomorrow
2 never anything he had asked for
all this because they sold a Raleigh Winkie for
�1,000 in a recent episode of
Bangers and Cash

he's remembered a bit more
Auntie Nance was Mrs. Scott
so her milkman husband would have been
Ernie? Scott the Warrenby milkman
and Aunt Nancie's husband was
Arthur Hall
so we assume it was
Arthur Hall Cycles, South Shields
so at a guess the children were
Dorothy and Michael?
twenty years ago what women complained about was being
objectified
as in
children should be seen and not heard
as in
women and children should be seen and not heard
our Ricker was precious for a number of reasons but
a major one was that he had been a
forceps birth
he was born on a Saturday
and he was in such as state
'they' wouldn't let his mam see him
until the Wednesday
they wanted to give his temples a bit of time to heal
so his dad having seen him earlier
always assumed he was
brain damaged
and teachers never told him any different
and that day
he came home from school
there was his mam sitting in her chair
chatting to Mrs Smith
and our Ricker says
I passed the first part of the 11plus
I've got to do the second part now
and she went mad
and gave him a ten bob note
everybody always assumed he was brain dead
and never listened to him
nobody ever has
he had to go the the grammar school and sit in the assembly hall
and do the second part
on a Saturday morning
'cos, basicly
because he could hardly write
people thought he was an idiot
but when he did things like the 11+
multiple choice questions
he could manage to
tick boxes
he wasn't dyslexic
he could read and talk fine
his fingers just got tired and knotted up quite quickly
so he always tried to write short answers
described by one uni tutor as
pithey
and he can only do woodwork with
power tools
so he couldn't write or type or play piano
all things his dad did very well
so people make assumptions
extrapolate
so he was 19 before he got a car
and despite being a
passed the test first time learner
his dad took him out one day and conned him into driving
down a road near Grosmont where
his drivers tened to crash their trucks quite regularly
like drive down this steep twisting road
without ending up in the ditch
piece of cake
and no need to call out a local frmer to rescue us with a tractor
as would have been the case
if dad had been driving
the deficit was in strength not dexterity
but no not strength in the sense of
doing pull ups
like reach up to the door lintel and pull yourself off the ground
do the weight lifting
clean and jerk
collapse in a heap after doing 100 metres in 13 seconds
stamina that was the lack
aerobic not anaerobic
fast twitch not slow twitch
there was something odd about the English teaching at Coatham
pupils weren't taught how to
parse a sentence
mostly it seemed to be
write an essay on...
Joe Brookes was the music master
and he used to fill up his timetable with
English lessons
and so if you had English with Mr Brookes
it was in the music room
so one day he sets a testfor the first half of the lesson and
has the class do another exrecise n front of him whilst he marks the test
so he is sitting up the front and picks out our Ricker's script
and he holds it up as thought it was dirty
and it's on once sheet of paper although the other boys had covered at let two
so he sets out expecting little
and he goes through and our Ricker has squeezed all the right answers into
this small amount of actual writing
and Ricker has the top mark
but to contrast this
our Ricker was doing some sort of computer course back in the days when
very few people had access to really good printers
and one of the students turned in some course work he'd printed out
at work
and the tutor says to him
well, you made a lot of mistakes
but I didn't have the heart to correct them
because it would have spolied your beautiful presentation
it's kind of an insight into how
neat scripts get higher marks
it shouldn't be the case
but if you skip marking an error because of neat presentation
and then you tot up your annotations to determine your mark
if you start from 100 per cent and deduct rather than adding up merits
you will tend to give neater scripts higher marks
we write this without a spell checker and we often notice
litterals and correct them
but mainly
when it's wrong it's because
1 we haven't hit a key hard enough
2 intending to hit two keys at the same time
we hit them one after the other 3 intending to hit two keys one after the other
we hit them in the wrong order
these things don't happen with hand written scripts
nd t is easy to miss
ae written as ee
write sweat where it should be sweet and if sweet makes sense
the error will go un-noticed
there's another aspect to the issue of people getting
inappropriate grades
Arnie Harker was for years a physics teacher at
Eston Grammar
and when it was closed and replaced wth Gillbrook Comp
he gave up teaching and got a jub at the steelworks
as a labourer
for years he had been drawing a cross-section of a hydraulic jack
on a blackboard
but when he was sent to fetch one
he had no idea what they looked like on the outside
and we will note
one - the youngest - of our Ricker's three nephews
has handwriting almost as bad as our Ricker's
and he get thrown out of Surrey University's maths department
and is now - apparently - a successful
accountant
in medicine there tends to be more use of the viva
if you say to a candidate
what is that called
showing them a structure of the body
that is a different matter from setting a written exam
asking for a drawing of a cross section of the eye
labelling the ciliary muscle



the question of
next UK Prime Minister
is interesting
we've taken a little trouble to analyse this
inflation rate
August 2021 was the first month when
UK inflation rose - in this iteration
above the Bank of England target 1 Transport
2 Housing and Household Services
our analysis of the trends is that in
September 2022 - figures to be released
around 12 th October 2022
the Transport hike will
fall out of the inflation figure
and around a month later
the housing and housing services hike
will fall out of the figures
the figures for October
due out mid November will be
probably overll down to around 5 per cent
in the absence of a
fuel or energy category
we assume this will represent
fuel and energy for transport and housing
falling back to give us an inflation rate of
5 per cent
that being twice as opposd to
four times, target
it is significant that it is only since
September 2021 that
houing services - gas?
has contributed very much to overall inflation
transport - fuel?
kicked off in May 2021
housing - gas?
doubled it's influence from April 2022
the first double whammie - heating gas and petrol/diesel
was October 2021
these commodities are
traded
and futures in them are traded
that means people buy them with no intention of
taking delivery
they buy ownership now to sell ownership later
futures are a bit like
freehold against actual suppliers to end users
buying leasehold
except that these are the other way around sine
the gas and liquid fuel will eventually be
burnt
rather as a frehold property may eventually be
demolished or fall into the sea
they hold the freehold but have no intention of
actually doing anything with the property
and so their prices are affected by the freeholds being
gambling chips
people buy in hopes of selling at a profit - later
and so
especially in a context of the overall outlawing of
insider trading
and Chinese Walls
paper walls within a company
as an example
Centrica owns British Gas
it is certainly aginst the spirit
and possibly against the law for
Centrica to tell its subsidiary
British Gas
anything about its reserves and
future rates of production
so that
in the gas market
the market price is not subject to the laws of
supply and demand
it is simply influenced by the
level of demand
Centrica is under no obligation to sell gas to
its subsidiary British Gas
it is free to export the gas if it can get a better price
by so doing
so the price British Gas pays is the
World Market Price
and so the profits are with Centrica and not British Gas
and other operators
Shell Total
etc.
are similarly under no obligation to have
sweetheart deals with British Gas
another way of looking at this is
the British Government grants oil and gas companies
licences to extract oil and gas from under the North Sea
to companies with
1 the money for the licences
the money, kit, and expertise to extract the oil and gas
British Gas has none of these
but it is 'free' to import
non-North Sea gas if it an get it ate a better price
and so
the Uk COULD be self sufficient in gas from
North Sea sources
but in actual fact
only uses North Sea gas for around
30 per cent of its usage
because British Gas has cheaper long term contracts
at a guess - probably from
Norway
on the subject of Norway
we are getting increasing amounts of elecricity
via cable , from Norway
and that is
mainly?
hydroelectricity
with overseas suppliers
it's a bit like
Bristol Street Motors
would own Nissan
and sell some Nissans in the UK
some abroad
and would also sell
Fords bought in from Spain
in other words it is a mature and complex market
all of that is quite complex but the bottom line is
there will be a new houshold gas price cap in
january 2023
it may be LOWER

we were shocked to hear that
Sir Christopher Meyer
had dropped down dead - recently
a stroke
but does anybody remember
Sir Antony Meyer
it is interesting because
Sir Antony Meyer was described as a
stalking donkey
when he challenged Margret Thatcher for
leadership of the Tory party
and then
Rishi Sunak puts himself up as a
stalking horse to Boris Johnson
a stalking horse is a live horde you teather in a
lion or tigers home range
hoping to shoot the tiger as it attacks the horse
and so we do very much doubt the concept of
Rishi Sunak as a serious candidate for PM at this time
modern times, modern plans
it is, in many ways a little more complex to arrange for
a female to be
inside the tent/boat pissing out
than outside pissing in
and so perhaps the Tory party are presently arranging
a little reality check for Ms Truss

Theis is a LOcal shop for LOcal people
what we are seeing
with Cleveland Police
and in tune with the likes of
Councilor Quartermain
is a drift towards using
Public Space Dispersal Orders
to turn
High Streets
into
Gated Communities
like what they used to on the sink estates
sometimes when sitting back and trying to make sense of the world
a thought occurs
what is
top of mind
with yer typical UK cop?
the question
do you have any lawful excuse to
be where you are?
there are cearly two sorts of people developing in the UK
and perhaps elsewhere
people who live in public places
and
people who live in private spaces
we talk about the death of town centres
and then we have cops who think
a town centre is a private community hub
for people with a home address within a couple of hundred metres
how ya gonna get footfall
if the filth are constantly asking visitors
do you have any lawful excuse to be outside
your home, your car, or your workplace?
a significant element of this comes from the likes
of that seond son of the first born of
the queen of England
seeking to
monetise his image
in other words
all that commemorative crockery
we don't think the Royal Family get a royalty on that
but if a musician gets paid for every play
why not a fee for every copy of a pic?
in other words
in a world where the only legal excuse for
being famous
is that you are famous
being famous for being famous
the police are beginning to identify locations around the country
that they regard as
closed sets
for particular internet influencers
so there's a school trip
and the school just hires a coach and sets off
and gets no 'permission' to settle in a a particular
public space
a beach, a high stree, a riverside, an amusement park
and defacto
for the duration
that location becomes
a closed set
for the media managers of that school


on a slightly different topic
we have noted a phrase creeping into
modern documentaries about war
we hear increasingly
as the army over ran the town...
the local men were shot
and the local women were raped
this little script tends to establish in the mnd of the
audience
an equivalence between
being shot and being raped
the human body is not designed to survive being shot
the human female body is designed to be fucked
the human male body is capable of surviving
being buggered
so long as it isn't done with a bullet
the old addage
keep away from men
to
avoid a fate worse than death
there's a kind of shotgun called a
blunderbus
our Ricker's dad and his boss used to
essentially
build roads
supply the materials for road construction
and the quarries alongside boys with
much simpler lives
the sort of old man currently witting was probably at school
in the 1960s
so the typical teacher would have been born in
the 1920s or earlier
they my have lost their father at a young age
in the First World War or lost friends in the
Second World War
two ideas about boys in school in the 1960s
1 they must study hard to get some sort of
occupation of sufficient importance that
they don't become cannon fodder come the next war
2 these smug little blighters should get a taste of
what my genertion had to put up with
Harry Hindle was the head of Eston County Modern
later Gillbrook comp
in times of trouble his priority was
school dinners for the kids
nothing seems to have changed there
S G Barker
some called him Stephen some Geoffry
the pupils called him
Trog
was the head at Coatham Boys' Grammar technical school
our Rcker had a slightly different perspective from most
he was connected to the Anglican Church that was
local to the school
and so he had a little insight into S G B
he was a Cambridge graduate
appointed as head, not promoted into the post
the people - the governors - who appointed him
thought he was there for a short time to
put some grit into his CV
he stayed for the rest of his career
he was not interested in a boy if he did not think
he could get that boy into Cambridge
or Oxford at a pinch
S G B had a pleasant light airy office at the very front of the school
however
access was via a windowless corridor with three doors
door 1 on the left Mr Mcgregor deputy head
door 2 on the left school secretaries
door 3 straight ahead the head
S G B was called Trog
because
nobody was ever called to his office and
so
it appeared that he spent his days in a cave
he was regarded by the pupils as
a troglodyte
we would regard any teacher at that school at that time as
to a greater or lesser extent
feeling in a doomed and pointless exrecise
during the 1960s for example
an English teacher called Adnit escaped to a
teacher training college
and a PE teacher calle Phil Judge escaped to one of them
Haberdasher Ask's outfits
there was a certain element
promoted by swanning around school in track suits
that he and his boss Mr Grey
may just be that think they were beginning to call
queer
and regarding Mr Grey a stawart for many years of
Redcar Gymnastics Club
despite the staff changing room having it's own shower
Mr Grey feeling the need to shower with the boys...
broadly
as a boy
despite a boy on occasion being summoned to
Mr McGreggor's office to be 'caned'
it was - especially in the early 60s
the prefects the boys had to deal with
Dack
Deadly Headly
there was a CCF
Combined Cadet Force
and some in the school saw appointment as a prefect as
a first step towards becomming and officer in the armed forces
at his Primary School - Newcomen
or Ricker had been head of house
he was never a prefect at Coatham
just a monitor
we don't know exactly what happened to S G B's sons
we heard that he fixed them up with jobs as
trainee solicitors straight from school because
he thought - probably correctly - that
if he couldn't get them into Cambridge
university was a waste of time
one of the main problems with
university versus a good school
was
that a good school provided a learning environment
whereas universites ran courses
all sorts of benefacors donate all sort sof things to
universities to enrich the student experience
and for the most part they are regarded by staff as
museum exhibits, off limits to students
to give an example you can look up
at Coatham there was
a Wimshurst machine
the physics department was packed with all kinds a stuff
that the boys got to play with
under supervision
and all the tools in the woodwork and engineering department
were industrial hand me downs
planer thicknesser the size of a dinning table
two blacksmith forges
capstain lathes the size of a car
at school sixth formers would have had
free periods in the library
at univerity - Durham for Ricker
students were supposed to
socialise in the dining hall
like prisoners let out of their cells for
an hour's exercise
school was for education
university was a cattle mart
Tinder without the 'phones
Durham University had a computer that had to be installed
into a building by knocking a huge hole in a wall
and getting it craned in
but it was for admin
studnts never got near
there was another computer suite and
Richardson was some sort of scout for a computing journal
and one day he got our Ricker to
stand guard
whilst he nipped into that computer unit to determine
what particular meodel of
Big Blue
they had
school - run of the place
uni - mushroom method
keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em bullshit
toady we will be having
episode 239 of
confuse-a-student
does this exercise
count towards your degree
or not?
that is for you to guess
but the one in the afternoon s
the same as the one in the morning
so we hope you didn't discuss your morning with
the afternoon set
over lunch
so there's this contrast between
we want to control what you learn whilst you are here
and
degree classification?
we'll give you what we think you need
turn up for your exams but just doodle away
we won't read the scripts and they will be
shreaded - almost immediately
Simon Barnard at City wrote an obit for
Solomon
he said he used to invidulate exams and
walk around muttering
don't woory, you've passed
Solomon wrote one of those
'programmed texts' about binocular vision
enough already

recently a couple of papers have been published
about the first recording of the
China variant of CoViD virus
these papers located
first contact to
a food market
we need to note that we accept what these papers say
but there is an important previso
the market was the source of the infection but
these two papers DO NOT tell us whether
the soure of the infection was
the animals brought to the market
or the people who brought the animals to the market
we suspect the latter
as time goes by transport becomes easier
and over time isolated populations of people
loose their isolation
and when they visit the
big wide world
they can bring their particular infections with them
and this is a much more likely scenrio than
pathogens mutating to
jump from animal to human hosts

we've turned our attention hto
grain exports from Odessa
we guess there will be several types of mine
as in aquatic booby trap
magnetic mines
contact mines
remote controlled mines
we have quite a bit of trouble understanding how
it could have come about that
Ukrane would have mined the Black Sea outside Odessa
before the invasion of Crimea
so the mines if Ukrainian should have been in place
no more than five or six years
nd yet
we are told that some of them may have
drifted into the waters of the country
formerly know as Turkey
the line we have been given is that
commerial shipping needs specialist pilots
because only the Ukrainians
know where they are
nobody knows where they are if they are breaking loose
from their moorings
if we were playing UN peacekeeper
we ould be saying
send out minesweepers to collect all these ,BR> fallng apart Soviet Era mines
and replace them with
state of the art remote controlled mines
that can be switched on and off as condition require
we would say that would take time
but not so much time that
Africa starves
at this point in proceedings one is tempted to suspect that
expecting imminent defeat
some elements of Ukrainian navy just
tossed a load of mines into the sea off Odessa
willy nilly
without, perhaps, anchoring them at all


most of the presenters on TV seem to have
young children
and so the lack of understanding of child development
that they demonstrate
is surprising
we are thinking about this whole
feeding children during school holidays thing
despite what we have just said
another group seem not to have children of their own
these are women working in child social services
the fundamental disjunct in child services seems to be
except in the very smallest of schools
in school children are cared for in
year groups
in terms of social services children are regarded in terms of
households
schools tend to keep children in company with other chldren
who are at a similar developmental stage
children who attend school get several hours
each school day with what could be described as
their peer group
and on weekends and in the holidays
they get opportunities to
either nurture or bully younger children
or
to be nurtured or bullied by older children
from the point of view of
politicians and pundits
so long as there is enough MONEY all will be well
we are seeing some publicity now about
residential schools in Canada
the Roman Catholic and some other Christian churches
had ideas along the lines
give me the child up to the age of 4
and I will give you the man
and
so long as a person attends mass and takes communion
they will be truly human
otherwise not
there's always a significant element missing from these stories
we are told that loads and loads of children in
residential school in Canada for First Nations people
died whilst at school
but we are not told what the child mortality rate for
First Nations children NOT attending residential schools was
along the same lines but on another continent
The British are accused of
massacres
but sometimes detailed analysis shows
one indiginous tribe massacring another and
The British being held responsible
because as the adult in the room
they did not prevent it
despite being present in tiny numbers
this all feeds into a discussion of
two concepts of education
setting aside
education - getting the best out of young people
and
training - just sufficient information to perform
the educational contrast is
like a boat trip into a sea of knowledge
and setting - by helicopter - a child
onto an island of knowledge and skills
in no way related to the assets they bring at
the beginning of the course
and sometimes you do that
strand them on an island thing deliberately
Nuffield was somebody who made money
God knows how
from British car manufacture
and Lord Nuffield set up the
Nuffield Foundation
and it set up secondary school courses
with text books and such
and some people got to do
SMP maths
School Mathematics Project
University of Southampton
it was a response to the launch of
Russia's Sputnik satellite
it was based on downplaying
arithmetic and geopmetry
training for carpenters
and was based on
set theory, graph theory, logic
non-cartesian co-ordinate systems
matrix maths
vectors and on and on
to try to prepare secondary school pupils to be
rocket scientists
hence the term
it's not rocket science
when people failed to cope with
addy ups and taky ways
an element of thsi was to
give all the pupils an equal 'chance' in life
becaue NONE of them could get any help
with their studies at home
and that came out of
nature versus nurture
and
all children are born equal
their progress depends on the
availability of resources
children weere taken into 'care'
and provided with different levels of support to
test or prove the concept that all children are
the same grade of blotting paper
and idential twins were separated
and each given a different social context to their
unbringing
to see whether they would
turn out like their natural or adoptive parents
and generally, whatever the circumstances of their upbringing
identical twins turned out identical
nevertheless
what the summer school holidays does is it
and also the long summer evenings
break the ling with
at a lesser level our Ricker attended a help session for
job seekers
and the people running the session brought along
one of their previous star students
a woman from a sink estate whom they had actually got into a job
and so they set the class on to make
paper 'planes
and set up a competition to make the 'plane that would
so all the attendees set about folding paper
and when they were done
they set about testing them
one after another
and then the star pupil st lesson is
brass neck wins
or
if you're not winning
change the rules
similar children
and at one extreme subject the 'brighter' children to
mockery and perhaps violence for
taking learning seriously
for wanting more out of life than
the unending kickabout that passes for sport
and the incessant eating
then there is
streaming versus no streaming
and this comes from psychologists
hey say
put the idiots together
put the nutters together
and they will just get worse
force them into contact with their betters
and they will become aspirational
BUT just knife the toffs


Norman Stanley Fletcher
at the beginning of every episode of Porridge
they played the judge's summing up
at his sentencing
and Fletch was described as a habitual offender
and
we suppose, since it was broadcast from 1974
it is based in the 1950s and 60s
and alongside the term habitual criminal
is the term
Career Criminal
we have at present a vogue for
adverts for insurance
that say
we don't need superheroes
we need insurance
and so law enforcement are starting to feel
made redundant in terms of the roles
a more elderly population might expect of them
there was a phase where to counteract
fraud
insurance companies insisted on
the police issuing a
Crime Number
before processing the claim for compensation for loss
we are not sure they are so insistant on that these days
but for a time, at least, there must have been
many people in law enforcement fully employed in issuing
crime numbers
for insurance purposes
however
we are looking at
economic crime as being a form of
informal taxation
you put all the defectives on sink estates
you randomly choose some of them to put into uniform
and you allow
the lunatics to be
in charge of the institution
and you sell insurance on the basis that
cops and robbers will
leave the estate on
day release to
go robbing
all very fine so long as
nobody gets hurt
the only trouble is people do get hurt
and the prime weapon of these
Mafia style clans is
to accuse anybody from the real world
who seeks to intrude on their cossey little arangements
of some sort of sexual deviency
in other words
set a thief to catch a thief
has backfired
becuase
the present is a long way from a police officer being
required to hand in his notebook for inspection
it's all on line instantly
even if the cops switch off their body cams
essentially you can't accuse a
CCTV camera or a computer database of being
a paedo or a perve
and so
we return to a previous entry
There is a garage on Redcar Sea Front
that services cop cars and is a dive shop
and in the early days of CCTV
they set up a camera from the shop to live stream
sea conditions for divers
and somebody made a privacy complaint
so we shall see how far �700,00 of
Home Office money for
CCTV on Hemlington and Pallister Park
will actually get any of the psychos
who are no doubt mates and relatives of the local cops
actually get
locked up
and not sent on a horizon widening
thieving reckie
in the West End of London
or
on Safarri in Africa

what possible justification is there for
the police to have
private training centres
akin to religious seminaries
instead of recruiting
proper main stream graduates
and sending them out for
recognised higher degrees as their training?
the idea of law enforcement
dancing to another tune
still seems to be acceptable to society as a whole
presumably because most peopl don't expect them to stray off
their native sink estates
body cams with on off switches emind us of
the propritor of a back street garage
seeking an assurance from a customer that
the dash am is switched off
on a car come in for service
time change
but slowly in the back streets
sink estates and law enforcement

sometimes we get into a habit in society of
taking something for granted
without thinking about what it actually is
there are two words we hear about a lot
data
statistics
data is simple
data is the plural of datum
we often hear data
but not so often phrases such as
datum line
or
datum point
when setting out foundations for a new building
surveyors start with a point on the plot
they extend that to a line
and then everything they build is
measured out from the datum point and datum line
statistics is in a sense the opposite
statistics is, as a word, based on
set up
what statistics does is like
one day you come onto a building site and
there isn't much to see except a whole load of
pegs set across the site and strings set out between them
if you are the casual observer you may try to work out
what the eventual building will look like
if you are the architect you may check to see if
the building will match the drawings
and so with life
in life things move around a lot
so in one sense
when we collect data we are taking a snapshot of the system
and then at intervals we take the same shot from the same point
the same datum point
and we try to
1 fillin the gaps between observations
2 extend or extrapolate how the system will develop
in the future
and today we want to point out a statistic about
iron and steel
if you are interested in either iron or statistics
here is a question
what proportion of the iron in an item or structure
that is made or iron or steel
becomes
rust
before it is scrapped?
we don't know the answer but we think
for the most part it will be
not very much
the industrial revolution has changed the planet
quite a lot
and one tool that has changed the planet more than most is
the Blast Furnace
the big blast in Redcar spent
half a century
turning rocks - iron ore
into iron
rust is - essentially- iron ore
iron and steel products are scrapped when they
get rusty - covered in rust
not when they disintegrate into nothing but rust
and so
fifty years of producing 3 million tonnes a year of iron
from iron ore
how much iron and how much rust?
how much scrap iron ready for re-cycling?
and so
India and Tata
want to stop exporting UK scrap to
Portugal or wherever to be melted down
and want to recycle existing scrap
in Port Talbot
because ndia is a country suffering the effects of
global warming
to a much greater extent thn the UK
but the UK government want to
open a coal mine in the Lake District
the UK government want Tata to
keep the blast furnaces in Port Talbot
runnng on coal
because they want to protect the market for
coal
just as Redcar's Gertrude Bell wanted to
suppress the developemnt of
oil reserves in the Middle East
to protect the market for her father's
coal mines
in County Durham
the UK government is more interested in
digging coal than making steel
'we' have turned a lot of iron ore into steel
and not very much of it has turned back into rust
srap is the new iron ore
and the best way to melt and refine scrap iron is
electric arc furnaces or electric induction furnaces
and the electricity for those
can come from a multitude of sources
BUT
if you do want to
top up the amount of iron on the planet
Redcar has the capacity to do that
using sewage carbon - re-cycled
and not coal - fossil carbon


sometimes we see something and it lodges in the memory
and we write about it when we get time
some time last week Wednesday or Thursday - not before
we saw something unusual at
Redcar Central railway station
a passenger train - the sort that runs on the
Darlington to Saltburn line
pulled onto the goods loop and waited
while it was there an empty mineral train ran through on the
Darlington to Saltburn down line - towards Saltburn
when it had gone the passenger train reversed bak to
the down line platform
this passenger train was not the sort that runs the
TransPennine xpress service
but it behaved in the same way
this activity sparked a thought
this stuff about
tracks buckling in the heat
often although not through Redcar
a line will have two speed limits
one for passenger trains
and another usually lower limit for freight
we suspect that that passenger train was
running slow for fear of derailment
and hid on the goods loop
to let the potash tran through at
normal line speed
and that begs the question
did network rail run passenger trains
more slowly than usual lst week
as a PR exercise
rather than for genuine engineering reasons?
we say this well aware that
main line track has expansion joints
and it is only
'fishplated track that buckles
however
an expansion joint consists of two
jaw and tongue rails
imagine a length of track rail where
in woodworking terms
two setions of rail are not
but jointed
but
lap jointed
excapt that
you cut away half of each rail to be jointed
but
you do not join them
you set them in sockets called
chairs
and you cut away a lot more material from each
rail end than you would need to
if you were not to allow for expansion and contraction
the expansion change of length can be calculated as follows
totla expansion change in inches
equals
the amount by which the steel expands for a given
temperature rise
times the maximum temperature range in operation
times the length between joints in inches
what this really means is
to extend the temperature range over which the track
will be safe from buckling
you add more joints
that costs
so you need to know it will be needed often enough
to make it preferable to occasional speed reductions
however
speed reductions do not affect the chances of buckling
in any way whatsoever
they do affest the severity of the crash
if the train were to derail
and or course
it is not just
The Flying Banana
the yellow liveried track testing train
that can be fitted with cameras and sensors
it's the FLYING banana because it
runs and tests at track speed

we get things wrong
we included some reference to
The Redcar Triathlon
scheduled for today
we suspect that at that time
it had already been cancelled
it didn't happen
we THINK it was cancelled not postponed
it's an entry level triathlon
and t may be back next year

here we will thread together a few facts
we are thinking about the development of a borough
that borough in this case being
Redcar and Cleveland
so far as we can tell
over time the twin bays of perhaps
and in order river to cliff
or
west to east
Coatham, Redcar, Marske, and Saltburn
had three piers
Coatham Pier seems to have been quite small and short lived
but perhaps the first
then Redcar, now gone
and Saltburn partly hanging on
so three settlements
plus
Eston
Guisborough
so a small footnote
Redcar pier was not much more than a dance hall on the beach
at the time when it was demolished
this is the story we have
Redar 'Pier' was a dance hall on the sands
around where the High Street and Esplanade merge
into what is it
Granville Terrace?
anyway the story is that as a dance hall it had a
Mighty Wurlitzer
an organ
and on the demolition of the dance hall the organ was moved
this being 1981
to Eston
to be installed in James Finnigan Hall and that was attached to
Eston Town Hall
and they were demolished in July 2012
and there was an idea to move the organ to
The Coatham Bowl in Redcar
but that was demolished before the move could be made
and for a long time
The Glasshouse - the entrance to the gone Coatham Pier
was the temporary home of
The Regent Cinema
that had originally been in Queen Street
so we've sorted out the history of the organ
there used to be another one in Coatham Memorial Hall
the Redcar Pier Wurlitzer was
the first of the standars 3/8 Granada model
and was installed in 1934 in the
Granada Theatre in Bedford
in the Second World War
it was used for rehersals by the
Glenn Miller Band
who were based in Bedford
The organ was purchased by
The Langbarugh theatre Organ Society in 197?
after a short time in storage it was installed in
The Ballroom (Dance Hall) on Redcar Pier
it stayed there 18 months
and with the pier demolished it was off again
to Eston
and the Coatham Bowl
as in Bowling Alley
deal also falling foul of the wrecking ball
it went on
Permanent Loan to
Pennistone Cimema Organ Trust
and so far as we know it is being re-built at the
Astoria Centre
in Barnsley
and that was as at 2020
over a period of time
a collection of buildings were erected between
Coatham Road and Kirkleatham Street in central Redcar
collectively they are
Redcar Community Heart
all sorts
council offices, swimming pool without a diving board but
with a huge water flume for leaning surfing
anyway
the first two buildings there are called
something like
Saltscar House and Redcar House
at the time thay were built
an office block of similar design was built
not in Eston
but in
Guisborough
built on a corner of the
site of the demolished
Balckett Hutton works
and called Belmont house?
as far as we remember Blackett Hutton
cast iron
there are two main things you can do with iron scrap
you can melt it down and made steel
or you can melt it down and cast it into
cast iron
anyway
what with
CoViD and working from home
Redcar and Cleveland Council has
too much office space
so they are proposing to
let Belmont House go
and we will note that pre-CoViD
there was a cash office in Saltscar House
now if you want to pay for a replacement bin
as opposed to paying your council tax
you have to give your bank details over the 'phone
we mean
trnsaction, customer not present
they ask you for your ard details and enter them for you
so we guess nobody asked for the Wurlitzer back
when they were designing the new Regent...

our main activity is to take
public information
information in the public domain
but perhaps in specialist publications
and make sense of them for
what should we say?
a reader of New Scientist
anyway
in broad terms
there are two gas pipelines connecting
Russia and Europe
over the past few hours
the price of North Sea Gas Futures has
rocketed up
just as it fell when it was announced that
Nordstream1 was to be serviced
Nordstream2 exists but is not in use
and so
for an unspecified period up to
ten dats ago
Nordstream 1 was opperating at reduced capaity
for a period of ten days to date it has been shut down
not working at all
as from now it has re-opened
but operating at the same reduced capacity it was
working at up to the shut down
this is being interpreted as
the pipeline was malfunctioning
as a guess, pumps had failed
the conclusion is
the Russians shut it down to fix it
and they failed
the assumption is that the reason for the failure to repair is
they tried to fix it themselves
lke a bodged DIY project
because
sanctions have prevented non-Russian contractors from
supervising
the conclusion is that so long as sanctions continue
and or expert contrators decline work in Russia
Norstream1 will work at 30 per cent
Nordstream2 will not work at all


regarding the ? adolescent care home
on Corporation Road
that used to be
Stanley Nixon's house
opposite Cleveland College
if the staff, management and contrators
possibly including social workers?
continue to
take the piss
by paaking on the pavement outside
instead of in the car park
they will eentually score
double yellow lines outside


now we will have a think about
the next Tory Prime Minister
some pundits are referring to the idea that
when Theresa May stood for election
it was a coronation not an election
this is because
although Liam Fox and Michael Gove were Andrea Leadson and Stephen Crabb withdrew
and the sum of that was that Theresa May was
unopposed in the members' vote
as a result of that being a new arrangement
and it not going through
the election/selection/appointment of
Sunak or Truss
will be the first Prime Minister elected by the members
of the Tory Party
we will make a note at this point
we are given no figure for the number of Tory Party members
but a suggestion of 'around 160,000'
we are not told whether the vote in this matter extends to
party members on or near the payroll
360 MPs, 1,000 Mp's offie employees
2 or 3 thousand close family
all reapeated in The House of Lords
and again in Central Office
the 'payroll' element in this members' vote could be
up to a third of the available vores if not disqualified
this has all the appearance of
we - the Tory MPs - don't want a new leader
and we don't want either of the candidates because
we want a fresh shiny new leader
two years from now who can
lead us into the next election without reference to
2022 problems
if we - this site - were running this
we would select Liz Truss
as a sort of ...
we're off into research here
the wite faced clown with the conical hat
or black skull cap over a white costume with
fluffy buttons
is Pierrot
the one in the check suit with a flower growing out of
his hat is the
Auguste
and then there are character clowns
the Auguste is a clown mid way between the Pierrot and
the tramp character clown
and Auguste often has a red nose
since the Pierrot has something of the
Julian Clery about him
we may well if we were drawing cartoons
draw Liz Truss as Pierrot
and so
the question is
will Rishi Sunack be held back for a second chance
or are they thinking
Mordaunt will be ready for high in a couple of years?

just the save you searching for the
stranded lobster pic...



and so
Carpetright becomes
The Salvation Army
hard to know what that means for Redcar



ths is not going to go down well
and it is definitely in the realm of
a tink piece
our Ricker has noticed something
this past few days he has go - is gotten better?
he has got hungry earlier in the day in this heat
and seeing as he has reduced his physical activity a bit
he's kinda thinking
not low blood glucose
in the hot weather he supposes that he has been sweting a bit more
we are not going near those ads for products tha suppress seating....
what we are thinking about
stream of conscousness interjection
why do we say
sweating like a pig
and then get told
pigs have to wallow because they can't sweat?
another one of life's mysteries
the thing that has struck us today is
if it's hot and we sweat and we get hungry
sis that hunger a
salt raving? and if it is
does the food industry promote
low salt foods so that
we will eat more and more fat and carbs
to get the essential salt we need?
there was a debate a whle ago about
how long an you exercise and sweat fo before you have to
switch from
water
to
isotonic drinks?
in hot weather we reach for
chilled and frozen foods
and those on offer tend to be
sugar laden not salty

we have this habbit of checking things that baffle us
sweating like a pig
the actual phrase is
sweating like a bullock
that brings us to something else
pigs are descended from animals that lived on scrubland
and they have
piggy little eyes
cattle have huge eyes
and although we keep them on pasture
they evolved in woodland
so
when they charged
they had to avoid ruwell to avoid doing that
so
somebody set up a load of racks of china in an enclosure
in a field
and drove some cattle through the enclosure
and they got through
without breaking any
hence undermining the saying
like a bull in a china shop
and speaking of 'sayings'
there you have it
a British Summer
Two fine days and a thunder storm
and sweating bullets?
lead melt at a fairly low temperature
and somebody who is very very nervous
could by exageration
have habds hot enough to metl lead and sprinkle in around like
lead shot


here's a scenario for
Green Campaigners
renewable energy secpic says
the wind doesn't always blow
so what do we do on calm days?
what the fossil boys did latelast summer in the UK was
they sheduled annual maintenance on at least one
gas powered electricity generating staton
in a week when calm weather - no wind - was forecast
but the primary answer is
that's why we have a National Grid
it's always windy somewhere
the second generation answer is
no matter how unreliable the wind may be
or even the sun
there is always A LEAST 1,860 parts per billion
methane in fresh air
and when motor racing
Formula 1
talks about
synthetic fuel from the atmosphere
we guess this is what theyare talking about
just like anybody who says
I'm not your stepping stone
the fossil boys don't want to be religated to fuelling
stand-by generators
they want to remain
main stream
but
mainly as a
security blanket
we could say to people
look
on any days when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining
we can fire up the plants that
extract methane from fresh air

the core issue here is
is blue hydrogen being promoted as a
source of hydrogen
or a market for natural gas that is
mainly methane?
if for waever reason you don't like the idea of
green hydrogen
you still have two options for hydrogen
the atmosphere - the air we breathe
is around 2 parts per million
or 1,860 parts per billion
methane and mongst other mehods
we can separate any gas we want from the air
by chilling the air and
all the gasses liquify and boil at different temperatures
so the fossil boys can say
look if we take methane from natural gas to use to make
blue hydrogen
we can save the cost of
extracting methane from air
and this is where we get very suspicious of
green activism
these people concentrate on
making a bloody nuisane of themselves
instead of gdtting into the spread sheets
and showing how much cheaper and easier
grenn technology is
it's almost as though they are being paid to
give green a bad name
we are promised that the weather will break on Wednesday
the wind diretion will change
and we will be able to get back to normal
we think that planned events for next weekend will be able to
go ahead
on the other hand
just in case - heaven forefend
the forecast is a bit off
a modest proposal
put it in your mind that
if you were planning to take part in
the Redcar Triathalon on Sunday 24th July
and you have had a rough week
if the organisers permit it
perhaps a switch to the
Aquabike
would be wise

in a sense
blue hydrogen is a form of water gas
the process is more developed because it uses a catalist
and the carbon source is meathan - natural gas
and not coal, coke, or whatever
water gas is h2o plus c equals h2 plus co
blue hydrogen is
ch4 plus h2o equals h2 plus co
but it is more efficient because
quantitively it is
ch4 plus h20 equals 3h2 plus co
in other words
if you use carbon to produce water gas
you get a gas that is half carbon monoxide and half hydrogen
if you use methane as your carbon source you get
blue hydrogen that is
three quarters hydrogen and a quarter carbon monoxide
because you are getting hydrogen from both
the water and the methane
we assume that the carbon monoxide is removed from
Blue Hydrogen by chilling it and
liguifying it and allowinh one fraction
they hydrogen or the carbon monoxide to boil off
and hen the carbon monoxide is burnt to produce
energy and carbon dioxide and
the carbon dioxide is put into the
carbon capturre and storage facility being built at the former
Redcar ironworks
the joke is
the fossil boys are saying
we will invest millions or billions into making blue hydrogen work
when all you need for green hydrogen is
a wind tyrbine hooked up to a tank of water



instant hands up
we got it wrong
the movie was
Backdraft
not Blowback
we've been moved to write something different about
The Gas Industry
there re people alive today
but probably retired
who did sience at school
chemistry textbooks in the 1960s
were full of information about technology
not so much protons neutrons and electrons
more gas works engineering
and so these text bookshad four gas related terms
Town or coal gas
water gas
producer gas
the next thing to consider is
there was no such thing as
'Northern Gas Networks'
towns would have a
Gas Works
that gas works would pipe gas to customers
gas works were not connected to
other gas works
and probably very important
the local gas works - the only one you were conneted to
was probably owned and run by the local council - the local authority
and probably at some 'arms length' by
The Gas Board
even today there will be a gas explosion and
the first reporters on scene will start babbling on about
'people from the gas board were on scene within minutes
so the three components of gas
town gas is fumes from coke ovens
and very smelly
water gas is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen
produced by passing steam through red hot carbon - usually coke
producer gas
is a mixture of carbon monoxide, hydrogen carbon dioxide and nitogen
produced by burning carbon - usually coal or coke
in a stream of a mixture of
steam and air
there's a movie about fire fighters probably called
Blowback
a lot of building - particularly in the USA
contain a lot of timber
when you put 'cooling' water on a well established fire
it is like adding steam to a water gas or producer gas plant
and the gasses build up and ignite at some point
thats' why we sometimes use
foam
foam is intended to starve the fire of both
oxygen and water because a well established fire will
rob oxygen from water
so you should not attempt to cool a fire down
but the professionals do it so everybody apes them
most peope would say
you can't set fire to water
but a water gas plant can
so what you got through the gs pipes was a gas mixture
that at any gven time may have been different proportions of
town, water and producer gas
so the first point was the less coal gas the less the smell
so when it was more water or producer gas
ethyl or methyl mercaptan was added so that customers
did not think they were being sold
compressed air
there is a fundamental point here
town gas was not
CONTAMINATED with carbon monoxide
it WAS carbon monoxide
at times fifty per cent by volume
we used to have publicity campaigns about
if the chip pan catches fire
don't put water on it
put a lid on it
but over past decades govenments appear to have adopted the
Darwin Principle
leave 'em alone
these accidents serve the useful purpose of
thinning the fuckwits out a bit
like the cops who tell people to
close their doors and windows so that
thye can trap smoke and fumes in their
gas chamber palaces

during the 1880s in Germany
VON Quaglic added ethyl mercaptan to
water gas
to make it smell more like
town gas
if you pass steam over heated carbon
in essence the game was
to make gas from coke and steam rather than by
baking coal
and to a point you make town or coal gas by roasting coal
you then have town gas and coke
it's wise to use the town gas quickly
but you can store the coke and make water gas from it later
town gas smells
water gas doesn't to they
'disguised' water gas as town gas by adding
ethyl mercaptan - later methyl mercaptan
and it just stuck
one you do something in industry
you keep doing it
to avoid being sued if you stop
so they added methyl mercaptan to
Natural or North Sea Gas
and the problem is
when you burn the gas you burn the methyl meraptan
and the fumes from burning methyl mercaptan are
less dangerous and less toxic than the fumes from
burning town gas - explosve, full of sulphur etc
but a lot more dangerous than the fumes from burning North Sea Gas
as is the way with these things
nobody has investigated the pros and ons of
no longer adding MMC
so we still do it on the basis that if we didn't
there would be undetected gas leaks all over the place
people - like in the air freshner ads
are supposed to go
nose blind
and ignore the fact that upplied gas is deliberately designed to
stink to high heaven
and burnt gas don't smell much better
so we are now supposed to have
flues and extractor fans to removed the fumes from
homes and workplaces
snag
carbon monoxide detectors don't detect MMC combustion products
and they contain sulphur oxides
so no matter how much trouble you go to to remove sulphur from
natural gas
you put it back in with the methyl mercaptan
in other words
in 150 years
nobody has thought to replace methyl meraptan with
a safer and more pleasant oderant
but the bottom line seems to be
if you can become
nose blind to
the smell of sweaty socks and wet dog
you can presumably become nose blind
not only to the combustion products of natural gas
but also to the methy mercaptan
added to the gas to make leaks obvious
and so
in light of so many domestic gas explosion
many not malicious
perhaps people over 60 in buildings with a gas supply
should have detectors fitted and
not rely on their fading sense of smell
IF
such authorites as we have
could get around to it
the best option would seem to be
gas detectors with sirens and flashing lights
on all new gas appliances including gas meters



we have a stat for early next week
it is said that when you
move a muscle
70 percent of the energy - food - input
immediately heats up that muscle
only 30 per cent of the energy expended
actually MOVES the muscle
and so, on balance, for Monday and Tuesday
perhaps cancel the exercise routine
the blip won't ruin your fitness
naturally this is not advice for professonals
for most
just for a couple of days
slow races
and this is why e
shiver when we are cold
shiver when cold
pant when hot
there will be people
hyperventilating
if the patinet is in heat stress
hyperventilation can derange blood gas concentrations
and if they are pantng to keep cool
doesn't necessarily mean they are
'struggling to breathe'
so you could find
hyperventilation and blood oxygen saturation of 99%
and that could confuse matters
who can do the necessary as slowly as possible...



a word to the wise
the wise jet ski-ing fisherman
if you're gonna gun it in such small circles
why not keep it at home and
run it around the fish pond
staying within 50 metres of the slipway
don't show folk what a roughty toughty seafarer you are
such a big bay
why stay under the feet of the fisherfolk?
just a thought but
next time you may meet up with them
mob handed
and a last thought
we suggest next time you make sure
grandad
takes his medication
before you collect him from the care home


There used to be a borough of Redcar
but no more
Redcar and Cleveland with wards
so council wards can be put together and result in
'Redcar' housing around a quarter of
Redcar and Cleveland's 138,000 population
Mddlesbrough has a population almost exactly the same as
Redcar and Cleveland
Redcar and Cleveland
and that includes
'post industrial'
Greater Eston
has around a quarter of its children
in relative poverty
Middlesbrough has around half its children in relative poverty
Middlesbrough is a complete basket case and
a bit like Redcar and Cleveland...
the local government administration is
domnated by
independent councillors
the minority Labour councillors are not in power
relative poverty is not a 'simple metric'
but it hovers around
a child living in a houshold with an income
less than 60 per cent of the average
but tht isn't a true average
it is the middle number
so if you ignore unearned income such as
Garry Lineker and other football pundits
and business profits
as a side issue
how can Lineker afford a pay ut from the BBC
at the same time as going stum about
Walker's Crisps?
must be doing a lecture series on
How to Skin the BBC
so we take Saturday girl - minimum wage
and NHS dentist
we subtract minimum wage from dental contract
halve the result and add back minimum wage
that is the median wage
and children are in relative poverty if they
live in a household on less than 60 per cent of that
but not EXACTLY - always the fiddle factors
like living wage instead on minimum wage
and before or after housing costs
rent or mortgage
absolute poverty may be ?
less than the living wage
extreme poverty is a global measure of
less than two pounds a day

uk passports need to be renewed every 10 years
unless you ar under 18 years old
in that case they have to be renewed every five years
and they are needed from birth for foreign travel
obviously the details of a baby in their passport
will be way out of date long before they
NEED a new passport at age coming up to five
so we are thinking about those pictures of babies with
blurred out faces
obvously, there is a great difference between
an identity card
a thing you may renew annually
and a passport
we are thinking about reasons why a child should not be photographed
there may be a number but
in cases where it is deemed essential that a child has a thorough
fresh start
to avoid being traced by an abuser or other contact of risk
as children change so much in early years and at
growth spurts
the essential thing is
not that they should not be photographed
but that there should be no
up to date image linked to a prior identity
thus it is not
the man in the street but the organisation issuing
identity cards
schools hospitals clubs
who should not be being cavalier about security
what you are trying to avoid is
oh that's what she looks like now
I'll keep an eye out for her
it's still not a fundamental problem with being
photographed


we always try to be fair and inclusive
we will go back to gradpa Robson
he was chair of the housing committe of
Billingham urban district council
a part of Stockton-on-Tees
we could check but we will guees he died at a fair old age in
1948
the point about him that we want to make at this time is that
he was a Liberal
but he had quite a fight - we understand - late in his
political career
with the council over having an
Official Photograph
taken
becuase , according to him, his version of
Christianity
forebade the worship of graven images
we'll say that was in the 1940s
our Ricker came along less than ten years after granpa's death
in Middlesbrough, just south of The Cleveland Centre
there's a road called
Grange Road
from 1826 to 1984
father and son
Forrest and Dennis Wompra
ran a photographic business on Grange Road
opposite the now south end of the Clevelnd Centre
and so that was the premiere photo studio in town
and he got them
and he was happy
and then a little later he was even more happy because
seeing as he would walk past the shop it being near his offices in
Albert Road
he soon discovered a large - like 18 inch by 12 inch
print of the best Ricker photo
in a gold frame in the shop window
and there had been no disussion of this
and dad went on being ever so proud for ages and ages
then one day the picture was gone
oh we binned it
I want to buy it
OK
and our Ricker has it on the wall in his front room
so we can say
a child may appear in the bakground of a street photo
and if the child played no part in achieving the
photographer's intent
a 'release form' is not required because
the child did notcontribute under direction
to the production of the photo
and so a grey area as to whether
some form of model release is required if a
professional photographer chooses an example of their work
as a display and advertisement of their work
there may be a financial issue but the prvacy issue
is a bit less clear
when film companies descend on a location
we are thinking of an episode of the Newcastle woman detective
Vera
in Redcar
the film company put notices around the High Street that read
in essence
if anybody finds themselves 'on film' in the background of a shot
and they are there not at the express direction of the film company
they can make no claim on the purse of the film company
for however they appear
perhaps such notices are advisable
whenever the circus comes to town
batons, lifeboats, torches
just like the notices saying
CCTV in operation
but here is the kicker
in the normal run of things
if a person - of any age - is out and about
or similar
they should have great difficulty distinguishing between
being seen out and about
and
being photographed out and about
the thing being that we do not at this time
give much credence to the idea that
simlar to grandad Robson's belief
that it was a sin to worship graven images
that the camera
steals away the spirit or soul of the person photographed
and so we set a failure to find an automatic harm from
being photographed going about our normal day to day ativities
and
the harm done by not being allowed to
play out
for fear you may be photographed

but then the question comes in terms of privcy
up skirting, down blousing
the distinction between
a normal view as available to any passer by
and a special images achieved
by the use of special technology
like
X-ray machines at airport security
so that case
general term and conditions of carriage should cover it
if you want to fly
you automatically agree to a baggage
and or body search
and then we come to a related issue
man approaches a police officer
I've seen that man taking pictures of children
police officer examines 'phone
no pictures of children
is the reporter
1 delusional
2 malicious
mistaken
if we go back to the beginning of stalking legislation
all such reports should be properly recorded
if an individual makes
three false accusations
they should either be
reported for charge
or
reported for psychitric reports
if they have a delusional condition of obsession that should be referred for medical help
even if the reports relate to different supposed offenders


every now and again
a thought strikes our Ricker
so as usual we had to check it out
Universal Credit
we can say that from April 2022 the process of
transferring people to UC re-started after being
paused for the epidemic
what we are not so sure of is
as far as we know
roll out wasn't by
name in alphabetical order
or age
it was and is
by Post Code
and so we assume that even though people were not being
transferred during 'lock down'
wherever you lived
if you were a new claimant of the basic 6 'old' benefits
you weren't, because
new claimants wherever could only get UC
we are not sure about that
but
if UC is the only game in town for new claimants
a lot of people will have had experience of UC
during the crisis
and it appears
the tide of
panic over complications and lost income
didn't find much space in the media
the thing we realy really don't have a clue about is
we were given to understand that
and here we revert to
in work poverty
as the main thrust
Childcare Element of Working Tax Credit
and the main item
Maximum eligible cost for
2 OR MORE CHILDREN
in other words
ome element across the benefits system that
families on benefits should have
zero, one or two children
and so it is a major question
is relative net poverty in
North East England
due to larger average family size?
we know that
half of childen in Middlesbrough
are in relative poverty
we know that the population of Middlesbrough
increases at around
five per cent per year
and
nor a lorra people
migrate TO Middlesbrough
except for asylum seekers and such
so we guess the
birth rate per parent is
well
above average
there have to be loop holes regarding
kinship carers, fostering etc.
but the queston has to be
are the food banks
feeding
the third and forth child?


sometimes after a little think
we decide to simplify what we have said
a slightly scruffy middle aged man alone on the streets with
a todler - possibly strapped into - a buggie
only slightly off
but say they are at a public entertainment
and he starts complaining about people taking pictures
should it cross your mind that
perhaps he is afraid somebody will tae a picture of him
WITH THAT CHILD
and he wants to put a stop to that because
he shouldn't BE with that child
just like market traders objeting to
publicity shots of the market
because
they are working and claiming


you know that thing about
if you want to get chatted up in the park
take a dog
anybody's dog
a long while ago our Ricker was at a busy junction in York
it had pedestrian phases in the lights
a good number of people were waiting at the lights
where Ricker was waiting
suddenly
a man charges towards the assembly and
out into the road shouting
I have a child, I have a child
now how do you get to be a police inspector
without getting the training that alerts you to the possibility that
a slightly scruffy middle aged man alone with
a toddler in a push chair
may have little or no connection with the child?
join Cleveland Police , apparently
and if he starts wittering on about people taking photos of
a public event
a baton relay fro example
and if your local PCSO and constable side kicks
can't identify him on sight
because he's never been seen at the location before
in his life
certainly not with a toddler in a push chair
would you ask
has he borrowed that child to
get close to other children?

we would refer you way back to the pic of the
squishy lobster tail
we found one on the beah the other day
perhaps it had been barbecued
but not squashing with a brick laid on it
shows some evidence that
them that got washed up
were low in calcium












our Ricker wishes to extend a small apology to
anybody associated with
Zetland primary School
he didn't know they were going to have a trip out to witness the
Commonwealth Games Baton Handover
it is not for him to say that children shold be banned from such events
for fear there may be photographs
so WE have npo pics of the baton handover
we do have a few pic of the baton on the move but
they are not woth processing
it is difficult to promote a town if
whenever you try to take pics
somebody may pipe up and say
there could be kids in the background


we are proper bad at geography
we've just figured out that
Sri Lanka
is in
Ceylon
and Ceylon was part of Portugal until they
got fed up with it and handed it over to the British
and then t was a Brtish Dominium so we guess it will soon be a part of China
more importantly
we can't find
Gateshead Arena
on tinternet
there's Gateshead Stadium
and pictures of Gateshead Arena alongside
text about Newcastle Arena
and Newcastle Arena is described as being at the
Newcastle end of the Redheugh Bridge
and since the Gateshead Arena is at
the Gateshead end of the Redheugh Bridge
we are talking about a big green shed
built by Chas Chandler
we came across this question on Google
is Gateshead in Newcastle or Sunderland?
see - football teams
Sunderland is onboth sides of the River Wear
and is a town within the Metropolitan District of
Tyne and Wear
but has
City Status
City of Sunderlad
and has it's own post codes
SN - probably
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
and
Gateshead
are also in Tyne and Wear but on opposite sides of
The River Tyne
they are two of four authorities at the mouth of the Tyne
the others being North Tyneside and South Tyneside
and all for have
NE
post codes
anyway
there is an arena somewhere on Tyneside that has a seating capacity of
11,000 and that is considered
'big enough'
for the Eurovision Song Contest
so when we refer to
The Gateshead Arena
we are talking about the
big green shed at the south end of the Redheugh Bridge
and it is to be demolished soon when the
the New Sage Gateshead
is built
Redcar does not have
MH post codes
Middlesbrough does not have MH post codes
all of Teesside
but not all of the Tees valley because
Darlington has DL post codes
but Stockton-on-Tees, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough
and
Redcar and Cleveland
have TS post codes
and the rest of the North East of England has
DH post codes for Durham
seeing as how
Harrogate Convention Centre has a capacity of
2,000
and it has hosted Eurovision Song Contest
we are guessing
the figure of 10,000 was cooked up by the BBC to
swing it for Newcastle or Gateshead

on Thursday 14th July
The Queen's Commonwealth Games Baton
is due to set off from Saltburn-by-the-Sea
at around 8.00 am BST
and should have cleared Redcar by 10.00 or 10.30

we don't assume that voting members of the Tory Party
are big on reading this blog...
but others my be a bit confused
they probably have vague memories of a chap called
Christopher Tugendhat
so
in the House of Lords
old boy of
not so bad this
Ampleforth
North Yorkshire's best Roman catholic school
and
member of the European Commission
and if you were wondering
uncle of the Tom Tugendhat
who is perhaps the least
eccentric
token candidate for Tory leader and tht could have died out with
lord Christopher's parents
we don't know
we are of course forgetting
the MP for dementia
Jeremy Hunt
some time ago we floated the idea that
The Salvation Army
were going to take over the
Carpet Right
buliding on Corporation Road
from what we have seen since
it looks like they have turned it into a
training centre
for
Shop Fitters

we hear that
Redcar cenral Station is
Grade II listed
it was OK as a
reundant railway building for a while
but then it appeared that the council wanted
the businesses in it to transfer to the
and definitely not listed
Community Heart
if the rail line
Teh DArlington to Saltburn
had been shut by Beeching
that would be understandable
what happened was
the line stayed open and
Linda Green and her very attractive assistant
had a ticket office built for them on the
up line platform
so the question
relating to somebody or some orgaisation getting
a very very long lease on the property
learly not a repairing least
considering the 'delapidations'
meaning that Green and Co were not allowed to operate
as before from within the station building
so we assume that at the time it was considered
precious real estate
we got today
from Eurovisionthe definition of a
Seaside Resort
a venue catering for
10,000 an audience of ten thousand
and 2,000 two thousand bookable hotel rooms
and we don't think
contractor's digs
would cut it
so if you are thinking of building anything smaller
in Redcar
you'd be better off keeping your money
plenty of converted 'family homes' in the Coatham ward
we do wonder what proportion of Coathm residents
are on the electoral roll...

this is one of those
Romeo and Juliet jobs
one of them fakes death
the other commits suicide for real
the first obe commits suicide
this is yer standard
DEFRA protocol
this bird has died
MAYBE it was bird flu
we'll have to kill all the others in ase it's spread
Ooops
the autopsy on the first bird comes back
heat stress
still you got yer compo
and prices were beginning to slide through
over supply so
everybody happy
not so much when the birds are a
tourist attraction
we have been shown video of a 'dying' tern
on the North East Coast of England
one of the major symptoms of heat stroke in birds is panting
they try to cool the blood flowing through the
sufaces in the
the armchair vet may see that as
respiratory distress caused by 'flu'
auks
guillimots, puffins penguins?
don't fly well and mostly stay out at sea
they come to land to 'nest' although they don't
actually build a nest
so breeding is hot for them
sitting on those hot rocks
two major stressers for sea birds
winter
feeding chicks
and they live to 25 years
so a lot of them are trying to parent
when really knocking on
chicks die if they ain't fed
parents can't feed chicks if they are suffering heat stroke
and chick and parent can
fry on the nest
probably better to culture some virus
before declaring 'flu''
as the cause of the problem

any really major project is likely to be divided into
phases
as we understand t
the York half of the
electrification of the
York to Leeds section of the
Redcar to Manchester rail line
begins today
anybody's guess when they will get the the Teesside
and that includes Thornaby and Middlesbrough
half
a guess would be
five to ten years
in theory they did a bout a mile last weekend so
a mile a weekend so tht could be a year or two
but events are likely to intervene

we had our Pasteur day yesterday
we were surprised that his involvement with
vaccination
was highlighted
we should say it would be accurate to describe Pasteur as
The Thomas Eddison
of micro-biology
and so
the first successful vaccination was in
1796
Edward Jenner
he transferred secretions from dairymaid
Sarah Nelms who had cowpox
under the skin of
8 year old James Phipps
soon afterwards the boy developed
a mild fever and discomfort in the armpits
in that sense this was
first and foremost,BR> an indication that
it was the exudates that transmitted the disease
it was 1853 before this vaccination became
UK manditory
so if you have Napoleon 3rd behind you
Pasteur
you get faster results
in particular the
medical establishment
but it had been known since at least 430BC
that people who had survived smallpox
were called upon to nurse
people in the thows of the infectionsmall pox
since they appeared to have some level of
immunity
what we can say is
people have all sorts of ideas
and they - mostly - only get to have their name associated
with that idea if they get in trouble over that idea
get prosecuted for holding those views and are
forced to defend their reputation
hence
1715
Lady mary Wortly Montague got but survived a bout of smallpox
with a pock maked face
her brother died but her husband
wasappointed ambassador to Istanbul
where he encountered variolation or
vaccination
so Jenner - no light bulb moment
just an incident that upset the medical establishment
Charles Maitland innoculated Lady Mary's 4 year old son
in March 1721
in the presence of physicians of the Royal Court
6 prisoners in Newgate August 1721
they got a King's pardon in return for volunteering
to be inoculated
they all survived the procedure
and some later survived smallpox
April 17 1722
Maitland innoculated two daughters of
the Princess of Wales
that was when the whole thing really took off
so Pasteur?
1886
Pasteur treated 350 people with his rabies vaccine
it was a culture of rabid brain matter
attenuated with
formaldehyde
and is still used today in countries where rabies is endemic
onlt one of the 350 died from rabies
Pasteur was infamous for his
risky unethical experiments
in this case he
went direct to humans without
prior animal testing
perhaps that makes him a hero of PETA is it
the anti-vivisectionists
the first Pasteur rabies vaccine was made form
spinal cord of rabbits with rabies
attenuated by being dried out in air
so, as we said
Te Pasteur Institute a microbiological equivalent of
Thomas Edison's laboratories
try lots of things and see what works
empirical
rather than following a 'theory' assumed to
predict a good outcome
theoretical v empirical
since most people won't follow the theory
the optimum approach is usually
pursue the thoretical to
establish a
'ball park'
and then do the trial to make it
empirical

because the Tour de France today started in
Dole
birthplace of Louis Pasteur
we will write a bit about his reputation
it is quite right that
research scientists
argue to the pont of feuding
Louis Pasteur was not a licenced doctor
and so there were problems over
him putting perhaps undue pressure on,br. licenced doctors to carry out experiments for him
it is always difficult to put yourself in the
mind set of the people who made advances and discoveries
one element of confusion that Pasteur was involved in was
when a substance or product made from that substance
is made and exposed to sun and air
a substance such as rubber
it will change it may loose its desirable qualities
we may say
it has 'perished'
eleastic bands that snap
that sort of thing
Pasteur was famous and well funded
and so he got involved is several aspects of
Life Sciences
as we have said befre is original fame came from
the heat reatment to extend shelf life of produce
his core experiments essentiallydestroyed the concept of
spontaneous generation
lfe springing up were there was no life before
as an aside we could mention
barnacle geese
back in the days before global travel
people who lived where some geese
OK this doesn't add up quite
as we see it
these geese breed in Iceland
and fly down to the UK to be warmer in the winter
but this must have happened on continental Europe too
there was a bit of the weird about this story
in the Roman Catholic Church
because Jesus was crucufied and died on a Friday
by tradition
Roman Catholics are not suparncles when there are no geese
and because they have been deemed to have
hatched from barnales
despite being geese they are deemed
shellfish
and being fish can be
eaten on a Friday
sowhen we see 'Estabished Religions'
objecting that
Science
conflcts with 'dogma' 'scripture'
this is a classic case
and there is some vested interest at stake
such as being able to eat goose meat on a
piscatarian day
soo
some changes - such as rubber perishing - are
it is 'pure chemistry' with no involvement of
life processes
and this is where Pasteur got into a rather pointless debacle
the essence of this was
some processes are in nature observed to
need the intervention of
microbes
and some are seen as being achievable by
non-living molecules such as enzymes
the point that makes this pointless is
the enzyme can only effect its designated chemical change
within the living framework of an appropriate microbe
and this arguement is at the core of
when are viruses viable?
as we've said
a virus can only operate within a living
preferably dying, cell
it's about
in vitro - in glass (laboratory apparatus)
v
in vivo - in life
as a note
Pasteur's original invention of the process we now call
parturisation but was originally
Psteurisation
in 1863 at the request of
Napoleon the 3rd
Emporor of France
Pasteur studied wine contamination
he found that although using a very high heat
wine could be turned by distillation into
a spirit - gin, whiskey etc
that would not spoil
clearly
the heat destroyed the particular taste of the wine
he found that he could protect wine from spoilage
by the much milder process of heating it to
50 to 60 degrees C -120 - 140 F
and all sort of various similar treatments are all
lumped together under the term
Pasteurisation
in some cases the particular microbes that are responsible for
the off taste
are completely destroyed being very heat sensitive
those tht spoil milk for exampe
are more heat resistant and so
the pathogens in milk are
simply 'knocked back a bit'
extending shelf life - but not to infinity
and since he was about wine...
the basic idea was
for practical 19th century industrial processes
the best way to convert sugar
sucrose
into alcohol and carbonic acid
was to dose the fruit juice with yeast
and not - as may be done today, if you like
by subjecting the fruit juice to the
raw naked enzyme
the carbon dioxide that bubbles out of a ferment
is not directly generted
first there id carbonic acid and them there is
such as high concentration of carbonic acid the it
breaks down into carbon dioxide and water
hence
until you 'crack the can' or bottle of fizzy drink
the drink isn't fizzy
you make the drink fizzy by pouring it out
had you noticed that?
no? it's a commonplace
something that happens all the time
and we don't give it a second thought
and so
Pasteur or Lister?
Pastuer set a lot of balls rolling but one very important
divergence comes about
essentially you can't
Pasteurise a wound
the heat no matter how gentle would do
tissue damage
search diathermy
and so Joseph Lister
applied the Pasteur 'germ theory'
to surgery and
devloped the
antiseptics that lead to
anti-biotics
and back in the day
people used
Carbolic Soap
because Lister started with operating under a
mist of carbolic acid
and then went of to painting it on wounds and bandages
so at one stage
carbolic saop was more famous than Pasteurisation
but it was called Carbolic Soap
not
Lister Soap
and somebody else
completely unknown to us
gave Lister the idea because they successfully used
creosote to treat sewage
and creosote contains carbolic acid
in the UK creosote
a kind of wood tar
will become illegal 31st October 2023
having been phased out due to
some concern that it may induce cancer
so, don't die next week from sepsis
die in ten years time from cancer
probably not
so
no need to chase around the country
destroying wooden fences that have been
treated with creosote
but working with it an a regular basis
has been associted with skin and particularly
and we think this very bizzare
scrotal skin cancer
srotal skin is very thin
but why forestry and lumber workers were
splashing it all over
regardng tousers and creosote
we haven't fathomed
and we certainly can't say that it is
the carbolic acid in the creosote that causes the problem
phenol or crbolic acid at room temperature is a white crystaline substane
the thing is
our Ricker's memories of phenol are
smelly in a not too disgusting way - aromatic
but the real bummer with phenol is
once you open a new jar
water vapour gets in
and instead of a free flowing
sugar like white chemical
you soom have a sticky solid lump
a bit like sugar that's got damp but
more like white molasses
this is called
;;l; if you use enough of something for long enough
you will find the down sides
when this material is derived from condensing the fumes from
charcoal burning it is called creosote
and when it is derived from coke ovens
it is called
coal tar
and so we also had coal tar soap
we have
aromatic carbon compounds
carbon compounds with an aroma
as opposed to
aliphatic
benzene was the first aromatic compound to be
shown to have a ring form
aliphatics don't 'smell' of nything
ethylene being aliphatic polythene is odourless
'gas' natural gasm methane, propane butane etc
being aliphatic shraight chains
have to have something aong the lines of
methyl mercaptan
added to make then stink to high heaven
please don't confuse
carbonic and carbolic acids
they are very different
in some sense the chemistry of solution is complex
superfically
oxygen dissolves in water but carbon dioxide combines with water
to form carbonic acid
the other little after thought...
original Pasteurisation involved
heating a liquid that is around 4 per cent alcohol
there is no alcohol in fresh milk
unless the cows got some fermented feed...
so True pasteurisation is
moderate heat in the presence of alcohol and is
lethal to mny microbes
other derived processes don't include the alcohol and
in their compromise between flavour loss and
extended shelf life will loose out
more to shelf life than to flavour
we say all sorts and types of beer
are made from
water barley and hops
but for the most part yeast is also added
what is significant is that
the first process is
malting
that tricks the barley into
germinating
spouting
and usin its enzymes to convert
starch to sugar
and then later
yeast converts the sugar into alcohol
but have you ever thought
how do they get the chocolate coating onto the
soft centres in the likes of
Roses and Quality Street
this is a more modern technology
it is not exactly
biological
because you don't want we just want the the centre to soften a microbe
we lace them with a enzyme
amylase
also used in industrial bakeries
to get direct chemical control of what
in an earlier era would have had to be
biological
e

there's a significant issue with regards
compring
road safety
and
motorsport safety
in motorsport - so far as we know
there are no forms of motorsport within which
on-coming traffic is built in
if you are driving at 60 mph 80 kph
you may hit a tree or lamp post at 60 mph
if you hton-coming trafficthe
impact speed wil be 120 mph
you are gettng nearer to the scenery at what itsays
on your speedometer
you are approaching on-oming trafficat
what YOUR speedometer says
PLUS
what the speedometer of the
car you hit, says
conversely
if you rune into the back of the vehicle in front
the closing or impact speed is
your speed MINUS the speed of the vehicle you hit
sooo
if a wheel comes off a car doing 200 mph
the wheel is doing 200 mph
in the direction the car it came off was going
when it came off
and so once it is off
it no longer has an energy source and
air resistance and friction with the ground
and impacts with the scenery
slow it down
it slows down - little
if the following vehicle
does not brake
the loose wheel may
slow down faster then the following vehicle
the impact speed between the loose wheel and the
following vehicle
will be the amount by which the loose wheel slows
at a greater rate that the slowing of the following vehicle
maybe 5 to 10 miles per hour
although it will have residual ratational energy
and a kind of gyroscopic tendency to
keep going in a straight line
wheels are light, tyres tend to be heavy
but the weight of the combo is
the unsprung weight of the vehicle
and designers try to minimise that
we call it the unsprung weight but
tyre wall incorporates much of the spring effect
for the vehicle
one of the problems this season
porpoising
is mostly due to the fact that
teams do not design their typres
they have to run standard issue tyres
and this means teams have much reduced influence over
suspension characteristics and performance
on the other hand
f you are Billy Mongerand
you run into a vehicle
stopped on the track
the impact speed is your speed
and if you don't have a
titanium cocoon
and cars in junior series such as that in which Billy was driving
don't have that cage
you are lucky to escape merely legless
drivers in F1 are saved byt safety features not seen by the
TV cameras

we will probably list a few factoids about
Tory leadership candidates and the race in general
Grant Shapps
is very Boris
very very Boris
right to the end
second jobs, Ponzi Schemes, failed companies
he gets quite lawyer happy about such suggestions
we feel the need to point out that
candidate or not
Nadhim Zahawi
is one of the two founders of the
polling company
YouGov



thiking about the
Boris Johnson
reference to
Pepper Pig
when they make the movie about
Prime Minister Johnson
they amy do well the adapt the sript of the
Peter Sellers
movie
Being There


it would appear that
The Law Commission
was set up in 1965 by the
Wilson labour Government
to suggest 'streamlining' of the legal system
to take a recently referred to example...
there was a barrister called
Vic Feather
we should write about him
but for the moment
that term we used
pecuniary advantage
the idea of The Law Commission was to
remove that sort of 'technical term' from
law enforcement and the law
we doubt the Law Commission was the origin of
but a part of that movement was
PACE
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act
a development in the same spirit
so we go back the the early 1960s
and a girl gets asked out on a date
and a datewould be a trip the the cinema
and the aim would be to get on
the back row
sittin' on the back row of the movies
on a Saturday night
and the aim was to get down to some
petting
preferably some
heavy petting
four categories
top outside
top inside
bottom outside
bottom inside
and so the next day the girl would report to her friends
what stage they got to the night before
and so 2022
what do we have
upskirting
and now the Law Commission propose a crime of
downblousing
what we wonder is
when will the unemployment amongst junior barristers
press the Law Commission to target people with a
hand fetish
who take and collect pictures of
people's hands

we suppose we should point out that we have no idea what the difference is
between a
Kenyan Asia
and a
Ugandan Asian
but we suppose if you fled as a Kenyan Asian
you were avoiding
President Kenyata
not Uganda's President Amin
perhaps we will sort that out some day
did we describe The Twist as a BITlike Twerking?
or did we say something elase
we can't be bothered to check


what we seem to have with the UK Prime Minister gig
seems to be
Boris Johnson is the
best Prime Minister we've had in living memory
but that's not saying much
we forget whether Tory leaders were actually PM
so we'll talk about leaders or Top Tories
there's the reverse basball cap on a water flume chap
Howard
Cameron May
we certainly can't think of a Tory Leader who comes
anywhere near Johnson for quality
and so
he gets the
diamond in a goat's arse award
the problem with that is
we assume that all Tory MPs are
similarly dismal
we do want to discuss Rishi SUnak
perhaps he did find some sort of qualities
beyond cash
in his wife
so we will set his wife aside
from our perspective we can't see why he hasn't
in his extensive self promotion
latched onto the fact that he is
a genuine refugee
a genuine
Kenyan Asian
we would accept that his family emerged from the
Idi Ameen purge of
non-Africans living in the African state of Kenya
with most of the family assets intact
but the family seem to have invested wisely in
the future of number 1 son
and here is the kicker
in his case
we reckon Oxford Lincoln College?
didn't give him a first because he was a
rich moron who needed a psychological crutch
but because he was
a Kenyan Asian who deserved a break
but as always
these are impressions
not researched facts

we quite understand that in many things
the actual underlying tec is not very
photogenic
an easy sell
and so
the FIA Formula 1 motor racing
want to put out
hivis safety features
and TcePro barriers and Halos are easy to see
and seat belt and
The Hans device
not so much
The HANS device is
a type of head restraint
Head And Neck Support
derived from NASCAR
available from Demon Tweeks
there are two aspets of to the Halo
1 it's useless
2 it's dangerous
but it is VISIBLE
so it promotes the idea that
1 F1 is dangerous
2 F1 takes safety seriously
notwithstanding that it would have
aerodynamic downsides -costs
better protection would be afforded by
front wheel fenders
as we say the problem with effective protection is
it's not very visible
the driver is protected by a titanium cage
but in terms of the halo
the main protection comes from the
roll over bar that is
burried in the bodywork behind the driver's head
on F1 cars the wheels are supposed to be teathered
they should not be flying around after an accident
a bash on the head from a wheel is the major hazard that
canot be completely mitigated by the roll over bar
VW used to make Beetles and the type 2 was a van
and the first VW vans were called
splities
because the windscreen was bigger than
the biggest sheets of suitable glass that could be made at the time
so the windscreen was split into 2
one pane in front of the driver
and another in front of the front seat passenger
the halo presents a field of view to the F1 driver that is
split
in order to be legally licensed to drive on UK roads
you need a clear sweep of vision of
160 degrees
just to cope with commuter traffic and motorways
so if you put a
mechanical blind spot slat in the middle of anF1 driver's visual field
you are deliberately simulating
age related macular degeneration
or
retinitis pigmentosa
and of course that means more crashes and that means
F1 in the News as well as the Sports News
the ring part
being titanium
has no need of the vertical part
a road legal field of view is technically possible
but
it would reduce crash frequency
reducing
entertainment value
it's like hanging yer furry dice
mid way between yer rear view mirror - internal
and yer A pillar - door post
in the two risk scenarios
tlying loose wheel
one car driving over the top of another
the halo only needs to
cantilever out from the roll bar behind the driver's head 8 to 10 inches - 200 250 mm
the crushing force on the driver's helmet is related to
the other cars's weight
but the amount of damage that can be done is related to
how long that pressure is maintained
a drive over 'clip' is not a deadweight fall
the halo does not have to etend to the steering wheel
and the steering wheel is further protection from 'downwards'
as in towards the floor whatever the orientation
pressure on the contents of the cockpit


there is this perspective of late 20th century history
after the Second World War the Allies discovered
how into tec the Nazis were
and the UK government put loads of money into
grammar schools and elite universities to try to prepare
the yoof to provide tec backup in
the Cold War and a possible third world war
and this lasted throughoutthe 1950s
but from the beginning of the 1960s the idea became
perhaps
The nazis are good at tec
sooo
people who are good at tec are Nazis
so
we should be
inclusive
to convince the world that we are not Nazis
the challenge became
how can we be
National Socialists
without being Nazis?
at this time , for us, it is difficult to see
the countries where everybody is equal
but some people are more equal than others
Animal Farm George Orwell
to put it in money numbers
ignoring inflation
people look forwards not back
they don't say
we are earning �40,000 a year but our grandparents were
earning � 12,000 a year
hey say
we are earning �40,000 but those people
if they want to be on millions a year
they should be
playing football or in the movies
not running the coutry
in other words, perhaps
that form of the Lotto
wher eyou win �30,000 a month for life
instead of a multi million lump sum
top paying jobs should be
allocated in a lottery where
each pot or bowl is
all the people in one minrity group or another
it was easy when it was the world of Yes Minister
random idiots for politicins
and
smart poor boys from Oxford for the civil service
this is the puzzle
how did Jacob Ree-Mogg get to be a politician
with his background he should have been a civil servant
but
BUT
not poor enough and not smart enough
and hence the distinction between
idiot front men
and smart backromm boys
has been blurred
most recetly by
student loans
no longer do you
earn a grant by being good at exams
you simply put your name down for
a student loan
and one of the hundreds of
'universities'
will take your money
like in the old days a father would
at his birth, put a son's name down for a public school
places at public school used to be at a premium because
some boys were entered at birth
and some had to do exams to compete for the left over places


we have a story here that may come from
The Other Victorians
but our Ricker isn't sure
somehow a girl - we will say she around 10 years old
gets to share a cab with an
elderly gentleman
they sit opposite in the cab
and they chat a bit
and the chap asks
would you show me under your skirt?
and she does and he gives her a sovereign
they part ways
some days later
they share another cab
and the gent asks
will you do that again?
Yes
but could you give me some 'smaller' coins
last time I had terrible trouble explaining to
them at home
how I came by a sovereign
and we can say
a child's need for bread
is far greater than
a man's need for sex
and that makes for an unbalanced relationship
but a man's need for a career and a reputation
is far greater than his need for sex
and so
offering him sex for a sovereign
and then
threatening to take away his entire life
is way more unfair in the opposite direction
man gives child bread
the man has parted with something REAL
that the child needs
we are drifting into a world where
for a lot of people
extending the concept of the NHS
if you can convince people that there is something you
NEED
then you should never have to pay for it
bread should be free
sex should cost
but there is another layer
or the other side
a vicar gets paid
the organist and choirmaster chorsisters, get paid
but the sidesmen, the various other people we serve on the altar
servers, altar boys
sacristans?,BR> the people who 'do the flowers'
endless other people are,BR> unpaid, volunteers
and at a further level
if you agina pecuniary advantage
by threatening to report a minor transgression
would you be doing your civic duty if you made that report
or would you be carrying out a threat related to extorsion?
a pecuniary advantage is where
although you have not taken money
you have saved yourself money by a criminal act


wthout much precision we could say
Hambleton
is the part of Cleveland that is
not in Redcar and Cleveland
but is in North Yorkshire
and it includes Northallerton
and that has a former jail site
and there is a proposal to install a
sculpture of a girl jailed for 3 weeks 150 years ago
for stealing bread
and although we still do have shop lifters arrested
eleven year olds, not so much
but it is interesting how
public opinion can say
shocking, jailing a child
and for something so trivial
but it comes down to
you get thirty years for robbin' a train
ten for murder
now that's insane
people these days are getting
serious sentences for serious crimes
and that is a positive trend
but did we say recently
no we didn't quite
what we are seeing is a thought process that runs
job, career, life chances selection
exams are 'unfair'
stressful
we must stop using the
education system to determine life and career paths
we must substitute
the criminal justice system
head teacher 'this will appear on your permanent record'
we must start this bit by saying thata very very long time ago
there was a dance craze called
doing the twist
it was a dance a BIT like flossing
and a bit later our ricker was at a disco and the
DJ played let's twist again like we did last summer had a go at doing the twist
and Ricker wasn't too fusssed
but the girl collapsed in floods of tears
and had to be consoled
and on a more serious level we're gonna put the lights out
and we'll all take all our lothes off and then put the lights back on
and the newbie is the only one naked when the lights do go on
this thesort of thing where a law is
USED
not to suppress damaging behaviour
but to give a person or a group an opportunity to
destroy the life and career of a rival or stranger


we feel compelled to comment on
how well behaved the yoof of Middlesbrough
appear to be
we hear no reports of them
using the municipal climbing frame
Bottle of Notes
is a sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and
Coosje van Bruggen
and was unveiled on 24th September 1993
it is 9 metres high, made of steel and
painted white with polyurethane enamel
it s very old and so we are not sure it was
laser cut
but it looks like a bottle made from steel
that has been laser cut into a
lattice of words
and sometimes it gets written on
it was put up before
Banksie
removed the word
defaced
from the municipal lexicon
and we're writing about it because
Redcar has the slightly larger
Beacon
which
is comprised of
consists of
now, we would say 'consists of'
but we note the modern trend to say
'is comprised of'
a circular tower that on it's southern half
is
a stack of stair cases
and on it's north side consists of
a stack of cupboard sized offices with
sea views
and the wicked wicked yoof of Redcar
have taken to climbing the stairs
in a way that the
saintly and apparently non-existent
yoof of The Boro
have apparently failed to avail themselves of
their much posher climbing frame
consist -to be formed or made up of
breakfast consisted of cereal, fruit and orange juice
the farm comprises
ten cows, three horses, etc
we think consists is related to permanent
and comprises relates more to temporary
and them there is
is composed of
we guess it's a matter of what you are used to
compose is French
comprise comprendre to include French
consist is Latin from con sistre to stand
so we woz rite
consists means - as built
comprised means - as collected
so
build it
and in Redcar at least
buld it
and they will fence it off
we do marvel at how much money is
'invested' in Middlesbrough for the
entertainment
non-existent local and visitors
there seem to be two routes to public investment
build a football stadium somewhere where
the local thugs can congregate
and accost visiting fans
like in Paris
we suppose that if you have a thousand
unemployed thugsin your arendisment
you think
let's build a 100 thousand seater stadium
and that will create a thousand jobs for the local thuffs
as ticket touts and drug pushers
or
like in the movie
build it
like Middlesbrough's Riverside and the Darlington stadium
in the middle of bloody nowhere
and
keep the local painting contractors in business
after all that
this
Queen's Baton
isn't a Jubilee Baton
it's a
Commonwealth Games Baton
so just the slightest tangential justification for calling it
'The Queen's'
rather than
the
let's be good hosts and
let the guests win all the party games
baton

so far as we can tell
The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Baton
will process along
Redcar Sea Front
some time on
Thursday 14th July
we think t was the Olympic trorch that ame down
West Terrace
but we think this time the route is along
Newcommen Terrace
sooo
the Olympic flame avoided the
Ratty Old Regent
and the Baton will sweep pa Gru Aritheti,BR> children who share a home with
only one adult find
there is less
disposable income in that household
than in households where multiple adults live
therefore these children and starving
so
the solution is
if you are a lone adult in a home
you should be paid twice as much as
a member of a home share
given that halfthe women who share a home with a man
are dead from domestic violence within weeks...
clearly Mr Johnson should be putting his had in his pocket
or yours

w elove the fact that at the F1 meet
the TecPro barrier didn't stop the
aerobatic car
but it was brought to a half - qute safely by
a bog standard chain link fence
what nobody will ever understand is
these cars are essentially a human shaped space frame
inside an egg shell
the protection is
all around the driver
not just in front of their eyes

it's a function of our Ricker's extreme age that
when he was at school there was little chance of his being
a walking enyclopaedia
he had access to many many books but not the internet
his role amongst 'chums' was that
they would 'run a idea past him'
tosee whether in the light of his considerble knowledge
something or other sounded sensibel or likely
and one such idea was that one oftheir number claimed that
their dad had been
Mont'y Double
during the war
Riker is scratching his head to try to remember his name
it certainly wasn't Clifton-James
and another actor died in a 'plane crash because
The Germans mistook him for Churchill
Churchill - in the Second World War in particular
and the US President at the time Rooseveldt
were sick old men
they had people write speeches for them
in that it was a time of radio
they are purported to have had people
read speeches for them
what we're getting at is
these days journalists demand 24/7 access to those who are
public property
and
what now is the job description of a national leader
the onl national leader currently getting
'good ypress'
is the Ukrainian president
who is 100 per cent
unabashedly
playing the role of president
he is saying
my job is to
front up my nation
not to run it
I will tell you - press and public
what I believe from the advice I have been given
and that is not far away from
I shall recite whilst the hacks do their
reading out loud
in the early days of the CoViD debacle in the UK
we had live broadcasts of press conferences and
to - perhaps - pay lip service to
levelling up
journalists from the provinces and from
on-line media were included
and allocated a question slot
and so often
three or four times a succession of hacks would ask
the identical question and get the identical answer
what we were seeing was public access to the routine process whereby
whtever the event
but mainly movie of show premieres
a range of hacks dozens, scores, get
two or three minutes to
record a personalised version of
the question of the day
for transmission to their own personal audience
it brings to mind the linguistic slant
a press 'conference' is not
a public debate
questions may or may not be
as in parliament
'previously submitted'
hence the notes the responder carries
but doyou send along
a familiar face or voice
or somebody who can
on the fly construct a question that would never
have been asked
if the previous answer had not been given?
there is a sort of hlf way house where
questioners are allowed unscripted 'supplimentaries'
that responders are free to avoid
al of this does beg the question
what sort of preparation did
EITHE SIDE do for the infamous
Prince Andrew interview?
but then we have for many years suffered to
disdain of certain presenters for
gentile - non-Jewish - boys

we wonder about the concept of
'trickle down'
we wonder how many MPs will have to loose their seats
jobs
before police drop the idea of
licence to kill secret agent style
and accept that their first responsibility is to
set a good example
we don't know where Cleveland police get their recruits from
but we do recall that they once recruited a
chief constable from South Wales
we wonder whether he would have described an incident at
as
having happened
somewhere near Swansea


we got to thinking about China
them owning our loocal steelworks and that...
often people who get very powerful positions get
what is sometimes referred to as
imposter syndrome
a king or queen knows why they are king or queen
but being president can come along a bit like
a lottery win
and that can go one of two ways
either
I have no idea how I got here
and
Jungle Book ain't it
I've reached the top
and had to stop
and that's what's botherin' me
there is that story of the two letters
new president finds a letter on his desk
on the outside it says
do not open except in case of complete disaster
so he goes along with that and them disaster strikes
he opens the letter
inside there is a letter and a second envelope
the letter reads
Blame it all on me
and so he does
and gets away with it
then disaster strikes again
and he opens the second envelope
and the letter in that says
write two letters
one you have the top job
there's nowhere else to go
the most difficult thing about any job is
getting it
to get the top job???
your main skill has to have been
gaining promotion
when you have the top job
your main skill set is
redundant
so, as with the current Russian and China presidents
they have to switch to
keeping the job
because that is all there is to do
and that's not what they're 'good at'
and suddenly doing something they are not good at
they panic and over react
and most of all
they can't 'move on' and leave it for somebody else to
clear up the mess they made of their previous job
people with an 'appropriate back story'
will often be
'kicked upstairs'
in Japan, appointed 'window men'
a window man in Japan is an employee who is so
absolutely useless at everything they have tried that
they are given a desk next to a window
and paid to stare out of it
all day long
Forbes...
10 May 2009
hence, the window zombies
it explains why, even after almost two deades of
lackluster eonomic growth,
Japan has the second-lowest jobless rate
thisis not to be confused with the
person called a window person
a window person of a
project co-ordinator
the person who is the point of contact
as in a ticket window
not a window on the world
so
brand ambassador
is the current jargon
however
this gets deeper
if you put all the people with double firsts from Oxford
in a room
they could spend an entire lifetime
trying to determine
which of them has the brain cell
people who get to the top of an orgnisation
have been steered away from
real work
their entire careers
so if you are president of China
you think all Chinese people are
complete idiots
and if anything needs doing
you hire in
consultants or contractors
and so
the present president of China thinks
Chinese people are morons
and they would completely trash the country if we allowed them
democracy
and so
One nation - Two Systems
worked when Hong kong was initially handed back to China
because
loads of British people stayed behind to manage the province
but over tme the British drifted away and
the people in the capital city of mainland China
thought
we can't let those idiots loose without supervision
we will have to fill the vacuum left by the departure of The British
but
if Hong Kong looses it's British supervision
and that supervision is not replaced by supervision from the
main land capital
and things don't go
tits up
perhaps on the mainland we could cope with a form of
democracy that means
the leadership is
accountable to the people
and the skill set required to
get and retain the top jobs
would change
and different people would have those skills
and we the incumbant toffs might well
get turfed out

we do wonder what the two major political parties in the UK
stand for
some would say
The Labour Party is
The Political Wing of Organised Labour
but leftist are split between
advocating for a switch from
The church of England is the Tory Party at prayer
to The Church of England is the Labour Movement at prayer
if the Labour Party represents organised labour
their emphasis has to be on
in work poverty
in a sense the left is divided between
in work poverty
and
dienfrachisment
a VOICE for the Littel People
the much more important division is the division in the
ruling party - the Tories
their existential engst relates to
Party of Business
or
Party of Tradition
and whenever we hear the word
tradition
we thing of
Fiddler on the Roof
an American Musical of the 1960s and 1970s
set in russia in 1905
bsed on the works of Sholem Aleichem
the fiddler isn't a fiddler he's a milkman
but he escapes family life by climbing onto
the roof of his house to play his fiddle
they are living in
The Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia
there are elements of
Kiss me Kate
Taming of the Shrew
essentially trying to
'Marry off'
three daughters who are holding out for the opportunity to
Marry for Love
and in this case each girl is looking for a suitable man
but one could say
musical theatre being
so camp
the underlying message for 1960s America
may have been
why can't a woman have a wife?,BR. or a man have a husband
there was a short phase when women would say
what I need is a wife
but then they were probably saying
these men I'm competing with in business
they have their
attack wife
to get their back
I need that sort of help
when we get reviews of social history
such a sthe 50th anniversary of
gay rights organisations
section 28 - a Tory thing
Thatcher defending it
Thatcher, science trained
wanting to keep her job
conflicted over
science v tradition
it's simpler to back peddal the tradition and try to be
the party of business
but then some people whoown and control big businesses
are 'socially conservative'
and if you can't be bothered to read about Fiddler on the Roof
the Tsar eventually turfs the Jews off the Pale
in other words at one time -19th century
Jews in Russia had ancestral lands within a fence alled the Pale
sometimes a fence today - perhaps around a park or cemetary
are referred to as
palling or a palling wall
and we have things that can only happen
outside the reservation as
Beyond the Pale
and then
the Jews were transported to ghettoes
and we have said
Tsar Putin
appear to want
Ukraine for a pale or reservation for
Russian Jews

we're gonna go on one of our excursions
what we want to do is draw together
the hostilities on Ukraine and
the battle with CoViD 19
this is one of those where a person has to check the spelling
the concept is
The Pyric Victory
but it's spelt
Pyrric Victory
after King Prrhus of Epirus
The Battle of Bunker Hill
was fought on Saturday
June 17 1775
during the
Siege of Boston
at an early stage of the
American Revolutionary War
essentially the British won and the revolutionaries lost
the revolutionaries were the colonies of
Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island
who remembers the movie
A Connecticut Yankie in the COurt of King Arthur?
we remember is as a kind of
Time Travelling McGuiver
anyway
Yankie losses 450 135 dead
British losses 1,054 including 19 officers amongst the 226 dead
the British won but at great loss and in a way
you see the Yanks like the Ukrainians having
heart and spirit
and the British not
and just as currently with the Russians
the British after that
hired in mercenaries
and it became an accounting exercise
tax reciepts from the colonies
versus
cost of keeping order and extracting those taxes
Ukraine really is a re-run of the American Revolutionary War
but we wanted to bring in CoViD
there is a parallel
some people - the people who die and the people with
long CoViD
aren
but the fascinating thing is
the competition between the various strains of virus
in a sense you could say
there was something of an imbalance between
using what became the USA as a
Penal COlony
and developing it as a branch of an economic empire
it was probably because the British regarded the colonists as
convicts
that they showed insufficent respect and,BR> lost the colonies
the British still regard Australians as
descendents of convicts
but to the point of CoViD
we have seen that a handful of versions have existed
across the world over many years
and the thing is
if the omega version had go to 'The West' first
the more troublesome versions
wouldn't have got a look in
say omicron was endemic in the UK and USA
it would have out competed the versions we were hit with earlier
in a way that is unlucky
alpha or delta or whatever the early versions were called
infecting a population living in harmony with omicron
whould not have got a foothold
and the cases where they did prove lethal would have been
Pyrric Victories because
eventually Omicron would come along and turf them out
of the population in general
loss to some families but the war
did not work out well for the variants we first encountered


in this special jubilee year
re. Queen Elizabeth
we want to notesomething about her
work day
at the peak of her activity
what we would like to say is that she
would have been very keen to fit
time with her horses into a schedule of
very posh events
and so over the years
press and people have grown accustomed to,BR> lots of pictures of her
at the wheel of some Land Rover or Range Rover
looking
windswept and interesting
and sporting
a headscarf
the alternative name for headscarf is
babushka
what we note is
if - and we very much dounbt it
Islam requires women to over their hair
why do British Moslem women not
celebrate their joint cultural identity
as Northern-European Moslem women
by adopting the babushka rather than clinging to something
more appropriate to
desert lands?
windblown sand and all that
the failure to do this demonstrates
downright exceptionalism
not we have traditions
but
we're not lke you
we're special
and that brings in
American Exceptionalism
if you research Webster's Dictionary
you find lists of words in English
that have been randomly altered
without logic
to be a aprt of
a distinct
American English
and with so many people around the world so
admiring of all things American alter International English
to match American English
and that rather defeats the object
so
babushka is the word for headscarf
and so in some North European countries
babushka has come to mean
the women who wear headscarves
and we have said
in those countries - paticularly Russia
half the men don't live beyond 65 and so there are always a lorra lorra
60 to 90 year old widows in headscarves
so when we say
people in these countries prefer
a strong leader
to
an accountable leader
that profile is squewed by
them babushkas
and we can predict that
life expectancy for men in those regions will increase
and the proportion of the electorate who are
ancient AND widows
will fall
notwithstanding, despite all efforts
the populations of these zones will become
better educated

a little bit of a cath up on gull dancing
there are videos on the internet
we're gonna tell a different story about
Ricker and the flounder
so Ricker is walkingalong the beach near the line of
the breaking waves
and he has his interlude with the flounder
and as he is busy a woman comes up behind him
and overtakes him on a similar line
and as he watches her disappear intothe distance
he notes that all is calm
the gulls are ignoring her
but behind our Ricker
all the gulls have taken to the water
thatis a mystery for now
but
speaking again to the question of
the health of marine communities
more than half the gulls are
jeuveniles
you can tell from plumage and bill colour
so they are breeding well
and very occasionally we do see a handler walking a raptor
a well miniature eagle, kite, whatever so they are not
TOO MUCH of a nuisance
so
standing in the breaking waves
two of the jeuveniles are dancing
flounders and gulls and beaches and waves are
time immemorial
football pitches - not so much
thus
we conjecture
gulls dance at the water's edge to
con the flounders into thinkng the time is higher than it is
and this is
innate behaviour
dancing for worms on football pitches we rate as
learned or adaptive behaviour

regarding
water fowl disappearing
they - ducks, geese, swans - as social animals
they pair for a season although for life, not so much
the females are ffamily orientated
the males terretorial
they will swim in formation
but one individual may take exception to some other
individual 'tagging along'
ducks in particular
geese not so much
swans hardly at all
can swim considerable distances under water
you get this thing like a cat
you look at a cat
it feels threatened
it will suddently stab a glance in nowhere
you look where it look and
by the time you look back
the cat is gone water fowl can do that too
and they only need to put up a tiny head to be able to breathe
we're kinda assuming this is the origin of the verb
to duck
Old English to dive
and the compound verb
to duck out
ducking and diving

there was a book
in the 1960s
it was called
The Joy of Sex
and women - wives - at the hairdressers
and such plaes would chuckle and compare notes
on what page their individual husbands had reached
in the book
Alex sombody
illustrated, large format
Alex Comfort
1972
updated 2008
Epstein and Maxwell
blowing the gaff for some marriages
what we have at the top this list of images
are pictures of a flat fish that our Ricker caught
and released in Coatham Bay today
all the set of pictures with sand
have a flounder in them
so
if you want to know whether there are healthy fish in the bay
don't go fishing
just go down the the low tide mark
and look for tea plate sized depressions in the sand
there will be a healthy flounder a couple of inches under the surface

















the other pcw are of today's version of
Redcar coke works
two chimneys and some coal charging elevators have been brought down
this thing about 'toxic' blue-green' algae
all seaweeds are algae
not blue-green
we have a couple of shots included
from a distance some seaweed may look like
'blanket weed'
but on closer inspection this is just regular seaweed


we suppose that in the USA
a part of compensating for
economic inequality
is to occasionally pick out some
very rich person and
accuse them of having had sex
this guy who lst his seat in parliament in the UK
because he watched some sex on his 'phone
it's hard to see why these people get so upset
you want me to resign
OK
bye
there is this underlying narative
nobody ever gets a job they can't do
nobody ever gets ill in post and has to retire
everybody in work is perfect
except
some of them have discovered sex
it's kind of
we won't admit we appointed a complete dork
the bloke who inspired Billy Eliot
the chancellor of Durham University
Sir Thomas Allen
is leaving after over a decade as
Bill Bryson'r replacment
what we don't understand is how come this
member of the Scottish Parliament
has got in trouble of a
gay chat up attempt
regarding Maxwell
we suppose there are two lines of thought
when a person - a couple - get married
sometimes one of the wedding gifts is
a wedding night in the bridal suite of a posh hotel
and supposedly this is to give positive memories of
'first sex'
and we suppose the contrast of that is
what the eyes don't see
the heart don't grieve
in other words
have you ever had sex?
not really, I've been given a poke a couple of times
is the arguement that if your first or early experience of sex is
a fabulous massage in gorgeous surroundings....
that is something no future husband is ever going to be able to
live up to
do people like Epstein and Maxwell
and the producers of sex videos
set the bar too high
is that the gripe?
and that brings us back to
he won't trouble you much
the gold standard marriage
gay man, perfunctory sex with the wife
purely for reproductive purposes
so the people who have been prosecuting Maxwell are the sort of people who thing that the
only sex a woman should experience is the sex
her husband offers to her
and so
we turn to the Emma Thompson comedy
Good Lucktoyou,
Leo Grande
and the child or objective observer may conclude that
the thrust of current jusitce industry activity is
that a man should not begin his sex life
until after his retirement
for fear any sort of sex
including grading colleaguesas fantasy partners
may prejudice their work time decisions
essentially the Emma Thompson movie is about an
early retired, widowed Religious Studies teacher
deciding
I'll pay for one genuine sexual experience
for educational reasons...



yesterday, Monday 27th June
8.08 pm UK British Summer Time
well our radio controlled clock keeps loosing time???
so it could have been 8,10 pm
the chimnies
east and west
at Redcar coke oven were
blown up, demolished
they were concrete
they were not steel pipes to be felled
it took quite a lot of explosives and there was quite a big bang
but we doubt our Ricker will be going over to see
or get pics

sometimes a story comes to mind and
thinking: I'll just check that on t'internet
you come up blank
or near blank
so we will have to leave this unchecked
there is a story about a French boy-king
that's about as far as we can go
except to assume it's about Louis 14th
he being the major French boy-king
so one morning as the staff get the lad out of bed
the chief chamberlain feel delighted to note
that overnight
a stain in the shape of a map of France
had developed on the bedsheet
a nocturnal emission
our Ricker has a couple of embarassing stories to tell about those
anyway
the male sexual response has three parts
erection
orgasm
ejaculation
we haven't made any mention of Sam for quite a while
for some reason Sam set herself up as a sex therapist to our Ricker
and he hit a bit of a wall trying to explain these three elements
and the specific relationships they have
it is supposedly a truism - a thing completely true
that - no erection, no ejaculation
the male plumbing won't allow it
but erection and ejaculation without orgasm?
that's a bit of a tickler
the whole thing about the king and the map is about
the ability of a king to father or sire heirs
and the reason for the concern over Louis 14th was
he was such a mummy's boy
there were fears that he may be gay
so at least the mechanism was in order
even if he could not be induced to
kiss the girls and make them cry
they do this thing with horses
they have a teaser
if a stallion can't get it up for some
daft young filly
they offer him a right mare
and st the crucial moment
make the substitution
we have made reference to the
post war UK policy of offering some sort of
financial incentive to
useful well thought of husbands to give their wives
4 rather than 2 children
it was probably some sort of experiment
the question was
is it nature or nurture
are clever people
born clever
or do they devlop cleverness by being
raised by clever people?
the thing there was
it didn't matter because
clever children were raised in grammar schools
so you take a proper clever chap
Alan Turing
and you ask
do you induce a really clever gay man to
somehow get a couple of dozen women pregnant
or do you drive him to suicide to
extinguish the gay gene?
we need to remind peope at this point that there is no gay gene
you get gay due to your mother's hormones
and that would be normal hormoes at an
unfortunate point in her cycle
not differnt hormones or abnormal hormone levels
in short
woman has sex when she's not up for it - randy
she is more likely to produce a gay child
we'll just quickly run over the Waghorne triplets
Mrs W gives birth to triplets in her 30s in the 1950s
and one wants to be an engineer
and the other two want to be
fashion designers
all boys
you get into your late 30s and your cycle gets a bit out of kilter
and you shed an egg
and then another one comes along and
prevents the period that would normally wash away the first egg
the ovary is sealed against hormonal influences
so you have one egg swimming around in mum's hormones for
much longer than the other
before they are both fertilised because
tonight's the night
a rare opportunity for sex for a husband who is
away from home for work a lot of the time
so the first egg gets to statr developing
even gets to split into two
but develops well
starts developing into two girls and then
wham the two little girls get hit with
tan tan tarah
a Y chromosome
and there ain't no going back
Y chromosome means boy bits
the question is and always is
in the absence of a Y chromosome and boy bits
can a female ever stick at anything for more than
a day or two
or is it always
the other girl's grass is always greener
for instance
can females play
test cricket
can they engage in
attritional activities/
whenever our Ricker has ever tried to get to know a female
she always naffs off, real quick
like I can'r wait six months
I might get pre-mature menopause
the laugh about somebody setting up Sam as our Rcker's
sex therapist
we can't waste a paid job on a bloke with no kids
was
she was qute convincing in her portrayal of a virgin
just put him in a bedroom with a female
he's bound to jump her
even IF he IS gay
reminds a person of the breeding of slaves
two slave girls
time to breed off them
get two slave boys
one slave girl pretties herself up for the occasion
and the other turns the scene into a rape
that raises another thing we don't think has been researched
how often DOES rape lead to conception?
if she's REALLY not up for it...
will it take?
wouldn't with a horse
would with a cat
many female animals have to be
in season
in order to get pregnant
that is not supposed to be the case with cats
were insemination triggers ovulation
territorial animals are less likely to have
a season
than heard or colony animals



if we only track the history of Redcar back
around half a century
the Job Centre has not been where it is now
for all that time
immediately before it came to be where it is now
it was upstairs at a building long demolished and now
a car park at the junction of Milbank terrace and West Terrace
or more obviously at the traffic lights at the end of Coatham Road
at the turn for West Dyke Road
that downstairs was the Kwik Save supermarket
but BEFORE THAT
it was upstairs in Craighton House
on West Terrace
and the thing we want to remind people about is
you didn't sign on at a desk
this was
The Labour Exchange
we seem to remember a young chap called
michael Portillo was the minister of Labour
you signed on at a window
like a railway station ticket booth
and when you went in
half the windows were off limits
because
there would be a big hand written notice in those that read
SHARE
FISHERMEN
and what are we saying?
the inshore fishery has always been
somewhat precarious
INSHORE

well we do seem to have lost focus over the weekend
and there's only one bottle of wine less in the cellar...
perhaps what we were saying was
football - soccer - in the UK has become like
vintage car colleting
certainly so far as the media are concerned
coverage of football is almost entirely about
what famous players do you have in your squad
not
what matches, trophies, competitions can you win
and we conclude that this is because
the hacks involved
and all this sport I don't understand
it's just my job five days a week
rocket mannn
and all this politics I don't understand
it's just my job three days a week
wheel on the criple
at least weather presenters try to give
some
impression that they know what they are talking about
upcoming wedding, etc,

we've carried some discussion of Freud
and for our Ricker the concept of the
Freudian Slip is very significant
in the past he has tried talking to people
he has tried emailing people
this has caused grief
the reason for this web site is that
when we say something
and somebody
due to their internal turmoil or predispositions
thinks they have read something that has not been written
they will not attempt to
point this out to us
but to somebody they know and trust
who may be able to put them straight
sometimes it is simpy a case of pure misinterpretation
that is they have read what was there but
interpret it inappropriately
sometimes they thin something is there that isn't
a classc exampe of misinterpretation is the term
criminal solicitor or attorney
it means lawyer who specialises in representing clients who
have been charged with a criminal offence
as opposed to a help with civil cases
or a solicitor keeping home purchases on the straight and narrow
but sometimes a criminal lawyer when hearing themselves
described as such will interpret the terminology as an inferrence of
criminality of their own
so, in an ideal world there would be no need to
distinguish a police officer as
a criminal investigator
because the police should but out of anything that
does not involve a breach or potential breach of
the criminal law
but lawyers have a wider brief and some distinction
sometimes needs to be made


we do from time to time try to understand
UK politics
and the role of the BBC
people seem to be reluctant to
bet on the horses
they seem to want to et on just about anything else
as far as we know it's 'illegal' for
professionals within football to bet on
any sort of match stat
not only wins, goals etc
but yellow ards, substitutions etc
imagine that the only thing in football that football professionals
were allowed to bet on were
transfers
e don't remember when
'transfer windows' came in
but they were a response to
constant CHURN within playing staffs
we have said before that
commentating on school sports can be a
way in
to journalism
it can be the commentating and neither
the playing nor the management of the game
that future journalists specialise in
and so we have journalists who
feel banned from expressing opinions on policy
like a proper commentary should be neutral
political commentary should be
neutral in terms of policy
and so
journalists seem to feel they can use their platform to
speculate and have opinions about
political churn
commenting as in betting on
when will this or that person be sacked
it's like
sports news that is all about
who has been selected for England?
not
how do we go about beating Germany
and sometimes it gets a bit like golf
from time to time we get golf in the sport
and in the run up to a competition
we hear a load of stuff about the usual suspects
Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy whoever
and then somebody we have never heard of wins
in essence
coverage of sport and politics is about
develop personalities who will
make this or that 'minority'
for which read group who are useless at this
feel 'included'
and so
the fat blonds have had their turn at being told
see, you too could be Prime Minister
now what group is next on the list for
the inclusion treatment?
so it's not a case of
this Prime Ministaer has
had a stroke
and is now brain dead
it's a case of
time to make way so we can
tick another architype off the list
the list of the first xxx Prime Minister

regarding abortion
we have a pet peeve
as an aside we can say that it is not possible for
identical twins to have children together
BECAUSE
identical twins are ALWAYS
and so
technically
in terms of both of a child's persents being
identical genetically
that is TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE
so even if that was a risk
it couldn't happen
and so our pet peeve is about people who say
incest is grounds for abortion
this is simply not so
if you had a great night out and then
yeah but I don't want to be pregnant
morning after pill
the problem is
got pregnant
time to get to know the father a lot better
takes weeks or even months to discover
Huntington's Disease runs in his family
didn't know that
changed my mind about having this baby
and at another level
Huntington's runs in my family
I need to find somebody who is free of that
to make babies with
and even so
I will need to have my embryo tested
if I am to avoid perpetuating this problem
so it is not
having very similar genetics that is the risk factor
it is having defective genetics
not incest justifies abortion
but
major genetic defect justifies abortion
or Not

sometimes it takes a while to crystalise a thought
and perhaps this is an advance in the question of
a general duty to avoid causing distress to others
what we are trying to say - perhaps - is
it is more important to protect a person who diagnosed as autistic
or has a proven genetic susceptibility to being bipolar
from becoming distressed
tht to protect a person who has some African ethnic origin
or some Moslem belief
or is in isolation - not being autistic or bipolar
simply gay or female
but it's more complicated than that
what we need to avoid is having such large groups that are declared
special
that we run into
if everybody is special then nobody is special
and so
as we become more wealthy we can stop saying
people with mobility problems need special help at
transport interchanges
and say
all our tube and railway stations have
step free access
the target is to have nobody in a special protected category
beause everybody is treated well
to make a local reference
not a lot of people know this but
there are pedestrian bridges either side of the
West Dyke Road level crossing at Redcar Central
one has steps and liks platform 1 and platform 2 within the station
the other has ramps
all ramps
and essentially connects
Morrison's goods yard with Soppet Street


there are two saying regarding teaching that we want to
quote today
a picture tells a thousand words
and
chalk and talk
so far as we can tell
viewing from afar
the predominant concept in educaton these days seems to be
adjusting the self esteem of the students
we would question the value or point of
exams and revision
by definition
a lesson that needs to be revised shortly before an exam
is a lesson that is assumed to have lodged in
short term memory
and at the extreme
itis a test of or model of
where was that enemy fighter 'plane
3 milliseconds ago?
where will it be by the time my bullets reach its area?
tyhesethings that were called
Attainment Tests
the 11plus
there is this UKCAT
UK Clinical Aptitude Test
for medical and dental students
presented with a text for a short period of time
what questions can they answer about it shortly afterwards
is a section in that test
the point being/
medical science advances so fast
we want peoplewho
lve in the moment
not people who spent hours and hours reciting standard texts
like , sorry to say, Moslems chanting excerpts from the Koran
it is, by the bye, very difficult to see what
cultural enhancement
Modern Day Islam
provides or encourages
on experience...
the idea being the more parts of the brain involved in the
lesson
the more thorough the learning

we will now hijack a commercial made not so long ago for
women to join the RAF Royal Air Force
and the young woman is standing in front of
two of three very different aeroplanes
and somebody motions towads the trainer
and asks
do you fly that?
and she says no
i fly that
motioning towands the fighter jet
it is quite psssible to do
aerobatics in a passenger airliner
but commercial pilots are told
NEVER, EVER, EVER do that
even though a passenger having a flying experience in
say, a restored Spitfire
would be very unhappy if the trip did not include some aerobatics
the difficulty is
say you need cutting edge surgery
what 'we' want to do is
use the Air Ambulance to take the operating theatre to
the scene of the road crash
but
this is in conflict with the
scoop and scoot
concept of are in London
the idea that LOCATION defines permission
because we can't decode the myriad of
qualification that are not like
labels on a tin
but devices to
adjust the self esteem of students
the likes of
Callme Dave - ex=PM David Cameron
are not capable of doing
what it says on the tin
and people behind the black door of
10 Downing Street
are not necessarily capable of doing what it says on
the Brass plaque outside
if there still is a plaque saying
First Lord of the reasury

is ther a quote
By their works shall ye know them
not quite
Matthew 7 15-20
Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them
we've been wih this
Islam, great thing
concept for a long time now
but nothing except
transgression of unspoken laws justifies execution
has as yet filtered through to
the everyday in the UK
our Ricker aced exams until they involved revision
he found revision confusing and distracting because it was
all about vision, reading
because both his parents left school aged 14
and couldn't talk the exams and the subject matter through with him

we have seen something disappointing on local TV today
a chap pulling dead lobsters out of a pot
lobsters can't get inside a pot unless they actively crawl in
so the bog old lobsters entered the pot
and stayed there so long that they starved to death
then the lad agrees to go out get his pots for the TV
expecting them to be empty
what we are beginning to suspect is that some
young crew members got a scare during the storms
the record serious storms and
they found safer ways to make a living
and the crewless dads...
looking for some governmemt compensation for
packing in
not because there is no catch but
because there is no crew



Sigmund Freud
was an Austrian neurologist and founder of
psychoanalysis
a 'talking' method for evaluating and treating
pathologies in the psyche
through dialogue between patient and therapist
Mr and Mrs Virginia Woolf
were a heterosexual couple who
loved each other but
we know he was determined she could not cope with
motherhood
and so we assume with the lack of contreption??
they were never to
try for a baby
Mr and Mrs Woolf set up a printing press
and eventually they published Dr Freud's book
without Mrs Woolf reading it until much later
Dr Freud died in 1939 a couple of years before Mrs Woolf
Dr Freud was born in Czechia
funny how tGoogle can get that right but
arsehole creeping BBC feel the need to sya
Check Republic
given a lack of much to go on
Dr Freud made a worthwhile contribution to neuroscience
we have remarked before that the human brain is
more like a hemisphere than a sphere
but it is conventional to refer to the two
quarter spheres as hemispheres
people have two major parts to thier brain
with some extra bits below
broadly
perhaps with something a bit more scientific than
chats for a fee
Freud decided that the mind was made up of
the Ego, the id, and the super ego
we ill not at this point seek stats on how average people
are arranged but say...
the right hemisphere contains the conscious mind - the ego
the left hemisphere houses the unconscious mind - the id
and when they get together they operate as the super ego
now then? what connects them?
it may be the corpus callosum
we don't care
one theory of bipolar disorder is
the right hemisphere is responsible and serious
and the left hemisphere is care fre and creative
and sometimes the corpus callosum looses control
and one side gets too much of an upper hand
in other words
the physical consequences of the genetic propensity to being
bipolar is a faulty corpus callosum
a white matter bridge between the two hemispheres
which can of course be damaged by trauma or deliberately
one of the Kennedy clan had her brain trashed by somebody trying to cut the
corpus callosum to shut the id out of the equasion
this is related to ECT
electro convulsive therapy
which our Ricker's nutty 'siste-in-law had
we are not CERTAIN that ECT is no longer done
so it wa Rosemary Kennedy who had a
ompletely random attempt at a
prefrontal lobotomy
if your braipermitting communication between the
right and left hemispheres of the brain
AND
you can see abnormalities in the corpus callosum of
children who have been identified as maltreated
but here we have a classic
chicken and egg dilemma
if a child is bipolar because they have a disfunctional
corpus callosum
will they be more likey to
get into scrapes
and
send their carers off the deep end
and only relatively recently has anybody been able to ask
bipolar, corpus callosum malformation, apparent maltreatment
a link? if so, what link?
you might say
you kick a child in the head
you could damage their corpus callosum
you feel a child up
mechanism for damage to the corpus callosum??
not so much
oh and Kari..
ECT and smoked like a beagle
and on MAOI
and died a long long time ago
after the smoking had taken
was it one or both legs?
sometimes you simply
HAVE TO DROP
OLD THEORIES AND TREATMENTS
perhaps given our Ricker's experiences with his
sisters-in-law
you can see why at the slightest sign of
instability in a woman
or any of her family and friends
he runs a mile, very fast
and as his one time friend Mr Davey
used to say about traveling alone on a train
why do i always get the nutter
sitting next to me
the nutter is the woman who has realised that if she can't get a man
she won't have children
and if she regards a date as
a ride on a roller coaster that hasn't been servied in
half a century
and he wants to stay out of jail
baby ain't happening



it may be that later today our Ricker will take a wander
down onto Redcar Beach to photograph
what you should expect to see of the activity of
razor clams
you see a little funnel shaped indentation in the sand
and around 15 cm away a little pile of sand in the shape of
a spoonful of spaghetti
and depending on the state of the tide you would be able to see
seabirds feedig on the shore
you will see evidence of
razor clams feeding in the sand
and razor clam shells
discarded by the feeding sea birds
all is right with the world
in those respects at least
predating razor clams is a very spaecialist activity
if you want to eat razor clams you need to
have a very long thin beak or bill
and be very light on your feet because
razor clams are very very sensitive to
vibrations in the sand around them
candidates include
sanderlings, redshanks
bar-tailed godwits
gotta get that name in when yu can
think of Graham Megson of teesmouthbc.com
there was a Dennis Megson at school with our Ricker








that brings up another bit of feeding behaviour
we said that if you want to catch razer clams
you need to be very light footed
in contrast
in the winter time the sea gulls need to
switch from fish and chips to worms
and they can be seen dancing on playing fields because?
nobody is sure but it is thought that
if they dance on the surface
the worms think it is raining
and surface to avoid drowning
and get caught
it is definitely a thing in Redcar
how widespread it is we don't know

every moment in time is
a moment in time
but some moments in time are in some ways
end points
punctuation
not simply word endings but
sentence, paragraph, chapter endings
and in a book we are - most often
informed - at or before the moment of reading
of this extra significance
and so one moment in the present time is
that we describe some people as
bipolar
earlier they would have been described as
manic depressive
and we think there s little difference here because
the change is mainly related to
a less descriptive terminology
rather than a radically different meaning
however, what we have in earlier moments in time are
on this issue
much more significant paradigm shifts
a person who is in any way well connected
whether by wealth or by noteriety
has a platform
and the works of a person with a platform
are very likely to be studied in many ways
by many people, over an extended period of time
and so to two people with a platform and in all probability with, of
a bipolar disposition
Virginia Woolf
and
Stephen Fry
there is a passage somewhere in Virginia Woolf about
there was a slab in the hallway
used for the setting down of dishes
some man - named
picked me up and set me on that slab
and began to
explore my body
it is supposed that in very early life
Virginia Woolf's half brothers were in the habit of
showing her a good time of a night
we might consider in this the fact that her elder sister
who died very young
had wat we may call
more ligitimate access to that body
since she had 'maternal care' of Virginia
sister exploring my body necessary
brother exploring my body somehow wrong
if we take the two elements of Virginia's life
a lot of deaths in the family when she was quite young and an extensive lifestyle of
assumed unconsumated heterosexual marriage and
extensive lesbian relationships
it is easy to ask questions such as
Stephen Fry
O' levels at 14, not allowed to take A' levels
rusticated from at least 2 schools
two very able people
two bipolar people
two homosexual people
are these things linked?
or was there some triggering event or circumstance
such as Virginia being the
household bike
that triggered a psychological or physical abnormality
that was not present at birth?
we can say, at this moment in time
bipolar disorder is frequently inherited with
genetic factors accounting for approximately,BR> 80 per cent of the cause of the condition
no other psychiatic disorder is more heritable
but most people are raised in their early years
in the presence of their natural parents
and that statement needs clarificaton
how many people born of bipolars become bipolars
do bipolars foster oe adopt children with no
family line of bipolar
and do those children develop bipolar
despite those misgivings over the stats
it is probably not
putting the cart before the horse to suggest that
it starts with genetics and not
night time activities
we are at that moment in time where a person can
do a home genetic test for the prime genetic marker for bipolar
but the test although 100 per cent acurate for the genetics
only identifies those 'at risk'
it does not accurately predict a bipolar outcome
and so people with a positive test may be advised to avoid
potential triggers
is it true that
a person with the genetics associated with bipolar
is more likely to be homosexual?
and is that a direct link
or is it that a bipolar person is more likely to
experiment with, shall we say
sex and drugs and rock and roll?
Stephen Fry has a documented relationship with cocaine
and Virginia Woolf was probably prescribed all sorts a rock
however much one wants to dramatise the story of
19th and 20th century female emancipation..
however stark the starting position
it is probably not appropriate to decide that
you need to be bipolar in order to
get things done
and it is probably wise to distinguish - separate in the mind
female emancipation and lesbianism
for the most part and we will not explore the origins of anorexia here
you do not starve yourself because your mother's cooking is
godawful
you eat takeaways
and so
the concept of
starting your sex life before you could express preferences??
do it the way i like it or I'll scweem and scweem and scweem
is a little threadbare
overall we tend towards the belief that it is unhelpful to
bundle together - concatinate - events that share a very
broad timescale
the main theme is
you can revell in Stephen Fry
and revere Virginia Woolf
but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

the old stock exchange addage goes
sell in May
and go away
the reason being
in the summer months we have
thin trading
low turnover
and so early in June the price of
North Sea Gas Futures fell
and now it has risen
it fell because the buyers went on holiday
it has now risen because the sellers have
gone on holiday
the 'inflation rate' has been published
the nex publication - for June - will be 20th July
in the detail we can read that
in May 2021 the month on month inflation rate was
0,6 per cent
in May 2022 the month on month inflation rate was
0.5 per cent
inflation has not ust peaked
it has fallen
but we'll keep that quiet in
silly season
currently Boris Bashing Bonanza
speaking of which
editors on BBC breakfast
oh bck in the day
crotchless panties
there is a deep deep mind set in BBC editorial galeries
notwithstanding the Cleveland Child Abuse hangover in which
sex makes you ill
and photography steals your soul...
take a picture of a person in a swim suit
the crotch of the swm suit will likely show up...
take a picture of the same person when they have
not yet removed thir skirt
and the picture moves into the category
obscene
nevertheless
quite the game
going commando
and waiting to see whether anybody will
upskirt you
we assume you go commando - no panties
in a skirt
when you intend flashing somebody...

it's a thing we have done along with most other people
refer to small pox as the only virus to have been eradicated
as we get more and more social mixing
things pop up
the disease comes first and then
that looks like xxx
then perhaps xxx has not been eradicated?
but then perhaps we find that the new patients have
something quite different
one aspect of this is like the
passenger Pigeon in the US
people hunted it to extinction
and then expected it to pop up again
bescuse it was a part of God's creation
and it didn't
and so
although we do now see some cases of
AFM
acute flacid myelitis
and it looks a lot like
polio
we have grounds to think that the
3 strains of polio virus may now be extinct
we are not sure about this
acute
as opposed to
rapid onset
does tend to be associated with
temporary
and polio was not temporary
these days we have cerebral palsy
but at one time
children in
leg irons
were more likely to be polio victims
you guessed it
this is one of those slow build up stories
when people want charitable support
they tend to emphasise the effect of the problem on
children
there is a famous polio story that does not involve children
up until he was around 26
Frankline Delanose Roosevelt
was the happy healthy father of 4?
anyway normal
and then he got ill and became paralysed
in the sense of having little use of his legs
because this happened when he was already
'rich, powerful and famous
he chose to hide his disability
rather than play on it for sympathy as
would more likely be the case with a child
a lot of people regard
education
literally bringng out 'the best' or potential in children
as the same things as
training
rote learning of a routine or series of 'facts'
and so it is with most school subjects
in the UK a lot of people think they have
cracked history
if they know the names of the sequence of kings and queens
in the US it may be a sequence of Presidents and battles
other people study the subject in more depth
and so
President Putin has made much of a 'study' of history
and people who remember history as a series of people or events
tend to seek simple patterns and expect
History to repeat itself
in essence
people who remember history are 'doomed' to see it repeat itself
but people who study history can escape the
Groundhog Day Syndrome
by the time of the Second World War
FDR - that Rooseveldt
had had 'polio' for many years
and there were three 'world leaders' standing against
The Nazis
Rooseveldt, Churchill, and Stallin
and at the time
in many ways
Churchill was more in the mould of Boris Johnson
physically
a man desperatley hiding a serious physical disability
would look to
Churchill and Stallin
and it is not too surprising that
Rooseveldt chose Stallin and took to a kind of
hero worship
he was hiding his disability
he saw Churchill as weak and defective
it was not surprising that FDR thought
I wish I could stride around like Stallin
and what we are gettin at here is
there was
very personal chemistry between Stallin a FDR
and the
I expect histroy to repeat itself
President Putin
has no doubt encouraged by some small hero worship from the
soon to no longer be
Prime Minister of Israel
Mr Benett
had assumed that if Russia invaded Ukraine
America would support Russia
As Of Old
and so
Mr Benett
is on his way out
the guy who denied Ukraine the Iron Dome
what of President Putin
a President Putin without the expected support of
Israel and the USA?
and with dwindling co-operation even from Belarussia
we shall see

a small poin of clarification here - guidance
if you search lackenby steelworks
you will be told about the BOS plant being shut down
if, on the other hand you search
Lackenby Mills
you can discover that
Lackenby Mills currently employ around 400 people
who run a
beam mill
that has a capacity of 1 million tonnes a year
and that the 'same size' strip mill was taken off to China
some time ago
and that the steel for the beam mill and Skinningrove comes by rail from
Scunthorpe
sooo
Redcar blast furnace alone was capable of making
3 million tonnes of iron a year
using the 70,000 tonnes of sinter a week produced by the sinter plant
1 million for the beam mill
1 million for the strip mill - car bodies, washing machines
and 1 million for
? hartlepool pipe mill, Skinningrove, export
Scunthorpe is a rod and wire mill
is there room in lackenby mills for
a beam mill AND a strip mill AND a wire/rod mill
we are not sure
it's a long while since our Ricker was in there..
Redcar has the capacity to make all the steel the UK needs
but
ploitics can be a tanagled web
and honestly Rishi Sunak is way to posh to attract the
working class Uk Asian vote...
to protect Port Talbot
on the basis of my enemy's enemy is my friend
use invetment in Scunthorpe to
keep the foot on the neck of Redcar


one thing we may be able to say about
Redcar Steelworks is
in the minds of some in government it appears that it is
dead but it won't lie down
we can't believe that it was 2015 when it closed
7 not 5 years ago
we know that demented pre Europe woman had a hand in it
the closure
but we will concentrate on the figure head
about 6 months before the closure
Sajid Javid
currently the first Secretary of State for Health
not to pretend he knows all there is to know about medsun
after Hunt and that other guy who clearly thought they did
became
President of the Board of Trade
and
Secretary of State for
Business, Innovation and Skills
and it may be said that he turned down 'help' for
SSI
we suspect that he decided not to allow
steel produced in Redcar by the new
innovative method
to be sold into British
and referening the female nut job side kick
Europe
that lead to the closure
hs pro European stance probably derived from him
having been Deutsche Bank
it is entirely without evidence tht we suggest that,BR> the department wanted to hand Redcar over to
Krup
obviously he was a certain Asian appearance
and that could lead us astray regarding
his anti-Redcar sentiments
in actuality
he was raised in quite ordinary circumstances in
BRISTOL
and that would give him a pro-Port Talbot perspective
rather than a pro-Tata perspective
Javid pro Port Talbot
Johnson 'needs' Asian support
what can I do for you Mr Javid
hey boss, just look after Port Talbot
and I'll be a king
MP for Bromsgrove?
he has residences listed as
Bristol, England
Chelsea, London
Fulham, London
note not Chelsea, England
London is creeping towards being
a City State
Bromsgrove is a town in Worcestershire, England
13 miles south-west of Birmingham
oh and he's a graduate of the Univerity of Exeter
Devon, South west England
opposite side of the Bristol channel from Port Talbot
by the way
Secretary of State means Chief Minister in a ministry

we just thought
after reading
large buildings at the former Redcar steelworks site
have been demolished in a controlled explosion
The Bunker Bay and Screenhouse at the former
Sinter Plant were brought down by 100kg of explosives
on Thursday 16th
so we thought we'd publish a picture taken on Saturday18th
what's the opposite of
you were just supposed to blow the bloody doors off/
a panel at eah end of one of the two filter boxes
has been blown off
there are a number of issues here
there is a shoratge of skills
there is a shortage of labour
these things show no sign of penetrating
the corridors of power
the fact that may get some traction is
when you have
shall we say
if you have a structure that is redundant and
contains 5,000 tonnes of scrap steel
and you want to sell thqt scrap
you don't want to release it too
suddenly, quickly
because that could
cause the price of scrap to plummet
there is no rush to dismantle the
Sinter Plant
from time to time there will be
small explosions when the demolishers are
not sure about either the structural integrity
of the building
or they are unsure about possible toxic hazards
The Sinter Plnt will come down
but it will take time

yesterday parts - including the filter box
or screenhouse
of the Redcar Sinter plant were blown up
as expected
we have taken a bit of trouble to check out
edsuk
they are
Electrical Data Security
they essentially design and install
turnstiles
what they have done for Network Rail is devleop a
cantilever gate
these are gates that don't need a track across the road
do not touch the roadway
so much is positive
the mechanics are very successful
but the drive mechanism is inadequate
this is on two grounds
Network Rail engineers note that there are no brakes
the gates set off and a huge microswitch
switches them off as they engage with the target latch
they have no brakes and no RADAR to stop if they encounter an obstacle
on the basis that if they move slowly anybody
including a child or a pet such as a dog
will move out of the way in time to avoid injury
the defect that affects the town is that
perhaps because those controls are not in place
the drive motors are
woefully underpowered
if the company can control a turnstile in terms of
a valid ticket etc.
should be able to act under the same control as
every office or mall lift in service
there should be a pressure plate on the leading edge
that can stop the gate
we have to suspect that Network Rail would perfer a bridge
and we think former MP for Redcar Ian Swales
was not on board with this
perhaps Network Rail wish the people of Redcar to get so
fed up with the gates that they will
demand a bridge...


2 bullet points
The current MP for Corby
a former steelworks town in Northnts is a Tory
if the governmet want to have steelworks in
Scunthorpe and Port Talbot
they're gonna have to build them
because what is there is knackered
it's like the line about Liverpool
you want a cathedral?
we've got one to spare
Roman Catholic and Anglican
IF the domestic market fo stell is
3 to 6 million tonnes a year
do you put your brand new electric car on bricks
and run the Mini Metro
or do you do that ever so foreign thing
get with the programme
adopt the new technologies
we need to put down some basic markers regarding
the UK steel industry
despite the loss of many centres of the steel industry
Consett, Motherwell in Scotland, Corby in Northants
all lost so long ago we forget the detals
Cleveland was a UK parliamentary constituency
from 1885 to 1974
it was a county constituency in the Langbaurgh Wapentake
in the North Riding of Yorkshire
in essence the name was later re-used
to denote the metropolitan district of Langbaurgh
later Langbaurgh-0n-Tees
created in 1974
it covered the eastern division of
County Cleveland
and has been known as
the unitary authority of Redcar and Clevalnnd
since 1996
the parliamentary constituency had one MP
it was created from a part of
North Riding of Yorkshire
and replaced by the constituency of
Cleveland and Whitby
the first MP was Henry Fell Pease 1885
second Alfred Pease 1897 Liberal
Herbert Samuel 1902Liberal
1959 Wilfred Proudfoot Conservative
1964 James Tinn Labour
abolished 1974
Cleveland was Labour from 1945 to 1959
as a result of the post war Labour landslide
Tory from 1959 to 1964 and then
Labour 1964 to abolition in 1974
1974 it was replaced by
Langbaurgh
and
Scarborough
the now Lord Bates lost Langbaurgh for the Conservatives
it was
Guisborough, Loftus, Saltburn, Marske-by-the-Sea
Skelton and Brotton, Whitby and Whitby rural district
from a current perspective
as Langthingy it was Cleveland minus
Greater Eston and Redcar
and so
the unitary authority
Redcar and Cleveland
was
a bit of a mouthful
Greater Eston, Redcar, and Cleveland
minus Whitby
From 1974 to abolition in 1983 it was the constituency of Leon Brittan conservative
in broad terms would you expect students at
the university of Teesside to live in
ESton
Redcar
Cleveland? so Leon Brittan was chancellor of the University of Teesside
Redcar constituency was created as
Redcar and Greater Eston
greater Eston includes townships such as
Grangetown and SOuth Bank
but it is hard to distinguish any boundaries
and so
That Little Bit of South Teesside
Eston and Redcar
was labour from creation in 1974 to
2019
when it became Tory
the thoroughly adequate
Anna Turley lost out because of
well
nearby Middlesbrough had Corbyn fan
Andy Mcdonald
so the people of Redcar said
sorry Anna
you have not protected us from
Corbyn and Mcdonald, bye
and we don't see a similar appellation for Redcar
but Corby was once known locally as
because of the number of people from Scotland
moving there to
work in the steelworks
build a steelworks and they will come
steelworks are generally built where there is either
coal
or
ironstone
or
both
and not where there is a workforce
returning to the main theme
at some point around the turn of the 21st century
there were three steelworks in the UK
Port Talbot in South Wales
Scunthorpe n Linolnshire
and Redcar on Teesside
and all the while since the 1970s and before
industry leaders had been endeavouring to
consolidate UK steel production in Redcar
and politicians had been trying to
gain favour by
saving the jobs of people in redundant steelworks
what the politicians cna never grasp is that the corollary to
build it and they will come
is
shut it and they will go
in other words
very other words
London
pre-Second World War
6 million inhabitants
post war 3 million
now 6 million
where did they go?
Harlow in Essex
Milton Keynes
all sorts of places
to avoid the bombing
and now half the population are
first and second generation immigrants
the English didn't return to London
it beame a World City
not a National Capital
the lesson here is
Elect a Corbyn style leader to the Labour Party and
people will vote Tory
shut a steelworks and
it will not affect voting decisions
one jot
the people of Redcar didn't vote Labour because
the steelworks was closed
they voted Tory because the local Labour party
in Middlesbrough selected Andy Mcdonald as their candidate
and knew if Redcar wasn't qa Women Only Short List
somebody similar would be
put up in Redcar
for the next five years
Cumberland County Council
in the Lake District
North West England
will have a Labour council
BECAUSE
the Tories kept
banging on about opening a coal mine in the area
STOP IT
the people of Northern England are not swine
they are not happy to be
pigs living in shit
they don't want a patched up old school steelworks in Scunthorpe
they want a state of the art steelworks like Redcar
and remember
Redcar was shut down because of lack of market
it is still quite unbelievable that SSI were only
alowed to re-start Redcar so long as all it's production was
exported
when the whole k steel industry would have been set right by
shutting the completely knockered Scunthorpe works
Scunthorpe makes 3million tonnes a year
same as Redcar did
simple substitution
and then a Tory won in Scunthorpe in 2019...
and still that
mindless belief that she could keep her seat
despite having voted against the Tory government on
free school meals in holidays
if the povery sustaining shit factory was kept open

we have been having a little think about Russia
we have this image in mind of a drug adict
who is given money for a
season ticket for his favourite sports team
and spends the money on drugs
that is
The World arranged for President Putin to
get a re-set by
blaming it all on the olgarchs - plutocrats
and making a fresh start by
cutt