rockershovel

My good wife is off at my daughters for a few days, so I get the TV remote. Flipping round the video channels I saw "Oh What a Lovely War" ... wasn't Angela Thorne a delicate English rose in those days?

My good wife was never an enthusiastic traveller, but happy to travel as long as she didn't have to organise anything, navigate or drive (outside UK, at any rate); no camping and no sleeper trains. Her various tribulations of recent years have quite extinguished whatever flame there was and I no longer bother to suggest it. I travelled widely for work and (mostly) enjoyed it, but there were quite a few places I was happy not to return to. Top of the list, Sub Saharan Africa. I had a few enjoyable stop-overs but on the whole, nope. The North African littoral, particularly Tunisia could be good fun, but that has changed greatly in recent years. I missed out on a contract with BP in Algeria in 2010 which ended in guns and helicopters, not sorry to have missed that. I dont care for the Far East. Don't like the heat and humidity. I've heard very various things about South America. I did have a highly enjoyable stop-over in Argentina, when i was involved with Rock Hopper. My cousin did two deployments to Belize and loathed it. I did have one trip to Venezuela and it wasnt much fun. On the whole I tend to feel that I've missed that bus. I'd like to see more of the US and Canada. Japan was fascinating. I had a good time in the Caspian region. Especially Azerbaijan.

Weren't the traditional Welsh longbow made of yew?

It's probably a sign of anno Domini, but "I should give that ten minutes if I were you" is the working rule around here, these days...

A loud slap over the pate for Sir Clive Woodward, the latest to involve himself in the "6N promotion/relegation" debate. No, no, no. It's the 6 Nations.

Come to think of it, the whole story kicks off when Ford Prefect receives a message on what is basically a smartphone fitted with a rolling news feed and Uber..... Zaphod Beeblebrox is basically a social media influencer...

I seem to recall that they adopted the leaf as currency. Consequently they all became very wealthy but suffered a serious inflation problem, which they propose to rectify by burning down the forest. Sounds like the sort of thinking that would fit right in today.

Meanwhile in the "heart of stone" class, some notably idiotic dog stories around at present... Firstly, the woman who was awarded a holiday as a prize on the Ant and Dec show. She apparently runs a charity "to raise awareness of disabled pets" .... and the airline won't allow her to take hers in the cabin. She won't allow it to travel in the hold as per usual, and it doesn't have the necessary jabs to travel. She claims to be "heart broken" and "will never watch them again".... this all sounds like what my late father would refer to as "poor staff work". Secondly, a "reality TV personality" who missed a holiday because the airline wouldn't accept her passport. Moral being, don't allow your dog to chew it .. better yet, don't carry your dog in the same handbag! The Golgafrincham B Ark must be refusing bookings daily...

There are some phrases and terms which simply shouldn't exist. Today's contribution, from an article in the DT about flying with dogs; "Emotional support pit bull"......

It isn't generally understood that the British political class expected a continuation of Empire, post-WW2 and to that end, intended to preserve Sterling as an International Reserve Currency. Britain still ruled an Empire in Africa and the South Seas; the young Queen was still Head of State in places like Australia and Canada. Hence the continuation of post-Colonial wars in Africa and Asia, to protect the interests of organisations like Lever Brothers and Barings. It was a trading, maritime Empire in which it was absolutely taboo to act on behalf of industry, unless of course your name was "Brummagem Joe" Chamberlain. The working classes understood this and swarmed to emigrate. They understood that their victory was being squandered or thrown away. Then in 1956 it all came crashing down, at a place called Suez. Uncle Sam administered a sharp lesson in macro-economics. By 1962 the last colony of any consequence (Nigeria) had gone; by 1964-5 the Labour government had had its nose firmly rubbed in the electorates resistance to mass immigration and was heading for its second post-War devaluation.

I venture to disagree. They were market leaders in the 1930s and sold in large numbers, world wide into the 1960s. Bikes like the Triumph and BSA twins were state-of-the-art into the 1950s.

Nothing wrong with MZs. Try the 1970s ISDT Special, very quick. The 125 and 250 singles were well engineered and very nicely finished, although if there is a German word for "styling" there probably shouldn't be....

I'm also reminded of the quite inexcusable BSA Dandy, and the Beeza with its nicely engineered but utterly gutless side-valve single with unit construction and electric starter. Interesting that BSA and Velocette both produced new sidevalve designs with otherwise quite modern engineering. The real criticism has to be that BSA produced multiple small engine designs (and don't forget the pitiful Beagle) without getting any of them right, while Honda went directly to the Cub - which hit the ball straight into the stands. Kick start, 3 speeds, no great performance but totally reliable and what a seller....

I find it hard to grieve the lack of surviving post-War Villiers powered lightweights. They were rubbish, mostly produced by once-distinguished firms at the end of their tether. The Germans had shown the way forward and the Japanese took up the challenge. As for BSA's last gasp, the Tina and Sunbeam/Tigress scooters ..... like the Ariel "tin hippo" a basically sound idea let down by poor build quality and lack of development.

Co-pay is... oh, I don't know. Most people pay varying sums, often quite substantial for dental treatment and it doesn't appear to cause a revolution. Spectacles are not free. I suspect that the real problem with free-at-point-of-delivery vs co-pay for GP services, was and is that much of GPs time is taken up prescribing palliative and anti-depressant medication to patients with nothing effectively treatable, wrong with them. Any GP will tell you, in the unlikely event that you manage to find one (and these days, you have more chance of finding a police officer) that they could delete 50% ofcany given days' list with no real harm done. Add in that our present GP "service" is something which no-one would willingly pay for, and I can't see that we will be paying any time soon. I'm intrigued by the idea of meal "upgrades". English hospital food is quite inexcusable, having replaced railway catering as a source of national embarrassment. I spent a few days in hospital a few years ago and after the first day, went and ate in the staff canteen. It was apparent from the various dressing-gowns that I wasn't the only one.

The C10 was quite the slowest thing ever to emerge from Small Heath. I once had a 1930s X34 150cc ohv which was faster.. a rather elegant little thing. The Val Page designed pre-War 250s were rather nice, a great pity they were replaced by the C11, although it was definitely a reliable commuter.

My good wife periodically accuses me of not paying attention... I have no idea what she is talking about....

My late mother had full dentures by her early 20s at the latest. It wasn't just dental hygiene but poor diet leading to gum deterioration. This was quite common at the time. My father kept his teeth till his death in his forties, which he attributed to joining the Army at 16 (in 1933) and so, eating a healthy diet in those crucial years. Amid the current fear-mongering in the press about conscription, it might be worth considering that conscription in the past has tended to produce a rude shock regarding the state of the health of the nation generally.

The NHS is proverbially "the nearest thing the British have to a religion" and I'd agree with that. The English, particularly are a communitarian people with a strong sense of "fair play" which bears little or no relation to the ideological obsessions of the political class. The ultimately failed revolution of 1945-8 was based upon equality of opportunity, not outcome. It was based upon the long-term accrual of social capital - a better life for the next generation - and no-one thought that wrong. It was based upon full employment, for many years. Regarding the NHS particularly, certain early flaws existed and still do. Particularly, it was believed that it would improve the general health of the nation, and tend to be self-limiting - so much for THAT! That said, it was instrumental in the great disease eradication programmes of the 1950s and 1960s, notably TB and childhood diseases like scarlet fever and diphtheria. There was no provision for elective surgery except through a GP's referral. There was no provision for the mass provision of palliative and anti-depressant medication which costs so much now. It certainly wasn't generally seen as an open-access service for all comers. Over time, it has adapted as the other great avatars of that time failed to adapt. It has become a huge driver for immigration, by its chronic failure to train staff. It has been thoroughly looted by the PFI initiatives of the New Labour era, sonething which was known at the time. It has become a vehicle for institutional capture by the Liberal Left. All that, and STILL it provides things which I don't care to think how they might otherwise be provided. My good wife has had bilateral knee replacement surgery and lumbar decompression in the last 3 years, with further lumbar treatment to come. I'm glad I don't have THAT on my insurance... does the term "pre existing conditions" mean anything to you?

Not quite - read it again. My understanding has always been that MPs owe the electorate the exercise of their best judgement and intellectual capacity. After all, Burke did not represent most of the nation, but a specific constituency of interests. There was no universal franchise. MPs were elected through a mechanism of nepotism and corruption, and exactly where they happened to sit for , was something of an irrelevance. I think it's about time we moved on from this.

Troubridge essentially presented the Admiralty and the nation with an outcome which was tactically defensible but strategically, a huge failure. Goeben's mission would have the ultimate consequence of involving Turkey in the war on Germany's side. someone was going to carry that can and it would not have been feasible in terms of the command structure, to pilory the Flag Officer without involving the overall commander. As you say, the later Battle of the River Plate showed a possible alternative scenario. IMHO, Troubridge was wrong given the extreme strategic risks. Whether that was properly his decision is a different question. Nelson famously said that "no captain can be very wrong, if he lays his ship alongside the enemy". Napoleon valued "lucky" generals. Cradock appears to have fallen at both fences. It's an interesting comment, about "feeling his courage to be questioned". He was a brave man but his career was chequered with periods on half-pay and suggests someone who lacked some indefinable spark, and couldn't progress as a result. He reminds me of Robert Falcon Scott, another captain whose royal patronage and technical ability were insufficient to overcome his greater limitations, ending in a largely futile disaster for his command.

Troubridge was, of course acquitted at his Court Martial but never again given command. Cradock, who knew him well, would have known this. To a man like Cradock, a long service, career officer with a great reputation for personal courage but little experience of sea combat - very much a product of the Pax Brittanica - that would have been a very difficult situation to be in. The Admirality would subsequently claim that their orders were for Cradock to concentrate around Canopus - an ageing near-hulk which never actually arrived on station, and ended the campaign run ashore in the Falklands as a fixed battery. Quite what purpose might have been intended by ordering a small, distinctly miscellaneous squadron to close with an enemy force well known to be capable of destroying that squadron long before it could exchange fire, is hard to determine. However, de mortuus nil nisi bonum, so did Cradock achieve anything? He caused the German squadron to expend around 50% of its irreplaceable ammunition, and the hunt for the scattered remnants of his squadron dispersed and delayed the Germans. Canopus, by then beached but still very much at action stations, deterred the Germans from approaching Port Stanley, where they might have coaled. The German fleet would eventually be intercepted at the Fslkland Islands and sunk there. The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were very much the Bismarck and Tirpitz of their day, so this was a primary goal of British naval strategy. So I wouldn't say that the Coronel action achieved nothing whatever, although whether it was necessary or proportionate is a somewhat different matter. It was a tactical disaster forming the opening stages of a strategic success. It made the point forcibly that putting obsolete vessels to sea with scratch crews of reservists unable to fight them effectively, served no useful purpose - and this was not repeated.

"You can horsewhip your Gascony archers/you can torture your Picardy spears/but don't try that game on the Saxon/you'll have the whole brood round your ears". The point about Magna Carta was, and remains that it set the precedent that Monarchs ruled by the consent of their subjects. It really wasn't about democracy, but about individual rights. The Cromwellian revolution and subsequent Glorious Revolution finalised that, definitively ending the concept of Divine Rule. These were not European concepts. The French underwent a revolution and subsequent period if warfare and terror as extreme a anything displayed by the Soviets, not much more than two hundred years ago. More recently, I was working in Former East Germany in 2010/11 and it occurred to me that this was an area which had held its first free, democratic election as recently as 1993

Hence Marxism and Fascism both being of European origin, since both arise from the concept that the law and civil rights are the State's to grant or withold as it sees fit. Likewise the concept that European politicians can be exempted from prosecution, a refinement we have yet to adopt. Americans used to say that "God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal" - but this is really only an updating of the medieval English expression "no man may take the law of a grey goose", goose feathers being used for arrow Fletching. The concept that an English man may do as he pleases in his own home is also if great antiquity.

I've just been watching "Rango".