jonny777

No he isn't suggesting that at all. You need to learn to read between the lines. He is using the analogy to make his point, which is a subtle nudge towards the private vs nationalisation argument. The letters editor will love this kind of thing, because it is his/her job to stimulate a lively discussion.

Which part of his description of the withdrawal of Blue Train services, and temporary restoration of the steam service, do you consider to be nonsense?

This reminds me of a house I used to own, many decades ago. The house was almost detached, but the garages were linked (probably saved a bit of space and a few hundred bricks). The house was at the bottom of a slight hill, nothing too steep but it meant that after heavy rain water seemed to collect in one corner of the garden for a day or so. I suspect the builders skimped on the drainage, but it didn't worry me too much as this was at the back of the garage which was set back (inwards if that makes sense) from the rear of the house, but flush with the front. My neighbour, who was a bit of a weird person, decided after a few year that he was going to extend his kitchen behind his garage - not by that much, but in terms of the kitchen it made sense. This meant I would have a wall for a few feet back from my garage, but I wasn't concerned as we only used the space behind ours to store much loved items which might come in useful sometime junk. Anyway, unknown to me he thought it would be a wonderful idea to have a patio behind the extension, but his idea was to sink the patio by about a foot (or maybe he just didn't have a clue what he was doing). The rest of the boundary was fencing. Lo and behold, the next heavy rain we had, and the water came steadily down into my garden as was usual, but then found a slightly lower level by creeping under the fence. Result? He woke up next morning to a patio looking much more like a very expensive paddling pool. Of course, he came round in a rage trying to suggest I had sabotaged his extension. I tried to explain the logic of his patio now being the lowest point on the whole street but he did not take it well.

I agree with this to an extent, but I think the problem also comes from the current MSM doing very little journalism. The TV interviewers are so used to simply regurgitating press releases, that they have no in-depth knowledge of the subject they are discussing with politicians on air. Therefore they cannot ask them serious questions about the current (or recent past) decisions because their ignorance would be exposed. The TV questioners get around this the only way they know; by proposing hypothetical future scenarios or situations, which may or may not be likely but could throw the politician off balance. They have yet to descend to a point where they ask "precisely what would your party do for the British people after a large asteroid strike?", but I'm sure it is only a matter of time.

Windy and showery in North Somerset this morning. Yesterday went without too much incident. Grandchildren had a walk to the swing-park, and visited the allotment. I duly cooked then burgers in bagels (only because we had them left over in the freezer from eldest son's visit in April, and they needed using up). We sat outside in the warm sunshine until the rain arrived mid-afternoon. Son-i-law was administering the count for city council seats, so the grandkids had to wait for that to finish then go home to pick him up. Greens did very well, apparently, and now have an equal number of council seats to Labour (24 each; out of a total of 70). One possible problem could have been the youngest grandson (aged 4) catching sight of a small-ish rat which he called a mouse. I went along with this deception, as I didn't want him to alert the entire area with shouts of "I can see a rat". He did tell me that he thought mice were smaller, but I replied that one must be really greedy and he was happy with that. I watched a fascinating programme on TV about a Bronze Age settlement preserved in the fens, and is now undergoing archaeological excavation. Apparently, so much has been preserved that they have found textiles, and uneaten food in almost perfectly complete bowls. The site is called Must Farm, and is between Whittlesea and Peterborough. I had not heard of the findings until last night. Amazing what can be discovered after 3000 years.

Dry and sunny here in North Somerset. The unstoppable destruction aka grandchildren are due to arrive, so no peace for a few hours. I wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t feel the need to impress me by showing how loud they can shout, how fast they can run in a 13’ x 13’ space, and how well they can jump on the furniture. I’m sure I did not behave like this when I went to my grandma’s 60 years ago. But then, I was not brought up on a diet full of sugary foods and drinks. I am charged with providing ‘burger in a bagel’ for their lunch but they may be forced on a long walk before anything like that materialises.

Hooray. Truth from a real expert, rather than speculative stuff from the armchair variety. However, I will don my tin hat.....

Yes Neil, but the problem for Jersey, since Brexit, has been that the French will either not allow non-EU vessels to land their catch at French ports, or impose so much paperwork that the fish have gone rotten before it is completed. Now this means that the number of Jersey boats currently fishing has declined, and the French have muscled in to increase their number of boats in Jersey waters in order to take advantage. This has led to the current licensing system which forces the French skippers to provide proof of their longstanding fishing history in Channel Island waters, which of course the newcomers can't. Hence no licences for them.

Wet a nd windy here in North Somerset. 20mm of rain overnight, but it seems to have eased off now. We had paid for a full survey when we bought this house in 1987. The survey pointed out a few minor faults, but said we should insist the vendor install new guttering before we considered moving in. We couldn't be bothered to stir things up, so moved in and had to exist with the condemned guttering. We forgot all about it, and the whole lot was eventually replaced in 2009 (i.e. 22 years later) after not really giving us any problems, but it just looked rather life-expired by then. I also found out a piece of interesting but not particularly useful information the other day. Apparently, in 1938 Neville Chamberlain ordered the security services to tap all the phones of Winston Churchill and provide him (Chamberlain) with transcripts. This seems to be because Churchill was meeting with Labour politicians in order to get a vote of no confidence in the then PM passed in the Commons, and install a coalition with Churchill as the leader. I never knew that.

My 'guess' would be a Chiffchaff.

I had an interested visitor observing the gardening this afternoon.

I did have a database containing all my model railway stock - primarily for insurance purposes; but it seemed to vanish during a hard drive crash some years ago and I could find no backup or similarly titled file anywhere. So the idea lost its appeal at the time. However, I wonder if there is a Mac OS version?

I think the MSM ought to be told a true fact about Jersey. It is not, and never has been, a member of the EU, nor is it part of the UK. Yes, it had a free trade agreement with the EU and the UK, but other than that it did its own thing. Therefore Jersey was never included in the common fisheries policy of the EU. That the Brexit negotiations cause the island to update its fisheries licence policy in order to issue licences only to those boats which have had historic links to fishing in Jersey waters, is nothing to do with Bojo or the British government and their gunboat diplomacy on the day before local elections. The waters belong to Jersey. Who they allow to fish there is entirely up to them. However, this is getting perilously close to the political maelstrom - and so I will drop anchor at this point.

We used to have the makings of a decent rail freight business. It was called Speedlink, and many companies received grants to connect/upgrade their company sites to the network. Rail services ran at regular intervals, and picked up/dropped off wagons on the way But, Speedlink was killed off, and that was the end of that. Twenty-odd years ago I watched (while commuting) as Wilkinsons built a massive distribution centre within a few metres of the existing railway tracks just east of what remained of the Llanwern steelworks site, but with no rail connection at all. I'm afraid that with planning decisions such as that, GB and increasing freight flows on the railways are an oxymoron.

A dry and sunny morning here in North Somerset, although I get the impression that tomorrow will be deluge-ville. Had my second AZ vaccine yesterday and there were more folk queueing than when I went for my first in February, but I was still there less than 5 minutes. Then I came back for the tomato plant-fest. I am OiC soil/compost/leaf mould mixing and trough filling; while SWMBO delegates her self as senior executive planter, the highest rank known to the household. We have six large troughs and each get four tomato plants each, of varying varieties. I am quite happy with Moneymaker and Gardener's Delight because they produce strong plants and the tomatoes taste nice. However, SWMBO finds them somewhat lowly in the tomato hierarchy, and therefore has to have lots of cherry tomato varieties, and yellow pear-shaped things which to me are not really a genuine tomato at all. Anyhow, each variety gets a trough to itself and once they are all in position SWMBO decides she has nothing more to do with them until she can pick her favourite tomatoes. The watering and feeding regime is left to the lowly jobbing gardener me. I have no problems with this as I love watching plants grow big and strong, and therefore tend to treat them as my babies each year. As I tipped out the old soil from a couple of last years' troughs, I found about twenty large fat moth larvae curled up in the soil. These were thrown across the lawn for the birds. I'm not sure what the larvae have been eating in there, but I didn't fancy them scoffing tomato roots. I had close attention from the resident robin, who must have thought Christmas and birthday had all come at once.

I can't dispute your date because I wasn't there; but the main snow fell on June 2nd that year (1975) as some very cold air moved south across the UK.

Cloudy and cold here in North Somerset. We have had a few showers overnight judging by the wetness of the garden path. Nothing much happening today as our council seats are not up for re-election. We do have a poll card for the Police & Crime Commissioner but I can't be bothered with that. Jobs for the boys, it would seem - as they don't appear to do anything significant. I will have to go out at lunchtime though, because I have to have my second covid jab today. Let's hope the showers stay away then, or I am going to look a bit bedraggled in front of nurse syringe.

The media may have you believe that clubs have "got out" of the ESL, but I read on one of the more sensible websites that all of the clubs have signed binding contracts and cannot just break them on a whim of the fans. I suspect the ESL will reappear in some new form or other before too long.

Another dry and sunny start here in North Somerset. Weather station still working ok, despite yesterdays swimming lesson. There was a message on the local Facebook town forum saying the scrap metal man will be round and if anyone wanted to get rid of anything, just PM them a photo and the relevant postcode and they will pick it up today. I had a few old bits and pieces lying around which needed to go to the tip, but were probably too big for the car - so I did as they said, left them by the front gate and a lorry has just taken them away. Nice one. Saves me a trip to the scrapyard.

The gales don't seem to have done too much damage, although when I ventured into the garden late this morning, I found the Davis Weather Station floating in the pond. My first thought was that yesterday's wind had blown it off the shed roof, but the rain gauge main part is filled with large stones to make this impossible. On looking at the wind speed graph, the leap for freedom did not happen until 10:50 this morning. Curiouser and curiouser. Amazingly, despite the wind speed reading zero the rest of the parameters were still working despite being half submerged in water. I replaced the equipment back where it came from, complete with sones fished out from the bottom of the pond, and everything seems to have carried on as if nothing had happened. My best theory is that one of the local marauding cats decided to jump onto the shed roof, but misjudged things somewhat and collided with the 5 inch rain gauge. I remember my last day at school. It was a really strange but calm feeling that I don't think I have encountered since. The sudden realisation that I would never have to go to school ever again combined with an unpredictable future of not yet having the offer of a full time job; and thus no way of knowing what I might be doing in a few weeks/months time.

Bright and breezy here in North Somerset, but not the gales and heavy rain of yesterday. Recycling and green (garden waste in these parts) bin men have been, but the bangs and scrapings from outside alerted me to the idea that the empty bins were now horizontal and being blown down the street. Fetched them in sharpish before they became someone else's 'finders keepers' property, although they do have a large house number painted on the front. Everything in the garden seems to have survived the weather onslaught, which is a relief.

I have an Epson printer and a couple of MacBook Pros. They work well together; when they work. My printer is old, so maybe they have changed now - but I found that I became a slave to the machine. If I wanted to print in plain black and the printer said the magenta ink had run out then no printing was allowed until I had changed the cartridge. If I tried to save money and buy generic cartridges, or refills; the printer would detect that and refuse to work. There was a lengthy workaround, but it meant going through boring processes for about 10 minutes, only to find that it would then say the yellow had run out and refuse to start. Even if it was not used for a couple of weeks, the ink would dry in the nozzles and the printer would refuse to work until the nozzle cleaning program had been run. The problem with that was nozzle cleaning would invariably use up a colour and the printer would still not start until I had replaced the relevant cartridge. And all this to print out a plain black text on a plain white sheet of paper. Life is too short for an Epson printer.

Yes, I have also had big problems with lily beetles, so much so that I think all the expensive lily bulbs I invested in a few years ago have now given up the ghost. I even bought tiny ladybird larvae online last year, in order to combat greenfly on various plants. I don't know if they worked or not because a few days after their release I noticed a number of house sparrows picking the greenfly off the affected plants and they may have scoffed the ladybird larvae as well. That seemed to cut the aphid numbers, but by then much of the damage had been done. I understand that garden plants are an "all you can eat buffet" to most insect larvae, but sometimes the infestation just gets too much for my brain to cope with; after months of careful nurturing of plants to that stage. Currently, I have a seed tray with about 15 newly germinated cyclamen plants in it. They are tiny, just a 3mm diameter leaf on each stalk; and I know that within a few seconds something could come along and munch the lot. There is little I can do about it, but cross my fingers and hope. It is alright for the Monty Dons of this world with a £15000 BBC budget for seeds and greenhouses, but I only want a few of each plant. Sorry, depressing epistle over.

Sadly yes, and it is not just gardeners who use the slug/hedgehog killer treatments. UK farmers seem to; by adding tens of thousands of tons of the stuff each year on arable fields. One of the worst offenders are people who grow oilseed rape which, if you research into details of pests and diseases, seems to be attacked by all and sundry creatures in the fields but especially flea beetles which cannot be eradicated without decimating other insect species as well. After reading biological articles I am surprised that the crop is allowed to be grown at all, especially just for its oil; when there are many other varieties of crops which can be used for cooking oil. Presumably, it is cheap to refine; and its high demand for nitrogen mean that global fertiliser companies are making a mint?

Yes, that is true - and I think it stems from the fact that given enough adjacent heat, a lump of coal will catch fire and burn quite well with large flames. This is in contrast to smokeless fuels which will burn, given a good hot draught, but only burn with a small flickering flame. Of course the secret to this is the 'hot body radiation' (cue sniggers from usual suspects) and the formula "Sigma, T to the 4th". It seems to me that the burning properties of house coal allow a fire to reach a higher temperature (and hence radiate more heat) more quickly than an anthracite fuelled one, which needs plenty of air from underneath. I don't use much house coal, but it is nice to add near the start of an open fire, and then pile on the smokeless pieces once the temperature is high, which can be judged by the colour of the fire. Red is not warm enough, lightening shades of yellow are much more favourable. There seems to be an art to creating a decent smokeless open fire, but without small amounts of house coal the art is going to present an increasing challenge.