I Name This Ship...

So, the story of the week this week, must be the rather strange proposal issued by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to the public to come up with a name for a new research ship currently being constructed at the Cammell Laird shipyard on Merseyside, England.
The ship (cost £19 million) is being built at government expense and will go to Antarctica in 2019 to carry out scientific research.  NERC asked the public to visit their website and choose, and vote for a name for the vessel.
Some names were eminently sensible.  Many suggested The RRS Shackleton, after the great British explorer who almost made it to the South Pole in 1909.  Some came up with RRS David Attenborough, the famous naturalist, who will be 90 this year while others suggested more esoteric names such as RRS Polar Dream.

However, the out-and-out winner at this moment is the RSS BOATY McBOATFACE which has polled over 27,000 votes, ten times more than its closest rival, RRS Henry Worsley.
Doesn't this tell us something about the great British public? I think it tells us that no matter how many times authorities try to impose sensible authority on us, it usually backfires. The British public like nothing better than something to smile about, rather than something boring and grand.  It fits in with our rather cynical attitude to authority in general. 
It remains to be seen whether the public's choice of name will ultimately succeed, as a) there is still 16 days of voting left, and b) NERC has made it clear that it has only asked for suggestions, and that the final decision rests with it.  I can't help hoping that, in three years time, as the plucky research vessel arrives in Antarctic waters that the crew will raise their glasses and drink a toast to BOATY McBOATFACE!

E.U. - Stay in or leave?

The problem for me (and the average British voter) is that the issues are far too complex for anyone to be able to make an 'informed' decision. I've watched Question Time for the last three weeks, and now I have even more questions than I did before I started watching! Added to this we have the unhelpful 'non-information' fed to us by Cameron, Osborne and Johnson. Headline stuff only, such as "XXXXX jobs will be lost if we leave the E.U." The next day, "XXXXXX jobs will be saved if we leave the E.U.". Therefore the only way that the average voter will vote will be on a 'gut feeling' which is worrying.
I'm not even sure that the British public should be asked to make such a decision. In 1965, Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty, a liberal policy that most voters would support now. However had there been a referendum in 1965, undoubtedly the British public would have voted against such a measure, as feelings ran high that hanging wasn't such a bad thing (ask my dad!).
Therefore we are not qualified, we don't understand the issues, we can only guess how either option might affect us personally, and solid facts are hard to come by. I will vote, and I lean towards voting in favour of staying in the E.U., but currently I am still very much in the 'undecided' camp.

The greatest LP of the 1980s - bar none

Welcome to the Pleasuredome
by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

"I'm sorry, I left me card at home",
"Well, you're late as well. That's three times on the run. The supervisor says if you're late again, we've gotta put you on daily signing."
Followed by Holly's cry "Ha" - is it of anguish or anger?
This is the run-in to Frankie's version of Springsteen's "Born to Run" which in my humble opinion is better than the original.

What on earth are you going on about, I hear you ask. Well, these are the opening lines to just one single track on the magnum opus that is "Welcome to the Pleasuredome." And a pleasuredome it is too - a roller coaster ride of magnificently produced gargantuan sound. Every track is an absolute pleasure to listen to - from the opening track with sounds of birds singing, to the ending with the narrator repeating "Frankie say, Frankie say, Frankie say...No more!" I love it - every goddamn minute of it. Take time out, grab some good headphones and listen to the whole sixty minutes with no interference from any extraneous noise - I guarantee you'll regard it as one of the best hours of your life.
This is, without doubt, the best album of the 80s - even better than Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love."
Just one gripe - I'm sure that on my original vinyl version, there was a track featuring a Prince Charles soundalike asking "Just what exactly is meant by orgasm?" That seems to be missing here - or did I only imagine it?
Listen - go buy this album now - I promise you won't be disappointed.

 

R.I.P. Mr David Bowie

If you're ever sad, just remember that the world is 4.5 billion years old, and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.


Rest now. Your amazing work is done.

Thank you David. For everything.

#davidbowie

Bacteria are Just Hanging Around Waiting for You to Die!

Well, this is extremely interesting. Who knew that life itself was just a perpetual battle with bacteria - and that they always win in the end.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/12/youre-surrounded-by-bacteria-that-are-waiting-for-you-to-die/#.VnaL7vw97Gk.google_plusone_share

Thirty Years Ago

Thirty years ago, what albums were you listening to? I was listening to The Pogues third and finest album, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash".  It was named after the 19th century belief that the Royal Navy’s finest traditions consisted of “rum, sodomy, and the lash” (a quote often mis-attributed to Winston Churchill).  

The album was produced by Elvis Costello, and contained excellent tracks, like "Dirty old Town" and "A Pair of Brown Eyes".  The absolute highlight for me though, was "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda", a searing indictment of war. It details the futile loss of life and limb following the attempt to take the Gallipoli peninsula in the First World War. Every time I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes.

Whew - that was a close call!

Well there we are. After nearly five months of politicians electioneering, we finally have a result.  And what a result!  Unbelievable!  I have to tell you I slept badly on Wednesday night.  At that point it seemed very likely that we were going to have some form of Labour minority government, loosely supported by the SNP.  A left leaning party, being pulled to the left by an even more left leaning party.  A party opposed to austerity, in fact not just opposed to austerity but anti-austerity! It was a forthcoming nightmare! A spend, spend, spend Ed Miliband, being encouraged to spend even more by Nicola Sturgeon.  Jesus - we would be in debt until all my grandkids had retired!

Luckily for all of us, common sense prevailed in the ballot box and all those (secret and embarrassed) Tory voters voted for the party they trusted the most to give us five years of economic growth, no increase in taxes and a general improvement in their standard of living.

I stayed up on Thursday night, and, like most of us, couldn't believe the exit poll that the BBC published at 10.01 pm.  By 4pm it was apparent that the exit poll was largely accurate, and, much as I wanted to see Paddy Ashdown eat his hat, I retired to bed feeling happier, safer and more contented than I had the night before.

So, anyway, what's all this about anti-austerity?  I don't get it.  I wracked my brains to remember anything, just one little thing that pointed to any form of austerity in the past five years, and I could only come up with one.  The streetlights on the motorway nearby have been turned off every night at 11pm, instead of being left on all night. What a good idea! 

Everything else is the same as it was five years ago. No, I stand corrected - my library is now open 13 hours a day, every day, seven days a week. It used to be open for 8 hours, 6 days a week. Progress!  No austerity there. My bins are still emptied on alternative weeks (landfill, week 1, recycling week 2).  I'm sure I can cope with 5 more years of austerity. As long as it means that we don't have to keep borrowing more and more money and then spend a fortune in interest charges.  I received a letter last year from HMRC, telling me that one quarter of my tax payments had been used to pay the interest on the national debt.  I'm sure that government could have put it to better use.

I'll keep campaigning for cuts in our military/defence spending (why is it we have to have nuclear weapons but that 180 countries, including Spain and Italy don't have any?) but apart from that I'm relatively happy. I realise Cameron has some formidable hurdles to overcome but he has my full support.