Steely Resolve

The steel industry in the UK kas been hit by Tata announcing it will sell off it's UK assets.  This has prompted the obligatory outpourings of 'we will do all we can' from the politicians, when the reality is that they can do very little.  Some have called for the nationalisation of this 'strategic' industry, whilst others have taken the opposing view that if a business if failing, what the point of keeping it? ..and you can buy your steel from up to 60 countries if you really wanted to.
The word is that the Port Talbot plant is losing a million pounds very day.  That's an eye-bogglingly large amount of money for the 4000 people who work there.  They can go home at night and say they have lost another £250.
I know there are comparisons with the banking industry that was bailed out with huge amounts of cash, but banks that affect every one of us are different to a failing business that affects relatively fewer people, and what alternaives are there to banks?
I feel that any cash has to be injected into new business, re-training etc.  Not easy from a political point of view, and that is one of the problems - telling people they will not get any money to help them, but giving them an alternative that is painful in the short term but better in the long.

Normalisation

There's a call for 'normal' looking blokes to model clothes.  I'm not sure we want this.
If I was looking for a pair of cargo trousers to do the gardening in, would I want to see an overly large fellow with his backside spilling out at the back?  Do I want to see a slighly overweight chap cycling down a  street with overflowing flesh advertising the latest must have Castelli gear?
Aspiration, thats what its all about.

Breaking Out

So, a could of months later, the FBI managed to break into an iPhone, thereby ending the standoff between the security fraternity and technology companies.  In the US, there was a slight majority of the population siding with security, but it was never going to go to a vote.
Personally, I'm with the security guys, they need to be able to investigate crime.

Meanwhile, the EU in/out debate continues to focus on the negatives, with the Brexit lot helpfully compiling a list of serious crimes committed by people who entered the UK lawfully but without the proper checks in place needed.  I'm not sure an independent UK would stop these, but I'm sure it will go down well in the Daily Mail.
We should expect some 'look who helped the UK' list next from the Keep Britain In crowd.

Over in Media World, there seems to be a propensity to quote a tweet, then paste the actual tweet into the news article.  Space filling at its finest.

Wrong Formula.

All (with the exception of the British GP) Formula 1 races will be shown exclusively on Sky from 2019 (UK only, other countries may have other bad news).  So that's the end of Formula 1 being a mainstream spectator sport in the UK unless someone can grab the highlights. 'It's all for the fans' as Mr Ecclestone might say - what a load of tosh, 'it's all for my wallet' is the truth.

Short term gain, long term pain.

Return to sender.

One of Amazon's customers is not an ex-customer after returning too many faulty items because they were damaged, faulty or not as described.  He purchase 343 items and returned 37 of them, that's just over 10% of items.  I wonder if he started at that rate, or got more fussy as time went on?  I'm not sure 10% is high is it?  I've returned 50% of items from one on-line store (1 out of 2), so I'm a much worse customer.  Very odd, and cannot be good for the brand.

Meanwhile, in medialand, some French newspapers are asking readers to uninstall adblockers to let them carry on providing free on-line content by getting a bit of advertising cash.  Seem reasonable to me, but maybe because I'm old-school and used to paying for news (albeit some years ago), younger readers who have never had to do that  might feel aggrieved about all those pesky adverts.  I don't notice them now, and put up with them but don't tell the advertisers.  I have a feeling that adblockers are out of the bottle now and will be very difficult to put back in.

Sheeps Clothing.

The Ian Duncan Smith resigning is an interesting aspect to the Tory government in the UK.  It could well be the turning point that sees the gradual demise of the right wing led policies, or it might be jus a blip.  That's the trouble with politics, one word said out of place, one sentence taken out of context and confidence suddenly drops as they have to go into defensive mode.
I watch with interest how this one plays out, but I feel that Mr Osborne's giving away too much to the better off rather than taking away too much from the worse off will be his downfall.
Even well off people have a conscience.  Watch this space.

Meanwhile, as Easter looms large next weekend, British farmers are complaining about the amount of New Zealand lamb being sold in supermarkets, with only Aldi selling British lamb exclusively.  Evidently Easter is early this year, and a spokesperson for British lamb bemoaned the fact that supermarkets had not warned them about Easter being early so had not planned early enough to produce lambs early in the season.  The supermarkets should be ashamed of themselves for arranging Easter so early this year.

Sweet Money

The government has thought it right to tax sugary drinks in a bid to reduce child obesity, but I read that there are no plans to tax coffee cups which would have been designed to reduce coffee cup waste.  I reuse my coffee cup, its made of china.  Is this the future of coffee cups?

In the same way that tax on cigarettes has stopped people smoking, I look forward to seeing much slimmed down children.  Oh, don't forget the crisps! Tax the crisps! ..and the unhealthy fast food!

Maybe just a tax on food will do the trick.  That'll teach 'em.

Due Process

I might have missed it, but I cannot see the point in mayors.  We are going to have a new one in our area according to the chancellor in yesterday's budget announcement, thereby allowing him to devolve spending powers down to someone who can carry the can so he doesn't have to.  Or at least that's what it looks like.
The trouble is that this sort of position will get  more than it's fair share of egotistical self centred individuals applying, when we really need a team playing accountant.  I assume there will be some sort of vote with a suitably low turnout.  Its quite ironic really, elections for people that the rest of us think are should have 'the right person for the job' in it, we don't vote for.  I guess I'll have to volunteer for it.

Sitting Bull.

There's a new presenter on BBC Breakfast News, and because he sits on the left hand side of the sofa, some commentators see that as the 'senior' seat and have dubbed it unfair on his (female) co-presenter.  The most vocal amongst these is Miriam Whatshername who was sacked from Countryfile for being too old, or at least that's what she successfully argued and won her case.
It could be, of course, that those of us that feel wronged will find that 'wrongness' in many more places than those of se lucky enough not to be affected by it.  Racism appears to be like this in some cases, and in fact it probably extends to almost all equality type of arguements, more so if it's in the media spotlight as in the case of the BBC.  What happens is that the accused party is then on the back foot and finds it very difficult to put their case successfully, and has to simply deny the inequality and let the accuser get all the headlines.

Thinking Aloud.

Google's AlphaGo computer improves it's ability by playing itself.  I had to re-read that to see if it made sense, and I'm not sure it does even now.  The article I read was in The Guardian, not known for treating subjects lightly, but a few sentences in, it reveals that AlphaGo had to think 'extremely hard about the problem'.  Now, whatever computers can do, they cannot 'think' unless we have redefined the meaning of the word think, which is probably what the reporter was doing.  In actual fact, the computer was simply performing countless number of calculations to arrive at a particular move that was better than the previous option. So, is that thinking?  Do we humans do the same thing? ..or (as I suspect) we use an as yet unknown method of arriving at the same thing as AlphaGo.

Virtually There.

There seems to be a surge in virtual reality kit available to buy at the moment brought about (I think) by the new Samsung smartphone.  The advertising implies that you get your nice shiny phone, stick it in a pair of what look like welding goggles and you are immediately immersed in the virtual world of whatever app you're watching on the phone.  What they don't tell you is what you look like when wearing the googles.  Not a good look, and therefore will not catch on until they look 'cool', whatever that is.  My advice would be to resist investing.

In the meantime, Top Gear continues to get more column inches than it deserves with the latest incident involving the Cenotaph in London and (I guess, because I haven't given the article any of my time) some stunt not worthy of such a landmark.  Mr Evans has issued an apology, although it will not be an apology for free advertising.

A day In The Life Of...

04:45:00  Alarm sounds.
04:45:03 Alarm switched to snooze
04:52:00 Alarm sounds
04:52:03 Alarm switched off
04:52:05 Ponder whether going for a morning run is a good idea
04:53:00 Swing legs out of bed, get out and head downstairs.
04:53:30 Pick up running kit on the way downstairs (put on bannister the night before)
04:54:00 Get Garmin from study, switch on and rest on the window cill to pick up satellites
04:54:45 Put running kit on
04:55:00 Struggle with double skinned socks
04:57:00 Stare into space of 30 seconds no knowing what is going on
04:57:30 Get running shoes, struggle to put them on (due to double skinned socks)
04:59:00 Put Garmin on, check satellite reception, head for back door, get hat off the radiator
05:00:00 Put on hat, get head torch from it's nail in the porch, put on head, switch on
05:00:30 Start Garmin, check it is logging data, break into a jog
05:59:00 Arrive back home, knackered, relaxed, happy, satisfied.

So that's a typical early morning for me, 3 times a week maximum, typically twice, but always a struggle to get out the door.  I didn't need the head torch after about half an hour, but it was quite cold, resulting in some ice forming on my sweaty hat.

Read All About it!

53% of people polled in the UK trust the BBC as a trustworthy source of news, but don't trust the government to look after it in the future.  That chimes with me, and I would actually have expected it to be a bit higher.  Sky News comes in second place, well down at 15% then the also rans like ITV news etc.
I have a sneaking suspicion that 'professionalism' come into play when we have an opinion on news programs.  ITV always comes across to me as a cheap version of BBC, although I do think that Sky News (on the very few occasions that I can be bothered to watch it) does seem to have mastered the glossy look and feel of a respected news outlet despite it's pedigree of the Murdoch empire.  Acquiring that professional look is not easy, and probably takes a long time, but it's then self perpetuating and easier to drop a few clangers whilst maintaining that 'trust' tag.

Only 1% of news home built in the UK in 2014 were bungalows.   Not surprising really given the pressure to get more square feet of living space within an area.  3 storey houses seem to be much more prevalent, and a landlord's dream if they can rent out each floor.  I'm just surprised that cellars do not seem to have made a comeback.

Doctor's Note.

The Maria Sharapova story continues to intrigue and foment debate.  The fine line between a 'clean' and unclean athlete is becoming very grey, or has it always been this way?
When we discover that marginal gains can be obtained by a certain product, then the professionals will undoubtedly want to use it to get the performance benefit, more pay, kudos etc.  Even if it eventually becomes illegal, is it wrong that someone will try it out before that time?  ..and how do the world's anti-doping experts arrive at their banned list?  Soon we might have a list of approved substances rather than unapproved.
e.g. There are (allegedly) a large proportion of professional road cyclist with asthma, and therefore able to use an inhaler.  I would not be surprised to see this on the banned list soon.

Meanwhile, the latest junior doctor's strike has not attracted much press attention.  There's a lesson to the unions there.

A Racing Certainty.

Two press conferences with two top athletes yesterday, two different stories, but both managed very carefully
.
First, you had Maria Sharapova admitting to a drug doping violation 'I didn't realise it was banned'.  Hmm, of course you didn't dearie, how could you know that from the email that said it was banned.  Mind you, you get so much spam nowadays don't you?
There has been some largely positive, supporting commentary from within the sport, and although Nike have suspended their sponsorship, my guess is they will hang on to her.

The other involved Victoria Pendleton, announcing that she was going to ride in the Cheltenham festival.  VP has secured a nice payday from a betting company, and they handle all the necessary PR and ensured that her mishaps (falls) leading up to the announcement were clearly not her fault thereby making sure the publicity will last a bit longer.

Power Mad.

Energy supply is not an easy subject.  Some days I have very strong opinions on, say, wind turbines.  There aren't enough!
Other days, they take too much subsidy, are not sustainable, an eyesore, danger to birds and a waste of money.
It's the same with nuclear power.  I am sure that nuclear power is the answer to most of our energy needs, is clean, and cost per megawatt is low enough to outweigh any risk associated with the design.
But then again... it takes huge amounts of money to clean up, huge amounts of money to build, and huge security risks.  See?  It's not easy.
One of EDF's top brass has resigned, allegedly due to the new nuclear plant they are involved with at Hinkley Point.  He's probably with me on that one.

I chanced upon the last 100 laps or so of the madison competition at the UCI world cycling championships yesterday.  If you have never watched a Madison race, it's absolutely frenetic, with teams of 2 trying to get in front of other teams of 2 for 200 laps of the cycling track.  Happily for us Brits, our duo of Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins managed to come back from a lap down to bring home the bacon, with a thrilling display of cycling power noisily encouraged by a noisy partisan crowd

Independent Principality.

I'm a man of principle, or at least that's what I tell myself, as well as other's if they look like they will be suitably impressed.
I'm not, or course, but I am sometimes.  Does that make me the 'man of principle'?  As usual, it depends.  Like the people trying to avoid doing business with tax avoiding companies, they are doing it as a matter of principle whilst unknowingly paying other suppliers large amounts of money without knowing their tax affairs at all.  Choosing your supplier based on their tax avoidance strategy is an odd way of 'protesting', but the only one available really.  However, what you are actually doing is choosing a supplier based on the large amount of media attention given to the tax avoidance strategy, which skews your reasoning, and is quite a lazy way of picking your protests, surely a bit of personal research should take place first before you withdraw your purchasing power?  In principle, anyway.

Housing Crisis.

The average house price in the UK is over £196,930, whilst a typical tenant will pay about £40,000 every 5 years.  Both figures are eyewateringly big.  On the face of it, you could buy a house in 5 years and have change left over for the odd meal now and again.
..and then rent it out.

Media news: The BBC continue to fend off the governments criticism, the latest being it's ability to make 'distinctive' programs.  What makes a program distinctive is an interesting topic, and probably means all things to all men.  For instance, a distinctive program might be something with very high production values; difficult subject matter; non-mainstream topic; etc.  ..or it might be a very good version of a similar program on another station.  Even a high quality soap opera can be distinctive (although unlikely).  In short, 'distinctive' is a very indistinct way of describing programming, but it make s a good headline/soundbite, which is very important.

Admit One.

If you 'admit' to something, does it imply some sort of deception has occurred prior to the admission?  I notice that news stories often use the word admit and if I cheat and look at the dictionary, it uses words such as 'confess', or 'agree something is true'.  I cannot help but think that some news outlets use the word too liberally to get some sort of sensational storyline out of a non-event so instead of a simple 'x tells' we have 'x admits'.  Both statements will be true, but one will draw the reader in more than the other.

More media news: The government is looking at the impact of adblockers on newspapers.  This is software that removes those annoying ads that spoil your view of free news online.  Personally, I see the ads as a necessary evil, because without them we would be reduced to regurgitated news or what is perceived as government sponsored news by the likes of the BBC.  I don't subscribe to the latter statement, but I know plenty that do.

Voting Patterns.

It's Super Tuesday (note the capitals) today.  A bit like Good Friday without the religion.
It's where a hatful of states vote for their favourite representative, thereby setting the scene for the likely contest this November. 
We don't have an equivalent in the UK, and in fact I can't recall any similar type of events any where in the world, so super it definitely is.  Most commentators are expecting Mr Trump to trump everyone else and emerge as the top man for the Republicans, whilst Hilary is expected to reinforce her grip at the top of the Democrat tree.  Real life may well be different, but at least the newspapers can fill quite a few column inches with speculation and 'what if..' scenarios.

Talking of what if, what if the UK votes to leave the EU?  Evidently the civil service will be called in to negotiate a huge number of agreements relating to our relationship with Europe, and the Guardian wonders if they will be able to cope.  Consultancy companies will be instructing their employees to vote to leave.