If you want to remain active get a boat.
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Friday, 01 May 09 - 09:04 AM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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If you think you are getting old just check out what these two lads are up to.
Ray Bulman who is only 79 and his pal Geoff Tobert aged 80 have been surprised at the attention their latest jaunt is attracting.
Initially it was just planed as just two old pals doing what they have been doing together for the past fifty-seven years.
But rumours of their cross-Channel trip and their respective ages have been picked up by the boating press and the mainstream media.
Not only is the trip now going to be filmed for TV but they are being offered sponsorship.
And now there is a website dedicated to the trip at www.runabout2superyacht.co.uk.
They are hoping, weather permitting, to set off in their 1968 Sunseeker, in the week starting June 15.
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Play it again Sam!
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Friday, 06 March 09 - 01:10 PM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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Best video clip I've seen for ages.
Well that’s me weekend viewing taken are of, ill be watching this again and again.
'The Gulf Between Us'
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Wednesday, 18 February 09 - 04:04 PM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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According to the guardian.co.uk, today Wednesday 18 February, ‘Margaret Atwood has pulled out of the inauguraul Emirates Airline international festival of literature in the wake of a novelist being blacklisted for potential offence to "cultural sensitivities".’
The novel in question is Geraldine Bedell's ‘The Gulf Between Us’.
As International Vice President of Pen the organization concerned with the censorship of writers Ms. Atwood regretted that she “cannot be part of the festival this year,"
Other authors due to appear at the festival, including bestselling children's authors Anthony Horowitz and Lauren Child, are now also reconsidering whether to attend.
Well if it will help them make up their minds, the next books on my shopping list are by Margaret Atwood and Geraldine Bedell.
So who’s going to pay for the clean up, Chelsea FC?
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Wednesday, 18 February 09 - 07:41 AM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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Coastguards in Britain and Ireland were on red alert today after a Russian aircraft carrier spilt an estimated 1,000 tonnes of oil off the southern Irish coast.
The spill, which happened as the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier was refuelling at sea, caused a slick that is now more than three miles long and almost as wide.
It is the biggest oil spill in waters around the British Isles since the Sea Empress ran aground off Milford Haven in 1996, causing widespread damage to the Pembrokeshire coast.
Today's spill took place in international waters but the oil has since floated into Irish territory and is now heading for the Welsh coast where it could cause severe losses among breeding birds and marine animals including dolphins, porpoises and seals.
From Times Online February 17, 2009
Jeni Barnett and Bad Science.
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Wednesday, 11 February 09 - 08:58 AM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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Please support Ben Goldacre the voice of scientific reason against the scaremongering, misinformation purveying, and litigious media morons.
Check out his Bad Science Blog.
And the front fell off
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Saturday, 31 January 09 - 07:57 AM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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A tax on Safety at sea.
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Saturday, 22 November 08 - 10:52 AM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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>RNLI and new Ofcom charges
>The background: (From the Telegraph..)
>LIFEBOAT crews fear being scuppered by crippling new charges for using their radios from Ofcom, the communications regulator. The >RNLI could see the price of using its VHF emergency frequencies rise to £250,000 under plans to >charge the full commercial rate.
>The charity, which saves hundreds of lives every year currently pays an annual £48,000 at a discounted rate of 50 per cent. It relies on >donations and fears the move will have a disastrous impact on fundraising. Peter Bradley, RNLI operations staff officer, said: 'It's a lot >of money when you think in terms of lifeboat days and little old ladies collecting pound coins.'
>'We could buy several inshore lifeboats for the same amount.'
>'The Government rely on us to provide this search-and-rescue service, at a cost of £124 million a year, but they want to charge us for >doing it!'
>Ofcom has set out plans to bring 'market forces' into maritime and civil aviation communications in a policy it calls Administered >Incentive Pricing.
>£250,000 represents an awful lot of charity collections, even more so in the current economic climate so, if like me you feel strongly >enough about this, please sign the petition below.
> http://petitions. number10. gov.uk/RNLI- RF-licences/
>Please forward to anyone you think might help by >signing the petition.
>The background: (From the Telegraph..)
>LIFEBOAT crews fear being scuppered by crippling new charges for using their radios from Ofcom, the communications regulator. The >RNLI could see the price of using its VHF emergency frequencies rise to £250,000 under plans to >charge the full commercial rate.
>The charity, which saves hundreds of lives every year currently pays an annual £48,000 at a discounted rate of 50 per cent. It relies on >donations and fears the move will have a disastrous impact on fundraising. Peter Bradley, RNLI operations staff officer, said: 'It's a lot >of money when you think in terms of lifeboat days and little old ladies collecting pound coins.'
>'We could buy several inshore lifeboats for the same amount.'
>'The Government rely on us to provide this search-and-rescue service, at a cost of £124 million a year, but they want to charge us for >doing it!'
>Ofcom has set out plans to bring 'market forces' into maritime and civil aviation communications in a policy it calls Administered >Incentive Pricing.
>£250,000 represents an awful lot of charity collections, even more so in the current economic climate so, if like me you feel strongly >enough about this, please sign the petition below.
> http://petitions. number10. gov.uk/RNLI- RF-licences/
>Please forward to anyone you think might help by >signing the petition.
Should boat owners be allowed to carry flares?
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Sunday, 09 November 08 - 10:14 AM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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Do you have the recommended (by the coastguard) flares on board our boat?
Do you regard them as a safety measure?
Well it now seems that the risks from carrying them might outweigh the advantages.
I recently received a letter from the CG66 Voluntary registration scheme asking if I needed to up date the information I gave them about my boat. The scheme is run by HM Coastguard to aid in any search and rescue situation. It is without doubt an excellent idea.
But I’m now in a quandary, I’ve told them that I have flares on board!
Am I now in danger of being boarded by the Health and safety fanatics?
As they have now declared that even trained Coastguard personnel are not to be trusted using flares where does that leave me?
The decision by the government’s agency for crackpot ideas, to ban coastguards from using emergency flares will, according to rescue teams, put lives at risk. But what do they know? Just because the Maritime and Coastguard Agency itself is unaware of any incidents in which coastguard personnel had been injured using flares. And after all they have only used them in a few hundred of rescue missions.
Rumour has it that the ban has less to do with the operational value of the flares and more to do with the saving on insurance. The inference is that they are more worried about the rescuers injuring them selves than the saving of lives.
So what about my boat insurance, are the premiums going to go up because I have flares on board?
According to the Coastguard web site, “Day and night distress flares are an essential part of a boat's safety equipment and should be stored in a suitable waterproof container.”
If flares are too dangerous to be used by the trained rescue personnel should they be recommending that pleasure boat owners carry them on board?
Perhaps it is time the health and safety people were banned for being a danger to the rest of us.
Anyone want to buy a set of Flares?
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Trump Gets Approval to build his Golf Resort on protected land.
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Wednesday, 05 November 08 - 09:18 AM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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The Scottish Government has given Donald Trump permission to build his £1bn golf resort.
The permission overrules the legally protected status of the site at Balmedie, north of Aberdeen.
Mr Trump has been given outline planning permission for his golf resort, despite having the plans turned down by the Aberdeenshire Council last year.
The American tycoon plans to build two championship golf courses, a five-star hotel as well as high rise timeshare blocks, which the local residents have nicknamed "the Benidorms".
The permission has been granted, so they say, because the economic advantages outweigh the danger to the natural environment. But who’s economic advantaged Mr Trump’s or the local community’s?
My first reaction was outrage that a big business American bully boy has been allowed to buy up a chunk of Scotland’s natural heritage.
But I’m not Scottish and I have never been to Balmedie.
Nor do I play golf, I regard the sport as rather pointless, but then I’m not sure what the point in life is either.
So,do I have any right to object?
Perhaps if the development was for something which seemed more worthwhile I might have reacted to the news in a more positive light.
Or perhaps I’m just suspicious of Mr. Trump’s motives; after all golf-related real estate is fetching premium prices. I suspect that this is just another money making scheme and that Mr Trump and his army of apparatchiks are more concerned with making capital out of the scheme than any regard for the local community.
I am also disturbed by the Scottish government’s ability to override the legal protection of this important natural heritage site. The proposals will also breach Aberdeenshire's local development plan by allowing the building of homes on green belt. Even the government's own environmental advisers opposed the development.
The Foveran links, a system of naturally shifting sand dunes, are designated a site of special scientific interest under EU habitats legislation.
Many critics of Trump's scheme believe Scottish ministers have been over-awed by his reputation. But what is that reputation?
Despite the web of positive spin woven around him by his army of apparatchiks, it seems to me that Trump is only interested in making money for Trump and god help anyone who gets in his way.
There are strings attached to allowing the development to go ahead. They include the provision, that some housing and amenities for the local community must be built. However, it would appear that these needn’t be started on, until the golf course has been almost finished. By which time it will be too late to undo any damage to the local environment. And it’s sure bet the Trump lawyers and accountants will make sure that the cost of any obligations towards the local community will not exceed the legal requirements.
Finance Secretary John Swinney ruled that the damage to the dunes was outweighed by the resort's substantial value to the economy, a judgment challenged by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
The Balmedie estate is in the constituency of Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, who delegated the decision making to Finance Secretary John Swinney.
When’s it time to alter the clocks, which way do they go and why do we bother?
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Tuesday, 21 October 08 - 12:45 PM (GMT) By Mike Taylor in Grumpy old git |
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The clocks go back this coming weekend, so make sure you adjust all the clocks in the house.
You don’t want to arrive an hour early for work on Monday morning!
In spring time if you forget it isn’t such a problem, cause if you arrive an hour late, you’ve at least got an excuse.
Anyway, it’s this Sunday 26 October when the clocks will move back by an hour. It’ll happen at either 01:00 GMT or 02:00 BST, depending on whether or not you’ve already altered all the clocks in the house.
It is 101 years since British Summer Time was first proposed, now every one is messing about with the time.
All over the EU, the clocks will be going back at the same time as in the UK.
But why alter the clocks, and whose daft idea was it?
It seems it was the brain wave of a builder. No not a Polish one but a London builder called William Willett. He took one look at the nation’s health and happiness, then huffed and puffed a bit and made some disparaging remarks about the previous builders work. He reckoned the only thing to be done was to knock down a bit of the day from one end and rebuild it at the other.
Anyway, despite saying that he’d be around next week, it wasn’t until 1916 that Summer time was first defined in an act of parliament.
Ever since various different schemes have been proposed and tried by politicians emulating King Canute.
Quite how any of them was supposed to save any hours of daylight, wasn’t clear and as far as I’m concerned sill isn’t. The amount of daylight is dependent on the spinning of the earth not the ticking of the clock.
Before the coming of railways most people kept time by the sun. However, for rail timetables to work railway companies across the UK started to keep London time (GMT) at all their stations and on the trains. The advantages of keeping a standard time across the country are even more valid today. It could even be argued that we should have a standard time across Europe. But that is a different matter from buggering about with it every spring and autumn.
With 24 hour shopping, twenty four hour drinking, street lighting on from dusk till dawn, why are we all locked into the notion that we should all start work, school, whatever at the same time?
What happened to flexi time?
Why should schools in Scotland have to begin their day at 9 o’clock?
Would it not be more sensible for offices schools etc to stagger their start times?
Why can’t we all just adjust our working hours to suit the daylight, if that is thought to be relevant?
Considering the impact of how we arrange the hours of light and darkness across our working day has, it’s curious that so little high profile or current research has been focused on Summer Time and why we alter the clocks. Most of the opinions expressed by the political master race seem to more about covering the emperor’s lack of clothing.
It has been suggested that changing the clocks merely shift accidents from dark evenings to dark mornings.
Now the debate ranges from the benefits of keeping British Summer Time all year round in the U.K., and not using Greenwich Mean Time or maybe using Central European Time, or what about Single / Double Summer Time? Quite what any of it has to do with energy saving, health, public safety, leisure activities or the economy is all beyond me.
The peak times for child fatalities on the road are the school commuting times - 8-9 o’clock in the morning and 3-4 o’clock in the afternoon. This surely has less to do with whether we are using BST, GMT or even GET but because these are some of the busiest times in the roads.
Perhaps I’m being naive but wouldn’t it be better for the children if they made their way to school at a less busy time?
However speeking as someone who sails on the UK coast, I have a vested interest. All tide tables and navigation tables are printed with respect to UT or GMT as it used to be known. So all this messing about with the clocks means I have to remember to adjust the times accordingly.
As far as I’m concerned keep our UK clocks to local time (GMT), all the time.
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