6 December 2015

Back home again after a short & sweet outing to the States for Thanksgiving. Although it was but a fleeting visit, it was especially sweet nevertheless – it provided me with my first opportunity to give my mother a squeeze and a hug since my father died at the end of October. There was sadness in the visit, no doubt, but also a great deal of pleasure and much to be thankful and grateful for. And even better, I managed to squeeze in two Thanksgiving dinners in the space of three days.

The flight home was fine – we were delayed leaving Boston by about 45 minutes but made it into Heathrow more or less on time having made up the time being blown along by the jet stream. I even managed a bit of a snooze which is decidedly unusual – I’m generally so crammed into my seat with my knees poking into my chin that any sort of nap is impossible. I guess Nick and I were so worn out by the exertions of the Thanksgiving holiday period that we both dropped off for a spell.

Since arriving back we’ve continued to have extraordinarily mild temperatures for the time of year. We’ve had some glorious days with bright sunshine and blue skies along with the more normal grey and dreary skies with a sprinkle or seven of rain. Considering that we’re now into early December, the mild weather is distinctly welcome. Further north they’ve had loads of rain and are now enjoying the usual floods that we’ve come to expect each winter but around here, although we’ve had some rain, there haven’t been any issues.

And, it’s been a very busy week on Penelope’s renovation project. While I’ve been away she had the daily company of an excellent carpenter who has built cupboards in her sewing room and a wardrobe in our bedroom. He was/is a very nice young man and a very competent carpenter; the finished products look superb. One small issue – Penny had him build an entire wall of cupboards in her sewing room which she has already filled. Where does she now put the rest of her stuff?

I ran across a number of articles in the Guardian this week which piqued my interest. Firstly, how about visiting Machu Pichu? Well, now it seems you can visit without leaving the comfort of your sofa – Google has created a Street View of the site which you can access on Google Maps. Having mapped more than seven million miles of roads in 65 countries, Google Street View has turned its attention to some of the world’s most spectacular places. And why not, I guess.

While most people still associate Google Street View with the small cars spotted zipping around cities with a camera on top, the past few years have seen Google develop off-road mapping methods. The street view “fleet” now includes a tricycle for narrow alleyways, a trolley for the interiors of museums and historic buildings, a snowmobile, for, well, snowy places, and the Trekker, which has been used to map sites such as Petra, Angkor Wat, the Great Pyramids, Everest base camp and the Grand Canyon.

Of those, the Grand Canyon is the only one I’ve had an opportunity to visit – I’d love to get to the others one day. However, nice as it is to be able to hike down the Grand Canyon (and back up again) whilst exerting almost no effort on my computer, there is nothing that prepares you for seeing the real thing for the first time. I guess it will be similar with all those other places.

The second article that caught my eye was about Uruguay announcing that 95% of its energy requirements now come from renewable sources – perhaps those attending the Paris Climate Conference would like to take note? In this country, in spite of Cameron’s claim that he would lead the greenest government ever, the reality is very different. Efforts to build wind farms or solar panel farms continually fall foul of objections from the local communities – everyone agrees that we need to generate a greater proportion of our energy needs from renewable sources; no one, it seems, wants anything to do with the technology if it’s in their neighbourhood. Coincidentally, of course, Uruguay is also a country which has legalised the use of marijuana – if the west did the same we could eliminate our budget deficit in a puff.

And, while on the subject of budget deficits, how about this for a definition of irony? The Conservative Party (and most of the other loonies on the right) campaigned in the last election on a pledge to reduce immigration. Those horrible, smelly foreigners come to the UK, steal our jobs and women, live in a house rent-free provided by the local council, have several dozen operations on the NHS and receive gazillions in benefit handouts. As we’ve commented several times in the past, the opposite is true and the UK economy would simply collapse if it weren’t for migrants. In his latest financial statement, Osborne the Tit, announced his latest rounds of cuts in public spending aiming to bring the UK economy into budget surplus by the end of this Parliament. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government’s independent forecasting body has reported that the Chancellor has not an ice cube’s chance in hell of meeting his target without an upward revision in net migration numbers. So, two of your election promises are mutually exclusive – I’ve said before, these guys have almost no understanding of cause and effect, and not much understanding about anything else, it seems.

And finally, how about this Canadian student and his trick golf shot. How many takes were required before he pulled this off from start to finish?

If I could bounce a golf ball off the face of a golf club twice I’d think myself pretty lucky!

Love to you all,

Greg