Observations from a Hill

I would hope to think that by now that even the most trenchant of climate-change deniers might just be having the teensiest of second thoughts about the absurdity of their position vis-à-vis the blindingly obvious evidence that surrounds them in contradiction of their head in the sand stupidity. Were it not for for the climate-induced tragedies that occur with geometrically increasing frequency, it might seem reasonable to them to pass it all off as merely part and parcel of the normal cycle of meteorological flux. But it ain't so, folks. We have ceased merely to be looking at the loaded gun pointed at us: we are staring simultaneously down both barrels pressed against our eyeballs with both triggers about to be released. The awful events in Nepal are just the latest evocation of a planet in rebellion against its inhabitants: along with wildfires, flash-floods can be directly attributed to the long-term actions of industrialised mankind. Yes these events do happen naturally and oft...

  We were watching re-runs of Rick Stein's India this afternoon and one of the featured recipes was a wonderful-looking Chicken Biryani, which reminded us of the only Biryani I've ever cooked , just after the first Covid lockdown had eased, and just before I retired from the world of toil. We just couldn't remember where I'd got the recipe for this version of the dish from, and I came to the conclusion that it must have come from the above-pictured book, which I bought over forty years ago. Then I rediscovered the post I wrote in 2020, linked to above, which gives the true origin of this wonderful recipe. I have to say that the prep was long, the cooking easy but stressful and the result totally amazing, so for those who don't own this book I would suggest getting hold of a copy just for this one alone: "The Curry Guy" by Dan Toombs published by Quadrille. Just be sure to get some good lamb - and lamb it has to be in my book - from your local Halal butche...

I was quietly watching a gentle climbing video this evening of a couple climbing a classic Lakeland slab route, going at about HVS 5a [look it up if you don't know UK trad grades], which was about my sweet spot grade back in the mists of time when I still climbed. I could do more technical stuff on the climbing wall or on boulders, but on actual crag climbs, that was the grade where I was most comfortable. I first came to North Wales at the age of about thirteen with two of my uncles to climb on Tryfan in the Ogwen valley here. My journey to discovering my roots in North Wales hadn't yet started by a long chalk, and it was to be another twenty-three years before we would up sticks and move here. Subsequently I took up climbing again as I turned thirty, and spent a few - in retrospect short - years going through the grades from VS to low-level Extremes, towed by my mate Bryan at the sharp end of the rope. I led a few of the easier things, but not much, being happier in seconding...

  I wrote the other night about Twll Balast [Pen Y Bryn Slate Quarry in the map shown], as I did last year . I remade my FOI request  to the council as I had no recall of receiving an actual reply, save acknowledgement of receipt of request, at the time. It could be that Mail simply shunted it into outer space, as it has a disturbing habit of doing from time to time, but whatever: the council came straight back with a reply and attached reports. The oldest was a W.S Atkins report [at least the executive summary thereof, commissioned by Arfon Borough Council the late eighties, and the slightly later report I mentioned in rather scathing terms the other night, by Environ, commissioned this century by Gwynedd County Council. It looks like I made too many assumptions about the nature off this later report, as it has more depth [pun unintended] than I had previously assumed. I have read the nearly fifty pages of it this afternoon, along with the Atkins' executive summary of their ...

  Pictured, sunflowers at Llanedwen, Ynys Môn today, part of Hooton's Farm Shop's sunflower trail; a touch of Provence in North Wales, and a welcome, momentary diversion... RIP Lady - a fine and lovely dog

I was reading a post on Medium earlier about what being a graphic artist meant before the days of desktop publishing software and Photoshop, let alone AI. The writer pointed out the broad variety of physical training, skills, experience and equipment required simply to do the most basic of design tasks. First and foremost was the necessity of possessing the actual ability to draw and paint: the fundamentals. All other techniques flowed from that underpinning. Since the advent of widespread computing power and the software to exploit it, new skill sets have grown up around it, transforming both the industry itself and its practitioners' praxis within the industry. I was minded about the type of school I attended at secondary level, and the subjects that were central to its curriculum, particularly in the pre-streamed first two years there. Ours was a technical school when I first started, and didn't start transforming itself into a more mainstream grammar school until I'd go...

OK - I wrote last year about issues with the water safety at the Nantlle quarries, caused by industrial waste dumping over the many years since the quarry's closure as a going concern. I was very guarded in my approach to the issue for a number of reasons, but in the light of the recent BBC TV toxic dumping exposé "Buried", hosted by Michael Sheen recently, I have to add to that previous post the rider that I accidentally had sight of a report commissioned in the late-1980s about the Twll Balast site above the Dorothea Quarry, where technical scuba and mixed-gas diving is popular, and where a significant number of fatal accidents have occurred over the last few decades. In that report - the copy I made sadly is no longer with me - it was stated categorically that the waters that have filled the Twll Balast workings since the quarry's demise are polluted with an extremely noxious cocktail of substances related principally but not solely to local plastics manufacturing...

I noted with somewhat grim amusement in today's bumper summer fun edition of The New Statesman, a piece by Nicholas Harris about the first Wetherspoon's pub to be opened outside of this archipelago, in Alicante, España. What makes this particularly of note is not the part of Spain chosen - pretty predictable given that it is a traditional holiday destination for package-holidaying Brits, but rather that it has been opened in an EU country. Consider the fact that the founder of the cheap booze at breakfast, lunch and dinner chain of pubs, Sir Tim Martin is virulently anti-EU and campaigned vigorously and vociferously for Brexit. What manner of business brain comes up with that combo, one might ask? First you and your political ilk manage to convince half of the population to vote for a restriction of their rights to free movement within Europe, and then later decide to open bloody pubs within the economic union you apparently loathe, to serve those very people. It adds to the co...

Thinking on about last night's scribble about Apple, I was minded about Steve Job's early adoption of a totally enclosed proprietary approach to Apple product. Everything about the Mac - hardware, software, etc. - was in-house, and third-party involvement in any way not to be countenanced. It's not unlike the ethos that he created after his return to the company in the late nineties, at least as far as the iPod, iPad and iPhone were concerned: totally ring-fenced products and software, with any third-party software input - at least for the iPad and iPhone: the iPod being a special case during its lifetime - totally controlled by Apple itself through the Byzantine channels of the Apple Developer Program. To an extent, Job's early views on the issue were pretty understandable: the company was relatively small and upcoming compared to the industry standards and the giants of the day, such as IBM; they were treading very new ground back then, and were cognisant that what th...

I picked up a post on Medium today, from last month, about the apparent doldrums in which Apple seems to be becalmed of late, and I have to say I can't disagree with any of it. Since the death of Steve Jobs and the departure of Jonny Ive, there has been little advancement of note in either hardware, OS or software design language , only 'evolutionary tinkering', sometimes good, sometimes bad: nothing outstanding or remarkable. It's as if Apple product has reached its 'white goods' phase, like fridges and cookers: utilitarian, albeit with much flair and great build quality; a bit like Bosch anything or Neff cookers, Smeg fridges or Agas or Roll Royces. Pretty much as if 'we have refined our wares to a point where there is nowhere left to go to improve on our wares'. Except that we all know that as progress is made on the technical side of product development, this should be de facto followed by changes in the design language of the products themselves: e...

I watched the finals of The Hundred from Lords on TV yesterday, a format of the game of cricket that - as I think have written before - I was ready initially to loathe as a debased and rather tawdry version of the beloved game. However, in recent months, I've come to appreciate it for what is and for its potential to save the domestic game from oblivion in its longer forms. We were in danger of concentrating on the highly lucrative - although not domestically - Indian Premier League at the expensive of cricket here in the UK. Falling spectator numbers across the longer formats, with decreasing take up of the game amongst the young meant that the game was slowly atrophying and unable to turn a profit and stay alive.  Early take up of the game was not a problem in my childhood, as all - admittedly mostly boys in those days, unfortunately - played street and park cricket all summer long, switching to football for the autumn and winter. Schools actively taught and played cricket, field...

  We went over to meet the boys at Plas Newydd this morning for coffee and a walk and talk in the grounds there. Although the place was quite busy, we went in the opposite direction to the vast majority there, away from the house towards the Rhododendron garden, which is a kilometre or so back toward Llanfair P.G through the woods. Whilst the small (an acre?) terraced garden near the house was a riot of colour and variety [above], the cool dark of the woods was very pleasant indeed, and a good gentle stroll on which to converse about something and nothing and this and that, so to speak. We turned it into a circular walk, ending up near where we'd started, above the terraces and near the cromlech that sits in the field behind. One thing that was noted on returning through the 'National Trust Retail Experience' that starts and ends a visit there, was that the fifth Marquess, Henry Cyril Paget, the erstwhile black sheep of the family, is now being rehabilitated as somewhat a b...

Just a very short note tonight as we're absorbed in the penultimate evening of the European Athletics Championships and really don't want to look away. Just watched a fabulous 10,000m won in great style and form by Sweden's Andreas Almgren [pictured, after the race] - back in a minute or thirty ... Right, so GB have won both 4x100 relays; and the men's 1500m was taken to all the pundit's surprise by a magnificent final fifty sprint by the Nederland's Nillesen. Ireland's O'Connor won the Women's heptathlon fabulously, and  Steve Backley's javelin record fell after twenty-eight years, whilst Jonathan Edward's triple jump record still stands, despite a monster leap by Italy's Hernández which turned out to be a fouled attempt. All in all, an exciting if somewhat distracting evening that's sure to be repeated tomorrow. We're off to Plas Newydd to meet the boys tomorrow late morning, for a stroll and coffee, but we'll be glued to th...

Pictured, a small gift from our current guest, Judith's father, over here for a few days visit from Germany. He's staying in our cottage and this afternoon presented me with this little tome, as he was aware that I have spent some time in Germany and speak [ein bisschen schlechtes] German. We communicated as such this evening, each admitting to our own linguistic limitations in turn, but understanding each other perfectly well enough. A nice gesture on his part, and well appreciated by me. Which makes me think of the damage that the Farage creature and his ilk have wreaked on this land in pressing through the Brexit agenda. We need more contact with the outside world, not less: there is no progress to be made in crude isolationism, as any truly pragmatic person here in Wales will attest to. Nationhood is a fine thing, but any nation has to sell its benefits outside of its own bounds to succeed: cutting ties with others is simply cutting your nose off to spite your face, as we ...

Fairview Heights this late afternoon, the temperature down to a balmy 28˚C, although to be fair we only touched thirty once, mid-afternoon, so not greatly oppressive. The house sits at around twenty-four, but then we live in a place with two-foot thick stone walls, so it is relatively easy to regulate the inside temperature with curtains and doors: old school tech is most often the best, methinks. Shades and a through draught are the free alternative to air-con, as we learnt in Corfu a decade ago: it's quite possible to spend a relatively comfortable night with no air-con in a hot environment as long as you limit the solar gain of windows using shutters during the day, and maintain a night-time airflow across the room. A bottle of cold local wine helps the zzz's along also. It's weird that it's now as as hot here in North Wales as it was back then in Greece, but there you go. One thing I definitely can't get around here though are the stupendous cheese pies and deep...

Pictured, the best that I could manage of the moment of ninety-percent eclipse, using an iPhone 16 Pro through the lens of a pair of cardboard eclipse specs - grainy and blurry that it is, it at least gives an impression of what we could see this evening. We sat out drinking cold beer in the peace and quiet of Y Ffridd, whilst the throng headed up onto the hill behind us, beyond the mountain gate. I think we had the best seats in the house, however...

Today I found this avian corpse down in our car park, with no obvious signs of injury or attack, but stone dead, nevertheless. We've no idea what it is, but at a good 200mm head to tail, it's not exactly small; however my suspicion is that it's not fully grown, although obviously fledged: could it be an adolescent corvid? It's beak suggests something of the kind, as do the enormous, taloned feet. We'd love to know more: Steve and Margaret - come to our rescue, guys. Tomorrow's eclipse beckons and our next-door neighbour has given us two pairs of the 'official' eclipse specs with which to view the event, a kind and thoughtful gesture. I've written before of past eclipses I've witnessed [blog posts passim], but this one promises to be pretty special, should the weather stay as it is. I'm determined to record this event properly and in real time, using my iPhone, running the BlackmagicCam app, with the thing mounted on my Manfrotto tripod. Sound...

I've just ordered an old, secondhand copy of "Transformational Syntax - a Student's Guide to Chomsky's Extended Standard Theory", my former, and now sadly deceased, professor's first book, which I've alluded to before [blog posts passim]. Somewhere in this house lies the original self-produced copy of this first opus by Andrew Radford; which he wrote, typed and Roneo-ed [an obsolete method of ink-based reproduction of documents, for the uninitiated: much cheaper at the time than using a photocopier, and a year or three before the availability of affordable computers and printers] over the summer break before taking up the chair in Linguistics at University College, North Wales [now Bangor University] at the tender age of thirty-four: both of which achievements speak volumes as to the man's ability. It is not out of any sympathy with or belief in Chomsky's syntactical theory that I've purchased the thing - I'd already come to the conclusion...

  OK, it's Sunday and gratuitous food post time! I really don't have much mental or physical oomph left in the tank to write otherwise; we've done a stint in the garden this afternoon and my back's sore, so I'll keep it short. Anyway, tonight's repast is worth remarking upon: the usual combo of belly pork, potatoes and vegetables in my usual sauce. Except that tonight's turned out to be exceptional. Two things about the meat and spuds: first I did my usual parboil of Maris Piper potatoes with a couple of bruised garlic cloves, plenty of sea salt and a glug of extra virgin olive oil in the water. Then I roasted the little buggers in beef dripping. The belly pork strips, which were nice and fatty, I just salted with the aforementioned sea salt and roasted them off as is, rendering the fat off the things without adding anything else into the pan. I also didn't drain the fat off the pan, instead basting the skin a few times whilst letting the meat itself sit...

Some institutions die in the full glare of the public eye with fanfares and encomia befitting their stature and importance to society and to the history of mankind; their mark ensured for future generations to commemorate and contemplate. The common man's history seldom leaves such particular remembrance beyond their family, very often in spite of their uncommon achievements. Such is generally the fate of we, the hoi polloi. However, 'tis not such a deep thing as this that I seek to offer in the following regretful, rather rueful, remembrance. I only heard today - entirely peripherally, and God knows how I missed the news in the first place [April of this year] - that Gentlemen's Relish had been discontinued by its current owners. Alas they simply could not see further profit in the product, despite its history. Short-sighted bastards if you ask me. I first discovered this most pungent of fishy accompaniments in 1980 and was blown away by the airlift that it could give to m...

It's been a great couple of wildlife days up here in Fairview Heights. The weather's been a tad cooler and we think that might just have encouraged the fauna to get a bit more active than during the very hot weather of late. The day before yesterday saw a juvenile Red Kite [Y Barcud Coch in Welsh] hovering very low over our patio, being harassed by a couple of gulls. We know that there are Kites nesting a few miles away around Tal Y Bont, and they increasingly stray towards us [very welcome, too, as they're one of our favourite birds] in search of carrion and small mammals. Today, though, has seen an enormous influx of butterflies and bees into the garden as the buddleias [apart from the Black Knight, which is over by now] are in full bloom. And joy of joys, a couple of Hummingbird Hawk Moths feeding right in front of us to top it all off. Bendigedig iawn, iawn...

Growth. What is 'growth', aside from being a gloriously Old English word in nature, with its qualifying noun suffix '...th' added to the verb 'grow'. Well, applied to ourselves and our offspring it can relate to both our physical and mental growth: we start out physically small and grow into adults before we start to shrink again somewhat as we get past a certain age. It relates to a our intellectual growth from childhood, through adolescence into adulthood. Any subsequent shrinkage obviously being subject to any number of factors, if at all: but ultimately one's ceasing will put a stop to that growth, either way. By definition, personal growth is limited by mortality; in itself variable, but generally limited to the low hundred-plus years at its upper bound. As far as shared human knowledge is concerned, the limit to its growth is theoretically bound to the lifespan of our species, which is unknowable, but which is predictable statistically from within that...

I was just watching the opening scenes from the 1987 film RoboCop, and saw the future now, writ large in Technicolor. This film, alongside many other dystopian fictions of the era, actually seem to have been a playbook for capitalism and rogue politics for this first quarter of the twenty-first century, with megalomaniac billionaires foisting crackpot visions of the 'benefits' of blind technological advance, despite little empirical evidence as to its actual, societal efficacy. It is a vision of conquest and control in the service of profit. We used to take this kind of movie with large pinches of salt tempered with small twinges of 'what-if? Looking at the corporate structures and mega-vanity projects currently extant, I think we should have taken more heed of these 'entertaining' narratives with a good deal more perspicacity than we did at the time. We are living in the future we were watching in fiction back then. Robots are a thing. Artificial Intelligence is a ...

OK, here's a thing. I thought I'd mentioned the very shortest of short-form cricket - 'The Hundred' - here before, but I can't find a reference to it on searching. Anyhow, I have changed my opinion of the game in the last few weeks, from one of outright dismissal of the form as a rather crass gimmick when it was first introduced, to now enjoying the game very much indeed. I'll never give up my love for first class cricket and the five-day test format, but I honestly think that they've actually got this one right. And it is bringing new blood into both playing and watching the game of cricket, which was so desperately needed. I don't think the IPL had anywhere the kind of impact here in the UK that it has had elsewhere, and added to the  the fact that first-class cricket is still hidden behind a bloody paywall - a total disgrace in my book - The Hundred strikes me as the democratic alternative form of the game which is inevitably reaching an audience that...

The truly unique thing about the written and printed word is its persistence, resilience and resistance to tampering. Unlike the digital domain, which is subject to failure at all of these points. A book or journal can be damaged - by fire, water, insects, fungi or very often just rodents - granted, but text in the digital realm has an especially tenuous, often evanescent existence by comparison to more corporeal forms of storage. The very language of the text itself is actually key to its resilience. Written or printed language is the direct analogue of the spoken word expressed at one, very slight remove, for storage and later retrieval. In more recent history, analogue audio recordings have provided us with a slightly less removed analogue of human communication. The same applies to film and video. But with the digitisation of either text or speech, film or video, we enter a realm of total abstraction where the medium of storage is essentially disconnected from the content being tra...

OK - yet another throwaway food post, as I'm completely fashed and this laptop seems to want to keel over at any moment. Pictured is tonight's pork and potato sort of Goan curry. I was going to be creative and do something from scratch, but laziness kicked in and I bought one of those semi-fancy curry kits. Now I have to say that the basic premise of these particular kits is pretty sound: a dry masala to temper in the oil or ghee to produce the bedrock flavours; a base sauce in which to flavour the meat and/or vegetables and a final sauce to complete the cooking with. The issue I've always had with these kits is the instructions, which parallels most of the issues I've had with South Asian cookbook recipes aimed at the British [non-Asian] cook: timings. They, of a piece, try to conflate cooking times to suit a modern, fast-food attitude to producing food. In the case of South Asian food, for the most part, this is almost always a recipe for raw-tasting and frankly disa...

  I was watching a really wonderful documentary earlier, on YouTube, from a series of TV programmes titled 'Parts Unknown' by Anthony Bourdain, which culminates in his eating at the table of Paul Bocuse, in the latter's hunting lodge after they had spent the day duck-hunting for the pot. Bocuse was one of France's fêted Chefs de Cuisine, and a culinary hero of Bourdain's personally. It's a wonderful programme overall, but the final, informal setting is one of plain good cooking and eating in the company of friends: good food, good wine and good company. Over the last half century I've spent many an hour similarly, and cooked and eaten thousands of such meals in good company, accompanied by much quaffing of drink. Anyway, what did I cook for myself this evening, as I'm flying solo for a few days? The above pictured cheese and streaky bacon toastie with HP Sauce. Not quite wild duck spit-roast over an open fire, but a damn sight easier to prepare and not ...

The world is arguably, and some of us would assert demonstrably, in the most perilous state that it has been since mankind evolved. Hyperbole? I really don't think so: climate change is now accelerating at a pace predicted by climatologists just a few years ago; a rate of change so fast that extreme weather events normally restricted to Africa and the Indian subcontinent are now commonplace across northern Europe. This year has seen catastrophic wildfires taking hold across Spain, Italy, Greece, France and the UK. Drought has been declared similarly widely across the continent, making fighting these fires increasingly difficult. Is there any significant rainfall in the offing for us? Not as far as the meteorologists can foresee: we're looking at similar conditions for the next month or so at least. On the international politics front, how many wars are being waged at present and for what reasons? The Middle East, Ukraine, what next? And what will the antagonists party to and in...

Spaces within spaces, or, I suppose more correctly, volumes within volumes, in a house, have always held more fascination for me than open-plan living. A house to me should be a cabinet of curiosities writ large, with places to explore and definitely more than one staircase. Which I suppose is what attracted me to our home of twenty-plus years, here at Fairview Heights [just to jog the memory, my rather twee little appellation for our humble abode arises from the name of my great-great aunt Annie's house in Herefordshire, Fairview ,  twisted through the irony of John Peel in his nickname for his place: Peel Acres]. I like an edifice with corners. And cupboards. And cubbyholes. I like bookcases full of books, slightly too much over-stuffed furniture and bizarre knick-knacks, souvenirs and collections. I guess at heart I'm a kind of Victorian, mediated by an Abstract Expressionist aesthetic: living amongst a semi-organised clutter of things of occasional interest bound together b...

I suppose anyone from the UK of my age - born in the 1950s - and class: working - can remember folk coming back from early-days package holidays to Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, etc., and saying that it was lovely, but 'all the food is swimming in oil'. Ah, how our tastes and palates have changed in sixty-odd years. I know I'm starting to get a bit like a stuck record here with these repeated gratuitous food posts, but whatever; this is worth sharing. Pictured is tonight's pasta sauce in the making: and it's principally comprised of olive oil. Lots of it. As I posted, I did a simpler version of this the other night for myself, but the above goes something like this. Very gently sauté down half a dozen of those tiny, ripe salad plum tomatoes, quartered, with a clove of mashed down garlic, some flat-leaf parsley and a couple of basil leaves, salt, pepper and a pinch of chilli flakes in a goodly quantity of extra virgin olive oil, with a splash of cider vinegar until...

OK, so yet another food post might seem a tad excessive, but here's the thing: if you can't be arsed to create, invent or otherwise extemporise a meal, let alone follow a recipe, the next best thing is to turn to the comfort food of one's childhood. Viz the above: the aftermath of tonight's meal - I couldn't even be bothered to photograph the finished article as I simply wanted to eat it: a Fray Bentos steak & kidney pie with baby Maris Piper potatoes roasted in beef dripping. Properly nostalgic working-class nosh from my childhood. The Fray Bentos pie occupies a place in that unique pantheon of readymade foodstuffs that serious, professional chefs will always cleave to when they simply want comfort and convenience after a hard day's work. No-one wants to bake a sixty-four layer puff pastry from scratch, to be perfectly honest, and the pastry on these things is always nothing short of wonderful. Other items of note on the roster are: Heinz Cream of Tomato S...

Two gratuitous food posts on the trot I'm afraid: tonight's repast of rolled breast of lamb marinated in garlic, lemon juice and olive oil; stuffed with dates, rosemary, flat-leaf parsley, cardamom and bay leaves; rolled and slow-roasted for a couple of hours and then zapped on high for half an hour. We just ate it with mash: the meat was finger-food and as fatty and garlicky as you can imagine. Interestingly, the stuffing contributed little: the overriding tastes being lamb and garlic. Room for future experiment, methinks. As a very cheap [used to be free in times past] cut of meat with oodles of flavour, I would recommend it to diehard lamb fiends, but not to anyone who's a bit picky about their food: dainty it ain't, and it requires a bit of dextrous chewing to get the best of it. My go-to for satisfying anyone with a taste for sheep, however, will always be shoulder: far superior to leg of lamb in every way. Make it hogget or mutton, and you've got some serious...

  This seemingly insignificant portion of  food was my supper tonight. And let me tell you, it was more than a sufficient amount of sustenance for your humble narrator. It was also delicious and totally ad hoc, having been improvised on the spot. I did my back in earlier today, and both Jane & I were generally jaded by this evening, with Jane opting for Brie and crackers. As we were watching Stanley Tucci's programme on Italy and food, I thought I might rustle up something simple but tasty for myself in a kind of Italian vein with whatever I could find in the kitchen cupboards. Pictured is the result: tagliatelle with olive oil, flavoured with tomato, garlic and chilli. And not half bad it was, too...

It's astonishing how the attitudes of 'free-marketeers' change when genuine competition rears it's threatening head; falling back to a default position of civil [and oft-times criminal] litigation in order to protect their slice of the market and bury the competition at all costs. The bigger the company, the harsher and usually more successful the action. Apple is currently getting in a lather over OpenAI's in-progress hardware stream of business via its acquisition of io, the Jony Ive co-founded design studio. Apple claims that io has been nicking trade secrets and their intellectual property via former employee's 'remembered' and documented knowledge of Apple's hardware development. None of which has currently been shown to have a great deal of substance, and would seem to be based on normal levels of pre-emptive commercial paranoia. This attitude of course is not without precedent, many, many times over in the history of corporate capitalism. I wa...

  Pictured, tonight's meal on the barbie, featuring my ad hoc construction of Black & Decker Workmate and various bits from one of our old storage heaters: the galvanised steel front plate and the bricks therefrom forming the hearth, and an old roasting tin forming the lid. Cooking utensils hang conveniently from the handles of the Workmate, my old welding gloves acting as PPE in handling the hot stuff, and various other bits and bobs serving to increase or moderate the heat. Cost? Bugger all. Result? Pretty much the same as any purchased BBQ. On the food front, the kebabs hiding and cooking under the roasting tin were purchased from the butcher in Llanfairfechan and were lamb & mint. We ate them with salad in pitta bread, and in my case with a good dollop of Encona Carolina Reaper hot sauce. Whilst not for the faint of heart or the inexperienced, this sauce is, I would hazard, not as fearsome as the reputation of the eponymous chilli itself portends, but perhaps I'm no...

  It's time to write my diary and it's time to write this post: measuring time by action and in so doing denying its passage in favour of the moment: this very Zen thought occurred to me as I was writing those [in themselves, locked in time] words, or maybe momentarily after. But now the sentence is writ and the moment gone and posted to the cloud. But I'm still here. In the moment. For now...

The old cliché about 'joined-up thinking' actually has much more substance to it than those that employ it for empty rhetorical effect could ever know [pictured, a graphic from Six Sigma (US) which I think demonstrates my point nicely with or without the spelling and grammatical errors]. The problem we have in so many areas of life and our economy and politics is fragmentation of intent through poor planning and outsourcing; through bad management, reactive thinking and lack of strategic coordination. The big irony at the heart of it all is that blind centralisation of resources is at the very heart of the issue: the very thing that was meant to streamline and make efficient all of the necessary services that drive our society has achieved its diametric opposite; replacing actually [organisationally and cost] efficient service structures, such as the NHS, tax, transport, urban infrastructure and repair; public transport, social services, public amenities, &etc. &etc: ...