It’s Official. Today I Am Old.

Araucaria had a tricky little puzzle in the Grauniad at the weekend.
I solved 8 down this morning as I celebrated with a birthday breakfast.

The clue:-

Multiple character (unless under 60?) (8)

The checked letters for the millions of our readers who do not do the XWDS

M_N_F_L_

You can’t argue with Araucaria, and I thought it would be the prime numbers that would get me!

What we did on our holidays!

Back from the N. Yorks Moors. Really enjoyed it, never thought I would say that about time spent in Yorkshire let alone write it! I only managed 4 pints in the week. What 4 pints though. I am inspired to try a crossword on all the different species of beer!

We had an Amble, well it was more of a Bimble!
Plod across moor from village to Roman Camp, couple of hours there and very impressive it was too.

I have been reading and enjoying Waterlog by Deakin; - tales of swimming and derring-do.

A swimmer for many years now, it has probably kept me alive, but I just do the easy bit; breast stroke, crawl and back stroke, up and down the pool.

This guy swims in unusual, interesting and scary places. One such was the Scillies. Lots of stuff washed up on beaches; historically, Cloudesley Shovell, latterly front doors and sinks. None reported to the Receiver of Wrecks... for a variety of reasons.

As we return down a pleasant lane I attempt to explain this to Lady BP.
"The Receiver of Wrecks" I pronounce!
"Who's Rex?"
"I don't know" I reply "They could be from anywhere"
"Yes. But Who's Rex?"
As Kurt would say, so it goes, for about five minutes.

We twig at about the same time, collapse of stout parties.
The retriever Rex begins to grow as a character in my minds eye.

On another day the Waterlog theme continues as I watch mermen, lads in wet suits, frolicking in Whitby Harbour, jumping off piers and trying to snatch seagulls in the air!

Politics!

Scary, scary.

Thoughts on the Scottish Play.
Alex Salmo salar appears to be walking it. Scottish Labour in BIG PANIC.
Helpful suggestions for some last minute slogans?

Vote Labour or
- You'll never see your Mammy again;
- Gordie will come and smile at the bairns..... Maybe not.

The Brits are whingeing about the break up of the union. They see the feckless Caledonians sucking on the teat of the Treasury, wanting independence and more, regardless of the damage to the UNION. We would be left talking to the Welsh and Paisley. Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani! Pardon me. Without our friends in the north we might slip down the league table on a number of criteria. Maybe no bad thing, spend more time improving the lot of our long suffering peeps instead of fighting useless wars and commissioning useless weapons systems!

But, my god, the tories might get in for ever!

Oooh! Interesting and scary times.

A Statement to Associates of The Anglo Italian Buddhist Pizza Corporation AIBPC

We have been made aware of a certain situation regarding the Goombah who is president of the World Financial Services Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of AIBPC. Woolfi, a respected member of the family and long term business associate of mine, is a very focused and dedicated employee. He understands these things of ours. Without his ability to put money on the street and get it back again with passion and 15 points I would not have my third yacht. It is with some regret that I am hearing stories about the preferment of his cummari in a financial and institutional sense. It is one thing to reward a squeeze for services in the bedroom department, but business is business, especially our business. An another thing, I think it is unpatriotic at this time to be fraternising with the A rabs, especially when there are good Anglo Italian cummari looking for a regular guy and some medium term financial security. But, as Fat Tony says "Hey! What can you do?"

So, this is what we will do. Woolfi gets to keep the WFSI franchise but gives up the Washington pad and the Georgetown street activities. This A rab cost centre goes strictly off the books and becomes a part time leisure interest. The tax situation will have to be cleared with Jimmy the Books but Woolfi picks up any tab. Fat Tony will assume responsibillity for the street activity and change and I will expect provelone from all profit centres in due course.

Good Guys

Hans Rosling strikes me as a good guy!
His latest blog about

Perestroika in the Soviet Republic of Texas!

had me rocking in the isles. Not an easy subject though. Its fun to see the p... taken out of the Lone Star State and by association, its most infamous scion. However, the death of children is no laughing matter!

One extreme to another. Part 2

Tim Harford writing the undercover economist column in the FT magazine references work explaining how very poor people make money, and how they spend it.

The ”very poor” are those who live on less than a dollar a day. The benchmark - a rare piece of brilliant marketing from the World Bank - is both more generous and more frugal than it seems. Generous, because the benchmark dates from 1985 and has been adjusted since to take account of inflation in each country and is generally now more than a dollar a day. But frugal because the dollar is adjusted for purchasing power. In other words, a Kenyan farmer might have 50 cents a day to spend but still not count as ”very poor” because 50 cents in Kenya buys more than a dollar would in the US. However you look at it, a dollar a day is a tiny income.

Ok so "A dollar a day" goes down in the category of statements about the human condition that start with:

You only need 1 cubic metre of water for survival - a year!

My own approach to the redistribution of wealth has been to have conspicuously little of it. Additionally, I encourage the provision of access to resources by combining in mutual organisations which provide finance at non exploitative rates. Well it keeps me off the streets.

Imagine my interest in another article entitled "Uncommon Wealth" by Chrystia Freeland in the FT Weekend A-Train column on March 31 2007 where she states

. .. even people who have a lot of experience with a lot of money, such as Wall Street investment banker Felix Rohatyn, admit that the magnitude of today’s wealth is hard for them to fathom.

He finds

.... the mass of money that is being accumulated by individuals staggering, If you suddenly have $4bn in your bank account, I don’t know what you do. It is one thing to decide how you will deal with a fortune of $500m. I used to think that was a huge amount of money. But, to a lot of people, it is not any more.

I am staggered by the amounts but lets qualify the phrase 'lot of people' and not get carried away shall we!

The significance as far as Freeland is concerned is that Soros, Gates and Buffet, to name but a few, have added -

new energy, and star power..... to promote social change

I have always found Peanuts a great consolation at these troubling moments of indecision about the meaning of life, the universe and everything else! Basically, I am an altruist. I want to make the world a better place for me to live in.

Ojala!

From one extreme to another

Under the unlikely title of Hannibal Lecter saved my life (the Grauniad Review on Saturday 31 March)

Philip Oltermann discovers what the homeless customers of a London mobile library are reading.

Now you know how I feel about libraries. These Friends are volunteers and do not require six figure salaries to provide a decent, relaxed, and very useful service for a group of individuals who are, at best, ignored!

At the other end of the spectrum the debate continues about ebooks.
John Naughton spots an essay on the book reader industry.

The folks on the south bank won't be getting ebook readers any time soon but what a great idea. Solar powered of course!

April Fools Day Ambling

There she is, the second great love of my life. Lucy!
But I knew before we stepped out of the car park that it would be unrequited!

Off on a trip round Nowton. Is it a nudist colony? Nay lad; they don't speak like that round here!

I believe that the Amblers now are established with their own interweb page so I intend to put them in my links list and only report as the spirit moves!

Hasta Luego!