Ukraine and the Zombie Apocalypse, by Sackerson

Thank goodness President Biden is taking on Russia. What would it be like to live in a country where the people are under constant surveillance and their movements restricted, journalists jailed or held without trial, the internet censored… oh…

As to the last, shall we conduct a little experiment? If you use Facebook, try copying and entering this link:

https://orientalreview.org/2021/12/09/putin-rejects-bidens-demand-that-the-u-s-take-control-over-the-negotiations-between-ukraine-and-its-former-donbass-region/

You should get this response from Zuckerman’s Metaverse:

orientalreview.org

Your post couldn't be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards

If you think that this doesn't go against our Community Standards, let us know.

Now Oriental Review isn’t about porn, phishing, Trumpism or racism; but it offers a different narrative from the one submitted to us by ‘Tankie’ Liz Truss https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/11/30/liz-truss-ukraine-russia-tank-war-invasion/ and newbie Defence Staff Chief Toby Radakin https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10290237/Ukraine-conflict-biggest-World-War-II.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 . Doubtless the Review has its own agenda (a wicked one, natch, never forget that Vlad is ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’), but the point here is that Zuckers has now gone bootheels-up into the rabbit-hole of political censorship. Maybe the time has come for social media and their ‘fact-checkers’ to put our moribund traditional news channels out of their misery, get together and set up their electric neo-Pravda while we’re waiting to go full Matrix.

For there can be no alternative view. This is the age of Möbius-strip https://www.britannica.com/science/Mobius-strip discussion, as we see with the Wokeists, whose attitude on all topics is ‘you may think there are two sides to every argument, but in reality there is only one, the correct side, and we’re on it.’ Already Western students are re-enacting the Chinese Cultural Revolution by denouncing their teachers; how long before they invade the parks and begin tearing up the ‘bourgeois grass’? https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/exposing-mao-20050710-ge0hld.html

Wait, what? Surely the Lefties are about material progress; the whole raison d'être of Britain’s Labour Party and the USA’s Democrats is to help the working class prosper to the point where their politicians aren’t needed any more. ‘Si monumentum requiris, circumspice’ https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/31/travel/l-wren-s-epitaph-195156.html - or ‘Job done’ as our Boy Scout Bob-A-Job-Week stickers used to say. Not!

If the Left is good, surely the Commies are gooder? Ah, but the Russians aren’t Commies any more; maybe that’s what’s wrong with them. Hillary put her finger on it during her 2016 Presidential election campaign, according to the NYT last month https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/opinion/hillary-clinton-biden-trump.html – the Russkies are part of a global ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ that prompted Putin to support Trump.

Just not Red enough. Maybe that’s why, after Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’ - attempts at reform and international rapprochement (until the CIA just had to go one more nuke-targeting overflight, get Gary Powers shot down and force K into the grisly arms of his Moscow hawks), Nixon and the State Department chose to build bridges with China instead – even as the evil Mao was still in his bed, reading about Chinese emperors for despotism tips when he wasn’t making serial use of starry-eyed Red nymphets; China, which had regarded Khrushchev and his government as despicable revisionists and traitors to the pure Marxism-Leninism they themselves espoused.

Yes, the USA gave its productive capacity to an ideological mortal enemy, the Chinese; feeding the dragon and impoverishing Fred Flintstone was a small price to pay for making the American elite insanely rich; rich enough to buy decommissioned nuclear bunkers in America’s midWest and boltholes in New Zealand for when it all goes very wrong for the plebs.

Meanwhile there is the proximate goal of Democrat wins in the 2022 elections. Western governments have seen how easy it is to corral the people if you scare the pants off them with a nasty but far from apocalyptic viral episode; now for Russia to fulfil its historic role once more: to distract Western voters from their own socioeconomic failures.

For it is ‘the economy, stupid.’ After a decade (the 1950s) in which the Soviet economy had been growing twice as fast as Britain’s, PM Harold Macmillan wrote (December 1960) to President Kennedy:

‘What is going to happen to us unless we can show that our modern free society – the new form of capitalism – can make the fullest use of our resources and results in a steady expansion of our economic strength… If we fail in this, Communism will triumph, not by war, or even subversion, but by seeming to be a better way of bringing people material comforts. In other words, if we were to fall back into anything like the recession or crisis that we had between the wars, with large-scale unemployment of men and machines, I think we would have lost the hand.’

-          Quoted in ‘Macmillan: The Official Biography’ by Alistair Horne (Macmillan, 1988)

It looks as though the West has lost the plot, for the East is beginning to show us up. Mao starved millions by swapping the peasant’s harvests for Stalin’s modern weaponry; today, so my brother says, ‘I just watched an interview with a Chinese industrialist who was educated at Stanford University, who noted that the infrastructure in the US amazed him when he came in the early 1970's, and now appears to be inferior to much of China's.’ As for the Satanic right-wingers of Russia, crushed by Western sanctions, they are currently the world’s biggest exporters of wheat, so much so that they have been limiting that trade to keep prices down at home. https://www.world-grain.com/articles/14975-focus-on-russia

My brother, a martial artist, has told me a twisted strategy to use if you wish to attack someone: start hitting them while at the same time calling for help from passers-by. What if those Russian forces massing near the Ukrainian border are actually a defensive posture, a warning? Read the Review if you’d like to learn some of their take on the background to all this; maybe there’s a third side to the Möbius strip. You don’t have to accept it, but at least remove the Zuckergoggles.

Here’s a reading I’ll offer you, as a theoretical perspective: Putin has no interest in European conquest, but wishes to make sure his Western border is secure (and NATO missiles kept more than ten minutes’ flight away from Moscow) so that he can concentrate on a larger project – a Eurasian trade corridor https://en.paperblog.com/trans-asian-corridor-of-development-russia-s-super-canal-to-unite-eurasia-734226/ . His gas lines to Germany and other Western countries are vulnerable in the Ukraine, and even Blue Stream (heading for Turkey) passes through the Donbass; the Yamal line is equally a potential hostage in Belarus; so Nord Stream 2, bypassing both nations, sidesteps mischief-making by them and also by third parties that may find such trouble convenient for their own domestic political purposes. Could this explain Biden’s opposition to the near-finished construction? https://www.brookings.edu/research/nord-stream-2-background-objections-and-possible-outcomes/

If we can remove our virtual-unreality specs we may see that this is the age of Four Empires: the US, tearing itself apart under socioeconomic stress and one of its periodic spasms of hysterical Asleepening; the EU, falling apart because it really doesn’t believe that ‘alle menschen werden brüder’, especially the PIIGS; China, ruthlessly emptying the seas of fish and gaining by international loans and bribery what America has failed to do by indiscriminate bombing; and a Russia trying to build an Eastern EU to promote the security and prosperity of the world’s largest and still desperately-underpopulated country (and feeling windy about the tempting natural assets in Eastern Siberia that China must covet.)

Too boring; back to the basement for a few more hours of Zombie Apocalypse.

USA: Throwing it all away, by Paddington

 In many ways, the years 1945-1965 were some of the best ever for the United States.

With the massive funds of the British Empire, obtained through the Lend Lease program, the war machine was converted to civilian products (as well as weapons production), fueled by huge US oil reserves.

There was virtually no competition, given that the British, French, German and Japanese empires were destroyed, and most of Russia and China were at least a century behind us.

The government invested in infrastructure (rural electrification, the interstate system), education (especially the public universities), people (Medicare and Medicaid) and scientific research (both very pure and applied). We were the leaders in electronics, computers and nuclear energy.

The middle class grew and thrived, with good jobs with benefits, which included pensions.

At some point, the public was persuaded that pensions were bad, as were unions, and science. People were encouraged and divided over envy.

I don't think that the country as a whole was helped by the latter, and things do not seem to be going in a good direction.

I just watched an interview with a Chinese industrialist who was educated at Stanford University, who noted that the infrastructure in the US amazed him when he came in the early 1970's, and now appears to be inferior to much of China's.

WEEKENDER: Bio Security Failure ? by Wiggia

It was not that long ago that I mentioned some facts on plant diseases that were plaguing the western world.

Another was announced by the Forestry Commission: a new tree disease has been found in Cornwall. How it came to light in Cornwall is interesting in its own right. This is the first time in Europe. Phytophthora pluvialis affects Douglas fir and a variety of other trees not specified.

What was not said was what the disease actually did; was it one of those that had a time frame and petered out, or was it an outright untreatable killer? Putting out a notice about a disease and nothing else is a bit like a film review where they don’t reveal the plot.

Further digging revealed in the official Government paper on the disease...

“Phytophthora pluvialis is known to cause needle cast, shoot dieback, and lesions on the stem, branches, and roots. “

Further digging failed to reveal if the disease is terminal but the area has been put into quarantine which suggests the final outcome of the disease is not known. It does however weaken the host and Honey Fungus which is terminal can take hold of the weakened plant.

None of this is good news any more than it is startling, or even interesting to regular readers, but it is one of a long line of imported diseases in plants that have been occurring on a regular basis for some time.

These diseases fall into several categories and those categories are not always that evident on early discovery. Many of them are in the ‘you will all die’ group rather like our Coronavirus experts keep preaching, but turn out not be, it is not an easy area to pre judge as many don’t quite live up! to the reputation gained elsewhere; many of course do.

The most infamous in recent times was Dutch Elm disease and that did indeed wipe out 99% of elms in this country, but not all: two were quite happily surviving 50 yards up the road from where we lived ten years ago and are still there; how is a mystery, and yet an earlier house we moved to in 1983 was called Twin Elms and there were none - the entrance trees had succumbed to the virus.

I am not going through all viruses that have alighted on these shores but a sampler of the more prominent and recent gives the picture.

The London Plane is a pretty resilient species but as with all is not immune to attacks of fungus. In the Eighties it was infected with Plane Anthracnose which causes early leaf fall; this sparked fears of losing our most famous tree in the capital responsible for lining so many stately avenues and drives. The leaves started to fall almost immediately after they had unfurled and we had autumn in May. The trees survived and the leaf fall carried on for several years getting later and later into the season before all returned to normal; scare over.

Then we had the Horse Chestnut under attack from a very nasty Bleeding Canker, which looks as nasty as it sounds: large areas of the bark turn black and bleed a tarry sap. The advice was to remove infected branches and the tree would slowly recover but the ones I saw fell into the death stage quite early on. It was a very quick change in tree and advanced with some speed. One client I had removed three chestnuts in the first year the disease appeared. For a while outbreaks threatened the species with severe depletion but again it slowly subsided and I haven’t seen an infected tree for some time.

After that it was the turn of the oak. It seemed nothing was safe; the oak has been the subject of several diseases over time but the latest is Acute Oak Decline.

An example of Acute Oak Decline

‘Acute oak decline (AOD) is a relatively new disease in the UK with an increasing number of reported cases each year, mostly in the English Midlands, with records extending into Wales. The main symptom is extensive bleeding on the tree’s stem (trunk). A dark fluid oozes from splits in the bark, often from 1 metre above ground level and upwards. It is usually found on mature trees, 50 years or older,  and both major oak species (Pedunculate and Sessile) in the UK are affected.

'Unlike chronic oak decline, a tree affected by AOD may die quickly, within five years. The exact cause(s) of AOD are not known at present but Forest Research believe that a bacteria may be the likely factor.’

The worry with this one is self-evident in the text: they have no idea at present what causes it. The good thing! is that the disease has not spread into the other regions, which gives time to find the cause and maybe a cure.

Another much more widely spread virus has attacked Ash trees; this is worrying as the Ash is such a widely-planted tree.

‘Ash dieback is a serious disease of ash trees, caused by a fungus now called Hymenoscyphus Fraxineus. The fungus was described as a new fungal species in 2006 as the cause of ash (Fraxinus Excelsior) mortality in European countries during the previous ten years.

'The disease affects trees of all ages. Young trees can be killed in one season and older trees tend to succumb after several seasons of infection. Whilst ash dieback is certainly capable of killing trees in its own right, in many cases the weakened tree is colonised by another pathogen, particularly honey fungus, which then accelerates the decline and death of the tree.

'Ash dieback has spread rapidly in continental Europe. In the UK, the disease was first confirmed in trees growing in nurseries or on recently planted ash trees. However, many cases have now been confirmed in the wider environment in the UK and the disease is widely distributed. The latest distribution maps for cases of the disease in the wider environment can be found on the Forestry Commission website.’

Again the potential to be devastating has been somewhat ameliorated by the discovery that in certain growing conditions the disease is not so prevalent. Locally I have not seen any Ash trees with the virus as yet, despite this area (Eastern England) being one of the first to report it in 2012. Much of the problem has been the popularity of Ash; it is the third most commonly planted broadleaf in the country, both in municipal and home plantings with several very popular cultivars; one or two are exempt from getting the virus and research is centred on those for an answer to the problem.

And there are economic implications in all this as well the Ash alone…

‘Research by a team from the University of Oxford, Food and Environment Research Agency Science, the Sylva Foundation and the Woodland Trust published in May 2019 has calculated the true economic cost of ash dieback to the UK is estimated to be in the region of £15bn, with half of this over the next ten years, principally related to management and replacement costs.’

There has been a significant increase in the number of non-native tree pests and diseases being introduced to the United Kingdom since the early 2000s.

Some of these diseases cross over in species. In the US the disease known as Sudden Oak Death' is misleadingly named as it attacks most trees including beech, larch, ash, horse chestnut and sweet chestnut. It also attacks garden plants including rhododendron, viburnum and camellias.

I actually found a new Rhododendron disease in a garden I had planted, on an annual inspection some 15 years later. I was not sure what it was so I sent samples of leaf to the RHS who confirmed it was a silver leaf blight similar to others in trees, but fortunately it responded to the same treatment, which was an annual spray. Plant diseases are definitely on the up across species and the government bio security measures though good on paper are not stopping a continuous feed from abroad. 

As with so many of these foreign diseases they don’t have the natural predators that are present in their homelands. For example, the new box caterpillar now devastating box topiary everywhere is prey to a killer moth that has not accompanied it from Japan, and it has no predators here. Frequent spraying in time works but the caterpillar only needs a couple of days to strip a plant and you have to spray almost endlessly through the season.

The fact we import so much nursery stock does not help, but it is not the only avenue for diseases to enter the country. People still stupidly bring back plant material from foreign lands and don’t get stopped at customs or declare it; we are nowhere near as strict in this matter as say Australia and that obviously contributes to the problem.

Naturally the government, because of climate change, have schemes to plant trees everywhere and encourage individuals to do the same ‘to save the planet.’ Has any thought gone into advising what and what not to plant? None as far as I know, but the millions of trees mentioned in these plantings will nearly all be coming from abroad. What restrictions on species being brought in have been put in place? So many tree species are suffering from disease problems that there are not many ‘clean’ species left.

An article recently gave an update on the subject in the Times. Apart from the facts above it quoted a doubling of tree imports in four years and other plants which can also bring with them diseases have increased in quantity by fourfold in 25 years; how much real scrutiny has gone on during that period?

The Woodland Trust speaks of 20 serious tree pests and diseases imported since 1990, and the loss of tens of millions of trees.

The emphasis must be on UK nurseries producing more of our own stock but this of course is not an overnight solution. Very few UK nurseries have the enormous capacity of the Dutch and Belgian outfits alone and with size comes price differentials, so we are nowhere near competitive.

The government response is one of too late and to feeble to start with. Banning species from countries with these disease problems should have been done years ago; they are here now. They claim to have some of  the highest bio security measures in Europe but the facts would counter that claim. Stricter measures were introduced in March on imports of olive, almond, lavender, rosemary and oleander plants from countries affected with Xyella, a bacterium spread by insects; why so late? The disease devastating olives in Italy and spreading elsewhere is not new, it should have been singled out on the first news of the disease. We are not at the forefront as claimed, the diseases here already prove otherwise.

Scotland in Autumn

We don’t want to lose woodland, it creates and gives so much. Here the late David Bellamy says his bit on it all.

Dr David Bellamy, botanist:

‘I don’t know how long we mortals have stood in reverence of trees but I have been under their spell for a long time – I call them the “Time Lords”.

'Having lived within the demesne of Hamsterley Forest in County Durham for 40 years I must say, my favourite autumn walk is in my own back yard. All you have to do is choose one of the many well-marked tracks that fan out from the meanders of the Bedburn Beck. They’re all there, from the oaks, providing habitats and food for hundreds of species of creepy crawlies; alder beside the rivers, alongside weeping willows; hazel, with its catkins and nuts; rowan, with fruits that make great jam; fungi popping up under the canopy of beech leaves.

'My favourites, birches, were among the first large trees to colonise our isles, as the last Ice Age began to come to an end. Hooray for climate change.’

As I finished this another tree and  similar species comes under threat: the Larch is now in deep trouble with woodland areas nationwide confirming the disease. If a tree is diagnosed with the fungus an area of trees at least a hundred metres around has to be cleared; this alone will hasten the clearing of wood stock.

‘Sudden larch death is a disease of several host trees and plants including larch (all species), beech, chestnut and woody ornamentals including rhododendron, Camellia and Viburnum.  It is caused by the fungus–like organism, Phytophthora Ramorum. In North America the pathogen mainly affects oak and tan oak, giving it the common name Sudden Oak Death. In the UK the pathogen is not a large threat to oak species, and is more damaging to the coniferous plantation species Larch where it causes a disease known as Sudden Larch Death.‘

As I said at the beginning, not all of these diseases go the full cycle but so many are now present and active it is inevitable that large concentrations of woodland will be lost. The replacement is going to be difficult: simply, what do you plant?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Hetty Loxston and the Jazzato Band, by JD

"Hetty Loxston, a classical and jazz-trained singer from London formed Hetty and the Jazzato Band at the end of 2015 with clarinettist, and childhood friend Charlotte Jolly, and three Italian musicians Fabrizio Bonacci, Riccardo Castellani and Alessandro Cimaschi, upon moving back to London after a period of living in Bologna and Rome for five years.

"The band was conceived as a musical project that would aim to explore the lesser-known, gems of Italian Jazz from the 1920s-1960s with fresh arrangements and lyrics translated into English for a current, international audience. It was also a passion project for Hetty, an Italophile who wished to share the Italian music and culture she had grown to love, following a long period of living, working and studying in Italy."

• www.hettyloxston.com
• https://charlottejolly.co.uk/
• https://www.hettyandthejazzatoband.com/the-band

THURSDAY BACKTRACK: Music and news from 60 years ago - week ending 9 December 1961

 At #7 this week, the now classic 'Take Five' by Dave Brubeck:

In the studio...

... and to a rapturous theatre audience here:

Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):

4 December: 'President Kennedy authorized the U.S. Department of Defense to commence of Operation Ranch Hand, the defoliation of the jungles of South Vietnam. The first run was on January 12, 1962, and the last in February 1971.'

https://www.afhistory.af.mil/FAQs/Fact-Sheets/Article/458998/1962-operation-ranch-hand/

On the same day: 'An agreement on maintaining the neutrality of Laos was reached at the 14-nation Laos Peace Conference being held in Geneva.'

5 December - Berlin Crisis and the Berlin Wall: 'The largest ever escape from East Berlin, to the West, was carried out by Harry Deterling, a 28-year-old train engineer, after he and co-worker Hartmut Lichy learned that there was still an open rail connection at Albrechtshof, one-quarter mile from the border, and that East German authorities were preparing to block it. Deterling's wife and four children, his mother, and 13 friends boarded at Oranienburg, and four others got on at Falkensee. Deterling and Lichy never stopped at the Albrechtshof station, and rushed the train past startled border guards. The train's conductor, and six passengers who hadn't been in on the plot, elected to return to East Germany. The government tore up the tracks the next day and put up barriers, and there were no further escapes by train.'

6 December - the Space Race: 'NASA announced that the United States would not put an astronaut into orbit before the end of 1961, thus ending the possibility of matching the Soviets in the same calendar year. Lt. Col. John Glenn, the space agency said, would not be launched into space until at least January.'

8 December: 'Brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine, known as "The Pendletones", saw the release of their first recorded song, called "Surfin'" (with "Luau" on the "B"- side). For the single, record distributor Russ Regen renamed the group, The Beach Boys, and their first song peaked at #75 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.'

They had 'adopted their name in honor of the surf uniform of the day: Pendleton shirts worn over tee shirts with khakis.' - https://blog.pendleton-usa.com/2019/03/29/before-they-were-the-beach-boys-they-were-the-pendletones-3/

On the same day: 'Portugal's ambassador to the United Nations appealed for help from the UN Security Council, reporting that 30,000 troops from India were massing along the border of the Portuguese colony at Goa, and that seven ships from the Indian Navy were approaching Goa's coast.'

9 December: 'At the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam, the former British colony of Tanganyika gained independence, with Julius Nyerere as its first Prime Minister. Sir Richard Turnbull, who had been the British governor, served as the first and last Governor-general of Tanganyika until the nation became a Republic on the next Uhuru Day, one year later, with Nyerere as President.

    Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, appeared on behalf of the United Kingdom. At midnight, the British territorial flag was slowly lowered as a record played God Save the Queen. The lights were then turned off, the new national anthem, Mungu Ibariki Tanganyika (God Bless Tanganyika) was played as the new flag was raised, and the lights were switched on again. 

    In 1963, Tanganyika would merge with Zanzibar to become Tanzania.[

UK chart hits, week ending 9 December 1961 (tracks in italics have been played in earlier posts)

Htp: Clint's labour-of love compilation https://www.sixtiescity.net/charts/61chart.htm

WEEKENDER: Another Tale of Our Times, by Wiggia

I picked up a copy of the local newspaper last week for the first time in a while. As with most local rags the news content is inclined to be a bit Daily Star without the fun, e.g. 'dog runs off but is found later shock', or 'spider found in bananas shock.'

But an item did catch the eye: for years Norwich has been cut off, some would say good, from the rest of the country by a totally inadequate road network. That was partially alleviated by the dualling of a section (big deal !)of the north-south A11, but all else remains as is, including the tortuous route to the west. Using the A47 it takes two hours on a good day to get to the bottom of the A1 and then on to the Midlands and the north from Norwich; the Romans did a better job centuries ago, this road has been the subject of upgrading talk for decades.

The A47 serves a southern route round Norwich and for that part it is a dual carriageway; the rest isn’t, apart from a few short sections it is single carriageway, but to the north of the city there is nothing other than a spider's web of narrow winding roads to the coastal towns and getting to the southern A47 was and is a nightmare; having three rivers to cross and no proper bridges other than in the centre of town doesn’t help.

The answer was a northern route to link up with the A47 and this was finally delivered years late, as these projects are, with one glaring omission: the western end just stops and does not link to the A47 as originally intended. No real answer to that omission has ever been satisfactorily given, thereby making the project to a large degree pointless.

Logic would say that the road should never have been started without the mandate to complete the link as inevitably once it stopped there would be a myriad reasons put forward for it to go no further, and so it has come to pass.

The go-ahead for the completion of the link came about  before the virus hit. Even that had a sting in the tail: a survey, or as they called it a ‘consultation paper’ and several exhibitions of what might be were put out and put on so that people, mainly those affected by the current rat running, could put their views. We were given three options; only one was worthwhile as the others were too far west to resolve the problem of an incomplete link, increasing rat-running through our area; the vast majority voted for the obvious option but the council decided on a more westerly one - so much for democracy!

There was naturally pressure from those in the first choice area and from those not wanting a nice valley slightly compromised; fair enough, but the moving westwards of the proposed link makes the journey through the rat run more attractive. The link for many would just be too far with a viable though consequential alternative, so well done to the council and highways unit for wasting everyone's time and money by pretending to ‘listen’ to our wants.

The link is also needed as the 'northern distributor' as they call it is also going to have several large housing estates built on its periphery, and the new road will provide access - wait for it - not to the A47,  as no one will bother to use the further west option if it is ever completed, but access to add to the misery of the rat run. So drinks all round in the town hall for a monumental climb down that results in a wasted road that would have relieved the large local area being increasingly blighted by this rat run problem.

And it is not just a rush hour congestion  problem either. The rat run has two entries, both on weight restricted bridges, but these are ignored by increasing amounts of HGVs that illegally use the rat runs for the same reason as the personal car: it is the only way south to the A47 without a very big detour.

Anyway the government said yes to the money needed and everyone waits; anything is better than nothing even if it does take several times longer than Brunel needed to build a fully functioning railway from London to Bristol.

All of course goes on hold while the virus disrupts our lives and climate change ‘concerns’ go up a gear in the meantime.

So lo and behold various groups and all the opposition parties in the council decide that the link completion is no longer necessary; indeed the money could be better spent on other local projects like buses and those community centres that should have been provided by the developers. The NIMBY’s have joined forces and don’t want anything within a hundred miles of their domiciles and the bat conservation brigade have surfaced. All want those in the area to cycle more (yawn), use buses (which creates another problem if enacted upon, see below), and really want all cars off the road - a recurring theme for those in the climate change industry, for that is what it is.

I am always amazed how local councillors know how to spend millions of pounds of our money for political expediency yet couldn’t run a whelk stall between them.

For the buses to come through our, or what was my road has been an open sore for all the people who live there, not so much for for being against buses themselves, but for the fact that they have been resisted for a very good reason.

The majority would come from a large housing estate that was allowed to be built with only one entrance and exit road that also serves an industrial estate and a retail park, both growing, and has the local ambulance station on it as well; a wonderful example of tunnel vision in local government, and despite everyone who moved there knowing this was the case and the resultant problems should anything shut the road down - and it has happened - they now want a small road that exits onto a country lane that in turn feeds into our road, opened for the buses. That of course is a smokescreen to open the road to general vehicle traffic that would make make my old road an absolute and increasing nightmare with the added new housing traffic. This small road was actually built with the intention of it being buses only and has bollards that raise in the road after a bus passes; this was seen through at the time as a prelude to opening for all and rightly a big protest saw it was not used; nonetheless it remains in place!

But does anyone in County Hall actually point out what is needed for that estate is an exit onto the A47 which much of the estate is alongside? Oh no, that would involve spending money and wisely. Much better to join the protestors to the link completion, give in to the estate group who want the moribund bus exit opened (it is blocked with concrete blocks at the moment) and totally ruin the area.

Their total incompetence is a large part of the problem. Why do councils, having wrung concessions from builders (as in new roads community buildings etc.) in exchange for the permission to put up their God-awful rabbit hutches, then mysteriously allow same to go up without those same ’extras’? We can all draw our own conclusions on that one: brown envelopes, and sheer incompetence - yet some of these decision-making people claim to be professionals in their field!

And as elsewhere people actually vote for these clowns. There are several layers of government we could do away with. I can suggest where to start: get rid of all local councillors, and work upwards.

I was involved briefly with local people wanting traffic calming measures on our narrow road (with, in parts, no pavements); it all came to nothing, despite the local Lib Dumps using the scheme in two consecutive election leaflets as  a way to win over the local electorate. They lied, the town hall lied and the Highways Agency lied; they lied about the funding, they lied about start dates twice - and I have all the emails to prove it - and got away with something that in a commercial atmosphere would have landed them in court. Absolute shower, as Terry Thomas would have said.

It is a story I have seen in other areas we have lived in before and know it can be repeated countrywide. Why do we encourage them by voting for them? Not that I have for years, but enough turn out to get these people onto the gravy train in politics with absolutely no result for the electorate or area unless you can count one new bus shelter and a town sign instead of a village one, which is not far short of the sum total of ten years in office that I have witnessed.

This above apparently is worthy of a headline; the only thing of note is that five bloated council officials could all get in it together. Something so mundane that should automatically be supplied by the private bus company is after much head-scratching and moaning about finances considered an achievement; ours was nowhere near as grand.

We desperately need a clear out at all levels of government and sadly like the desperate need for NHS reforms it is unlikely to happen unless this country has a Winter Palace moment.

FRIDAY MUSIC: French Fancies, by JD

 A few French fancies beginning with 'raining in my heart' which seems appropriate in the current political insanity!