Giles cartoon (15 January but relating to December 1960): Electric train breakdowns
In November 1960 Glasgow's diesel-powered suburban trains began to be replaced by non-polluting, 'blue train' electric versions - brochure details and electrification program here.
Unfortunately there were soon accidents, on 13 and 17 December, leading to questions in Parliament and Ministry of Transport reports. 'The entire fleet was withdrawn for nearly a year after a train exploded because of transformer problems in December 1960, seriously injuring three people,' says a 2010 'Scotsman' retrospective.
Cover of November 1960 introductory brochure from British Railways (Scotland)
7 January: Following a four-day conference in Casablanca, five African chiefs of state announced plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. From the Charter of Casablanca emerged the Casablanca Group, consisting of Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
8 January: In France, a referendum supported Charles de Gaulle's policies on independence for Algeria with a majority of 75% (17,447,669 to 5,817,775) in favour.
9 January: British authorities announced that they had discovered the Soviet Portland Spy Ring in London. Arrested on January 7 were Harry Houghton, Ethel Gee and Gordon Lonsdale.
Also, In the former Belgian Congo, aides of jailed premier Patrice Lumumba formed the "Republic of Lualaba", in the valley of the Lualaba River.
10 January: The University of Georgia was forced to admit its first African-American students, after U.S. District Judge William Bootle ordered the U.Ga. to admit Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton E. Holmes.
11 January: Ukrainian SSR Communist Party Chief Nikolai Podgorny was berated by Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev after corn production fell short of goals set for 1960. In a session of the party's Central Committee in Moscow, Khrushchev accused Podgorny of lying to conceal theft and warned, "You will pay for this lack of leadership." Podgorny, along with Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin, would be part of the troika that would overthrow Khrushchev in 1964.
Also, The name Grampian Television was selected for independent television's new service covering the north of Scotland, replacing the name North of Scotland Television. The Grampian Mountains are one of three mountain ranges in Scotland.
13 January: General Cemal Gürsel, the President of Turkey since a May 27 coup, announced that the ban on political activity had been lifted and that parliamentary elections would be scheduled for October 15.
14 January:In the final week of his administration, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued an Executive Order that closed a loophole that allowed American people and companies to own gold outside of the United States. Since 1933, persons and companies under American jurisdiction were barred from buying, selling or owning gold within the U.S., but were not prohibited from hoarding it outside of the country. The new order directed that all Americans who held gold coins, gold bars, and foreign gold securities and gold certificates, would have to dispose of their holdings no later than June 1. The move came after the U.S. trade deficit had grown by ten billion dollars over the previous three years.
If there is one thing over the last few weeks that is encouraging, to a degree, it is the drip drip of snippets of information regarding the Green Agenda. Anyone with half a brain can see that we have been fed lies and ‘adjusted’ information in the form of statements about going forward; some has been picked up and put out there but few would have seen these basic facts.
But dig a little deeper and it can be seen that the government is rowing back on red lines as more and more obvious faults in their essay to save the planet are shown to be unfeasible and downright dishonest.
Rather like the claim about 90% of hospital patients with coronavirus being unvaxed, a fact that has been successfully debunked, the same goes for ‘facts' about energy production, or in our case the lack of.
The Government has no problem calling alternative opinion 'misinformation' in an increasing number of cases to shut down any alternative views, and is helped by a compliant in their pocket MSM, while at the same time they put out their own misinformation which naturally is never questioned by the same MSM.
The government has become the sole arbiter of the truth, something that is happening world wide; see Jacinda Ardern in NZ stating that very point, and here refusing to answer a question outside the pre-arranged ones from a compliant MSM who refused any comments on the story in their newspapers. She claimed it was a heckler though some said it was a journalist who stepped outside the remit. Of course we shall never know but this ploy 'only trust the Government, all else is misinformation' is being used at various levels as an aid, no doubt being suggested by the nudge unit, as a way for further compliance to be advanced.
And here is the Orwellian speech from Jacinda:
FLASHBACK: New Zealand PM told public ‘we are your single source of truth’
As video re-emerges of Jacinda Ardern speaking before the COVID lockdowns in March 2020, her remarks have drawn considerable backlash and prompted comparisons to a 'full-blown psychotic dictator.'
That above is as good an example of how so many things have been handled by world governments since the virus came upon us. It has been the perfect screen for dodgy facts and twisted statistics ever since; there is nothing new in this practice but never on this scale and frequency.
No more so than with the green agenda; the predictions and modelling for climate change have been even worse than the ones for Covid, but by continual scare-mongering populations world-wide have bought into the whole concept of man-made global warming.
The problem with the predictions is that separating the ‘man made’ part from what would have been at any other point in time just normal weather variations has never been shown in a way that anybody could see the difference, unless they ‘wanted’ to see a difference.
Our government is already back-pedalling on parts of the green agenda, simply because it is not feasible. In Germany the new chancellor has declared the nuclear sites will all be closed and coal to follow; this will be offset by quadrupling the offshore wind sites, but laughably gas will fill the gap - gas has become green! Very similar to here after the recent statements of Boris, but without nuclear and fossil fuel back up rolling black outs are inevitable, there simply isn’t the spare capacity elsewhere to supply all the countries going green. It is madness, unless of course he backtracks like Germany and declares gas green and we can then forget about the heat pump nonsense completely; perhaps this is the underlying thinking?
The heat pump nonsense has already become an ‘aspiration’ rather than a definite , it was never going to be achievable and the cost was off the scale. There is nothing wrong in upping the building regs re insulation and efficiency, that has been poor for far too long, but the rest with old building stock is fantasy.
Ruth Lea gives an appraisal of the net zero plans here:
The recent release of the quarterly figures for energy wind production showed a distinct drop in the third quarter by a third. Grid Watch showed that gas and nuclear were not only providing the bulk of energy needs but were almost flat out in the red doing so. Given a wind contribution of around 1.2% for days on end, quadrupling our offshore wind capacity as Boris wants to do will not fix any supply issues in no-wind scenarios. Energy costs are to go through the roof, we have to have back up if wind is the preferred way forward; and we are reducing nuclear back up, leaving only gas as a viable alternative.
The nonsense of this is we have our own gas plus the chance to use fracking and release ourselves from the ever increasing amount we have to import to keep the lights on. During this period the net imports doubled, all this with less demand, not a good portent for the future.
At least these facts were published in business sections of the newspapers, it is a start; before, it would have required a Freedom Of Information request or been denied as sensitive commercial information not for the public domain.
Being virtuous does not cut it when we import the same fuel we are abandoning here. It is the economics of the mad house, and the hidden costs are astronomical.
The general public seem to be oblivious to all this and probably think the coming price rise in gas is temporary or just a one off, when it is just the start of rises in prices; the 'heat or eat' slogan could soon come home to roost.
No political party would go this route without wondering if anyone will notice. As sure as eggs are eggs they will lose the next election, yet they plough on. Perhaps the enormous, and again largely unnecessary debt built up during Covid will make them pull back as they simply cannot afford to heap the huge amounts spent out above on top of our already historic high borrowing.
Ofgen have already added to the misery by failing to do due diligence on the numerous firms that have folded this year in the energy market. The model used for finance was never sustainable if prices were to rise as they have, and now the cost of all that is to be shared out among the customers of all companies - this amounts to £86 per household, and that is before the £1.7 billion pounds given to the last big one to go, is clawed back by again adding to everyone's bills. The final bill will be spread to all energy users! And will add £150 to the £86 and that is before any price rises. It is going to be a very expensive Spring.
A life support system that will allow failed energy supplier Bulb to continue serving its 1.7 million customers through the winter could cost the Treasury £1.7 billion, money that will likely be both funded from government coffers and directly passed onto households in the form of higher energy bills.
'Government coffers'; a phrase that is the ultimate oxymoron as the government has no money.
So it has to be asked, why the hell are we pursuing this net zero nonsense when it will solve nothing and the only gain will be the Green nutters' egos - there is not a single item that is an actual gain for the public - and the like, who have all taken note of the government's statements on funding for exploration and jumped onto the green bandwagon with all its subsidies. One wonders how long it will be before Joe Public starts to notice all this money in subsidies he is paying and getting nothing back other than higher energy bills; not exactly market forces is it, oh Conservative government, when the market is shut down in favour of one client, the Greens?
There is enough here to show those sitting on the fence that all is not what they are told…….
Meanwhile the virtue signalling continues apace. Ed Sheeran a popular singer who I have to admit I have never actually heard, for what that information is worth, has decided to buy land and plant trees so he can continue to travel the world in jets when touring. How very civilised of him. I suppose the thinking is ethat veryone else who cannot afford to buy acres and plant them with trees when they jet off for the annual holiday in Benidorm should not really go as they are polluting the planet.
He of course is far from alone in this virtuous activity; his talk of ‘life balances’ and cutting back on touring is manna from heaven to the green lobby - oh for the privileged position of affording to be so humble!
What is needed is the same people that Gervais mentions to start to look seriously at what this government is proposing and how it will impact their lives; time to stop mumbling down the pub and start to vote for anyone but the heritage parties, who don’t work for us and haven’t for years. If Brexit hasn’t shown how they despise the majority who voted Leave and did everything they could to cancel the result then nothing else will.
I really do think we are at the crossroads in this country. The truth is out there; the curtains need pulling back more to reveal it.
I bet you didn't know that JS Bach had another composer son as well as CPE Bach. Neither did I but now that I have discovered his music it might be almost as good as his father's. Almost and he was more prolific than his father as can be seen in the catalogue of his work.
PDQ Bach was the only forgotten son of Johann Sebastien Bach and his compositions were discovered some fifty years ago by the musicologist Peter Schickele.
Giles cartoon for this week: the Post Office industrial dispute
The background to this industrial dispute is the expansion of the British economy in the 1950s. The nation was heavily in debt and struggling with a balance of payments deficit. It was essential to boost exports but at the same time the public wanted more (and/or better) housing and consumer goods; this meant there was a competition for labour, made harder by the postwar shortage of manpower (which led to the drive to attract Commonwealth immigration), so wages were rising faster than productivity. The Government tried to negotiate the conflicting demands with a prices and incomes policy.
Britain was keen to modernise and the Electricity Act of 1947 took over over 500 local authority and commercial electricity producers. 'The newly nationalised electricity industry made a huge effort to build up Britain's electrical system. building dozens of power stations and encouraging people to use more electricity in their workplaces and homes,' says this British Library blog; and as the country electrified, it generated a boom in consumer electrical goods - TVs even more than washing machines! To hold down prices and rein in consumer spending the Government not only imposed a variable 'purchase tax' on luxury goods such as TVs - 50% at this time! - but also a combination of minimum down payments and maximum credit periods (see p. 30 here.)
As to the incomes side of policy, the Government had imposed what it called a 'pay pause' affecting public sector workers including teachers, as a 'breathing space for productivity to catch up'and in the hope that it would set an example to the private sector also. The pay freeze invited conflict over the established use of third-party arbitration between employers and unions, as the Chancellor Selwyn Lloyd noted in his secret memorandum to Cabinet in August 1961.
In response to governmental interference with the established negotiating mechanisms, the Union of Post Office Workers (UPW) led by Ron Smith began a work-to-rule on 1 January 1962 and called it off on 1 February.
Separately, the Post Office Engineers Union, (POEU) representing engineering staff (mostly in telecommunications including the public telephone system) started a work-to-rule on 20 January 1962 and called it off on 11 March. Prior to the 'pay pause' that union had gone to the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal, who as future Prime Minister Harold Wilson told Parliament'were threatened by the Government representatives and told what they had to do. Nevertheless, they awarded 7½ per cent. Within minutes the Postmaster-General was put up to say that the 5 per cent. would be paid, but that the other 2½ per cent. awarded by the tribunal would be withheld until some uncertain date in the future and without retrospection.'
31 December; 'Ireland's first national television station, Telefís Éireann (later RTÉ), began broadcasting. A speech by Irish President Éamon de Valera opened the new era.'
1 January: 'Western Samoa (now called Samoa) became independent from New Zealand. The two fautua (advisers), Malietoa Tanumafili II and Tupua Tamasese Mea'ole were named as the two heads of state.'
'The People's Revolutionary Party was founded as a Marxist–Leninist political party in South Vietnam, and its leaders receiving instruction directly from the Lao Dong Party of North Vietnam.'
'The Beatles auditioned unsuccessfully for Decca Records with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and, at that time, drummer Pete Best.'
'Illinois becomes the first U.S. State to decriminalize homosexual activity.'
3 January: 'A spokesman for Pope John XXIII revealed that Cuban leader Fidel Castro and several other officials had received a decree of excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church in 1961 under two sections of canon law, for impeding bishops in their work and for violence against clergymen. In September, Cuban bishop Eduardo Boza Masvidal and 135 priests had been forced to leave Cuba.'
5 January: 'The first recording on which The Beatles play, the 45 rpm record My Bonnie, credited to "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers" (recorded last June in Hamburg), is released by Polydor in the United Kingdom; "The Saints" is on the B-side.'
Also on 5 January: 'Prison inmate Clarence Gideon sent a letter, written in pencil, to the United States Supreme Court, asking them to reverse his conviction for burglary on the grounds that he had not been given the right to an attorney. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and, on March 18, 1963, issued the landmark decision of Gideon v. Wainwright, holding that the Sixth Amendment guarantee, of the right to assistance of counsel, required the appointment of a lawyer for any person unable to afford one.
6 January: John F. Kennedy was formally elected as the 35th president of the United States, as a joint session of the U.S. Congress witnessed the counting of the electoral vote. U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon, who had opposed Kennedy in the 1960 election, formally announced the result.
UK chart hits, week ending 6 January 1962 (tracks in italics have been featured previously)
Topping the chart at the start of the year is Johnny Tillotson with 'Poetry In Motion':
Giles cartoon for this week: The London Boat Show
The seventh London International Boat Show was held at Earl's Court from 4 - 14 January 1961 - Pathé News preview here. The last show was in 2018.
The first opened at the Empire Hall, Olympia on 30 December 1954 (Pathé clip here), sponsored by the Daily Express (Giles' employer), whose chairman Max Aitken was himself 'a keen power boat sailor.'
One of those who helped set up the exhibition was award-winning Hampshire-born boatbuilder Jack Chippendale, who in 1954 had just formed a company, Chippendale Boats, to market self-assembly boat kits using a new technique of glued construction and went on to help found the annual Southampton International Boat Show.
1 January: 'The British farthing coin, used since the 13th century, and worth 1/4 of a penny, ceased to be legal tender.'
Last minted in 1956; the bird is a wren, the smallest and commonest of British birds
2 January: 'Cuba's Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, demanded that the United States Embassy in Havana reduce its staff from 87 to no more than 11 no later than Wednesday. U.S. President Eisenhower ended diplomatic relations with Cuba the next day.'
3 January: 'At the United States National Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls, Idaho, the atomic reactor SL-1 exploded, killing three military technicians.'
4 January: 'East Germany's Chancellor and Communist party chief, Walter Ulbricht, held a secret emergency meeting of the Politburo of his Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the SED, and told his fellow party leaders that East Germany's own economic failures accounted for 60% of the departure of East Germans to West Germany. He warned the SED that the nation needed to take action to fix housing shortages, low wages, inadequate pensions, and the six-day workweek before the end of the year. Ulbricht also criticized East German schools, pointing out that 75% of the people who left were younger than 25. Most importantly, he created a task force to stop the loss of refugees; the solution would come in the form of the Berlin Wall and the heavily-guarded border in August.'
5 January: 'Mister Ed, one of the first "fantasy sitcoms" on American television, premiered as a syndicated TV program and would be picked up by the CBS network beginning on October 1.' It featured a talking horse.
6 January: 'John F. Kennedy was formally elected as the 35th president of the United States, as a joint session of the U.S. Congress witnessed the counting of the electoral vote. U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon, who had opposed Kennedy in the 1960 election, formally announced the result, saying, "I now declare John F. Kennedy elected president." The results were 303 votes for Kennedy, 219 for Nixon, and 15 for U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr..'
7 January: 'Following a four-day conference in Casablanca, five African chiefs of state announced plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. From the Charter of Casablanca emerged the Casablanca Group, consisting of Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.'
During the Christmas break I needed to know how to fix a small problem that I had encountered in my garage, and as is the way these days there is somewhere on Youtube a video, or several, showing you how to do it.
While browsing the dozens of videos that suited my needs something became rather obvious, that there were series of videos which featured young women doing all these tasks, and well, but wearing what in any other circumstances would be called inappropriate-for-the-task apparel.
No way am I prudish but there is an obvious reason for all this provocative DIY: it makes money. People subscribe to the sites and it creates income. The scantily-dressed women have an advantage over the standard bearded, tartan-shirted artisan for obvious reasons: sex sells.
In the interests of furthering my knowledge and taking one for the team I decided to delve further into this new world that has been created; it has to be said it is nearly all coming from videos made in the USA but I am sure the theme will spread.
It is a genre not confined to just DIY; it has already spread to gardening, for which I am grateful, having given up years ago watching the morose Monty Don and the other current boring trendy presenters, well most, so below we have a sampling of what could be coming to your TV screens soon, the days of Barry Bucknell are very long gone.
This one is from a series called What Meike Makes. Here on a workshop tour she ably demonstrates how things work and shows the best way to operate power tools wearing exemplary safety clothing that cannot be caught up in any machinery…
This is followed by another, Wood Girl, who despite wearing an outfit for the beach manages to turn out a very passable wooden stool. I cannot remember ever seeing anyone dressed like that in Latham's wood yard, but that was a long time ago!
It may be going against the grain (geddit ?) but I am all for gender equality in the workshop.
There are others similar to the above, and even electricians, but we move on to gardening were it gets even more explicit; sit tight, this is a big move on from Gardening Makeover programs. Firstly a young lady who inevitably grows cucumbers, large tomatoes and melons though you will have to make the effort and watch the whole series as I did for you and it is hard work.
I bring you Holly Wolf, Carol Klein she ain't; here she needs help with her brussel sprouts, don’t we all!
Here we have Nina Rynd growing early tomatoes in a fashion only she could carry off. Nina is very versatile and does videos on boat maintenance and DIY , fascinating stuff…
Moving on we go briefly back to gardening. There are several naked gardening videos and a naked World Gardening Day - new to me but what would I know? There is even for those so inclined male naked gardeners, not a pursuit I would recommend especially if using power tools!!!!!
This lady is ostensibly discussing microbes, ye-e-e-e-s:
A much more educational video from the most glamorous truck driver in America: Carolina shows us how to tap wheels, check oil and water and other essentials on the road, and why not…
Inevitably in hot climes and surrounded by water wearing a lot of clothing is a hindrance, but Taylor in Woman’s life on a Sailboat shows us how to sail, scuba dive and everything else and occasionally wears a hat! Oh, and nice boat!
Even cooking has its followers on Youtube. This is Pong (really), showing us how to cook pasta - don’t try using knives while watching this video, you need to concentrate on what you are doing, not what you are thinking…
I hope this small sample gives you a taste of things to come in the world of informative videos. Ah well, back into the garage!
