Spivs to right of them, Dorks to left of them

A few days ago I read a piece in The Engineer about various alternatives for UK nuclear.

The situation over Britain’s proposed fleet of new nuclear reactors can charitably be described as a mess, and it isn’t one that looks likely to be tidied up any time soon. 

An interesting start but painfully familiar. Further on there is a mention of Liquid Fuelled Thorium Reactors (LFTRs) and opportunities for the UK to involve itself in what may turn out to be an important nuclear development.

If it’s true that the UK is incapable of developing a fighter jet on its own (and we gave our opinion on that a few months ago) then it must surely be beyond our capability to sort out all the problems with LFTR development. But there are interested parties in the US and thorium research is underway in China: this sounds like a prime candidate for a multinational research effort, something which would probably be more palatable to many than the current proposed Chinese investment in UK nuclear.

What struck me was not so much the content of the piece, but the political realities illustrated by the above photo. These two guys are supposed to have our hopes for the future on their shoulders. 

We must be mad.

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

More things in heaven and earth, Horatio

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

- Hamlet (1.5.167-8)

In the DM today, an account of how the SAS used the occult after WWII to find the victims and perpetrators of war crimes:

"On one occasion they even called upon the spirit world, setting up a Ouija board on a table in Villa Degler’s candle-lit drawing room. Numbered playing cards were laid out, and the letters of the alphabet. An upturned glass was placed in the middle.

 

"Suddenly the glass spelt out a name, ‘F-o-r-d-h-a-m’, followed by ‘I was killed at Cirey’ - a village in the Vosges. The ‘message’ revealed that he was an Allied airman whose bomber had crashed. He and another crew member were captured and made to dig their own graves before being shot.

 

"The next morning, the team sped off to Cirey, where locals took them to an unmarked grave. When they dug, they turned up two bodies.

 

"The Ouija board also identified the German responsible for the shootings. The team ran him through a registry of suspected war criminals and discovered a man by that name had been in the Gestapo. He was arrested."

 

When I was a schoolboy, some friends experimented with Ouija. They came back terrified. You may be as rational as you like; I'm not messing with it.

 

 

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Spiderman the fraudster

We took the children down to the library to hear a storyteller enact a West African tale about the trickster spider/man, Anansi (converted to a rabbit in the U.S. Uncle Remus stories).

The story roughly paralleled this one:

Anansi heard the birds talking about the Dokanoo tree in the river. He could only get to the tree if he could fly. The birds gave Anansi some feathers so that he could fly.

Anansi flew to the tree. He was greedy and the birds took his feathers away. Anansi was scared to be in the middle of the river.

Alligator came by, and Anansi asked him for a ride. He took Anansi to Alligator’s home. Anansi was scared to go to his home.

Alligator liked to wash his eggs in the river. He told Anansi to help him wash his eggs. They went down to the river and Anansi ate an egg. He passed an egg to Alligator and said “One.” Anansi ate another egg. He passed an egg to Alligator and said “Two.” Anansi ate another egg. He passed an egg to Alligator and said “Three.” Anansi ate another egg. This happened until Anansi had eaten eleven eggs and there was only one left. For all this time it was the same egg passed to Alligator! Anansi would rub it in the river and pass it back to Alligator.

Now Anansi took the egg basket back to Alligator’s home. Alligator’s sons gave Anansi a ride back to the other side of the river. By the time Alligator knew what Anansi had done, he was gone.

It was great. The children learned some gestures to go with it, and a little song, and a fair bit of Jamaican patois (the teller was made up as a "traditionally built" mama).

Then came a question for the children: what was the moral of this story? And they said, don't steal.

Perhaps it's because they're young. Or maybe even at that age, they know how to give the expected answer.

For obviously, the lesson is exactly the opposite. Waking up hungry and unable to access food on his own, Anansi has used his ingenious brain to cheat the birds and Alligator, returning home safely with a bellyful of fruit and eggs. Like "King Rat" and "Ivan Denisovitch", it's about survival and ruthlessly ditching conventional mores that are likely to see you stay poor, or even starve to death.

"If you can let us have a handling fee and your bank details, we can transfer a large sum into your account..."

Meanwhile, a group of fervid little minds has filed away this experience to puzzle out its deeper meanings over the years to come.


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Evans, it's another black box

Sackers recently sent me a link about David Evan’s climate theory.

Dr Evans has a theory: solar activity. What he calls “albedo modulation”, the waxing and waning of reflected radiation from the Sun, is the likely cause of global warming.

A summary of his initial work can be found here and later work is here - far too much to summarise in a single blog post. The work is certainly interesting, but as with many climate claims the first issue is whether or not it deserves attention. The second is how much?.

The basic problem is that there is no such thing as climate science and no such tribe as climate scientists even though we use the terms in order to take part in the debate. In reality there are many specialist climate areas and many specialist scientists but unlike more established sciences, climatology hasn’t yet reached a state of overall coherence. There is no climate equivalent of the periodic table.

An alternative to absorbing the minutiae of Dr Evan’s approach is to treat the whole thing as a black box. This in no way implies that the Evans theory is not worth studying for anyone so inclined. The black box approach is merely a practical way to tackle the incoherence problem for those of us with no strong allegiances to any particular theory. Each climate theory is treated as a black box.

It doesn’t matter what is in the box.

It doesn’t matter who built it.

It doesn’t matter who endorses it.

Predictive performance is what matters.

So Dr Evan’s black box passes or fails its first test between 2017 and 2021. Even if cooling occurs on cue, this black box has only passed one simple test. A coin toss could do as much. It doesn’t follow that the Evans box will pass any other tests.

This testing process could go on for decades, but so what? Science is merely a complex way of saying “if you do this you see this”, so that’s how we test assertions about the future. We wait. Scientists may prefer us to admire their lovingly crafted box before it passes any test whatever, but that’s another and much older story - human behaviour.

Having said that, Dr Evans is in my view an interesting chap. I've been following his posts from the beginning because we need such people if we are to make progress. We need to find the climate equivalent of the periodic table because as yet we don't have it. 

Perhaps 2017 will give us our first clue but don't bet on it. 

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

The Krays and the Establishment

Blogger Wiggia has passed on some fascinating personal experiences relevant to a recent post Will the Establishment win again?

----------------------------------

The Daily Mail piece is correct as far as my knowledge of a small part of it goes, I lived in the area during my formative years and there were few who did not know about the Krays and many had contact of some sort with them or their organisation.

If you had a brain you had nothing to do with them it was that simple. An acquaintance, one of three brothers I knew, none of whom one would knowingly upset worked for the twins. He was the dimmest of the brothers and thought there was some kudos in what he did. It all came to an end over something very minor and he took a very nasty hiding from them for that.

There is also the myth as partly told in the Daily Mail piece that they only were violent towards their own kind, it suits a Robin Hood mindset. This is also not true as favours were done for others and people with no connection would have their meeting with some henchmen as a reward for favours. There was even a well trailed story told first hand of a car driver with his wife who recognised the Krays at traffic lights and indicated to his wife who they were. He was seen doing this, pulled from his car, beaten senseless and left in the road. There are many similar stories.

The night that Jack the Hat was murdered there was a party in a flat opposite that night to the house were the murder happened and I detail some of the party happenings here.

The following Sunday, the local was a hive of information being given as party attendees all knew of the murder. Reggie Kray had come to the door looking for old acquaintances to stand as alibis but nobody offered! The point was, the whole of the East End knew what had happened that night by the morning afterwards, yet it was I think, eight months before any move by the police was made. That in itself was hardly surprising as the local plod were all either in the Krays' pocket for favours done or bought off.

The worst police station for outright corruption was Stoke Newington. A personal incident gives a good example of their operation style. My sister who was only 16 or 17 at the time had been at a party that was raided. Several party goers were charged with drug use - cannabis. As this was the sixties, hardly surprising, but the police took all names regardless of of any evidence and no, my sister genuinely never took anything. 

The police used the incident to blackmail parents into paying money to keep names out of papers. They called at our house several times asking for my father and eventually he gave them £20 to go away. I saw this happen - they were not even trying to hide the reason for their presence.

On the larger scale that police station was some time later "cleansed" of personnel though having got wind of what was about to happen the early retirement wheeze came on strong. Amazingly, a few years later the whole cleansing procedure had to be revisited as the rot had started all over again. 

It was all common knowledge, but it gives an insight as to how things must have been at higher levels. The Boothby affair was also common knowledge in the East End long before it got out in the open, and how difficult it was to clamp down on the Krays without bringing the house of cards down.

-------------------------------------

Further reading of Wiggia's East End experiences at James' blog.

Of the East End and jellied eels

Of East End pubs, the Krays and gay clubs [part 2]

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

In search of the Modern Man-ifesto

It began with someone sharing this on Facebook (to the tired smiles of schoolteachers):

Franklin turns out to be a male knitting expert:

http://the-panopticon.blogspot.co.uk/

- which is a developing thing, apparently (like the way we're currently deluged with gardening and cookery on TV):

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=male+knitting+expert+uk+tv

... and I eventually remembered Kaaffe Fassett from UK TV years ago - male invasion of yet another female domain -

http://www.kaffefassett.com/Home.html

... So are men becoming feminised? But is sporting a beard a reaction to that? (are hipsters an outgrowth of metrosexuals - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrosexual ?)

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/oct/03/hipster-social-phenomenon-commercial-success

Like hippies in Haight-Ashbury, birds of a feather have to have a place to flock together, and now it's the East End's turn to be invaded:

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/pret-s-arrival-in-brick-lane-sparks-angry-chain-reaction-from-shoreditch-hipsters-10396112.html

- bitterly resented by an early scout:

http://metro.co.uk/2015/07/17/heres-the-fool-proof-way-to-stop-areas-like-brick-lane-becoming-gentrified-5300647/

Great food for a fiver on Sunday, though. And then a reaction from other, well, progressives?

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/27/shoreditch-cereal-cafe-targeted-by-anti-gentrification-protesters

The British: never happier than when at each others' throats.

Looks like the knitting market's been sewn up. Maybe I'll get into kittens.



READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Investment overview

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.