Eastenders Goes North, UK Goes West

So, because of Covid-19, filming of Eastenders has been cancelled. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/11197887/eastenders-cancels-coronavirus-pandemic/

Of course, Eastenders themselves were cancelled long ago, thanks to the financialised economy that made homeowning there a bigger fantasy than the TV series, now regularly shot in Hertfordshire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walford

To be a Cockney, traditionally you had to have been born within sound of the church bells of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside. Our Dad was – it was in the borough of Lambeth, but the noise carried over the water; as did the 1917 munitions factory explosion in Silvertown, which his mother still remembered in the 1970s.

Now, a three-bed semi in Silvertown goes for the thick end of half a million nicker https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detail.html?country=england&locationIdentifier=REGION%5E85381&searchLocation=Silvertown&propertyType=3&referrer=listChangeCriteria , as with the neighbouring boroughs of Victoria Docks, North Woolwich etc – double that of humble old Brum (£176k) https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detail.html?country=england&locationIdentifier=REGION%5E162&searchLocation=Birmingham&propertyType=3&referrer=listChangeCriteria .

Mind you, it’s getting harder to find a Brummie, too. In the 1980s, Gas Street Basin was full of old narrowboats. The area was dirty and dark, the canal surface a bloom of rubbish. Warehouses rotted slowly by the water’s edge. Then the gentrification started, but even at the turn of the ‘90s I met an old woman in a house off Broad Street, still making widgets and dropping them into a bucket inside her front door. Where are the metal-bashers now?

The nation has become a museum of itself; a place where people used to manufacture, used to family-farm and make a living at it, rather than take up shepherding as a middle-class rural pastime. Our cities have been rebuilt with borrowed money, our youngsters have (mostly) been excluded from property ownership, mortgaged for their college education, denied access to final salary pension schemes, entertained with vicious TV and cinema, distracted with officially enabled alcohol abuse, (but warned ‘drink responsibly’), tacitly encouraged in substance abuse (‘don’t prosecute, help them’), given the false hope of escape via a big win in gambling (but ‘when the fun stops, stop.’)

We are governed by moneymakers who keep us subdued with sentimental reminiscences, cultural illusions and snarling drama serials vicariously acting out the confusion and desperation of a people unloved, left to their fate like the passengers in ‘Lord Jim.’

Yet the biggest fantasy is that of the captains who imagine they will escape the consequences of the socio-economic damage they have caused, fleeing to boltholes like New Zealand or some imaginary island like The Man With The Golden Gun.

In a globalised world, the crisis is universal and there will be nowhere to hide. Already the stock markets have lost a third of their value, and that is before the mass redundancies and bankruptcies have started. Shares halved in the three years post-9/11, and recovered with monetary boosting; halved again in 2008-2009, and were rescued by enormous subsidies to the sector that had caused the problem; now we are going down for the third time, and already the Masters of the Universe are hinting that perhaps the old are expendable.

The 2004 Civil Contingencies Act https://www.gov.uk/guidance/preparation-and-planning-for-emergencies-responsibilities-of-responder-agencies-and-others required the setting up of ‘local resilience forums’ to plan for emergencies; we are now finding out that the current emergency is merely a spotlight on the vast systemic vulnerability that successive governments have allowed, helped to develop, and the implications of which they have almost completely failed to address. Like the faux Cockneys of Walford, we don’t know who we are, or where we are.

Towards Wiggia's Challenge - Some "ZeroCarbon" Truths

Yesterday, 'Wiggia' outlined some of the problems with 'zero carbon' energy. 
Here is energy market expert Nick Drew's response:

Our good host invited me to pick up on Wiggia's post, which I'm pleased to do.  It'll be piecemeal, I'm afraid.  I believe things are (a) not quite as bad as Wiggia suggests  -  in fact, (b) rather different to what he suggests, certainly at the macro level.   And as you'll see, we are in full agreement on a couple of important points.

Scenarios whereby the world is going to end:   Shorthand acknowledged, but let's also note that the wiser commentators have always said: the world will be just fine - it's mankind that's at risk.

"We must give up meat":  Actually this is a very recent and tentative new entrant into the list of admonishments.  Thus far, politico-greens (and the NGOs behind them) have mostly avoided recommending anything that might get people's backs up, preferring to stick it to the Man.  It's only very recently that meat and, whisper it softly, over-population have crept into the discourse.  (I am on record as saying that mention of - *gasps* - geo-engineering might be the next hitherto unspeakable suggestion to be voiced.)

Why is so little challenged?  Well of course for many years there was plenty of challenge, but of a spectacularly dumb-sophist nature (Monckton, this means you).  If any of you read my stuff on Capitalists@Work, you'll know I identify 2019 as the year when the whole game changed fundamentally (and XR / Greta are only partly to do with it).  Prior to 2019, "green" investment was a niche, if growing global sector, mostly dependent upon subsidy.  Most people sort-of got it, in a passive sort of way: OK yeah, global warming, probably, but not any time soon, not sure I care ...

The suddenly, two things happened, probably two sides of the same coin.  Various climate-related (or, let's say, extreme-weather-related) disasters struck, and people en masse jumped from Ok-yeah-sort-of, to Well Yes Obviously.  In fact, their position completely overshot the classic Green position, which goes on to say "... so we must de-industrialise and live in caves" - and moved swiftly to "... so we must rebuild those crumbling dams, build new sea-walls and flood defences etc etc" - i.e. Get Stuck In to what is known as Adaptation.

Meanwhile, led by Teresa desperate-for-a-distraction May legislated for "net-zero-2050" with narry a dissenting voice, and every other government in the world (bar a handful of really big'uns) jumped right in behind.

Most significantly, in all of this, the definition of Green (for investment purposes) changed from Prevention (building windfarms to "replace" coal) to Prevention + Mitigation + Adaptation.  This, to cut to the chase, means the governments of the world are gearing up to underwrite quite humungous investments (ironically, many of them into traditional steel-&-concrete projects); and this newly-expanded Green becomes the only game in town for banks and businesses everywhere.  This offers the prospect of a WW2 American war-economy boost to much of the world, Keynsianism on a vast scale (of redoubled significance post-virus), with 'war-profiteering' potential of a once-in-a-generation nature.

UPDATE:  Oh, and of course Swampy-style Hairshirt Greens just hate these developments.  They'd hoped we would understand you can't Adapt (and broadly maintain your lifestyle unchanged), it's not possible: so you must de-industrialise, in line with their happy cave-dwelling instincts.  They don't know how to seize the world's pension-funds and make hay with them (unlike the NGOs who use them as cannon fodder) - and are being left behind in the crush. ND

Not challenged??  There's no challenging something as big as that.   And every big global faction is seeking to lay hands on it:  honest capitalists & businesses;  leftists (who hope to use it as a smokescreen for their workerist agenda, see Green New Deal / Green Industrial Revolution passim); the developing world, which wants "reparations"; 'Green' NGOs (using it as a smokescreen for their "world governance" dreams); charlatans, kleptocrats and organised crime everywhere ...  they all want control of the world's pension funds to pay for all this - and leave them with a healthy cut.

Those that got in early stand to make a fortune: Funnily enough, no.   There were many who identified the potential for this around the time of the 2007-08-09 financial crisis, as being the Next Big Bubble to get into on the ground floor.  They were too early, by a decade.  Many of them lost the lot.

We still need conventional power stations  ... never included in the price equation:  Used to be true, but both aspects are changing fast.  New means of grid-balancing are coming on apace; and the costs of doing so are (a) falling and (b) very definitely being recognised where it matters.  Sure enough there are lavish legacy subsidies still being paid out from the era where the full-system costs were not being (explicitly) acknowledged.  But not going forward.

Still a daydream:  Yes, there are several unicorns featuring in many a "Roadmap" to 2050 - CCS, Hydrogen, etc etc.  We may not be able to tell the unicorns from the thoroughbreds - yet.  But, seriously folks, many engineers are really good, and a lot of money and determination is being put behind them.  Some of these big ideas are going to work.  Don't bet against it.

Lack of extra electricity to charge these vehicles  ...  needs to find three times the current capacity ... up to five times according to some:   EVs are, IMHO, a good example of something that can and will be made to work.  Some really good, intelligent plans are being hatched to manage this complex transition.  Don't bet against it.  But, yes, there really is something out there that could seem to require infeasible expansion of the electricity system, and it's not EVs: it's electrification of residential space heating (currently mostly natural gas).  It's infeasible.  It won't happen.  Best guess is that we'll convert to hydrogen burning instead.

Throw away our (nuclear) technical lead:  forget it.  Nuclear costs just get bigger and bigger, while Moore's Law rules elsewhere.  Back offshore wind, solar, smart-grid, demand-side response ...  all things we are really good at, and which have genuine potential for what's needed.  Leave nuclear to the French: it is going to bankrupt them.

Drax, stupid:  Yup - outrageously stupid.  Criminally stupid.

Germany, stupid:   Yup!  them, too.

Nick Drew

Carbon-zero energy: who’s telling the truth? by Wiggia

Apart from the coronavirus pandemic it is still the climate scam that leads on all other news fronts. The endless, almost propaganda-like programs come at us on a conveyor belt of editions, depicting scenarios whereby the world is going to end by (fill in any suitable date) - preferably very soon.
The same goes for celebrity environmentalists and the omnipresent Greta. giving their version of what should be done to any anyone that lends an ear. It is now a full-time industry in itself.

It is very difficult to find any variance to the mantra put out by all the involved bodies, be it government NGOs or individuals who want to appear caring: the planet will not survive, we must give up meat, or anything else vaguely connected to their view of the reasons climate is changing. Why is so little challenged? Even when the odd person does challenge, endless experts (?) are wheeled out to condemn the denier - notice that ‘denier’ is used as a label to pre-judge anyone who has a contrary point of view, thereby skewing the debate before it starts. 

Looking at all this from the outside, it is easy to take the stance that all is orchestrated in favour of big business, the justifiably termed ‘climate scam’; but all of it? Probably not. Many in the public and government domains also have much to gain: governments are always looking for an ‘edge’ to help them foist their progressive plans onto the public, and if it coincides with the thinking of some pressure group then it is a double whammy for the government: they will be perceived as doing the right thing, and the vociferous group will get itself noticed by backing them (though naturally the proposals will never go far enough to satisfy the group.)

It may sound simplistic to characterise the push for climate change in this way, yet the fact that billions of pounds of company money have been funnelled in this direction has also had an effect, with (as the entrepreneurs hope) the phasing out of fossil fuels: those that have got in early and grabbed a large chunk of the renewables market stand to make a fortune, knowing they are sure to get subsidies from public money.

Much of the propaganda surrounding wind farms and solar power represents them as cheap power when they are anything but. We still need conventional power stations (fossil fuelled or nuclear) permanently on standby for when the wind doesn’t blow, or blow correctly, or the sun doesn’t shine. This is never going to be cheap, and it is never included in the price equation. They tell us that by the time the transition is complete we will have developed enough backup power storage; this would indeed be an answer, but adequate storage in whatever form is still a daydream and will almost certainly remain so for decades or maybe forever. ‘We don't have the large scale storage capability in place [for wind] and indeed the technologies which would get us there are nascent technologies – they've not being [sic] demonstrated [on] that scale,’ says Martin Freer, director of the Birmingham Energy Institute.

Which brings us to batteries. Switching automobiles to battery power is in principle an admirable concept and it will come to pass; there is nothing wrong with that, so far as it goes. However, I have written before about the lack of extra electricity needed to charge these vehicles when their numbers increase: it simply isn’t there, and many of the rare minerals needed for batteries are not readily available on the scale needed in the future.

Battery-powered items are on the rise big-time in other areas besides transport. It may be easy to ignore the power required to charge a mobile phone or a home power drill, but the scale of the supply problem starts to emerge when you consider the demand just for the electric power tools used by professionals, plus the rise of the cordless home vacuum cleaner, and the growing market for outdoor garden equipment. Yet again, nothing is ever said about this: as long as a new product is electric, it is immune from criticism. 

From a few years ago till now, the rise of the battery-powered device or piece of equipment has been enormous, small beer at first in the scheme of things, but no longer: the total of millions of these items takes a sizeable chunk from the total electricity supply and the demand is increasing.
An interesting article or report in the Times the other day gave a clue to the scale of the problem. It was not from a ‘denier’ about climate change, but from a green think tank group. It declared ‘problems’ with meeting the 2050 target: the UK needs to find three times the current capacity by then to reach the carbon neutral target.

But despite much trumpeting of a first, having had two fossil-fuel-less months last year (May and June, note the months, and of course this includes nuclear), fossil fuel provides the basis for reliable energy at this time. The closing of the remaining nuclear plants with only one new (Hinkley) in the pipe line and the scrapping of the building of three others leaves a very large hole in future energy production that wind power could never fill. Our requirements for carbon-free energy and transport will need up to five times our current output according to some experts and a whole fleet of new nuclear plants; not likely, as getting one built has taken or will take a couple of decades.

There are currently 15 nuclear reactors at nine sites. The first of these to be shut down will be expected in 2023 and the last in 2035, so there is not long to get started on building any new ones.
We also import energy with a high voltage connection to France plus Holland and Belgium, and a new connection to Norway is in the offing; this is a cop-out on getting our act together with home production, and does anyone want to be reliant on imports of that kind to stop the lights going out? For a nation that was at the forefront of producing nuclear power to come to the state we are in now it is a sorry tale. It beggars belief we could throw away our technical know-how and lead in that area and be reduced to importing energy from nuclear-led France.

The same incompetence led to the conversion of the Drax power plants to biomass. Not only does the electricity cost double that of a gas plant but each plant uses four million tons of wood pellets annually, imported from Canada. It must be one of the most stupid decisions any government has made regarding energy production or anything else for that matter.

The seasonal variation of wind power without nuclear could scupper any carbon neutral plans, as in Germany, where they stupidly listened to the green lobby and closed all their nuclear plants. They then had to reopen and build coal- and gas-powered power plants to meet demand. Not very forward-thinking, yet we are taking the same road.

And again, all we are told is that we have a shrinking deadline for being carbon neutral with nobody questioning in public the feasibility of it all, or rather total lack of feasibility. One can only assume that an awful lot of people have a lot of monetary gain included in their plans and that government to some extent is in cahoots with this. Once again big numbers are thrown around with the knowledge if it all goes wrong or exceeds current pricing estimates - as it inevitably will - the tax payer will pick up the bill. Nothing new there, then.

In The Surgery

Good morning, Doctor.

Good morning. What can I do for you today?

It’s not me, Doctor, it’s my daughter. I think she‘s on the autism spectrum. We were wondering about a diagnosis.

I see. How old is she?

Fifteen.

And what are the symptoms?

She gets these obsessions. Once she’s decided she wants something, she just won’t let up until she gets it.

And?

She’s incredibly bossy. Wants to tell other people what to do all the time.

And if they don’t oblige?

Either she tells them off, throws a tantrum or gives them the silent treatment, big-time.

What if they don’t give in?

Then they’re an enemy. She’s got a list and they’re not coming off. She’s determined to settle the score, one way or another. And the looks she gives them!

How is she at school?

She bunks off, mostly. Says it’s a waste of time. She thinks the world is going to end. She reads a lot about that sort of thing. She’s becoming quite an expert. Lectures us, when she’s talking that is.

Anything else?

Yes, she’s massively picky about her food. Sometime refuses to eat at all. It drives her mother crazy.

H’m. You realise it’s a very long process getting an official diagnosis? Six months or more to get the first appointment, then follow-ups. Maybe a year from start. Even if she gets it, it can take three months just for the confirmation letter to get typed up and sent.

Golly.

And then there’s getting the EHC Plan. Another long process, with the Local Authority fighting you every step of the way. Could take another year, with appeals – unless you get a lawyer involved early on.

I didn’t realise.

And if your daughter has a record of non-attendance at school they’ll say there’s not enough evidence from education.

We were hoping for a special school.

The LA is hardly going to make that recommendation if she seems unwilling to attend consistently.

Oh my gosh. What can we do?

Take this prescription. You’ll need to go to several places to get it filled, but it’s worth it.

‘One garden shed, two armchairs, alcoholic spirits as needed.’ A home unit? And she’s too young to drink!

Not for her, for you and her mother. I’ve had teenage girls too. And it’ll save the State a fortune on medical processes, EHC costs, Disability Living Allowance and what not.

That’s an outrage!

I can throw in a luxury holiday for two, if you like.

No! I demand a second opinion!

No pleasing some people. Here’s a list of private educational psychologists. The LA won’t want to accept their opinion, but with a lawyer you may be able to force it through. With luck, you can get the diagnosis before the world ends. Next!

FRIDAY MUSIC: Finbar Furey (and St Patrick)

Yes I know it is Friday the thirteenth but this is close enough to St Patrick's Day and time for the annual celebration of Irishness!

You may not have heard of Finbar Furey but he is something of a 'national treasure' in Ireland; singer, songwriter and one of the very best uillean pipers being winner of national piping medals while still in his teens. If you read the comments beneath these videos you will see that his singing touches so many people's hearts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finbar_Furey















‘Finbar is the jewel of Ireland. A rough cut, perfectly polished, precious, invaluable treasure of ours. He lives and breathes every word of every song he writes and performs. It feels like he sings every one just for me. Watch him, he mesmerises. With each gesture, each movement, each expression, he draws you in with his unmistakable, deep, dulcet, husky and yet sweetly soft, intimate, often delicately vulnerable, voice. With every song he sings I am convinced he can see inside my heart and I into his. He is the master. This is an icon at his best... so far’.
- Imelda May

Covid-19: don't panic! says JD

Don't panic!

In 1968 Hong Kong flu killed 80,000 people in the UK
In 1957/58 Asian Flu killed 33,000 people in the UK
In 1918/19 the Spanish Flu killed 200,000 people in the UK.
https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/uk/history-of-major-virus-outbreaks-in-the-uk-in-recent-times/

Here is Michael Mosley, writing in 2013, explaining how the flu virus is constantly mutating and "Once our body has learned to recognise the virus surface proteins, it remembers them - which means our immune system is much better prepared the next time we encounter a similar virus."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21125713

In the USA - "CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu. Maybe up to ~20,000 by now. In the USA alone. A crude, don’t-believe-it, useless almost-certainly wrong worldwide estimate is ~300,000 for the year (extrapolating from our population to the world). Anyway, the real number will be higher than 20,000. Coronavirus after a couple of months is 3,000 in the entire world."
https://wmbriggs.com/post/29566/

So why is there such a panic now over another, possibly less virulent strain, of flu?
Dr Bruce Charlton knows why - "We are So Extremely Far Away - a thousand fold? - from anything significant in terms of global deaths over this many weeks, that the international health crisis is revealed as fake. However, a fake crisis is better - from an Establishment perspective - than a real one; as it can be controlled. Indeed, from the mass media attitude; the decision to make the most of Corvid-19 seems only to have been made in the past couple of weeks, when it became clear that it was not a major global danger."
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2020/03/how-dangerous-are-ravens.html

Anecdote:

November last year I had what might have been a severe cold or flu which had me laid low for maybe two weeks. That is unusual for me because I rarely catch cold but if I do it will be gone in three or four days. This time it was different. I used more than the usual ration of kleenex and felt extremely weary. And then it passed. The immune system is still working obviously. Unfortunately I passed on this cold/flu to the receptionist in the chiropractor's office. She told me she took more than a month to recover for which I was 'rewarded' with a slap on the wrist.
That is one of the reasons I'm not living in constant fear of this new plague. Unfortunately the press love to spread dis-ease. It sells papers and mankind seems to be addicted to fear. Some people are only happy when they are miserable!

Covid-19: be unprepared - and take the consequences

If you are still reassuring yourself that we just need to be British about it all, please read these two accounts by hospital doctors in Italy, which spell out what happens when medical services are overwhelmed:

https://threader.app/thread/1237142891077697538

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236933818654896129.html

Note from the above that other life-threatening emergencies remain untreated, even unassessed. It’s not just Covid-19 victims that will suffer. These medics tell us we must take great care with old and vulnerable family and acquaintances, to reduce the chance that they may have to come calling on a system that can do nothing for them.

Once again, please read the above accounts.

Veteran Conservative commentator Iain Dale reminds us https://www.iaindale.com/articles/its-time-to-reverse-the-decline-in-nhs-bed-numbers-updated of the long-term decline in the UK’s hospital bed provision, something he warned us about two years ago. According to this ranking on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds , our beds per capita are fewer than Italy’s, and one-third of Germany’s (which could help to explain the latter’s lower Covid-19 fatality rate.)

Meanwhile, over in Moneyland, we have the insane, Shkreli-like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli unempathic suggestion from CNBC financial commentator Rick Santelli: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/06/your-brain-capitalism-cnbc-market-analyst-rick-santelli-calls-infecting-global

‘I'm not saying this is the generic-type flu—but maybe we'd be just better off if we gave it to everybody. And then in a month, it would be over, because the mortality rate of this probably isn't going to be any different if we did it that way than the long-term picture, but the difference is we're wreaking havoc on global and domestic economies.’

As wise owl Richard North observes http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87542 , ‘adoption of the "take it on the chin" option would lead directly to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths.’

North also points out that the UK has long neglected to prepare for an epidemic, and links to this study  https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-019-2616-1 that was published just before WuFlu hit and said presciently, ‘A serious influenza pandemic is very likely to overwhelm the health care system.’

We failed to Contain – perhaps that was not possible, in a free-living democratic society – but it is absolutely vital to Delay the progress of the disease, to give our NHS a chance to cope.

Further, when all this (or the worst of it) is over, we need to reassess Britain’s general preparedness for emergencies of all kinds. Waving COBRA at us like a magic wand when crisis is upon us, will not do.

It is time for our political class to professionalise.