My response to XR poll

Constant dialogue with officers and members of the WMCA and TfWM is essential to win them over to urgent Climate compliant decisions.  The W Mids Climate Coalition has 11 action points that must be implemented.  

 Action Points - 2024 version.pdf

However, almost nothing has changed since their pious Climate Declaration of 2019.  Hence, the charge of hypocrisy with their present business as usual policy.

FIRST STEP: Abandon Metro, Sprint, Guided Busways and pointless bus franchising.  Instead, regional Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) and 'Virtuous commuting'.  

 Bus and businesses at the centre of a virtuous circle

Next, use the funds saved to insulate, solar power, make highly energy efficient every home of the poorest in the region.

The honourable, prestigious Lunar Society must act

Our side (our firm ally and friend Israel) is indulging in cold blooded murder of even our own people when they are aid workers or paramedics.  Our friend's resumption of the slaughter is stopping the release of hostages that is only seen when Israel keeps to the Ceasefire Agreement.

I think the upright, early members of the Lunar Society would be horrified by our slaughter of all and sundry, including those who are trying to save lives in Gaza and the West Bank.

My taxes, my government, and my side allow the killings by Israel and the killings by Ukraine (for Ukraine, admittedly in self defence but where compromise is now essential). This is total hypocrisy, totally outrageous and total war that is never ending by all four countries! Except Gaza is hardly a country that WE have flattened with our weapons. And no-one cares a sod because we are safe and secure in our beds.

  

Should the prestigious Lunar Society be saying something - perhaps?

Treat Israel like Russia

Excellent speech, Alex.  However, the UK must get much tougher with Israel and implement BDS - Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions  - and do exactly what the Campaign Against the Arms Trade insists on.

Israel remains a rogue state, a murderous state and must be treated in the same way as Russia.  We should be having nothing more to do with this disgusting, lying State which commits war crimes with impunity.

Oak Farm Quarry Landfill

Dear friends, who are responsible for what is seen in impoverished, Third World countries that take our plastic and old tyres for burning.

Broken down fencing and insecure gates give open access for children, young people and adults (and old, worn out crocks like me) to enter the Oak Farm Quarry Landfill site, as here: 

 Landfill site unprotected.jpg

 Entrance to open landfill site.jpg

When is this area, alongside and including Dudley's shameful and disgraceful section of the UK's longest, urban-rural-urban, cycle-walkway of 20 Kms in the heart of England, in the bleak, backward, barren Black Country, going to be regenerated and, then professionally maintained thereafter?

Staffordshire County Council and Wolverhampton City Council can both maintain their 15 Kms of the UK's top cycle-walkway for business, commuter and leisure use.  Why can't Dudley look after their 5 Kms to make it usable, once again?

The law and order brigade ...

... of police and politicians need to act on their beliefs. The Police to get tough over the criminality on the UK's longest, continuous, urban-rural-urban, cycle-walkway. The politicians to show some semblance of morality over their peculiar priorities in using their 2020, £15 BILLION to replace yet more railway lines and buses with tramways. All, while the 20 Kms cycle-walkway remains a disgrace of a muddy mess in the 5 Kms section that is the responsibility of Dudley councillors and their electors.

to Raj Kandola

I'm trying to influence you!  Away from the £15 BILLION and 150 miles of tramway as the poor suffer and the Climate Emergency takes off.  Act for the poor and Climate instead!

We're like the Emperor demanding​ ...​ see photo, below ...

... yet more finery, a wish list of never ending goodies and all at the expense of the welfare of the poor and the ill, so that waging war can be fully funded.

PLUS:

So that railways and buses can be replaced/duplicated with tramways.

So that we play our full part in funding war on Russia and the Palestinians. 

So that buildings and facilities can be regenerated as a status symbol of extravagance and flaunted wealth.

BUT, it is all vanity and prestige to cover our naked selfishness and greed and empty thoughtlessness. 

Nature had the first word in our creation and if we don't live in harmony with her, we will be simply dispensed with.  She has the last word, too! 

SCRAP THE VEHICLES TRASHING THE PUBLIC HIGHWAY NEAR OAK LANE, KINSGSWINFORD DY6

This time, on Monday 24 March 2025, I saw two 4x4s and a further vehicle on the Ordnance Survey, Explorer map, named "traffic free" route for cycles, walkers and horse riders running alongside Oak Lane Caravan Park and the two scrapyards, all three on the north side of Oak Lane, Kingswinford DY6.

These vehicles churn up untarmacked surfaces to make them unusable by walkers, cyclists and horse riders for whom the path is intended.  This is the lawless, unpoliced, wild west of Dudley borough, the historic capital of the bleak, barren, backward Black Country.

This same 20 Kms Black Country Active Travel Route is tarmacked 2 Kms further north in Wombourne and so is well used.

Individuals must stand up for what really matters.  Our right to walk, cycle and horse ride exactly where we are meant to go.

The Police must confiscate and scrap these vehicles and, on every occasion a vehicle is reported on the cycle-walkway.  Much better, they must attend every day until the lawless get the message.  And the drivers must put right their damage to the public highway surface (or pay) - along the whole, long section.

Perhaps, allow dirt/quad bikers, 4x4s to access the vast Himley Quarry Landfill hills, aka Himley Environmental and Biffa Waste on Google Maps.  But, ONLY from the Crooked House Lane on the north side and, from the south, via the tunnel to Home Farm DY3 4DE, under the cycle-walkway from Oak Lane DY6.

NOTE on Public Right of Way status on the Dudley Definitive Map

The road via the tunnel (under the bridge) to Home Farm is a "Restricted Byway" on the Dudley MBC Definitive Map.

A very small part of the Dudley section of the Black Country Active Travel Route is Public Right of Way BRH0008 and, therefore, an official "public footpath".  This is at the 'dogleg' section where the two old railway lines meet.  This Public Right of Way (PROW) has long been a linear mudbath caused by the dirt and quad bikers and the 4x4s on a route that should be restricted to being a Public Right of Way (PROW) and be given a National Cycle Network number over the full 20 Kms from Fens Pool Avenue to NW Wolverhampton.

Hubris and complacency led to copy cat of 1973 on 7.10.2023

JEREMY BOWEN, from 'The Making of the Modern Middle East':

"The Middle East was at boiling point, and another full-scale Arab-Israeli war happened in October 1973.  Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack when Israel had closed down for Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holy day.  Intelligence reports that it was coming had been ignored; the crushing defeat Israel had inflicted in 1967 had induced hubris in its leadership.  Israel narrowly came out ahead, while Egypt still considers the war a victory.

"The war once again demonstrated that the Arab-Israeli conflict was a battlefield for the superpowers, who set up airlifts to support their Middle Eastern allies."

Feedback for the Police and authorities

Antisocial, we don't care a toss, attitudes and behaviour from the authorities leads to ...

We all know that the poor Police are powerless to do anything. Nothing will happen because they are rushed off their feet. Not even my photo evidence was asked for.  Simply no interest.  Reducing crime by raising the respectability of the UK's, second and longest, urban-rural-urban Active Travel Route is completely out of the question. A disgraceful, disgusting provision will invite disgraceful and disgusting behaviour of the kind I witnessed and was subject to. Because the authorities, including the Police, do not care one jot, of course antisocial behaviour will be rife, as I reported to you (Police and Dudley Council)

No wonder, in the same area, there was the arson attack and bulldozing of the Crooked House, 19 months ago.  And six Dudley railway lines were destroyed, too as we all sit in traffic jams and poisonous air.  The councillors and officers are asleep at the wheel.

NATO military exercise in 1983 made Russia so jittery ...

6 pm News on 21 March 2025:

BBC Security Correspondent, Frank Gardner:

"It is no exaggerration to say that Oleg Gorduevsky quite possibly prevented WW3.  As a colonel in Russia's KGB, he spent many years as a double agent passing vital intelligence to both Britain's MI5 and MI6.  In 1983 as the KGB resident in London at the height of the Cold War, he warned his British handlers that Moscow had become so paranoid about an imaginary surprise attack by the West, that the Soviet Union began preparations to strike first.  As a result of his tip off, NATO curtailed its military exercise, code-named Able Archer and the crisis was averted.

to Mr Goodman of West Midlands Police

Dear Mr Goodman

WORK TOGETHER TO ALL IMPROVE THE AREA for which we are all responsible!

Thank you for your conversation over the phone, although I had done the vacuuming of the lounge floor, especially in honour of what I thought was to be a personal appearance by your good self.

This is what I was trying to get over to you, very inadequately, in my stumbling speech just now:

1. We are all in the business of reducing criminal behaviour, not just the Police.
2. We can do this by working together - all of us - members of the public, the local authority councillors/officers and even the most junior police officers.
3. It is very difficult and unpleasant to track down the criminals, to prosecute them and then to have to punish them.  None of us like to be told off.
4. Therefore, it is much more constructive to make criminality as difficult as possible by making everywhere so respectable and attractive that dirt bikers and quad bikers would never dream of using the area.
5. However, provision must be made for them.  And it is the vast area of wasted wasteland between the Crooked House and Stallings Lane that is ideal for them.
6. THE DIRT/QUAD BIKERS PARADISE IS ... between Home Farm to the Sewage Works, centred on the arson attacked Crooked House - all marked on the Ordnance Survey, 25,000 scale, Explorer map.
7. ON THE NORTH SIDE is B4176 Dudley Road and Himley Road
8. ON THE WEST SIDE is A491
9. ON THE SOUTH SIDE is Oak Lane and, further east is the B4175 Stalling's Lane
10. Make this bleak, barren, backward part of the Black Country ideal for dirt/quad bikers but, through the middle, the UK's possibly first and longest, urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway, the Black Country Active Travel Route must be made usable for walkers, cyclists and horse riders but NOT motor bikes.

In this way, no more clashes, abuse and threatening behaviour from the dirt/quad bikers.  THUS, NO MORE CRIMINALITY AND NOTHING FOR THE POLICE TO DO!!

BUS FRANCHISING - TOTALLY UNNECESSARY WASTE OF PUBLIC FUNDS to get a worse outcome!

Spend the BILLIONS (for Metro, Sprint, franchising) on Fare-Free Public Transport for all.  "Stuff their mouths with gold" to get a right royal regional bus provision.  And, allow local councils to become shareholders of the bus operators.  KEEP TO ENHANCED BUS PARTNERSHIP (EBP) that has no financial risks for councillors.

from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1w04vd7xdro.amp

17 March 2025

"A new funding deal to stop a number of West Midlands bus services being cut has been agreed."  SELF: Part of the Enhanced Bus Partnership (EBP) that gives full control to the WMCA already.

"The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) board has green lit an extension of the Bus Network Support Grant which provides financial support to operators."  SELF: Thanks to the EBP of direct co-operation between the authority and bus operators.

"It will be extended from 1 to 30 April, with a new arrangement kicking in from 1 May to 31 December. The decision comes amid public consultation events on plans to bring services under public control."  SELF: The services are already "under full public control", thanks to the EBP.

"A report to the board revealed last month, that more than 30% of current commercially-operated routes would be put at risk without the funding, while fares would face bigger hikes."  SELF: This has always been the case, has it not?  For years, the £50 million to bus operators has kept fares lower and kept services running that would otherwise not be the case.

"West Midlands mayor Richard Parker dismissed claims that the network was "failing", although he has pledged to introduce a franchising system – to replace the current deregulated model – which would bring control of the routes, timetables and fares back under public control."  It is not failing because of the subsidy through the EBP.  IS THAT TRUE?

"At a meeting on Friday, Mr Parker said the authority provided about £50m in grants a year to operators, but despite the funding, bus fares had increased while services had been reduced."  SELF: Therefore, increase the funding for the operators by using the £50 m on totally unnecessary bus franchising.  And, use the billions in price and in weight of GHG emissions from scrapping the £15 BILLIONS going into trams and Sprint "bus that thinks its a tram."

Weird and wonderful priorities

Dudley cllrs for 40 years have had as their top transport priority the destruction of their principal mainline railway, even over and above, its reinstatement, that they definitely don't want, rather than the tiny fraction of funds required for updating their section of the UK"s, possibly first and longest urban-rural-urban, cycle-walkway.

from CAAT on Israel's war crimes

We demand a full two-way arms embargo with Israel.

We demand an end to trade and military cooperation with Israel.

We demand an end to the UK government’s complicity in and military support for genocide, occupation and apartheid.

Katie Fallon, Advocacy Manager at CAAT said:

“The genocidal attack that Israel has unleashed on the people of Gaza is designed to inflict maximum suffering and terror on Palestinians. Israel has been violating the ceasefire agreement for weeks, increasing attacks and blocking all aid for over two weeks including food and fuel. Our government continues to support Israel politically and militarily through arms exports, including for F-35 jets which are used to drop 2,000-pound bombs on Palestinians.

"We demand a full two-way arms embargo with Israel. We demand an end to the UK government’s complicity in and military support for genocide, occupation and apartheid.”

URGENT MATTER

Dear friends - and comments or corrections would be welcomed, please - especially to support the saving of the Calthorpe Estates HQ, 76 Hagley Road.

Please forward to Chair Clive.

I am sorry but this is in no way good enough.

The decision is made (and accepted) to invite Andy Street to be the speaker at our Lunar Society Annual Dinner this year.

Andy and I know each other and he knows that I voted for him on every occasion except in last year's Mayoral election, when I abstained.

This was because of his continued intention, together with current Mayor Richard Parker, to demolish the fine Calthorpe Estates HQ and to destroy the second mainline railway for it to be turned into:-

a tramway on two short sections in Dudley and Sandwell;

fully approving the site of the 100-year-old successful mainline station to be turned into a tram stop and HQ of the Black Country Innovative Manufacturing Organisation (BCIMO);

a 2 Kms test track through Dudley Castle Hill tunnel instead of using the 3 Kms railway from Moor Street, Brierley Hill to Pensnett High Street;

a conversion to cycle-walkway when tens of millions in price and in weight of greenhouse gases (GHG) had been spent on the principal mainline railway for the return of the London to Edinburgh intercity trains.

Andy and Richard Parker continue to fully support the demolition of the magnificent, shining white, Calthorpe Estates HQ on Hagley Road for the Edgbaston tram extension from Village tram stop to the Kings Head (also due for demolition, I believe) at Bearwood.

Not only this demolition, but the clear felling of 1,000 trees and shrubs and front gardens on the south side of the Hagley Road for the more than £100 m/Km tram extension.

Edinburgh Conservative Group consistently opposed the SNP/Green tram for their city, saying the money should be spent on existing buses and trains, for them to be brought up to scratch and trains returned to the remaining unused railway lines.  As we need to do.​

 Edinburgh Conservative Group OPPOSES their tram extension. WHY NOT OUR TORIES?

​

Dudley is a Dirt Bike and Quad Bikers' Paradise

The two other council areas on the same long distance cycle-walkway SHAME Dudley by achieving a HIGH standard, so that all of us can USE their sections in S Staffs and Wolverhampton.  All part of the 40 Kms Black Country Cycle Loop to take in Netherton Tunnel towpath - also a slum disgrace!  C&RT take note.

Dud Dudley's dismal effort:

Looking down on the mudway from the road bridge over it.  Near Smithy Lane, Brierley Hill DY5 4TN:

 Coopers Bank Rd 1.jpg

Dreadful Dudley can't even clear the undergrowth from the road bridge:

 Coopers Bank Rd 2.jpg

Dudley's wonky, unsafe, access steps down to the path - not found in the sections that are the responsibility of the other two council sections. 

 Coopers Bank Rd 3.jpg

You don't get this in Wolverhampton's section or S Staffordshire's section:

 Coopers Bank Rd 4

Sunday morning dirt bike rider speeding down the path for walkers and cyclists:

 BC dirt biker 19.jpg

Narrow single file path, never found in S Staffs or Wolverhampton:

 BC Route 6: 80s(?) timber over ditch 6

Can this actually be fresh stone that Dudley put down since they opened the walkway in the 1980s?!

Did they DO what I suggested last decade?  Wonders will never cease!

 BC Route looking N 8.jpg

Public Right of Way over the quad bikers' paradise on metal footbridge seen in previous photo:

 BC Route PROW 10

This abuse and misuse is happily allowed by Dudley Council.  Never seen with the other two councils.

 BC Misuse wrecked path

Proof that the path was officially once constructed - decades ago - the 1980s?  The UK's first and longest (?) urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway!

 BC remains of path edging

4 or 5 Quad bikers trashing the named, on OS standard map, as 'Balancing pond'.  Next to the Black Country Active Travel Route.  Is this even lawful?  They did not want photo evidence; not one little bit!

 BC Trashing Nature.jpg

Year round flooding of important route to show how Dudley is the historic capital of the bleak, barren, backward Black Country

 BC dirt bikers paradise 36

 BC dirt bikers paradise 35

 BC dirt bikers' paradise 33

The leader of Dudley MBC, Cllr Patrick Harley, has the most shameful, slumiest and longest cycle-walkway going through his ward. too.  Yet, after decades of negligence, things have only got worse!  He never cycles.  Does he walk?!

Yet, they are spending tens of millions on regeneration, would you believe on doubtful Climate compliant measures - BUT NOT THIS, to allow commuter, leisure and business users to relieve road traffic congestion/pollution!!

Two contrasting tactics of ecocidal behaviour

The thought has occurred to me how the Global White Minority nations have been so 'brilliant' at being a killing machine with their empires, their slavery and many wars around the world.

One autocratic country, Russia and its war on its brothers in Ukraine goes in for destroying infrastructure, I hear from the news on Radio 4 today.  Our friends and great ally in Israel, whom we arm to the teeth, however, goes in for straight, no messing, targetted slaughter of Gazans because everyone of the dead and injured just happens to be evil Hamas and so most certainly needed to be exterminated for the good Jews/Zionists/Israelis to be the Blessed of the Lord God Yahweh.

My first, self-made up, cyclo-cross country ride

4 hours.  Yesterday, from the Lea south of Pontesbury.  Taking in public highways from road to narrow muddy footpaths and bridleways.

MY ROUTE: Shorthill, Sibberscote Manor, Plealey, The Radleth, Oaks Wood, Oaks hamlet at 222 m, Plealey, Halston, Hinton, Lea.

Steep-sided valleys, flat flood plain, waymarking post lying flat in the mud. I must resite it vertically at the junction of the footpath and bridleway between Oaks and Oaks Wood.  This was the start of having to carry Chrissie's Brompton a good long-distance - 150 m.  I had about half an hour 'sleeping' in a warm spot in the sun underneath Earls Hill whose trig point I could clearly see.  Then I met the mud across the whole width - for a rude awakening!

Great views from Oaks to The Lawley, Caer Caradoc and Long Mynd when every stitch of clothing had to go back on for the fast, cold descent in dropping temperatures.

A few minutes fast descent with 'peep peep' white van man stuck behind me until I waved him on to pass me at Halston Cottages.

Threatening and abusive incident on the Black Country Active Travel Route

I was using my phone to take photos of the four or five quad bikes trashing nature in the wetland habitat, southeast of the 'Sewage Works' and the lake marked on the Ordnance Survey map.  I had taken a few paces from the cycle-walkway towards all the noise of revving quad bikes trying to drive around through the shallow water and mud.

LOCATION:  Grid Ref: SO 90572 90433

Lat, long: 52.51171, -2.14034

Elevation: 96 m

When I was seen, one of the drivers of the quad bikes came over and was insulting by using a string of vile obscenities.  He demanded that I delete the photos from my phone.  I did not but turned and beat a hasty retreat, walking and running back to the car, about 1 Km away on Smithy Lane.

A few minutes later I heard the quad bikes chasing after me.  I had to get scratched by escaping into a hedge alongside the cycle-walkway to avoid being hit as they sped past.  The people on the quad bikes shouted 'Paedophile' and 'Paedo' throughout the incident, together with more extreme, foul abuse.  One man claimed that children were with them to justify my being a paedophile!

The Black Country Active Travel Route is, possibly, the UK's first and longest, urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway, dating back to the 1980s, perhaps.  It runs from Fens Pool Avenue to NW Wolverhampton where it connects with the canal towpath to complete the Black Country Cycle-Walkway loop, via the waterlogged towpath alongside the canal in the Netherton Canal Tunnel.

Someone threw something at me as I was escaping.  It hit me on the upper right arm but did no injury or tear on my coat.

Keep gas and go for instant electric water and space heating

You keep your working gas boiler, as we have done, and install instant electric water heaters (x2) to soak up some of the elecy we generate or have to import in the early hours of the morning in the winter, only.  The shower/bath hot water is now brilliant.  Wish we had done it years ago!  Put the instant water heater as near as possible to the outflow; ie, behind the shower, ideally.  We chose Steibel Eltron heaters.

No more gas central heating, either!  We use local heating to heat ourselves in the room we sit in.  Infrared heater panels from Herschel work very well.  But you do have to wrap up warmer - but that's no problem - both the house and yourself!

All sickening style over substance. Vanity over reality. Immoral Metro scandal

Remember, that the Digbeth tram is working out at £142 m/Km, including public realm improvements.  Still over 3x more expensive per Km for tram extensions in 46 places in the world!  

We are getting Metro because it is highly prestigious, over indulgent and wealth flaunting - all at the expense of worsening Climate/ecological impacts and the poor.  Despicable behaviour.

Their reply to you is not being truthful and they miss out that the 1.7 Kms Digbeth extension cannot be completed until the Curzon St station is ready to receive it at the end of the decade!

Vast expenditure to make for longer, more complicated public transport journeys

How does replacing/duplicating bus routes and train services with LR trams, VLR trams and Sprint bus services lessen the Climate Emergency and reduce human impact on depleting oil and gas reserves?

Will it mean more changes and thus delays between the different rail modes (High Speed, Heavy Rail, Light Rail, Very Light Rail, Ultra LR) and the two different bus modes of regular bus services and Sprint bus services?

The Slum Disgrace of a cycle-walkway, courtesy of Dudley MBC, in shock contrast to the other two councils

"I rode my railway walk route again today. I'm sorry to report that the Dudley section is now even worse than when we rode it last year. Someone is using the section by the quarry next to the water treatment plant as a 4x4, off-road driving route. It's an absolute mess. Utterly disgraceful."

MORE DETAIL:

This refers to the UK's most important urban-rural-urban Black Country Active Route, aka derisively but accurately, the Mudway and the "Smestow Valley Leisure Route".  This title downplays the importance of the route. It wrongly implies that it is a short, insignificant, unimportant route for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.  In fact, it is part of the UK's very first cycle-walkway for commuter, business and leisure use that, I believe, beats the more famous and prestigious Bristol to Bath Cycle-Walkway to that distinction.

It proves how our professional transport planners lack vision and are unable to see the bigger picture that is vital to be able to prioritise active travel spending.  They prefer fancy road schemes for cyclists rather than properly and professionally maintaining and upgrading the bridleways and cycleways that they already have.  They splashed out the money on a new scheme in the 1980s to link Brierley Hill with NW Wolverhampton and then, in the case of Dudley only, didn't bother to maintain and upgrade or, even to link it in to Russells Hall Hospital.

The Black Country Railway has similarly been broken up when it was officially called a railway "of national strategic significance" 

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

because, again, transport planners did have tunnel vision but lacked the rather essential, wider vision.

Your help to correct this misconception and to raise the importance of the 20 Kms route for business, commuting and leisure use is much appreciated.  It is one practical, positive way to fight the, equally forgotten, Climate Emergency and to be seen to be actually doing something about it!

What our war is about ... a certain imbalance but, why shouldn't we want more and more?

We are the King of the castle.  You are the dirty rascal!  Small children chanting this out at each other is so like what our foreign policy is all about, I think!

What our war is about is the containment of Putin to Moscow so that we, London, Paris and Berlin can have Kyiv and all of Russia's traditional territories of Ukraine. For centuries, Ukraine and Russia have been battling it out over land, much longer than the Jews/Zionists and the Arabs (from 1897).

In the process, all the domineering men and women of violence bring a nasty death to men of non-violence like me who couldn't care tuppence about sovereignty and territory and borders. Provided I'm allowed to live with my family in shelter, food and drink - all threatened by the killers, governments and arms traders as the mighty King of the Castle looking down on the nasty rascal Putin (which he is - but, then our own leaders can be like that at times, too!).

We should never have got involved by tempting, already very divided Ukraine, with European integration.

Tunnel vision but lacked the rather essential, wider vision.

Dear Ninette

Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention and for your help.  

Calling the major and the UK's most important urban-rural-urban Black Country Active Route, aka derisively but accurately, the Mudway and the "Smestow Valley Leisure Route", downplays the importance of the route. It wrongly implies that it is a short, insignificant, unimportant route for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.  In fact, it is part of the UK's very first cycle-walkway that, I believe, beats the more famous and prestigious Bristol to Bath Cycle-Walkway to that distinction.

It proves how our professional transport planners lack vision and are unable to see the bigger picture that is vital to be able to prioritise active travel spending.  They prefer fancy road schemes for cyclists rather than properly and professionally maintaining and upgrading the bridleways and cycleways that they already have.  They splashed out the money on a new scheme in the 1980s to link Brierley Hill with NW Wolverhampton and then, in the case of Dudley only, didn't bother to maintain and upgrade or, even to link it in to Russells Hall Hospital.

The Black Country Railway has similarly been broken up when it was officially called a railway "of national strategic significance" ​

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

​because, again, transport planners did have tunnel vision but lacked the rather essential, wider vision.

Your help to correct this misconception and to raise the importance of the 20 Kms route for business, commuting and leisure use is much appreciated.  It is one practical, positive way to fight the, equally forgotten, Climate Emergency and to be seen to be actually doing something about it!

On Sunday 9 March 2025: The UK's 1980s, First Seriously Engineered, 20 Kms Cycle-Walkway ...

 ... the Black Country Active Travel Route through three West Midlands boroughs, has been thoroughly TRASHED after decades of negligence by Dudley MBC.

I​NTERIM CEO, Balvinder Heran to reply as first responder, please.  What action will she take?  Absolutely nothing, as is always the case with both the 120 Kms Black Country Railway (in use until the 1990s but now wrecked) and the 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walkway (built in the 1980s) and never subsequently bothered about ever since.

My informant wrote ​to me:

"I rode my railway walk route again today. I'm sorry to report that the Dudley section is now even worse than when we rode it last year. Someone is using the section by the quarry next to the water treatment plant as a 4x4, off-road driving route. It's an absolute mess. Utterly disgraceful."

T​IM WELLER

The Sixsmiths: 'Putin and the Return of History'

Dear Tony

You wrote, "It seems to be why you do not value Central European autonomy!"

Every country has a right to make its own decisions, of course.  But when that country is split between its neighbours' sphere of influence to the east and the western side wanting to identify with NATO and Europe, it is the height of folly to exacerbate all those tensions by inviting it to become part of the EU, on its way to becoming part of NATO.  Read

 Sixsmith p 150.jpg

 Sixsmith p 151.jpg

This is why I maintain that although Russia was the aggressor in Feb 2014 in taking back Crimea and much more so in Feb 2022, the casus belli or the occasion or the excuse for the big falling out between ourselves and Russia was this.  The EU, in 2013, invited Ukraine, traditionally more Russian than Western Europe/American for 1,000 years, to become a member of the EU, eventually and, thus part of our sphere of influence.  No wonder Putin was not jumping up and down with joyous delight.  A little cheeky and insensitive on our part, I think.

However, for centuries we Brits have had Brittania ruling the world's waves to give us the biggest empire the world has ever seen and 300 years of slavery to make us even richer off the backs of the Black Global Majority (the Ramblers choice of phrase).  We then put our settlements in North America to give us an affinity with the USA and our much flaunted "special relationship" with them.  We remain the controlling and dominating top dog and the global Supreme Ruler.  Unsurprisingly, we remain thoroughly paranoid that Russia or China will take over.  We will never allow that to happen, of course (final last words!).

Exactly the same in the Middle East.  We have our Global White Minority (the Ramblers choice of phrase) Israel rep in the very heart of the Arab Middle East to ensure we remain Supreme Ruler in that region, too.  Thus we fund Israel to the teeth to exterminate tens of thousands of antisemites, anti Israel, anti Zionists so that our State of Israel remains in the ascendancy - and, remains our cuckoo in the Arab nest.

Ukraine is virtually a member of NATO now with all the death-dealing weaponry we 'give' them to ensure they remain on our side, as a perpetual permanent reminder to Putin who Really Rules the World - not him!

My thorough reading of the Sixsmiths' book, 'Putin and the Return of History ... ' with some sections read twice or more has further clarified and enhanced my history lesson of our Global White Minority foreign policy behaviour towards Russia.  What my side has done but not in my name, is unacceptable and we should have known better.  Far, far worse has been done in many other countries, too.  It really is a most despicable and shameful record and, over centuries, according to what I can gather.  But, still nothing changes and certainly not reparations or restitutions, e.g. not even for Loss and Damage over our prodigious finite fossil fuel burning.

Despite all this, we have the impertinence to point a finger at Putin and Russia, forgetting there are three fingers pointing back at us.  1:3 is the correct ratio, too I should think!  Of course, Putin is a nasty piece of work because of many of the things he has done, like right now with many of his killings continuing apace.  But our side has also attacked many other countries around the globe since 1945.  Stalin slaughtered millions of his own people; we slaughtered millions in all our wars, in regime change, and coups in weak countries since 1945 - the latest is the Gaza/Occupied West Bank/Lebanon slaughter of many tens of thousands in 15 months.  100s of thousands injured and maimed for life, done by the traditionally Christian, Righteous, liberal democracies, the freedom-loving Western countries, led by the USA.  Thus, I rarely can vote for the politicians who fund this murder and madness.

Who is the biggest bully?  Russia or, us lot? 

Which country is determined, by hook or by crook, to maintain global supremacy and exceptionalism and, "I Am The Greatest Nation in the World"?  No wonder Putin hates America and NATO for wanting everything, even all of Ukraine that is right up against Russia's own border.  Sharing is anathema to our side.

More questions for each of us to ponder over here:

 Your opinion is wanted, please

"Now history is back, with a Russian president's vengeance." (last line of the Sixsmiths' book that I think you should read, Tony)