Dear Gerald - you are mischievously pricking my conscience! Confession time!
Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Confession time
We're like mighty Emperor Trump demanding ...
We're like the Emperor in the Hans Christian Anderson tale - demanding 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.
CONCLAVE - the book - so entertaining but plausible throughout
I SPOIL THE WHOLE THING IN THIS SPOILER ALERT!!!
An outstandingly good read, so full of humanity and one of the most Christian books I have read. Quotations from the Bible are appropriate but not overdone, as top Cardinals desperate for the top job, speak and pray.
Cardinal Lomeli as Dean of the Chapter, is in charge of the whole Conclave procedure. He is genuine, so true to life and a real figure in being tempted and then being appalled at his thoughts about his fellow cardinals - such a lovely character in being so human and appealing. He even stages a break-in of the last Pope's bedroom in a bid to find the evidence he is sure exists somewhere. He asks for forgiveness for some of his most unworthy thoughts. He is so genuinely not wanting and never expecting to be elected Pope. To his astonishment, after different Cardinals are found wanting in different and devious ways and are ruled out, it is Jacopo Lomeli who comes a poor second out of only three left on the final eighth ballot. Only in one ballot did he vote for himself and that was so out of character that the Good Lord made it coincide with explosions in Rome as an ISIS attack was launched that shattered glass where the voting was taking place!
Throughout, Lomeli confides much about the senior Cardinals being voted on and you are treated to his own preferences and why. At the close of the book there is a surprising twist where the winning Cardinal seems the most unsuitable, is nearly never included in the ballot and then turns out to have been up for gender reassignment in a Swiss clinic if the Pope, in the dying days of his papacy, had not selected him for promotion from Archbishop of Baghdad to Cardinal. But it is this Filipino who not only wins over the affections of the 117 Cardinals but the reader, too. And hero Lomeli is so delighted, too!
Not a single Catholic could be offended - even by the impressive array of misdeeds and interesting incidents that are unveiled to move things along so excitingly.
What sheer brilliance from top novelist Robert Harris who shows his careful and diligent research to unveil yet another gripping tale. This is my fourth of his - so far!
Dead slow on urgent, obvious measures - even low hanging fruit ignored!
Dear Katie
Saturday, 12 April 2025
YOU YOUNGSTERS MUST GET A GRIP! Jo, please forward to John Street for his response
Dear friends - could Joe please reply? And any others would be nice to hear from, too! Especially, Raj.
Thursday, 10 April 2025
The Bleak, Barren, Backward Black Country in a modern, civilised, developed, First World Nation!
Hi Beccy - and copied to another key player, Ninette (Sustainability Lead Strategy & Transformation at the NHS Trust. The Trust HQ is only 500 m from the UK's longest, urban-rural-urban cycle-walkway but was not the first.)
Thursday, 3 April 2025
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.
Wednesday, 2 April 2025
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.
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.
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.
Monday, 31 March 2025
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!
Tuesday, 25 March 2025
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.
Sunday, 23 March 2025
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 ...
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:
- We are all in the business of reducing criminal behaviour, not just the Police.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- ON THE NORTH SIDE is B4176 Dudley Road and Himley Road
- ON THE WEST SIDE is A491
- ON THE SOUTH SIDE is Oak Lane and, further east is the B4175 Stalling's Lane
- 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.
Saturday, 22 March 2025
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.”