US Election, Useless Public Services, The Immigration Dilemma

The US Presidential Election

On Wednesday November the 6th, I got up to see that Donald Trump had won the election. I listened to his co-called 'Victory Speech' over breakfast. He spent most of it thanking his family, his staff and his supporters. He spent more than 5 minutes talking about how great Elon Musk is. In terms of policy he talked about building a wall, getting rid of illegals and fixing America, making it great again. There was no mention of Kamala Harris. It was high on motivation, very up-beat and low on content. Typical Trump. A High Conviction, Low Morality President of the United States of America.

I am less worried about what Trump will actually do and more worried about the messages that his victories send: if you want to win, it's okay to lie, to defame your political opponents, to create and endorse fake news, to make huge promises you can never keep, and so on. High on conviction, low on morality.

So why did America vote for Trump again? It seems that the answer is probably quite simple: 

"On CNN, around midnight UK time, a perfectly unassuming voter was grabbed by CNN as he left a polling station in Pennsylvania. Asked who he voted for he replied, “Donald Trump.” Asked why, by an almost incredulous reporter, he said “Inflation mostly, and the state of the economy.” Quoted from City AM.

It's the economy stupid. The current government is being punished for the high inflation and declining living standards that we have all seen (across most of the world) since the pandemic and the Russian war on Ukraine. I think the other big issue that swayed voters is his tough words on Immigration. 

Now let's see what he actually does. In politics, it seems, words speak much louder than actions.

Useless public services

It's not just in the UK. I need to sort out my late father's US state pension. I completed the online bereavement from on the US Federal Benefits website and received an acknowledgement. That was 3 months ago. So I emailed them and received an acknowledgement. Still nothing. So I tried to call them (they only open on some Tuesday and Wednesday mornings) and after listening to several minutes of spiel redirecting callers to their website and email service I got cut off as 'all agents are busy'. Twice. What am i supposed to do?

Then there's that tax we need to pay in France. The French government tax service sends an email inviting us to login to their website to pay the latest tax. But each time we try to login using one of their ID verification services we get this message:

'Please try again later, Error 400...' And guess who gets into trouble if they don't pay on time?

That's 2 hours wasted this morning by government incompetence. If only I could fine them the way I get fined if I do anything wrong. And pigs might fly.

I asked Gemini to create this image for me

The Immigration Dilemma Continues 

New figures show UK net immigration at even higher levels than previously published. 930,000 in the year to June 2023. 728,000 to June 2024. Here's the dilemma: we want to help genuine refugees including those we have taken from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan in recent years. We want our businesses and services such as the NHS to be able to fill vacancies from abroad when there are no suitable applications locally. We need our universities to subsidise local students by taking high paying foreign students. But we want far less immigration. If we can't get this right we will see increased support for the far right who say they will reduce immigration substantially. We are seeing this swing to far right across the western world. So what's the answer? 

This data is over 10 years old but I doubt it has changed much

Well, the longer term answer is Education. The short term answer is talk tough and provide utter clarity on which groups we let in and why (for example the public will support bringing in people for the NHS). Simultaneously implement a strong and highly visible package of measures designed to make UK residents who are not working and not retired join the workplace when they are able (e.g. training, benefits cuts, incentives, high level campaigns, etc.).

Quote for the Month

"To be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables"  Hilllary Clinton

Chanel to Sponsor Boat Race, The Biggest Number in the World.

Chanel to Sponsor the Boat Race

In its first ever sports sponsorship, Chanel has chosen the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race that takes place every Spring on the Thames in Putney. The sponsorship deal is said to be worth around £500,000.

The Chanel brand is associated by many people with its founder, Coco Chanel. Today Chanel is privately owned by the Wertheimer family unlike many of its rivals that are publicly owned. The history is interesting.

Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel was a talented designer and created the company before WW1. In 1924, she made a deal with the Wertheimer brothers (who owned Bourjois) and another businessman in which the Wertheimers would invest heavily to expand and sell Chanel No 5 perfume globally under the 'Parfums Chanel' business. Coco Chanel retained 10% of the shares.

They were successful and Chanel resented her minority stake. During WW2, French intelligence documents described Chanel as a "vicious antisemite" who praised Hitler.  With the Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned property and business enterprises, Chanel decided to take the opportunity to gain the full monetary fortune generated by Parfums Chanel and its most profitable product, Chanel No. 5. The directors of Parfums Chanel, the Wertheimers, were Jewish. Chanel used her position as an "Aryan" to petition German officials to legalise her claim to sole ownership.

But the Wertheimers were a step ahead of her, anticipating the forthcoming Nazi mandates against Jews, and had legally turned over control of Parfums Chanel in May 1940 to Félix Amiot, a Christian French businessman and industrialist. At the end of the war, Amiot returned Parfums Chanel to the hands of the Wertheimers.

Coco Chanel and Pierre Wertheimer (date unknown)

Chanel spent most of the war living in the Ritz, socialising and frequenting the top ranking Nazis who stayed there, so there can be little doubt where her sympathies lay. After the war, her position was weakened by her behaviour and she went into hiding in Switzerland, rightly afraid of what the French would do to her.  This didn't stop her continuing her battle with the Wertheimer brothers which became a protracted legal fight.

Ultimately, the Wertheimers and Chanel came to a mutual agreement, renegotiating the original 1924 contract. On 17 May 1947, Chanel received wartime profits from the sale of Chanel No. 5, an amount equivalent to some US$12 million in 2022 valuation. Her future share would be two per cent of all Chanel No. 5 sales worldwide (projected to gross her $34 million a year as of 2022), making her one of the richest women in the world at the time the contract was renegotiated. In addition, Pierre Wertheimer agreed to an unusual stipulation proposed by Chanel herself: Wertheimer agreed to pay all of Chanel's living expenses—from the trivial to the large—for the rest of her life. She spent the last 30 years of her life living in the Paris Ritz!

Documents released 10 years ago leave little doubt that she was a Nazi collaborator through her lovers and her association with Nazi spies. She even worked for Walter Schellenberg, head of the Nazi Intelligence Agency.

Today the Wertheimer family still own Chanel which they have grown into an extraordinarily profitable business. At the end of 2023, Chanel employed more than 36,500 people worldwide.

The Biggest Number in the World?

$2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Google, like most good western companies, has withdrawn its services from Russia. In this instance it's YouTube, and various Russian pro-government organisations have been pursuing Google in court for the withdrawal of their services.

The fine that they are currently claiming that Google has to pay is such a large number that is equates to more than all the money that exists in our world!!

"Google has racked up some 2 undecillion rubles ($2.5 decillion) worth of fines in Russia after years of refusing to restore the accounts of pro-Kremlin and state-run media outlets, the RBC news website reported Tuesday, citing an anonymous source familiar with court rulings against the tech company.

According to RBC’s sources, Google began accumulating daily penalties of 100,000 rubles in 2020 after the pro-government media outlets Tsargrad and RIA FAN won lawsuits against the company for blocking their YouTube channels. Those daily penalties have doubled each week, leading to the current overall fine of around 2 undecillion rubles.

Undecillion is a number equal to 1 followed by 36 zeros. Google, whose parent company Alphabet reported a revenue of more than $307 billion in 2023, is unlikely to ever pay the incredibly high fine."

The Moscow Times 29th October 2024. Note that The Moscow Times has been designated an "undesirable" organisation by Russia's Prosecutor General's Office.

Google's name comes from the mathematical term a Googol. A googol is 10 to the 100th power, which is 1 followed by 100 zeros. So perhaps there is some irony here?

Quote for the Month

“I can’t tell you how to get rich quickly; I can only tell you how to get poor quickly: by trying to get rich quickly.”

André Kostolany, Hungarian investor 1906 - 1999

Lee, Figs and Having a Bad Day

Lee

It was good to finally get to see the film Lee, a factually accurate depiction of Lee Miller's war years as a photographer, played superbly by Kate Winslet. The film and Lee's life combine glamour, destruction, stamina and genocide in a way few others can.  Miller worked for English Vogue and through her force of character, persuaded the various authorities to let her take photos on the front line, a place strictly forbidden for women. 

Lee Miller staged this photo in Hitler's Bath, with mud from Dachau smeared on the mat

I visited the home she shared with her English Surrealist Painter husband, Roland Penrose, a few years ago. We saw their work, their home and the works of other surrealists who visited them regularly in their beautiful Sussex home. We met their son, Anthony Penrose upon whose book the film is based. A rare treat for anyone interested in Surrealism.

The Kitchen at Farleys with a tile painted by their friend Picasso

Fabulous Fig Fiesta

There's only one fruit that I know of that doesn't have worms, has no pips or stones, is unattractive to birds and insects and grows in abundance on a small tree making it easy to pick.

Oh yes, and when ripe it tastes divine, with rich deep red super sweet flesh. And you can eat the whole fruit, skin and all, if you want.

The second half of August and the first days of September are when my little fig tree delivers about a kilo of fruit every day. I eat them with my breakfast oats, for dessert at lunch and dinner and I make jam using only very little sugar (20%) as they are so sweet. I handle each fig as if it's special even if I am picking 20 or more every day. In Lidl they sell for 69 cents each, in Waitrose a box of 4 is almost £3. It's my late summer treat and through the jam I can share with my special friends and make the pleasure last for months.

Not a Good Day

Probably a co-incidence, but two bad events happened on the same September day.

I had parked outside the Post Office in Revel and as I pulled away, I checked my rear view mirror and there was nobody behind. What I didn't think to check was whether anyone would be pulling onto that street from the side street perpendicular to me. I slammed the breaks on and missed the car by a milimetre or two.

Then the following morning I discovered I had left one of the gas rings on the stove on all night. It was warm in the kitchen!

From now on I will take more care when checking to see if there are other cars about and when switching off appliances. Take more time to save far more.

Quote for the Month

"I know I'll be caught one day, but I shall have served. Let us hurry, and do great things while there is still yet time"

Louise de Bettignies, leader of The Alice Network in WW1. Her spying network saved the lives of thousands of British and allied soldiers. She was caught by the Germans and died in prison just before the war ended.

Louise de Bettignies (1880-1918)

Statue to Louise in Lille

The Demographic Time-Bomb. My Encounters with the Police.

The Demographic Time-Bomb

One of the most serious issues facing developed countries today is the demographic time-bomb that has started to hit us.

In most developed countries today, average life expectancy is 80 to 85.

Across the world:

In 1900 it was 32

In 1950 it was 47

Today it's around 73

What that means is that we have more old people and fewer young people. And that's a huge problem: not enough money to pay state pensions, lack of healthcare resources, lack of people available to work, extra tax burden on young people, etc etc. The problem really is massive and it requires big unpopular change to address it. But guess what: it was not an election issue in either the UK or France in the July elections and it is mostly ignored everywhere.

Our governments continue to ignore it for someone to deal with later. Look at fertility rates:

The only solutions, if we want to attempt to maintain our standards of living are attracting more young people and upping retirement ages. That means more immigration (incentives to increase fertility have always failed) and encouraging older people to keep working longer. Good luck with those! And the longer we ignore it, the worse it gets.

The Four times I have been stopped by the Police

I can remember four occasions when I have been stopped by the Police

1. When I was about 13 years old outside my house

I returned home but didn't have my house keys. A Policeman just happened to be passing and thought my behaviour - loitering outside my house - looked suspicious. He asked me for an explanation and then to accompany him down to the Station but I refused. I told him I was going round to the back garden and would wait for my parents to return there. He wandered off... 

2. As a University student when I was driving my car with friends in Manchester

I drove my car with a few friends to an abandoned building site in the city centre. We took turns driving my car and were having a lot of fun. The Police turned up and questioned us. As the car wasn't stolen and it was private land they left us alone.

3. On my way to work when I was exceeding the speed limit

I got stuck in some really bad traffic and was late for work. I tried to make up a bit by going too fast when I was free of the traffic. I got pulled over by the Police who gave me a warning, but no fine.

4. In Oxford with blue flashing lights - they thought my tax disc was out of date.

I was in a traffic jam in Oxford city centre and all of a sudden everyone started pulling to the side to allow a police car with a siren and flashing lights to pass. I was very surprised when it pulled up alongside me and accused me of having an out of date tax disc. In fact I had recently renewed my car tax and the policemen didn't recognise the new colour. They assumed it was an old one. When I politely explained their mistake they just turned around and walked away. No apology, nothing.

Quote for the Month

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” — Margaret Thatcher

The Starmer Tsunami and Paris 2024

A good UK election. The Starmer Tsunami.

In the UK we had, as expected, a very decisive result. 

What a beautiful map:

Election results by colour: Labour red, Conservative blue, LibDems orange

The new government intends to hit the road running and has outlined 40 new bills in the King's Speech that it intends to implement. It's an impressive list with only a couple of very left wing bills, presumably to keep the left of the party happy. 

The Downing Street briefing document about the king’s speech mentions 40 bills, many of which were not referred to by the king. Here is the full list.

Economic stability and growth

Budget Responsibility Bill
National Wealth Fund Bill
Pension Schemes Bill
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
Employment Rights Bill
English Devolution Bill
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Better Buses Bill
Railways Bill
Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill
Arbitration Bill
Product Safety and Metrology Bill
Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
High Speed Rail (Crewe to Manchester) Bill

Great British Energy and clean energy superpower

Great British Energy Bill
The Crown Estate Bill
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Revenue Support Mechanism) Bill
Water (Special Measures) Bill

Secure borders, cracking down on anti-social behaviour and take back our streets

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
Crime and Policing Bill
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill
Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill

Break down the barriers to opportunity

Children’s Wellbeing Bill
Skills England Bill
Renters’ Rights Bill
Football Governance Bill

Health

Tobacco and Vapes Bill
Mental Health Bill
National security and serving the country
Hillsborough Law (this will be a bill, but No 10 has not said what it will be called)
Armed Forces Commissioner Bill
Northern Ireland Legacy Legislation (this involves repealing the Northern Ireland Troubles [Legacy and Reconciliation] Act, but the No 10 says repeal will require passing a new, replacement bill)
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
Cyber Security and Resilience Bill
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill
Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill
Holocaust Memorial Bill

Draft bills

Draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill
Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill
Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
Draft Conversion Practices Bill

We can review progress as the parliament progresses to see how much of this they actually manage to get done. With such a large majority, they should be able to move relatively fast. It will be very impressive if they get much of it done.

We are now three weeks in to the new government and they certainly seem to be running with a gusto that was lacking before!

The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris - Opening Ceremony

The first Olympic Games in Paris for 100 years opened with a very memorable ceremony: for good reasons and bad ones. The highlights such as the golden hot air balloon, the dazzling light displays from the Eiffel Tower, the opening pyrotechnics, the boats on the Seine, Céline Dion, all look amazing in a 10 minute 'best of' video. However, there were complaints from Christian groups over the Last Supper scene, some considered Marie Antoinette's singing decapitated head in bad taste and above all, it was too long and too wet!

Personally, my only real criticism was the poor quality of some of the images because of the rain. The cameras were insufficiently protected so we had to watch some parts through a lens covered in raindrops. But congratulations to Emmanuel Macron whose speech was by far the best of the lot. It was only 14 words:

"Je proclame ouverts les Jeux de Paris célébrant la 33e olympiade des temps modernes"

President Emmanuel Macron, July 26th 2024

Comment te dire adieu? Two General Elections & a Quote from The Economist

Françoise Hardy: Comment te dire adieu?

Paco Rabanne, Françoise Hardy, and Salvador Dali in May 1968

Françoise Hardy born in 1944, died in Paris at the age of 80. A French singer, fashion icon & muse to designer Paco Rabanne. The famed gold Rabanne dress she wore in 1968 weighed 9 kilos, contained 1,000 gold plaques & 300 carats of diamonds. It was the most expensive dress in the world at the time and required four bodyguards.

Here is her 1962 hit Tous les Garçons et Les Filles. The year I was born!

Two General Elections for the price of one!

I don't remember ever having a General Election in the UK and France at the same time. And this time I should be able to vote in both of them!

The UK general Election is boring and is almost certainly a foregone conclusion: after 14 years of Conservative government, the people feel poorer, public services feel worse than ever and trust in politicians is at an all time low. The opposition Labour Party will win with a decent or very large majority. My wish is that during their tenure they bring some trust and respectability back to politics. I think Sir Keir Starmer may be able to do that.

In France things are nastier. President Macron called a very unexpected election after a poor showing in the the European elections for his party and a swing to the far right. It looks as if the far right under the leadership of Marine Le Pen and her protege Prime-Minister-In-Waiting Jordan Bardella, may get the most votes due to voter disappointment and immigration. There is speculation as to why exactly Macron called an election. Does he want to let them win so the country can see what a mess they will make?

FLASH UPDATE: French Far Right at Gates of Power following the first round of voting yesterday

In both countries there is the usual rich-bashing coming from the left. This graph shows that in the UK at least they already pay the lion's share of income taxes. In both countries taxes have been raised by the left to very high percentages for those lucky enough to earn a lot of money. The policy is never successful; the rich either emigrate or find legal ways to avoid it. But it can still make for a popular election campaign.

The richest 10% pay 60% of all income tax in the UK. Let's not frighten them away!

I listened to a speech by Paul Johnson, Director of the IFS, about their independent analysis of the party manifestos. What I found most interesting was his explanation for why, when taxes are higher than ever and spending on public services are at an all time high, do things appear to be so bad? The explanation is a £50bn increase in debt repayments and a growing welfare budget. We simply can't afford our debt at current interest levels and our anaemic growth rates and demographic changes (not to mention the energy price crisis) can't support the quality in services we would all expect to see.

Lower interest rates soon please.

In my view the single biggest issue facing both countries (and most richer countries around the world) is not even being mentioned. It is the demographic time-bomb we face: fast ageing populations and fewer young people in a society that is not geared up for this. It is already having a huge impact on healthcare and social services (as most people can tell) and fewer working people to pay for it all. And it will get much worse. More next time!

Quote for the Month

"If we had a vote on July 4th, we, too, would pick Labour, because it has the greatest chance of tackling the biggest problem that Britain faces: a chronic and debilitating lack of economic growth."

The Economist 

General Election Called, Fake Tory Tax Cuts, Trump is officially a Criminal

General Election Called 

"When Britain last held a general election, the country was still a member of the European Union, there had been no pandemic and the Conservatives had already been in power for nearly a decade."

The Guardian May 23rd 2024

That sounds like so long ago!! This was the newspaper's comment the morning after Rishi Sunak called a General Election. 

There was general relief across the country (apart from in the Conservative party) when the election was called. We now have to endure 5 weeks of electioneering and campaigning, with each party telling us how awful the other is and how much better they are. I am sure the vast majority already know who they are going to vote for. Most people are either lifelong supportes of one party, or have been so disillusioned by the last decade of government that they will switch this time. The result is pretty certain unless there is a last minute upset: on July 5th, we will probably have a new Labour government under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

It's his to lose

"Our prediction model currently gives them (The Conservatives) a less than 1% chance of winning the election."

The Economist May 23rd 2024

Fake Tory Tax Cuts

Jeremy Hunt has made a big deal of the "tax cuts for working people" he has introduced.  Perhaps there will be more in the run up to the General Election. But in actual fact, the cuts to National Insurance tax don't make up for the stealth taxes Sunak's government has introduced recently. The threshold at which taxes start to be paid have been frozen or reduced and in an era of high inflation this can have a dramatic effect. 

For example, the 'Personal Allowance' - the amount of money you can earn before you start to pay income tax has been virtually frozen since 2019, haven risen from £12,500 to just £12,570 in the last 5 years. Inflation over those 5 years has been about 20%. So for no tax increase, the amount at which you start to pay tax would have needed to rise by 20% to £15,000. So most people will be worse off, despite the so called 'tax cuts' announced with great fanfare by the government. Other allowances have been similarly frozen or in the case of Capital Gains and Dividends, slashed dramatically. For Capital Gains, the tax free annual allowance, has been slashed from £12,300 in 2020 to just £3,000 this year!

Total public sector current receipts expressed as a percentage of GDP in the United Kingdom from 1900/01 to 2028/29(in million GBP)

Why do our politicians have to be so dishonest? Why can't they say we need more money for X and Y, so we have to raise more tax?

I wonder how many people actually think they are paying less tax?

The total tax take has been increasing since 1992 as the chart above demonstrates.

Government revenue, percent of GDP (Source: IMF)

It's interesting to see in the world tax take map above (courtesy of the International Monetary Fund) the better places to live are the darker colours - where the tax take is highest!

It's time for the British public to wake up to the fact that if we want decent public services, we need to pay for them and stop trying to do it on the cheap. Just look at the darkest countries on the map - they have the best health services and public services generally.

Trump is officially a Criminal

The first of Trump's court cases has finally found him guilty on all 34 accounts of fiddling his business receipts to hide his payment to his Escort, Stormy Daniels.

Who would have thought that Trump was a liar, a fraudster, a criminal? Will it make any difference to his chances of being re-elected?  Probably not.

"This crime wave ends when Donald Trump becomes president. Believe me."
 

Donald Trump

Europe is killing its own automotive industry, How I am starting to use AI, Gone are our White Male Middle Class Political Leaders

How Europe is killing its own automotive industry

The UK and the EU announced last year that the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid car sales would be banned from 2035. Any new car that produces CO2 is to be banned.

So that means most people buying a new car will be forced to buy an electric vehicle (EV). 

Just one problem there: the West makes good premium priced EVs. China is in the process of flooding the market with cheap EVs.

The Financial Times 10/04/2024

Many early adopters have bought Teslas and other expensive EVs including VWs, Porsches, BMWs etc. These cars typically cost over £50,000 which is substantially more than the majority of people pay for a new car. There are some lower priced small EVs from European manufacturers such as the Renault Zoe (which gets good reviews) and the Peugeot e208 (£30,000+). But the Chinese ones are better value, in part thanks to Chinese subsidies.

Recently I hired an EV in France. I booked an e208 or 'similar category' car - it was the cheapest rental vehicle available. I could have had a much smaller petrol powered car for slightly more money. Unfortunately when I went to inspect the Renault Zoe I had been allocated (12km on the clock) there was no domestic charging cable available. So Europcar 'upgraded me' to a MG4 EV Made in China. It had 400km on the clock and the two charging cables in the boot were both new and unwrapped.

My MG4 EV rental car

The list price of this car starts at £27,000 which is actually about the same as the Zoe but it's a larger car and probably has a better range. There are very attractive leasing deals available on these cars starting at £99 per month plus no doubt some stupidly high deposit. But given that demand is so much lower than forecasts, I am sure there are some very good deals out there.

So what did I think of the car? Well if you are looking for a solid feeling machine to get you from A to B in relative comfort, rarely need to go more than 200 miles and are happy to plug it in to your domestic electricity socket overnight, it will probably meet your requirements. To me the car felt structurally sound and operationally effective. The interior trim and finishes seemed a bit boring, certainly not premium, and the central console is very basic and buggy. So if you get excited by cars, this one probably won't excite you. It will most likely bore the pants off you.

Of course, until people feel confident that they can charge their car with a minimum of fuss (not like my stay in Majorca last year) few will want to buy an EV. This is what I said about our EV in Majorca:

A Fiat 500e was our rental car. It proved very stressful finding an available charger that worked. And considerably more expensive than petrol. Won't do that again! Instead of driving peacefully to the places we had highlighted to visit, we ended up planning our day trips around public chargers, many of which didn't work, were being used or were too slow to serve any real purpose. I have learned my lesson! Now I know why it was the cheapest car available at Avis.

The Fiat 500 EV would have been a great little car if there had been somewhere to charge it

How I am starting to use AI

Like many of us, I have had a play with Chat GPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others with mixed results. When I asked to calculate the cost of driving to France, it forgot that there was a stretch of water en route. When I asked where the HQ of Chanel is, it got it wrong (it's in London not Paris if you are interested).

To be fair, when I pointed out their mistakes, the AI was very gracious in admitting them and thanking me for pointing it out, explaining that it is learning. But it has been helpful for some things - although still not hugely better than a good search engine. I expect it will improve rapidly.

However, I have used AI built into a couple of applications with great success. I wanted to build a website and asked Hostinger's AI to do that for me. It asked me few questions and built me a very good site that I could go on to edit to my satisfaction. That saved me a few hours.

Use Food Mood to create your perfect recipe!!

I also used Google's Food Mood to create a great recipe! Instead of browsing cook books to find something that looks attractive, you choose two countries (I chose Greece and Italy), specify how many people, meal type (dinner) and any dietary preferences (gluten free, veggie) and it created a great recipe for me. It was a pasta feta based dish even better that TikTok pasta! I will be using it more!

What next I wonder?

Gone are our White Male Middle Class Political Leaders

Rishi Sunak is the UK's first British Asian Prime Minister. His parents are both of Indian descent and immigrated to the UK in the 1960s from East Africa.

Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething was born in Zambia in 1974.

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf who has just announced his resignation, was born in Glasgow to Pakistani immigrant parents. According to The Economist, the length of his tenure was 8.1 Liz Trusses.

Michelle O'Neill - the First Minister of Northern Ireland

Sadiq Kahn - Mayor of London was born in Tooting, London, to Pakistani immigrant parents.

Quote for the Month

Scoop on Netflix relives the infamous Prince Andrew/ Emily Maitlis interview and how it came to be. My favourite moment was when Maitlis was trying to establish why Andrew had invited a convicted sex offender, Epstein, to stay at Sandringham:

EM: Am I right in thinking you threw a birthday party for Epstein's girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell at Sandringham?

PA: No, it was a shooting weekend.

EM: A shooting weekend?

PA: Just a straightforward, a straightforward shooting weekend.

Prince Andrew is so privileged and out of touch with ordinary people, that it doesn't even occur to him that most people don't do 'shooting weekends' and have little idea how they work. For me, this brief extract from his notorious interview with Maitlis sums up the huge gulf between Andrew and the real world and this is what led to his downfall - a complete inability to comprehend how real people think and feel.

Singapore Success Story

Singapore - A Success Story

I have made two quick visits to Singapore (Lion City) in my business career and my interest in this remarkable tiny city state has been revived after watching a documentary presented by former MP, Michael Portillo. It makes a change to talk about something positive - and Singapore most certainly is - a remarkable transformation from a swampland to one of the wealthiest countries in the world in a relatively short period of time.

The facts go like this:

1819    

Sir Stamford Raffles established Singapore as a trading post of the British Empire

1942    

Singapore falls to Japanese occupation - Winston Churchill called the defeat "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". Tens of thousands were slaughtered.

1945    

Japanese surrender and the rebuilding of Singapore commences

1965    

Singapore becomes independent under Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew following a brief spell as part of Malaysia

Today

Population almost 6 million

GDP per capita $87,884 - 5th highest in the world

HDI value of 0.935 - 9th in the world (Human Development Index - UK is 15, USA 20, France 28)

Largely democratic

Portillo visited the Port of Singapore, currently the second busiest port in the world. Work is underway to double it's size. The new fully automated Tuas Mega Port will be extended onto reclaimed land and will free up other land to be used for other purposes.

Raffles Hotel in Singapore

The famous Singapore Sling cocktail in the Long Bar

Today many people associate the name Raffles with the luxurious Raffles hotel. I popped in there on one of my visits and of course ordered a Singapore Sling cocktail at the Long Bar! My daily commute to school in Mill Hill as a child took me past Highwood House where Raffles and his wife lived in their later years.

Highwood House today - divided into flats and with a Raffles blue plaque

Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), was the first Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. He is widely recognised as the founding father of the modern Singaporean state, and for his leadership in turning it into a highly developed country.

LKY in 2005

Quote for the Month

"It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes" 

Vladimir Putin wins another term on March 18th 2024 with '87%' of the votes.

Trip to Seville, UK going to the Dogs, Dogs going to the Dogs, Amazon Returns

Trip to Seville

We went to Seville for a long weekend. It's the third most visited city in the second most visited country in the world. That means lots of tourists! We loved it and would like to return. Volver a Sevilla.

Plaza de España - so busy that the authorities are planning an entrance fee

I like:

• 400 churches and 4,000 bars means there is a church on every street. And somewhere to have a drink every few metres!
• The architecture is over the top but the more modest creations are often beautiful.
• Food quality: tapas, ham, ham, ham.
• Le dépaysement: fans, religion, ham, meal times, tapas, OTT architecture, bull ring, flamenco.
• Deep blue skies
• Cultural mix - Mediterranean / European / Arabic / dark
• The people are friendly and have time to talk
• Cleanliness (for big city)
• The river Guadalquivir
• The Neo Victoria, first ship to circumnavigate the world in 1509-12
• My 18,000 steps a day!

I dislike:

• Meal times! Many restaurants don't open until 20.30. Lunch is often not served until 14.00.
• Too many tourists (like me)

Las Setas - world's largest wooden structure

La Basilica de la Macarena

La Basilica de la Mercadona

The Cathedral and the Giralda

Lifesize replica of the Neo Victoria on the Guadalquivir

The UK is going to the Dogs

You may be forgiven for thinking that after 14 years of Conservative government, the country might be going okay - at least economically. Well you would be wrong. Growth is almost non existent as the graph below demonstrates:

Source: House of Commons Library

And compared to similar countries, only Germany has done worse than the UK since 2019:

That means we are poorer than we should be, if we had say an average growth rate, and that there is less to invest in our public services as is amply demonstrated by daily media stories such as:

Queues for the third day when a new NHS dentist opens their doors in Bristol

The King gets seen immediately after been diagnosed with cancer while ordinary people have to wait months: in November 2023, 65.2% of people treated began first definitive treatment of cancer within 62 days of an urgent suspected cancer referral, breast symptomatic referral, urgent screening referral or a consultant upgrade. NHS Data. 

Nearly 35,000 patients a month waited for 12 hours or more for a hospital bed in 2023, new FactCheck analysis of NHS England data reveals. That’s more than 3,000 times higher than in 2011.

Cancer waiting times for 2023 in England were the worst on record, a BBC News analysis has revealed. The waits have worsened every year for the past 11. BBC News 08/02/2024

And my personal experiences:

When I drive into town people must think I'm drunk as I swerve to avoid the potholes, reminiscent of a third world country.

I have had to cancel several trips to London as the trains have been on strike. The NHS doctors and nurses are regularly on strike, making the the health service even more unreliable.

Even the Dogs have gone to the Dogs

Facing a surge in dog attacks, the most violent breed - XL Bullies - has just been banned 

The hideous and violent XL Bully dog breed

Amazon Returns

I recently ordered the wrong digibox for my French satellite TV. So I ordered the correct one and returned the first one. Amazon provided me with a label and I took it to the post office, paid the postage and off it went to a European Amazon Returns centre in Slovakia.

Except it didn't. A couple of weeks later, the same package was returned by my postman having been refused entry in Slovakia. There was a small red sticker on my parcel marked 'Return' in French and in Slovak (I presume).

So I decided to use the Amazon Chat service to try to get it resolved. Here is a summary of my chat:

I spent 60 minutes on the chat

The bot transferred me to a real person (agent) when it was clear it could not help

I was transferred to each of the following people who reviewed my case

Maddela was unable to help me so transferred me to

Zineb was unable to help me so transferred me to

Ialla was unable to help me so transferred me to

Audrey was unable to help me so transferred me to

Maria was unable to help me so transferred me to

Inass was unable to help me so transferred me to

Nesrine was unable to help me so transferred me to

Saida was unable to help me so transferred me to

Mohamed was unable to help me so transferred me to

Saida was unable to help me so transferred me to

Awatef who said he would organise a refund. I said okay, what should I do with the digibox I am trying to return. He said whatever you wish.

Next I contacted the Royal Mail to get a postage refund as it was guaranteed delivery. After a 30 minute wait, I was told no problem and that they would send me a cheque for the GBP7.10. Remember what a cheque is?

I asked why it had not been delivered and he said that electrical appliances going into Europe (since Brexit I imagine) require a test and that it's not worth it for low value items. This of course leads to a lot of waste.

I have sent my digibox for recycling. What a waste.

Quotes for the Month

Mr Navalny would not want Mr Putin’s message to prevail. “[If I get killed] the obvious thing is: don’t give up,” he once told American film-makers. 

“All it takes for evil to triumph is the inaction of good people. There’s no need for inaction.”

Alexy Navalny 1976 - 2024 Murdered by Vladimir Putin

"Evil thrives on apathy and cannot survive without it"
Hannah Arendt 1906 - 1975 German Philosopher, whose passage to America was secured in 1940 by Varian Fry and his team.

“For evil to happen, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.” 

Edmund Burke 1729 - 1797 MP for Wendover and Democracy Campaigner