Egypt, once the bread basket of an empire, is now running short of subsidised bread due to the rising cost of wheat.
But when everything is a commodity, everything has a price. And heaven help those who don't have the ability to leverage, as they'll be squeezed further into the gutter and labelled as terrorists if they complain.
Well easter monday is finally here, with flurries of snow - luckily for us Londoners - deciding not to settle.
But with flakes the size of plates descending from the sky, it seemed appropriate to take a picture or two. At least it makes up for the lack of anything meaningful over the christmas period.
Going back a day or two the peace, which does briefly occur between blaring sirens, was rudely broken by the appearance of another low flying-ish helicopter.
Well the first budget brought into existence by Alistair Darling is a roasted horse chestnuts load of landfill waste. Which will be made ever higher by his inaction.
I imbibe the odd drink and smoke way to much. So yes it's a crap budget for me. More taken out, as ever.
With 'stability' the new watchword replacing 'prudence'; they both appear like pantomime dames. All show but laddered and leaking stockings going as far as the eyes can see.
Can't wait until the next one. When things in the country really do start going downhill.
But on a good note, he's returned to using the old budgetary case that the old chancellor jettisoned. Good to see we're firmly heading back to good old tradition... Oh well boom and bust, here we come!
It's always 'interesting' watching, listening to the wranglings and hearty outpourings over the so-called loss of national standings (aka Boeing, McCain et all). But globalisation's been going on for centuries. It's just in this day and age the time to source part b from across the globe, only takes a couple of weeks and not years.
No country wants to have itself swamped, every country wants to protect its citizens employment base, unless of course the employment base gets to uppity; then a dose of unemployment (especially with the potential loss of their homes), would show them who's boss.
But with the global race downward towards the lowest common denominator of price continuing apace, more people on the ground level at home are losing jobs (which are transferred elsewhere), whilst the eating heads of big business complain they aren't making as much profit as they could due to been uncompetitive and having to worry about labour costs.
Amazing how, at the end of the day, when billions are made in net profits, it's usually the directors who see the greatest benefit, whilst the lowly employee gets a 1.49% rise in salary and has to thank his or hers, lucky stars they are still employed for another month.
But then, barring a slip up, it will either be China or India who will take technology to the next level and there the companies can still tread roughshod over the rights of the many.
There's nothing more gratifying (well not for me at this moment), than doing a post. In the firm knowledge I have thoroughly relieved my chronic-over active constipated mind, from another stray bit of arrant nonsense clogging up its ability to accurately: co-ordinate, move, breathe and effectively harmonise all areas of discordant chi's.
Until of course, that submit button's been pressed.
But on a good note, my less than insightful insights(sic), haven't yet removed me from the list of "socially acceptables".
So it is, that friends make polite points about the odd few spelling errors and even greater glaring grammatical inconsistencies.
What did Douglas Adams id say.... "with a brain the size of a planet!"
Well it's nice some people make the effort.
"In a moment of clarity, like a snake it hits.
Its not the fact you're big or strong, they only see fear.
The colour, the shade, your skin.
And the fact its cold, no hair on your bald pate,
in need of that cap or floppy hat.
Is blocked from blinkered eyes.
You are out with only one intent;
to molest, rape, kill!
Their sub/conscious thoughts repositions and tugs.
As a hastened whisper and protective move,
lashes fear across adjudged surfaces!
After all, you only want what is their's!In a moment of clarity, it strikes and hurts.
As you're walking to work,
meeting a friend - to view the latest release,
making your way to the local shop.
No doubt just to lift the goods,
if security's stare's to be believed.
Buying a book, booking a flight,
chatting with a friend on the phone...But in a moment of clarity this is all lost."
© 2006 Nacnud
Often wondered, since watching CSI (only the Las Vegas one - the others are too painful), whether it has an underworld equivalent; perhaps called ICS?
You know, sultry, depressive and bombshell types that go around watching crime scenes and how they're solved. So now we have criminals running around with different coloured lights making sure their tracks are sufficiently covered with a suitably nifty little vacuum cleaner sucking up any stray passing bits of debris and DNA. If not, then they deserve to get caught.
At 10:00hrs a south London street was cordoned off and the nearby residents asked to evacuate by the police.
The scene occurred on a 109 bus, with the police been in the area coordinating the movement of people away from the potential blast and cordoning off the scene.
Apart from that no further information has been given.
At what stage in our growth, will Darwinistic theory become irrelevant to our survival?
Every now and then you overhear the strangest of remarks...
"I'm a victim of those damned foreigners coming over here taking our jobs, forcing us native born folk to go out and seek work.
Life living off the dole's just not worth the effort of getting out of bed for in the mornings anymore. Unless of course you're a bloody foreigner coming over here with a bundle of kids, claiming housing, council plus a load of other benefits, whilst working cash in hand and renting out your own home to the same people you're getting the money from in the first place! It just ain't right.
Now, I just got to go check on my new villa been built in Cala Panizo. Make sure those workmen have put the right taps in. If they were your German foreigners, you know they'd do a proper job and you'd be looking at a finished build by now."
Apart from the high flying academics, hob-nobs of the Interwebty, the soon to be regurgitatives - this year's graduates. I'm not sure how many of us are able to get our heads around the rapid change in technology occurring all around us and in so many fields.
Perhaps that is why an increasing number are taking solace in the blandness of reality shows, binge drinking or heading off to new less busy pastures to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
How many of us want to spend hours after a long hard day/evening or night in the office, once home, to start digesting information we haven't had to think about since leaving the last term/semester of school, college or university?
Even so, all the current crop of wonderful new gadgets which are wonderful and fantastic, will be paling in comparison to those around the corner and actively in the pipeline. But we'll be understanding less and less about their intricate insides. And the only way of fixing something that goes wrong, will simply mean throwing the item away and buying a new one, until we run out of resources that is!
With failing memory cells, sudden memory loss, and having to reboot at regular intervals during the morning, I often wonder why I bother getting out of bed.
Below is an image of my desktop. Fairly icon free, with Google desktop keeping me informed of the: time, temperature, appointments, events, many of the ups and downs occurring in the world, beyond my 23 walls.
To many of my friends, it just comes across as me being sad. "You're just stuck there in front of the computer, all day. No wonder you're getting fat!"
But to me, it's nothing more than a heavenly experience. Within the space of an hour I have digested the news circling the world, chatted with friends (whilst reading) around the world. Read many of the online papers, news stories and settled down to replying to emails; over a relaxing steaming cup of coffee, whilst listening to the plethora of streaming programming hitting my sound card from that doyen of tit-bits, BBC Radio 4. All the while retaining my slowly slipping sanity, by not been part of the rat-race.
I am now far beyond the need to risk life and limb skateboarding off a sky-scrapper or bungy jumping down the grand canyon. Those particular notions bring nothing more promising than a panoptic vista (no, not that one!) of all manner of broken painful lost bones, followed by those many months convalescing in hospital. And all for the sake of a shaky camera shot. No. If I require an adrenaline junkie rush, I'll fly solo in low-sec space of the MMORG game I play, eve-online. That and not getting mugged or shot at, whilst standing in a McDonalds queue are more than enough in the way of excitement, that I wish to experience during this particular moment in my lifeline.
So Super Tuesday is nearing an end, when we'll have more of an idea about who the next leader of the free world might be. And they do need change, badly!
After so many years of participating in the formulation of things like Outsourcing, Hedge Funds, burning the planet into oblivion etc., etc. It's time for a change in thinking. To come away from the 'me, me, me' culture that has been perversely corrosive over the past few decades. To think of all the species and planet as a symbiotic whole, and not just a hole for plundering and landfill.
Sometimes as we meander our way through life, with some experiencing a harder time of it than others. We come across and meet up with people that stop us in our tracks. Who actually make us sit up, and actively think!
They have a selfless abundance of goodness that is remarkable for its sheer pugnacious disregard for reciprocation. A wealth of untrammelled energy which is utterly astounding.
Then on the flip-side you have the Stalin's, Pol Pot's, Mugabe's, Bush, Bin Laden's and now the one from Kenya, whose entire existence appears to be that of making everyone else's hell.
Don't get me wrong, I'm as humanist-atheistic leaning as the next sensible person. But with the number of atrocities jumping by the day and, of course, impending (again) global calamities around the corner, perhaps there is something more than just electrons whizzing through grey spongy soup which makes those few people, special.
Finally, at 08:50hrs, the bell chimed and my new box arrived; with two delivery boys carrying it in from a parked up transit outside.
According to the sheet, this was the first delivery!
Will I do Argos again?
Where's my raspberries...
So the American Geophysical Union or AGU, have finally revised and re-affirmed most of the globes belief that the majority effects of the increase in melting, warming, flooding... is, with a more than 50% probability, down to human intervention.
"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956–2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850." AGU
But many people have already accepted the scenario that it has been happening, for years. And started making small changes in their lifestyles to match. But how many actually recycle, how much in the way of goods are actually wasted, ending up in landfills or incinerated, all produced from energy fossil fuels.
A deep-vein coal mine has closed down in Wales today, lasting 15 years longer than anticipated. But it has come to an end, other mines will no doubt be in a similar position. Many mines in the UK have or had been in operation for centuries; before the Thatcher & Scargill fiasco.
There is no great probability of developing nations ditching their dash to luxurious modernity, by cutting back on their need for energy! Just as there won't be any real passion in developed nations to cut back on the luxuries and disposables they enjoy.
In the meantime, we know (well according to the science) that a CO2 reduction of at least 60% is in order, and that's just to get us back to where we were a decade ago! If a single digit reduction's managed, that would be a major surprise.
So what's to do?
Solar power, wind, turbine, nuclear, all with problems of their own. How many places have 12 hours of sun beating down from a cloudless sky, with at least 2 hectares given over to energy exchange? Or continual wind? Turbines sound more feasible if the motion - electricity conversion could be made more efficient. Nuclear? Current costs, possibility of meltdowns (with Three Mile and Chernobyl as benchmarks), terrorism and the dumping of burning waste for thousands of years - unless a safer means is found to secure and dispose of it.
Which brings me back. So what to do?
Fusion doesn't seem to be anywhere in the running! Could there be something peering out of the backwater?
With so much happening out there in the ever wide expanding universe; rolling 24 hour news, reality TV - are these more real than actual real life news events? Radio, blogs, disasters, killings, starvation, cabals, fundamentalist's, some bloke spending a few billions in an investment bank unwisely! Murders and general mayhem. It seems rather churlish of me to just pander on, about my little ongoing delivery problem.
But I shall.
As mentioned at the end of Delivery Revisited, I expected the resplendent top today. Between 07:00hrs and 12:00hrs. Its delivery was faithfully guaranteed. Although in hindsight I should have gotten a couple of drops of blood, made them swear their first and second born to perpetual servitude whilst getting those short chains ready, to put to some good use!
To ensure that I would be ready and awake with plenty of time to spare, the night before I did the sensible thing went around setting all the alarms for 06:30hrs. All of them, at around 02:45hrs!
06:30hrs arrived and the klaxons went off. Dazedly I sprang out of bed. Briefly meandered around, waiting for the call and delivery.
12:00hrs arrived and I called them up. To be put on, off, on hold, then 'someone will call you back in 5-10 minutes!'
Fifteen minutes later I get the call. "Very sorry, I don't know what's happened," the voice from the other end said. "They did the paperwork, and sent it through to us, but for some reason they never sent it to themselves!"
"Oh," was all I could muster.
"Will tomorrow morning be okay?" he asks. Sounding very contrite mind.
"Tomorrow morning, like this morning?" I ask, trying to keep the cynicism just below the screaming abuse threshold. "Between 7am and midday?"
"Yes," he replies.
"Well," I feel the buried side of me rearing up. "If it isn't delivered this time, the next time I call it will be for you to collect the whole order, and I will expect a full refund along with compensation for wasting my time."
"Oh," he says. "Okay, it will be with you tomorrow!"
And at this moment, this is all I can recall. As sleep deprivation appears to be sapping my will to live!
So a politician's finally done the decent thing and resigned.
To clear his name.
After, and only possibly mind - nothing's yet been proven! But been caught with both front trotters, snout, and floppy ears waving around in the crumbs jar. It's more and more, beginning to look like a re-run of the Major years.
And now onto Argos. I suppose having to deal with hordes of people in the retail section is sometimes like dealing with the living dead. But then the very same complaint can be made about those working behind the counters.
My faith, however, in the commonsense ability of the everyday man (or woman) was partially restored by the efficiency of their initial delivery service.
Sadly the shoddy item (made in China), had to have one part returned, and with the only available (apparently) delivery slot, in a week's time; I agreed and patiently waited.
Delivery day arrived and I received a call from the driver, saying they'd be here in five minutes. Ten minutes go by and sitting in the living room, I notice a brightly coloured Argos van go sailing by. Get a call from the driver saying he can't park because it's on a red route. I inform him that if Salisbury's, Tesco's, meal-on-wheels can unload so can he. But no, he's adamant and drives off saying I will have to re-schedule.
I contact customer services to inform them of this turn of events and give them the same information that I have just given the driver.
They contact him. After a few moments I get a call from him saying, he should be here by 14:20hrs, but he will call me five minutes before hand. At 14:10hrs he calls to say he's nearly here, again, and have I removed the cones from the bay? "What cones?" I say, "there is no bay here, it's the road and I will be by the pavement with the packaged item. It should only take a couple of minutes maximum!" After all if Tesco can disgorge £70 worth of shopping in about five minutes, a one metre sheet of non-heavy packed glass, shouldn't take any longer than that.
I go outside, 15 minutes later see the van coming around the corner and I start waving franticly, whilst holding onto the glass. He slows down (in the middle of the road), saying "I'm not going to stop, its a red route."
"You can stop, you're only briefly unloading," I shout to the passing lorry.
So he speeds up and drives off.
I'm flabbergasted. Decide to hang outside for another ten minutes, in case he is turning around somewhere, and coming back. But no!
Go back inside and again contact customer services. In a previous tapping, I might have mentioned the fact that at this stage, all you want to do is scream down the phone. But with large companies the person you usually scream at, is far removed from the actual events occurring outside your door.
Then get a call on the mobile from the delivery side of Argos, and again explain what's been happening.
The next time I have a delivery, will have to make a recording. So when I have contact someone I can just press the play button, which would save so much time and energy.
So the kind lady enquires if I wish to re-arrange delivery. I count to five before saying "yes, any time."
"Is Friday, between 7am and 12am any good?" she asks.
"That's perfect," I reply, wondering what's coming next.
"Well the driver will call you half an hour before. To make sure there's no problems!"
I wanted to say that, having to be up at 6.30am, is indeed a hassle and I shouldn't have to. But just say, "that will be fine."
"He'll deliver it in a transit van, as there shouldn't be any problems with that, for quickness."
I agree.
"Will there be anything else?"
"No, that will be all," I reply.
And with that and another five hours in the future to be wasted, I can feel the urge to send letters out to the Delivery department as well as the Chairman's office, lambasting them about the inefficiency of their set-up!
There are many roads in the capital that are on red routes. Wardens although quick to ticket, are also not stupid and around here they do understand that in many situations a five minute (usually less) drop-off is necessary.
So after an initial burst offering a beacon of hope; sadly Argos to, gets the big over-ripe, raspberry.
That and obviously the influence of the full moon, has combined to produce a strange amount of behaviour in the fair folk of town.
So here's a couple of pictures (courtesy of APA) and it's only just gone mid-day!
