Fed up with the UK?

I realise that it's easy to sit on the sidelines in the proverbial armchair and carp, but I'm hoping soon that a) the Electorate wakes up to what Minette says below and b) some Politicians make themselves electable to change it! :-s

The Question:

Rob Wilson (Conservative, Reading East) said record numbers of people were leaving the UK, according to the latest statistics, and asked Mr Brown:

• "What is it about your government that makes people want to pack their bags and leave the country?".
  

Mr Brown said the government was pushing ahead with a "managed migration" policy.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Point-by-point: Question time


The Answer:

"It is difficult not to suspect, despite the lack of hard evidence, that so many educated people, many of them still young and keen to work, are leaving because they are giving up on this country. At least that is what many of them say. Whether on blog sites, in letters to newspapers, in casual conversation or in my own readers’ letters, I come across voices of anger and grief, particularly among the middle-aged or elderly. This country isn’t what it was, they say. What’s best about it is disappearing fast; it’s becoming unrecognisable.This country certainly has changed a great deal and fast.

Nobody can deny that in recent years society has become much less civil, much more fragmented and newly divided into alarming ghettos; a large, disordered underclass is growing of people who don’t know how to bring up their children, with disastrous results; schools and hospitals in some places are not just bad but dangerous; the streets in cities are so frightening for young people that more carry knives and use them; the old are poor and neglected; we have lost our trust in pensions and in banking.

More than anywhere else in the supposedly civilised world, we are spied on, intruded on and cross-questioned by incompetent bureaucrats who then lose our confidential details; in a country with a proud reputation for freedom, our liberties are being eroded, either by new laws or by politically correct conventions; our taxes are wasted on incompetent government and public services; uncontrolled immigration has inflamed anxieties about overcrowding, crime and public services as well as national identity; Britannia is being struck off our coinage for the usual daft reasons. And so on. At least it’s not Italy."

The forces driving the middle class into exile | Minette Marrin - Times Online

Suggestions for destinations anyone?

New Rambo film? More like a Madame Tussaud's exhibit

Couldn't resist this any longer.

I've been wanting to post something measured, thought-through--something that really adds value to the blogosphere. ;-)

Instead, I end up posting about how Sly Stallone has become a waxwork. ;-D

Click through to this article on the BBC website. The photos would seem to show an excess of botox, cosmetic surgery, vanity, heavens knows what.

Potential next posts

Rather than keeping it all up in my head, I thought I'd share the list of things I'm thinking of blogging about:

• Experimenting with Identity
• Reform think tank articles:
  
• "Last Outposts" article exec summary
• Crowd sourcing in politics - over-coming asymmetric information
• Psychology experiments - Zimbardo and Milgram
• Choosing ads
• Innovation
• Wikinomics
• Open Innovation, Beacons, crowd-sourcing / customer innovation
• Bunny Lucas
• Baron D'Erlanger
• Evercrack
• Sociology of online interactions
• Howard Rheingold
• MBA project
• Santa Fe Institute
• W. Brian Arthur
• Increasing returns
• Chaos - James Gleick
• Emergence - Steven Johnson
• Virtual Worlds / Metaverses
• My Tobii
• Another of Bill Thompson's ideas - technology is controlled by the younger, to the chagrin of the "adults"

Comments welcome - a small experiment in peer production... ;-)

Morpeth War Memorial

My Mum was born and brought up in Morpeth, a market town in Northumberland, and a centre for Northumbrian culture and dialect.

I was there the other evening, as Caroline and I had been invited to a drinks party which, coincidentally, was just round the corner from my Granny's house.

It was on the way home from the party whilst I was driving through Morpeth, that I had the idea of writing this post.

To come at the same end from a different angle, for two years I was a member of the Bristol University Royal Naval Unit, whilst I studied Psychology for my undergraduate degree.

Bristol URNU is a fine organisation, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time going to sea aboard HMS Dasher, learning about things nautical, and generally broadening my horizons.

The relevance to this post was that one of my proudest moments was dressing up in full Midshipman's regalia and taking part in the Bristol Remembrance Sunday Parade.

I feel strongly that the continuing sacrifice of our Armed Services is worthy of both celebration and veneration, and it saddens me that we're constantly hearing reports about how they are being let down.

So, with all that in mind, it was uplifting to see that the Morpeth War Memorial was properly lit, cared for, and clearly visible from the road.

It made me feel that there are still Authorities out there who take the memories of our War Dead seriously and that, by their example, others will take the whole thing as seriously as I believe we all should. :-)

Mountain Biking in Kielder

I love Mountain Biking.

I like the exploring, the fresh air, the exercise, the fun and sometimes scary bits of it!

I ride a Merlin Malt 2.

I tend to ride out from our back door, and ride round the local bridleways (aka cross-country or XC), or else keep myself fit by riding our quiet country lanes.

Last year I was able to complete the Merida Marathon in Penrith, and also a race in Kielder Forest.

Sometimes however, it's great to take advantage of some purpose built MTB facilities, such as those across the South of Scotland - aka the 7 Stanes.

In the North East, we're lucky because a voluntary group -- the http://www.kieldertrailreavers.com/ have cut a number of MTB-specific tracks through the forest in various levels of difficulty.

The best way to describe the experience is that it's like a rollercoaster - except that one has to do the cycle up to the top, and then have the skill and courage to negotiate the bumps and swerves on the way down! This is usually known as "Downhill".

Whilst I'm at it, a nod to the North East Freeride Association for their work at Chopwell Woods and the petrifying downhill course they've built in the Forest near High Spen.

A shout also to Alan Capper of Kent Design who's been merciful when telling others of a mishap I had at Newcastleton (part of the 7 Stanes).

"Motherland" - photos of Russia

I saw a link to this book by Simon C Roberts on the BBC News website.

I can't find the exact link right now, but the photos featured by the Beeb were fascinating, and concentrated on life in the winter around the Russian city of Murmansk (although the book covers the whole of the Country).

The photos tell a story of life where the Sun is but a glow on the horizon even at midday during Winter, where temperatures are life threatening, and the latent ecological damage from the abandoned materiel of war is a disaster in the making.

However, have a look for yourself and make up your own mind.

"How mushrooms will save the world"

I used to live in London, and spent a fair bit of time on the Tube, travelling to and from work.

Before Blogs, RSS and blog readers were invented, I used my Palm V with AvantGo software to download and read articles for these journeys.

One of my favourite sources was http://www.salon.com/; one of the most interesting articles was this one about Paul Stamets, and his drive to bring mushrooms --and fungi in general-- to a wider audience.

The article contained (amongst other things) a fascinating vignette about how Paul had used a strain of fungi to clear up a brownfield site contaminated with oil.

It's taken me about 10 years to do so, but I've finally placed an order with http://www.fungi.com/, which is run by Paul's company. Thanks to Christian Olsen for his help with the order, which was:

• Fungi to help the vegetables grow in our veggie patch;
• Fungi to help my Brother experiment with how they might help him improve the yield of his apple trees (he's a keen cider maker);
• "Plug spawn" which goes into holes that you drill in wooden logs, and gives a harvest of edible mushrooms; and
• Mycelium Running, Stamets' condensed answer to the challenge in the title.

So, inspired by this article, I now need to find the time to get my head around all this and work out what small contribution I can make in the countryside of Northumberland!

More on this anon, I hope ;-)

Blogger's block

Tip of the hat to Nick Robinson of the BBC, who used this phrase when he was a bit stumped. I hope that a series of post will ensue, as Nick has demonstrated! ;-)

I've been thinking of writing about:

• The War Memorial in Morpeth, Northumberland
• Two fantastic experiments I learned about during my Psychology degree
• What I'm planning to order from http://www.fungi.com/

Instead though, I wanted not to blog about crashing bores or dreadful ones, but in this instance *sonic* ones... ;-)

I passed a van from Sonic Bore and it made me smile.

Also, I am going to be experimenting with Twitter. I've attached a javascript box to the top left of my blog page. Find me at http://twitter.com/justingsouter.

I'm 'following' Bill Thompson (and Millionsofus), who writes for the BBC, and has been twittering me recently by what he's thinking about.

I thought it would also help me get over my blogger's block... :-)