Year: 2020

Pinocchio Effect

Brian Riley Local Colour, Political - National and other , , ,

Most of us learned from the adventures of Pinocchio not to utter falsehoods, because if we did, our actions would betray us and  we would be found out lickety split
Whilst we are all aware of the dangers of untruths, many people decide to chance their luck and see what they can get away with.
Hence my interest in the East Anglia Daily Times of the 16th which contained a letter from Mr. John Bailey of Stanton who indicated that the U.K. does not have a single trade deal in place for when we leave the EU.
As I was pleased to point out in today’s EADT, we signed a trade deal with Japan earlier this month and there are 23 other trade deals signed.
So what prompted Mr Bailey to go forward with his Bremainer falsehood.
I would like to think that it was just ignorance and a feeling of being hard done by.  I suspect, though, that it is from the Bremainer bubble for whom nothing about Brexit can be good and any assertion, truthful or otherwise denigrating Brexit is welcomed.
Whatever the origins of Mr Bailey’s opinion, we would all do well to remember what happened to Pinocchio when crossing the line between truth and otherwise.
The exchange of correspondence is attached.

eadt-201118-trade-agreementsDownload

Darwin Award Nomination

Brian Riley Local Colour, Uncategorized , ,

It’s never too late too late to nominate someone for a Darwin Award.
Earlier this month the Sun reported that last May, Lee Williams, a hospital patient in University Hospital of Wales removed his oxygen mask and lit a cigarette.
Thirty eight patients had to be evacuated during the ensuing explosion and fire. A doctor and two nurses were treated for smoke inhalation and shock.
The explosion closed the hospital for two weeks. Damage was assessed at £50,000.
Williams ended up in intensive care and almost died.
Currently our man is enjoying the Queen’s hospitality having received a five year sentence, which hopefully will be long enough to protect the rest of us, whilst he appreciates the dangers and evils of smoking.

An Outbreak of Common Sense

Brian Riley Uncategorized
  • Saturday’s Telegraph (5th September) reported that a hair salon owner in Stroud, Gloucestershire, was asked to remove an advert for a “happy” stylist because the word happy “discriminated against people who aren’t happy”.

The Department for Work and Pensions has since apologised, calling it a mistake.
The Telegraph further noted that one could follow woke logic to its ultimate conclusion and ban the advert for discriminating against those who can’t cut hair, or against anyone who doesn’t want a job. So long and broad is the list of “problematic” words that adverts in the future might have to be just a picture of something associated with the position, such as a pair of scissors and a large question mark.
We voted to leave the EU because we thought it discriminated against common sense and whilst you might think that common sense is not so common after all, every now and then someone steps in and corrects the idiocies that abound in local government.
Three cheers for the DWP!

 

Connectivity

Brian Riley Local Colour, Nice Things , ,

Today, the 15th August commemorates the 75th anniversary of VJ (Victory over Japan) day. My own family tree has three uncles, a father in law and at least one cousin who served in the Pacific.
They were quite reticent about their services. So, instead of celebrating my late near relatives I would like to recollect Ray Dunningham who lived in Raydon, Suffolk and who was taken a prisoner of war in Singapore in 1942. With the end of the war he was repatriated to England and because many of the FEPOWs’ physical condition was so atrocious they were sent home via the Pacific and the United States so that they could be “fattened up” before they reached England.
They crossed the U.S. by rail and every evening they were looked after by the residents of the towns.
One evening Ray’s host asked him where he came from.
“From England” – “I know that but where?”
“You wouldn’t know it, but it was near Colchester” – “But where?”
“You wouldn’t know it, it was a small village” – “But where?”
“You wouldn’t know it, it is very small – I’m from Raydon” –
“I know it, you have a very fine airfield there.”
“Ain’t no airfield in Raydon!” – “There is now, because I built it!”
Such was the connectivity of the world and the changes it wrought even to the small communities of Suffolk
Even now the village has a population of less than a thousand. The village wasn’t helped by the closure of the railway station and railway.
Ray’s memory lives on in his legacy to the Masonic Lodges in Hadleigh which provided for the Master’s & Senior Warden’s chairs.
And the purpose of this anecdote?
To highlight the debt we all owe to all to those who participated in the theatres of war. Like our hero, many of them came from yeoman stock salt of the earth families and their worlds like ours were changed for ever.

Chip Mountain

Brian Riley Uncategorized

Earlier this year, Leo Varadkar (Taoiseach of Eire) was reported to have said: “I don’t think the UK has yet come to terms with the fact it’s now a small country. I think the reality of the situation is that the European Union is a union of 27 member states. The UK is only one country”. The EU’s attitude towards Britain has not been lost on other trading nations throughout the world.
One of the side effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns is that restaurants and fast food outlets are not selling as many french fries as previously. Consequently, there is a mountain of 2.6 million tons of frozen EU chips looking for export markets.
The population of New Zealand is less than 10% of the U.K.’s and their farmers are apprehensive that there will be a chip tsunami heading their way. Potato NZ have discussed possible responses with the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) should there be a flood of EU chips on the NZ market.
In a typical bureaucrat fashion, the Government have responded that they are keeping an eye on the situation and that under WTO rules there needed to be evidence of actual harm or a risk of harm to the industry before an anti-dumping action could be taken.
When I first read of Potato NZ’s action, I thought it was a case of crying before you are hurt. But it is. NZ’s potato growers supply approximately 85% of their domestic market, a large proportion of which is consumed in the hospitality business.
They are quite rightly fearful that EU producers will roll over them like invading tanks.
Meanwhile NZ and the EU are negotiating a free trade agreement. If NZ is to have open borders for EU goods, then the potato growers of N.Z. are not the only ones who should be feeling fearful.