Some thoughts

 With  Gwynne Shotwell  of SpaceX. I especially liked how she deflects the questions on gender at the end.

A good takedown on some of the myths of progressive education, especially with regard to Finnish education:  An educational dystopia . As a teacher this passage particularly struck me: The reality is that it, and any school reforms which seek to remove the central importance of the teacher and the primacy of knowledge from the taught curriculum, denies children a fundamental human right that will have lifelong consequences. RTWT

Following on from Northern Ireland, let us consider options involving Scottish independence. It looks likely that next month's Scottish Parliament election will return a pro-independence government, either an SBP minority or formal SNP-Green coalition. If this does happen then, as this article clearly argues, it would be best to negotiate clear terms of the divorce before any poll.  One concrete term I would expect to be made is for the naval bases  Faslane  and  Coulport  (Trident submarine bases and missile stores, see  here  for more info) to become Sovereign Base Areas (similar to  Akrotiri and Dhekelia , or the I rish treaty ports ) on a 99 year, renewable lease. Other bases such as  Glen Douglas ,  Rosyth , and  Lossiemouth  could potentially also be leased or retrained by the rUK. Furthermore, I would negotiate an opt-out for regions that vote no to independence to succeed from Scotland to remain in the rUK in the ...

Douglas Murray on top form as usual:  Carrie Symonds and the First Girlfriend problem . Key quote: 'she is having too great an impact on the course of government. There are issues the Prime Minister avoids because she does not favour them. And there are others — principally green issues — which he appears to adopt to satisfy her. The feeling is growing that the First Girlfriend wants political power without the trouble of having to run for office, and to wield it without any resulting criticism. This is not a sustainable state of affairs.' She does seem to be doing a Yoko Ono, especially if it true that it was partly due to her that Dominic Cummings left. Boris really needs to stop being so whipped and rediscover the principles he wrote about off those years if he wants to salvage his premiership.  Related from a few days ago:  Westminster’s empty narcissism . It does seem ridiculous both how much fuss there has been over this but also how much money they managed to spend...

A good critique of the many problems with Marx and Engel's work:  

 I hadn't intended to cover this topic again so soon, but the resignation of  Arlene Foster  has led to speculation on the future of NI. As this Spectator article notes: The challenge is two-fold in advance of 2022’s Assembly election. First, retain the support of those who believe the party has betrayed Unionism by failing to prevent the introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Second, regain the support of that unaligned chunk of the electorate who previously lent them their vote come polling day, who have now been put off by the party’s attitude and vote Alliance, Ulster Unionist or not at all. Failure to achieve these two aims could allow Sinn Fein to become the largest party, a doomsday scenario. It could well be the case that if Sinn Fein wins the 2022 Assembly election and they call for a border poll (which the UK is legally obliged to hold thanks to the Good Friday Agreement). If there is a yes vote this could cause protests and violence from the Unionists c...

 The Drinker comments on the Oscars, and the problems with Hollywood in general: As this tweet shows ( source ), this year has seen viewing figure fall off a cliff: Ouch. As we keep hearing: go woke, go broke.

 From  this  article at The Critic, on cancel culture: It’s what the American journalist Rod Dreher calls the Law of Merited Impossibility: “It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it.”

Following on from the last post, The idea of updating the UK flag has come up a few times over the years. Here are my ideas for a new flag based on the scenarios previously described, in the same order of different scenarios: 1) Kingdom of Great Britain and Ulster: As there would still be the four nations making up the UK there would not be a great need to change the flag. However, this could be an opportunity to add Welsh representation, such as this idea from Wikipedia : 2) Kingdom of Great Britain: If Northern Ireland goes, revert to the pre-1801 flag. These flags already exist, the following are my designs. 3) United Kingdon of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland: If Scotland goes, replace the St Andrews cross with St Davids. In addition, St Patrick's cross is made wider ( Currently The red saltire of St Patrick is offset such that it does not relegate the white saltire of St Andrew to a mere border. )  This could be also be used in the event that NI is repartitioned. 4)...

Patrick O'Flynn in the Spectator asks  When will there be another right-wing insurgency? As noted there, there are a number of small parties, particularly spawned from UKIP (which continues to shuffle on in a zombielike fashion. TBH they should have wound up the party after the UK exited the EU) As well as that party's corpse there is also the rebranded Brexit party, Reform UK , plus the Heritage party, and Laurence Fox's Reclaim party . A quick search turned up this brief summary of the three groupings. As O'Flynn notes 'Where Ukip looks like a has-been, various other entities risk becoming never-weres' and ' a political party going is a time-consuming undertaking. Local branches of active members must be formed to establish footholds in actual communities and render the entity real rather than merely a series of tweets.' In addition, there is the problem that three groups risk splitting votes and duplicating infrastructure, so maybe the best option w...

Another new series, as the name suggests these posts will look at options for renewing the institutions, policies, and purpose of the UK for the rest of the 21st-century and beyond. To begin with, I will consider the fundamental issue of what changes could happen to the territory and name of the UK. The relationship between the 4 nations that make up the UK has been under strain ever since the devolution initiatives of the Blair government, but especially since the 2016 Brexit referendum. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain, this has led to renewed calls for Scottish Independence and the Reunification of Ireland. This post will show 4 possible scenarios for a future Britain. Before moving onto these scenarios, a quick recap on the origins of the name of the UK, as this influences the names I use of successor states. To put it simply: England (and Wales) + Scotland + Kingdom of Great Britain, Kingdom of Great Britain + Northern Ireland = United Kingdom of Great Britain an...

A busy week with a new school term meaning I'm back afternoon receptioning at the SEN school 5 days a week. I rushed back Thursday night and spent an hour in traffic fretting that I'd be late for my lecture only to realize that the college term starts next week! I do need to start work on my final essays so there will probably be fewer posts in the next few weeks. To start this weeks roundup, a couple of leftovers from last week that I forgot to include: How corporations conspire with Democrats to hoard power at the public’s expense The Hypocrisy and Left-Wing Nature of the Extinction Rebellion Space:  NASA’s bold bet on Starship for the Moon may change spaceflight forever . Also, this week saw the second Crew Dragon mission.  Why everything is racist . Quote: 'the activists have the same simplistic, blinkered view of life and the same radical solutions. The irony in both cases is that their ideology reaches its peak popularity after the genuine grievances that gave rise to...

 A new weekly series, every Saturday I'll post a music video that means something to me as a change of pace. To begin, in tribute to Jim Steinman who died this week, here's Meat Loaf with  I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)  I have fond memories of listening to this and Bat out of Hell on cassette during a school coach trip to France.  And as one commentator notes:  'Meat loaf accidentally made a live action beauty and the beast and it came out better than Disney's live action movie.'

 ...will be Harrison Bergeron  (haven't read this story for many years, re-reading today it is quite prophetic) As the story begins: They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. This leads into today's insanity:  Virginia moving to eliminate all accelerated math courses before 11th grade as part of equity-focused plan This the tall poppy syndrome writ large, no one must have an advantage. This won't end well, I'm beginning to think the USA is too far gone to come back. (The UK is still savable imo, provided Boris grows a spine)

 Coming soon: HMS Dagger and Cutlass : Good choice of names, though I'd rather have had alliterative names, either Cutlass and Claymore or Dagger and Dart. I'd also like to see more ordered to replace the old P2000 's and Border force semi-rigid patrol craft .

 An interesting video of the future of England and the Union: I agree today should be a public holiday, and while I would be sad to see Scotland and NI go if they choose to do so good luck to them. The best way to counter this separatism IMO is to devolve powers lower down to county councils and get rid of the Welsh assembly (I'd vote for the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party  next month if I could), though doing the same for the NI Assembly and Scottish Parliament would be a lot trickier.  A future Kingdom of England and Wales (KEW) could happen in the next 50 years or so. 

Via this post, an interesting table on where slaves transported from West Africa ended up: A quote from the souce: 'The United States was a minor player in the African Slave Trade — only about 5% of the Africans imported to the New World came to the United States. Of the 10.7 million Africans who survived the ocean voyage, a mere 388,000 were shipped directly to North America. The largest recipients of imported African slaves were Brazil, Cuba. Jamaica, and the other Caribbean colonies. The lifespan of those brought into what is now the United States vastly exceeded those of the other 95%, and the United States was the only purchaser of African slaves where the population grew naturally in slavery – the death rate among the rest was higher than the birth rate' The World Slave Trade The Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean African slave trade, which began by Arabs as early as the 8th Century AD, dwarfed the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and continued up to the 20th Century. Between the ...

 The UK is currently building two new classes of frigates for the RN, the high-end, anti-sub Type 26 , and the cheaper general purpose Type 31 . Curiously, even though the T31's are supposed to enter service first and have all been order, no names have been announced. Whereas the T26's have all been named after major cities (and re-use names from earlier T42 destroyers and WW2 Town class cruisers). So what could the T31's be called? Here are my suggestions. 1) F class The RN began an alphabetical system in the late 60's with the Type 21 's (A), followed by the T22's (B and C), then the T23 and T45 destroyers both being D. In addition there were two survey ships with E names, and the first T26 will be G(lasgow). This skips F, so I would use this letter and the following names: (namesakes in brackets) Fearless (WW2 destroyer/Assult ship) Furious (WW2 carrier) Formidable (WW2 carrier) Fortune (WW2 destroyer) Foxhound (WW2 destroyer) 2) Lion class My other idea i...

 Link of the day: a long series of essays on  The Origins of World War I (a personal view) .  Some interesting points raised. 

As restrictions eased I've been more active this week, visiting Whitstable and Bluewater twice, as well as going to the pub Friday night. Am meeting another friend for dinner tonight so need to go get ready soon. Meanwhile here's this week's roundup of items that caught my interest. SpaceX abandons fairing recovering - not surprising as it's a dead-end technology given their future plans.  I'm shocked, shocked!  UAE-Venezuela betrayal leave US scrabbling for influence . Especially ironic given how many on the left in the west had gushed over Venezuela the past 20 years Yes to both-  Cancel culture is real and its getting worse . This is especially true: ' Another reason why there aren’t that many examples we can point to is that cancel culture causes people to self-censor' - indeed that's why I don't use Facebook anymore and write here semi-anonymously. My usual view is  De mortuis nil nisi bonum , but given her role in abolishing Grammar schools I...

 Was a very moving service this afternoon, especially poignant for me after attending my Uncle's on Wednesday. One thought that struck me watching the bands beforehand is how no one does pomp and circumstance better than the UK, despite the decline in the size of our military we can still pull out all the stops when needed. Finally, afterwards, I saw this article on the Duke-  Prince Philip embodied the KBO spirit  and thought it made some good points about the virtues of the stoical attitudes of his generation- the sense that there is great value in just getting on with things and not dwelling on your own troubles or problems, and not inflicting them on other people. Winston Churchill, no stranger to genuine mental health struggles, used the acronym KBO, or Keep Buggering On. Many times over the last year that phrase has echoed in my head. There was one part I disagreed with though - In his generation, for good or ill, such grumbling would be considered self-indulgent an...

An interesting suggestion here: Vanguard Class SSBN Conversion To Mother Submarine   Given the ship's ages (especially their reactors and the stresses their hulls get placed under) I doubt this idea would be cost-effective. hay would be cool is building 4 more Dreadnaught SSBNs but fitted out like this instead of having Trident missiles. I would also like to see the UK's next SSN based on the Dreadnaughts as much as possible.

 A fascinating interview with Swedish Epidemologist Johan Giesecke-  Did Sweden get Covid wrong? . Key points he makes:  Look at the good things with the Swedish system…. One is the schools: we are not destroying the future for classes of children. Another is that Sweden kept to its international agreements — for example in the EU you are not supposed to close your borders with other countries, but that has happened in several countries in Europe. We have made it possible for small businesses like cafes or bicycle shops to survive the pandemic. We have kept democracy. We have trusted people. I think there are a number of benefits from not having a severe lockdown and more of them will come as we do research on this in the future.” RTWT

Following on from my post yesterday , this segment from the Lotus Eaters explains a lot of what has gone wrong, specifically the messages given to young people that have to lead to them not settling down and starting a family. Like Carl, I also sympathize with and can relate to her. However, while I also worked in London I did the 'sensible thing and bought a house in a town an hour away by train and commuted in daily. I, therefore, didn't take part in the London nightlife scene but would usually socialize with friends in my hometown at weekends. Despite this, I still found it hard to meet someone to settle down with and start a family, even though I already had my own home and had thought about my long-term plans in a way Carl suggest Katie (and his younger self) hadn't. This lead in part to me deciding to roll the dice and move to Asia, hoping that I might meet someone there to marry. My failure to do so over 5 years again caused me to reconsider this plan and come back t...

 Yesterday I went to the funeral of my uncle. Despite the current restrictions, there was a good turnout and it was a lovely service.  One thought that struck me though was the 'winnowing' of families, a point made by Ross Douthat in his book The Decadent Society which I read recently. In the section on demographics, he mentions how his generation has had fewer kids compared to his parents and grandparents. This applies too to my family. For example, my mother had two siblings. They all married and had two children each, replacing themselves and their partners. However, of their six offspring that form my generation, to date we have only had six, of which four were had by my two oldest cousins (two each).  This winnowing seems to be a fairly common trend, as seen by the overall decline in the fertility rate of Western countries. The big question is why has this happened? This is one of the questions that I constantly grapple with, and will form a key theme in my writings....

 An interesting read on a firm with some potentially game-changing technology.  Faster please.

 Matthew Lynn at the Spectator claims  The UK’s vaccine roll-out has ended the Brexit debate , quoting polling that shows  62 per cent of people believe that leaving the EU helped the UK roll out vaccines more quickly than it could have done as a member. Another 67 per cent believe the EU has been ‘hostile’ to the UK during the row over vaccine supply. And, reflecting on all that, 54 per cent of people would vote to stay out in a rerun of the referendum' Furthermore, Guido reports that 'UK exports to the EU shot up by 46.6% (£3.7 billion) from January, with the number of UK-build car exports matching pre-pandemic levels from February 2020. Exports of food and livestock also rose by 77%' While the hardcore remainers/rejoiners will never let it rest it is good news that the rest of the country is moving with their lives and putting the divisions of the last 5 years behind us. 

 Over the weekend various papers reported on ideas to build a new royal yacht as a tribute to the recently deceased Prince Philip. Given his naval service, a ship named after him would be a good legacy.  Interestingly, one of the Navy's newest ships, the survey vessel HMS Magpie , shares its name with the Duke's only command . In addition, it was rumored that the second of the CVA-01 class carriers planned in the '60s would have been called HMS Duke of Edinburgh, and there was a cruiser of that name in the Edwardian era.  Currently, it is planned that the eighth type 26 frigate will be called Edinburgh , so the simplest solution could be to change her name to Duke of Edinburgh. This will give 4 ships named after royalty in the 2030s in addition to the currently built carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales and planed SSBN King George VI. As for building a new royal yacht, there is some merit to the idea. Currently, the Norwegian , Danish and Dutch royal familie...

So today finally marked the beginning of the end for Lockdown 3, with shops, restaurants, etc reopening. I went downtown fairly early to get a haircut. I didn't go to my usual place as there was a queue out the door but a new one around the corner, the result of which I'm not 100% happy with, but never mind. There were quite a few queues outside places and there were quite a few people wandering around. This afternoon I popped into Bluewater shopping center and it was similar there, with a huge queue for Primark of all places. I had a wander around a few shops but didn't buy anything apart from dinner in M&S. I really hope this is the resumption of normal life, the past few months have been pretty miserable and I can't wait to be able to travel again. I've still not booked anything yet but I hope to go away in the autumn at least.

Another week nearly over. As its been the school holidays but I've still not been able to go anywhere I've done a lot of reading this week  What indeed?  Britain’s vaccine success was supposed to lead to freedom. What happened? Also from the Speccie, on China-  Why fear a society that’s tearing itself apart? It's funny; 10 years ago I didn't think it would be possible to be a worse PM than Gordon Brown, but Cameron (and May) suceeded- The hypocrisy of David Cameron . As note4d in the article, part of the problem is the lack of options for ex-politicians. Maybe a better idea would be a minimum age to stand for election, of say 45? That wy not only would they have more real-world experience but once gone they could just retire.  Also from Unherd-  How the Left gave up on freedom . I'd suggest that the progressive left never really believed in it. I'm glad I'm not a fan of American comics, they seem to have embraced the woke agenda pretty hard. Case in point- T...

 This afternoon I finished reading The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success  by Ross Douthat. Though a thin volume it contained a lot to recommend it. There was a lot that overlapped with my own thoughts and could fit easily into the book I am (occasionally) working on, particularly the sections on demographics, movies, and spaceflight.  I did find it lacking in deeper explanations for why we are a decadent society, the book focuses more on symptoms than causes (I found it striking that for a book on the decline of civilization there was no mention of Spengler). However, I did appreciate the section on possible solutions, even if I found the tone too pessimistic (especially again the negativity to space colonization.  Overall though a good book and one I'd recomend. 

When I was a kid it was often said  'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me'. Now it seems the opposite is true, we often hear talk of the damage words can cause to mental wellbeing. This to me is sending the wrong message to young people, making them less resilient and leads to the encouragement of victimhood mentalities. Which brings me to this piece I read today:  The Macroaggression of Microaggressions . Key quote- The problem is that he refused to simply roll over and accept that microaggressions could be anything other than microaggressions rather than just clueless utterings. In other words, she simply couldn’t tolerate being questioned about her pet theory, one that as noted in the quoted piece is less than rigorously defined. This circles back (as always) to critical theory ideas, that such ideas are inherently true and anyone who disagrees either does not fully understand the theory or wilfully refuses to.

The Spectator has a good list of his many witticisms .  He will be missed, especially his no-nonsense approach to life. They don't make them like him anymore, sadly. Update Saturday: the US media makes his death all about race , naturally.  BTW, did every TV channel need constant rolling coverage of it last night?

The current riots in Northern Ireland reminded me of this old article at Strange Maps:  Is Ulster Doomed? . Since this year marks the centenary of the original partition of Ireland , so it is perhaps time to reconsider the current arrangements. As things stand under the Good Friday agreement NI remains part of the UK until the population wishes otherwise. Depending on how you count it  polls suggest  growing levels of support for a change.   However, reunification would have a high cost for the Republic (assuming the UK ceased all financial support for the province), while leaving a large population unhappy with the result. A co-dominion would be a short-term solution, but would probably only delay the event. So let's look at a more off-the-wall suggestion, as brought up by that Strange Maps article: repartition. Looking at the last general election result we could see the new borders set so: While the 2017 map is basically the same: These are both similar to o...

I haven't posted any updates on my Metal Earth construction projects for a while. Altogether I have finished 3 kits over the past weeks, and have one more ongoing. Let's have a look. First up, I did an Avro Lancaster: This one came out pretty well apart from putting the last proppeller on upside down! Next, Tower Bridge. I was also pretty happy with how it turned out. Finally a Stegosaurs. This was the hardest to build and the ribs were very fiddly. I also got them a bit out of sequence and left one out. I have enjoyed putting these together and doing something practical over the past few months.

 I just came across this article: you may be banned from selling your own home if you don't meet draconian new eco rules Yes, it's the Daily Fail but still, this is highly worrying, especially as the owner of an Edwardian terraced house that is currently let out. This part was particularly concerning: The Government has already banned the letting of homes with an energy rating below ‘E’. And by 2028, it has proposed to ban the letting of any property below a ‘C’ rating  And the Climate Change Committee, which advises the Government on how to reach its zero-carbon target, also wants to stop the sale of all homes with a rating lower than C by 2028, and to stop all mortgage lending on such properties by 2033. If this were to come into force, we would find ourselves in a ridiculous situation where, if someone couldn’t afford insulation, not only would they not be able sell their property, they wouldn’t be able to re-mortgage — leaving the only other outcome of repossession. *Slow ...

 I hadn't realized Dominic Cummins's plans for a UK DARPA were still being progressed . This Spectator article on it makes a few good points on the UK's previous issues with turning new tech into successful firms: Which is why when the UK launches ARIA, it needs to find a way to ‘land’ the transformative technologies it develops. A vision of how to retain, commercialise, and manufacture these technologies is just as required.  Part of the problem is the hostility to manufacturing there has been since the '80s,  a legacy of the industrial issues of the '70s. In addition, there is the attitude of VCs who'd rather sell off a firm to overseas ownership than nurture it into a future FTSE100 firm. I'd disagree with having a Chinese-style 5-year plans as the author seems to suggest, maybe some forms of the tax system would help to encourage a longer tern view?

Double edition! Number 1:   'wokeism isn’t about protecting minorities. It’s not about making the world better for marginalized people. No, it’s about raw, naked power and nothing else'  True. From  On Chickens Coming Home To Roost   Number 2: 'the wars of religion that seemed to define pre-Enlightenment history never really went away; the religions just got new labels. Secular ideologies that supplanted the old confessions seized the mind with the same sense of spiritual mission. The loyalties they demanded were more divisive and even more destructive than anything organized religion ever managed. In the 19th century it was nationalism. In the 20th, communism and fascism. In the 21st woke cultural nihilism is the dominant confession, and a fanatical one.' Also true. From  The C-Suite Converts to the New Political Religion

I read some of the extracts of his diaries in the Mail, he does come off as a twat with an overly high opinion of himself I have somewhere a copy of Saturn's Children , co-written by Duncan in the late '90s. As well as calling for the legalization of all drugs, privatising the schools and universities and massive cuts to public spending. It's quite sad how he went from one of the most radical, anti-state MP's to the sneering remoaner he is now. A good example perhaps of how the system assimilates all to its worldview, and an argument for term limits for MP's. 

 ( Via ) Jeremy Clarkson takes on that most sacred of cows:  Boris Johnson will be branded a Covid serial killer but no one will lay a glove on our bloated NHS . RTWH I particularly liked this part: 'You can already sense the hyenas of the left, circling and gurgling, aroused by the bloodbath to come. For months now we’ve been listening to their questions in press conferences, and they’re not really questions at all. “Do you accept, prime minister, that you are now responsible, personally, for the deaths of 125,000 people and that as a result, you are Britain’s biggest ever serial killer?”' It's true how the left, in particular, blames cock-ups on the hapless ministers rather than those lower down the chain, and how they always characterize the right as being malevolent. Is pretty common in media to see the right portrayed as downright evil, rather than having come to a different conclusion to the left as to how to deal with a particular issue. Lots of other good points, th...

Easter break started on Friday, though I've still been doing online lessons yesterday and today. Plus I came down with a cold towards the end of the week so have been taking it easy. That said, let's get on with this week's roundup. Faster please:  Wild Technological Leaps by the 2030s  Also in space news- another question to which the answer is yes-  Will Senator “Ballast” Drag NASA Down? Why some people love the pandemic: 'The hardworking people who built America and made it safe, secure, and prosperous, also made it, in some ways, empty.' T o put it another way, security and comfort leads to boredom and restlessness. Or as the phrase goes- 'Bad times make strong men. Strong men maker good times. Good times make weak men. Weak men make bad times' If You Want to Make It As a Writer, For God's Sakes, Be Weird  ' But that also means that there has never been more words vying for the attention of a public that also has more and more not-words to pay at...

The Spectator asks ' Why is cinema obsessed with remakes? Because it's a lower risk than a new project due to audience recognition of the branding. Simples

 Excellent article at Unherd yesterday:  How to end anti-capitalism . Excerpt: The mutualist impulse, says Horowitz, is simple: “If neither government nor market forces are solving a problem that you and the people in your community share, why not solve it yourself?” One of the side effects of the Cold War was that it framed the economic options as a binary choice between free-market capitalism and state socialism, pushing other models of ownership to the margins. One of my biggest frustrations with the Left's economic ideas is (ironically) their conservatism pushing discredited socialist ideas, ignoring other alternatives despite their history within their own movement. I've long had a fondness for co-ops and partnerships (going back, I think to the Free-market mutual economy described in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy), and think there is a lot of potential uses for the mutual model. Off the top of my head, I'd suggest converting the  BBC, utilities, and train op...