Regulating Childcare

I recently heard that no child minder is allowed to look after more than two children under the age of 2.

How long will it be before we hear demands for triplets to be made illegal?

High Speed Trains

Look at a map of England, and then meditate on the thought that the quickest way to travel from London to Nottingham might one day be through Birmingham.

Expensive Self-Indulgence

The Prime Minister has promised that, if he wins the next General Election he will hold a referendum on European Union membership after he has re-negotiated the terms.

I expect that, if he is ever in a position to keep his promise, things will turn out much as they did in the last referendum on the subject in 1975.

Minor cosmetic changes in our conditions of membership will be presented as a great triumph, and membership will be ratified by a large majority, with the Prime Minister claiming a great victory.

However, nothing significant will have been won, and the cost will be high. Business confidence will have been undermined, and it is possible that the cost of servicing the National Debt will rise. As we have more than two years to wait for the next General Election, much of that cost will be incurred even if the Conservatives lose the next election so the Prime Minister cannot keep his promise.

I think the Prime Minister is clever enough to realise the consequences of his announcement, making his action especially reprehensible.

Battery Care

A recent news item mentioned that batteries are often thrown away while they still hold a fair amount of charge.

What was not mentioned was that even if completely discharged, they can be recharged.

Many years ago a student told me that even batteries not sold as rechargeable can be recharged a few times. As I use mainly rechargeable s I'd never tested the claim until a few days ago when the battery in a remote control expired, and I had no rechargeables of the requisite size. I therefore tried recharging, and it worked!!

Distracted by Computer Code

I've been neglecting this blog to the extent that this is my first entry of the year.

I have been distracted by websites - my own and that of the Leicester U3A.

The problem was handling the menus. Originally each page had its own menu - very tiresome when I had to edit every page on the site to change the menu.

A few years ago I devised what has come to seem a distinctly Heath Robinson arrangement using frames and JavaScript to weld a single menu file onto whatever page was being viewed. Not only was it clumsy, but it behaved oddly. The refresh command took one back to the page one originally logged onto, not to the page one was viewing at the time.

A few weeks ago I investigated php, in particular the include command, and after pottering about for a while got it working. I then had to resolve competing styles, those used on the main pages and those needed by the menu, but today I got it all working, with considerably simpler code than I had before.

I'm so happy I don't mind even the snow !!

Tautology

I recently hear someone refer, in a BBC news program, to people 'starving for lack of food'


They  might have trusted us to work that out for ourselves!!

Seasonal Ill-Will

Christians often claim that theirs is the religion of love, yet the Christmas message of the Archbishop of Westminster was devoted to attacking a way of expressing love; he denounced plans for gay marriage.

I'm not sure how closely faces correlate with character, but the archbishop's face suggested to me someone who has rarely felt love.

Perhaps someone should seduce him, but I hope I don't draw the short straw!!

An Exceptionally Bad Bargain

One of the few consolations of the Christmas season is the opportunity to sneer at the various optimistically priced packages of teas, jams, biscuits, herbs, spices, tinsel, tissue paper and confectionery sold as something the desperate might like to give as Christmas presents.

Among this year's selection there was a conspicuously bad bargain. It was called a marinade kit, or words to that effect, and consisted of a graduated glass cylinder and a bottle of Worcester sauce; together they were priced at 14 pounds!!! Last time I bought Worcester sauce a bottle of that size cost less than 2 pounds, I'm not sure what a graduated measuring jug would cost, but imagine one could be had for not much more than a couple of pounds,

Pe-emptive Repair

Strolling through John Lewis's today I noticed some jackets for sale with leather patches on their elbows.

I recall that in my youth one could buy jacket repair kits consisting of two elbow patches and two cuff reinforcers, but I'm surprised that manufacturers should have so little confidence in the durability of their products that they sell them ready repaired.

I wonder if it is possible to buy ready darned socks?

Ugandan Maniacs

This is the first time I've copied someone else's appeal into this blog, but the homophobia of the Ugandans is particularly revolting, so I urge readers to follow the link and read and sign the petition.

Does Britain still give aid to Uganda ? If so it may be time to stop.

Change.org|The Proven Petition Site

An Amateur Meteorologist

I now have my own weather station. See the pictures on my website

Taxing Companies

Politicians think some international companies are avoiding tax by arranging their finances so that their British operations make either implausibly small profits, or no profits at all.

Profit is hard to pin down because it is a number produced by complicated calculations by accountants. I remember a pupil whose father was a farmer once said to me 'A farmer can be doing quite well and still have zero income'.

My solution is to stop taxing profits, and tax turnover instead. As turnover is much greater than profit, a considerably lower rate should produce the same tax yield, or even a greater tax yield.

Apart from clarity, another advantage of taxing turnover is that taxes would be paid by all companies roughly in proportion to the the services they receive from the government. Unsuccessful and badly run companies would pay more than they do now, and better run companies would often pay less.

I think I may have said much the same thing in this blog several years ago, if so circumstances justify the repetition.