The Irish Border

Free movement of people and goods across the border between North and South Ireland is important to all who live in Ireland. Free movement of people has been allowed ever since Southern Ireland became the Irish Republic, and Irish people have always been allowed to settle in Britain and vote in elections here.

I remember going on holiday to the Irish Republic with my parents in the 1950's. No passports were required and I was intrigued to notice that Irish banknotes were guaranteed by the Bank of England.

Understandably people worry about the inconvenience of imposing border controls between North and Sough after Britain leaves the EU.

One solution would be for Ireland to be reunited with Britain, but that would offend the pride of citizens of the Irish Republic. An alternative would be for Britain to join a Greater Ireland, which could then hold another referendum on whether or not to be part of the EU.

Enlivened by the Spring

For the last few weeks I've been distressingly lazy, neglecting both blog and web site, instead messing about reading inconsequential odds and ends on the Internet, and gossiping with the cat - who is deaf and may well not be able to lip read.

Once the snow had melted in the Spring sunshine, I've been like a man reborn. I've walked all the way through the park, have planted by tomato seeds and replanted the camellia seedlings, and today I made a batch of lime marmalade, despite a power cut in the middle of the process. Allegedly a nearby substation caught fire.

A Paucity of Pedestrians.

It recently struck me how few people I encounter walking along the street, and how few people I see walking past my house.

I live in walking distance of the shopping centre and walk there and back almost every day, but I see very few other people similarly occupied.

I fear that many people walk no further than their cars which they use even for quite short journeys.

An Undiplomatic Diplomat

It was most unwise of our Foreign Secretary to hint in public that the recent use of nerve agents may be the responsibility of the Russian Government.

That possibility may have occurred to many of us, but official pronouncements on the question should await the collection of evidence. If the responsibility eventually turns out to lie elsewhere Mr. Johnson's remarks will be a great embarrassment. If investigations do reveal Russian involvement, the Foreign Secretary's premature comments will make it easier for the Russians to dismiss evidence by saying that we intended to blame them all along and manufactured evidence accordingly.

Expensive Tickets

From time to time there are media reports of high prices charged for tickets to sporting events and concerts.

The organisers appear to sell all their tickets rather quickly, but tickets are still offered for sale by secondary suppliers that charge much more than the nominal charge.

That suggests to me that the organisers of the events do not charge enough in the first place. Raise the official prices and the 'tickets touts' and internet re-sellers would no longer flourish.

Neglected Lavatories in Newham

A few days ago there were news reports that Newham Council had appealed to shopkeepers not to sell corrosive materials such as lavatory cleaners to anyone younger than 21.

The lower age limit for marriage is 16, so I imagine Newham has married couples both younger than 21, and some of those may have their own accommodation. There may be other households in which someone younger than 21 does the shopping for relatives too dilapidated to shop for themselves.

I do not envy them their unclean lavatories!

Making Education Fun ???

I note that the President of the USA considers arming teachers so that they can defend their pupils against armed attack.

How would the president respond if some teacher, infuriated by a disorderly class, shot them all?

Perhaps children would then be armed so they could protect themselves against berserk teachers.

Schools might then be as exciting as those computer games in which players try to shoot as many individuals as they can, and children could be judged by the number of their kills.

The Facts of the Matter

Inspired by seeing an Internet posting suggesting that there might be no such things as facts, I wrote a short note on the subject. here it is

Puritanical Over Reaction

I have reservations about the fuss over Oxfam staff employing prostitutes in Haiti.

The affair is being treated as if it were on a par with child abuse, or senior staff abusing their authority by making advances to subordinates.

The employment of a prostitute may be a straightforward transaction between consenting adults, in which case it is a private matter between the two people concerned.

There may well be other factors, but if there are they have not so far been explained.

My Website

I've just brought it up to date.

See: my site

The End of Home Chemistry

There are proposals to prevent people younger than 18 from buying corrosive substances.

Such a restriction in my youth it would have been a serious impediment to my intellectual development.

I received a chemistry set when I was about nine years old - I don't remember whether it was a Christmas present or a birthday present. It was made up by a colleague of my father's and contained several substances too poisonous to be permitted in a modern chemistry set.

For a year or two I just performed the experiments recommended in the instructions. When I started at the Grammar school, just before my eleventh birthday, I began to learn some chemistry and started to extend the chemistry set so that I could duplicate what we did at school. Chemistry became my hobby and I read well beyond the school syllabus, and by my fifteenth birthday I was studying Chemistry Physics and Mathematics at A Level, and had converted the small third bedroom to my 'laboratory', in which lethal substances abounded without ever causing me any injury.

Gradually my interest in Mathematics grew at the expense of Chemistry and I eventually became a Maths teacher, but it was Chemistry that led me to Science and Maths in the first place. What would have become of me without that stimulus ?

Shrinking Intellect

I once read a science fiction story about an alien species of which the children were humanoid, and showed a lively intelligence and curiosity, but when they matured they grew roots and turned into non sentient shrubs.

I was reminded of that by a news item about the death of human brain cells as children mature.

I've often thought it sad that so many lively inquisitive children turn first into sex obsessed teenagers, and then into dull adults with very little interest in new ideas.

Apparently quite a lot of  brain cells die during pregnancy. That might explain the blinkered pre-occupation of mothers with their children. Their capacity to deal with other matters being restricted in favour of a concentration on successful reproduction.

We tend to see ourselves as the thinking species, vehicles of enlightenment in a world where other creatures are governed by instinct. Actually we are primarily successful breeders, outbreeding other species to the point where many are driven to the point of extinction.