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Come back Hadrian, all is forgotten

28/10/2014

Along Hadrian’s Wall, at regular intervals, there are guard-posts. Small stone residences from which a watch could be kept. They’re set at regular intervals along the wall, and most of them, perhaps all of them but one, have a very good view to the North. It’s that one that sticks in my mind.

It is built down to one side of a rise in the ground – the wall goes up and over the top. If this guard-post had been built at the top of the rise, the guards inside would have been able to see everything, everywhere. As it is, they would have had, at best, only a partial view of any incursion by the Scots. Not good.

The interesting thing about this guard-post is that it is exactly equidistant between its neighbouring guard-posts. On paper, it is exactly in the right place.

Back in 2013, a businessman was convicted of fraud for selling fake bomb-detection equipment. Heard this morning – that kit is still in use in Iraq, and perhaps elsewhere. On paper, the good guys can detect bombs.

But.

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Let's be optimists for once

10/10/2014

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So that was Boston. That was hearing Bill Gates talk about delivering financial services to the unbanked via their mobile phones.
    And a lot else besides. But all the rest of it - another time.
    The unbanked - the exceptionally poor, with no credit records and hardly any money - can't get into the banking system because they can't give satisfactory answers to any of the "know-your-client" questions that banks are obliged to ask these days. So they can't put money in the bank. Or borrow from banks.
    But they do have phones. Mr Gates' suggestion is that banks could develop very simple savings accounts, phone-based, that could be exempt (because they're so small) from all that fandango about producing ID and a utility bill, yada. Fine notion, and I'm in favour. I like the thought that the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has the clout to make it all happen.
    IT is pretty reliable nowadays, and although I suppose we have to acknowledge the occasional eccentricities of the average (smart)phone, and the tendency of wifi connections to be slow or to drop completely, and the whole thing about losing your phone, dropping it, forgetting to charge it,* this could be real. Check this out.
    Come on - let's be optimists.

*And all the things people say about regulators. And banks.

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What happens here

This site is updated weekly, usually on a Friday although I might change that (again). I write it because (1) I like writing it and (2) I like having a deadline. More often than not, it works out as a commentary on the week just passed*.
There are no ads, no pop-ups and no tricky business with cookies. I don't take money for my own opinions. I write this for myself, without a set agenda, on any subject that catches my attention. If you're interested enough, it's not hard to work out my interests.
*Although I seem to have gone seriously away from that recently. Normal service may or may not be resumed.

No data is kept on this website overnight. Blog posts are shared to my Facebook author page. We can discuss them there if you feel so inclined.

Riddle. It takes two to make me, but when I'm made, I'm only a memory. What am I? Scroll down to find out.

You found me!
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William Essex? Click here
to meet some more.

Read My Shorts?

Here is yet another page of old blog posts and other writings. Sorry, but I need my metaphorical sock drawer for metaphorical socks. The link to the page is right at the end of the paragraph here.

A very green picture. I can't remember where I took this.

Roads without end

Here is a passage from a review of the book The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart. I haven't read the book (yet), but the collected reviews would make a worthwhile set of political arguments in their own right. More.

Also available in English. 'Can I Quote You on That?'

State of the Union

Several commentators today saying that they've lost confidence in the US. Making their point by talking up the glories of the past. After two weeks of this administration, they're not going back.
Were they wrong, and they've seen the light? Or has the US changed? I guess the latter is the intended meaning. But we should at least acknowledge the possibility... More.

Categories
(Started 4th November 2017; forgotten shortly after that.)

Kitchen parenting

I have teenage children. When they're home, sooner or later one of them will come to me and say: "Dad! We're going to make a mess in the kitchen!
   "Great!" I will reply, picking up on the tone of voice. "What are you going to do?"
    "We thought we'd slice up some peppers and onion and bits of chicken and leave them glued to the bottom of the frying pan. Burn something in one of the saucepans and leave it floating in the sink."
    "Anything else?" More.

No pinpricks

Okay, so a certain President recently made a speech to his people, in which he told them that their country's military "don't do pinpricks". His intention was to get across that when those soldiers do a "limited" or even "targeted" strike, it hurts. But those of us in the cynical wing of the listening public took it the other way. More.

Making mistakes

We all make mistakes in our relationships. Some are mistakes that can be corrected with an apology. Sometimes - "if only I'd said that, and not that." Sometimes, they're mistakes that are incomprehensible even to ourselves, and sometimes, we do things that show us up as not quite the likeable hero of our own story that we want to think we are. More.

Man down?

There's a report by the Samaritans about men and suicide. It's titled Men, Suicide and Society, and it finds that men are more likely to take their own lives than women (in the UK and ROI). More.

Offending the status quo

Looking at both the US election and the revived Brexit debate in the UK, the question is not: who wins? but: how did we get here? More.

Thinks: populism

Bright, sunny morning. Breeze. Weather forecast said fog, but it's a blue sky overlaid with vapour trails. Windy season, drifts of Autumn-coloured leaves. Thinking, on this morning's walk, about populism. More.

Early morning, Church Street, Falmouth

Not available in Vietnamese. Sorry.

9th May 2014

On the day that I wrote this, the early news told us of a parade in Moscow to celebrate Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Crimea remained annexed, and the Russia/Ukraine crisis was not resolved. At around half eight, the BBC’s reporter in Moscow was cut off in mid-sentence summarising the military display; the Today programme on Radio 4 cut to the sports news. More.

Riddle. What are you? You're a conversation!

Come back Hadrian, all is forgotten

Let's be optimists for once

What happens here

Read My Shorts?

Roads without end

State of the Union

Categories(Started 4th November 2017; forgotten shortly after that.)

Kitchen parenting

No pinpricks

Making mistakes

Man down?

Offending the status quo

Thinks: populism

9th May 2014

Archives

Categories
(Started 4th November 2017; forgotten shortly after that.)