Earthquakes And Aftershocks

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Scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois and the University of Missouri believe that recent earthquakes may have been the aftershocks of earthquakes that occurred hundreds of years ago.

In the journal, Nature, they explain that a new pattern in the frequency of aftershocks could explain some major quakes after finding that echoes of past earthquakes can continue for several hundred years. They hope that further study will help them and other scientists to look for places where the earth is ‘storing up energy for a large future earthquake’.

Californians will be hoping that this is so for they anxiously await the arrival of ‘the big one’ which, despite recent major quakes in that State, has yet to materialise. I do hope so, for I was involved in the January 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles and it was a very unpleasant experience indeed, especially as for weeks afterwards one was waiting for the next aftershock in case it was a fresh earthquake.

Some time afterwards, I lived in the San Gabriel Mountains away from the rush, noise and pollution of LA. Just a couple of miles away from my house was the San Andreas Fault, a great gash in the ground, and I used to take visitors down there to see it.

Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. But looking more closely at the frequency of quakes might be.
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‘Lest We Forget’

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I had to go up to London yesterday and was saddened to see how few people were wearing poppies.

Maybe some people feel that the poppies represent just another charity and, to some extent, that is true for every week someone seems to be clanking a collecting tin as we emerge from a station or a supermarket. Every so often we also get personally-addressed appeals in the mail from charities reminding us of the need to support various folk or animals around the world. So I have some understanding of what is now called ‘charity fatigue’.

On the other hand, the annual display of poppies in the run-up to Remembrance Day has become a national symbol as well as a memorial and tribute to all those who have fallen in conflict and who may have been injured in or affected by them.

It’s not only the last two World Wars that we need to remember, but all the various conflicts since then. And, of course, the conflicts that exist right now, and Lord knows there are plenty of them.

More importantly, Poppy Day is a reminder - one sadly forgotten or ignored by many young people these days - that those who have fallen in conflict have done so to protect the freedom that we enjoy now. And that is definitely something that should not be forgotten.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
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Sold Out!

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The oldest parliamentary system in the world will have been sold out to the European Union when the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect later this year. And this despite the checks and balances we believed we had in this country on Parliament and the promise by ‘Teflon’ Blair of a referendum on the EU.

David Cameron, who I assume will be our next Prime Minister - Oh, Lord, let there please be a new Prime Minister! - finds himself betwixt the devil and the deep-blue sea. But the damage is done and there is nothing that can undo what has happened.

Cameron has promised a referendum on certain aspects of EU law and it remains to be seen whether his promise, like that of his predecessors in power, have any real meaning or whether it is as meaningful as a cupful of cold water in a storm. Only time will tell.

The tragedy is that the consequences of what has happened will fall on the Tories rather than on the people in power at this moment.

The wrangling and the arguments will probably go on for a lot longer than we can possibly tell.
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I Can Do Thursday If You Can Do Friday ...

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You’d imagine that an airline pilot would be pretty busy during a flight, checking his or her instruments, ensuring that the automatic pilot is working properly and doing all the other things a pilot should do and about which I know nothing.

One imagines that in those times when the automatic pilot has taken over, that pilots would be drinking their coffee, eating their meals, picking their noses and otherwise generally taking it easy while keeping an eye on things.

However, it has now emerged that the reason why a Northwest Airlines plane which overshot its destination by 150 miles was because the pilots were tinkering with their working schedules on their laptops! Good grief!

Now a US Senator is planning to introduce an Aviation Bill banning pilots from using laptops (except for those containing navigational tools), DVD or MP3 players and other personal electronic devices in flight. Like him, I am surprised that the regulations do not already prohibit this sort of thing.

For passengers in cattle class, flying is stressful in itself. But I’d rather be on a plane knowing that the pilot was fully concentrating on flying the wretched thing and not playing with his X-Box!
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He’s Referring It

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Yesterday the Deputy Speaker interrupted a Conservative MP in the middle of a speech when he spotted the MP looking at a Blackberry-type device when reading out the text of a letter he was referring to.

MPs are allowed to check and send emails from electronic devices in the Commons chamber, and are allowed to give speeches from written notes. But it seems that the Deputy Speaker felt that reading from an electronic device during a speech was to be ‘discouraged’. He allowed the MP to continue but said he would refer to it, another way of saying he would think about it afterwards.

In one respect, I have sympathy with the Deputy Speaker for the proliferation of Blackberries and those mobile phones which are also mini computers are a nuisance and a distraction.

On the other hand, reading a letter from a Blackberry doesn’t seem any different from reading from the letter itself.
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How Many?

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I don’t have a vintage car but I’d love to join the annual London to Brighton Rally which is held on the first Sunday of each November.

First held in 1896 to celebrate the Locomotives on the Highway Act, which raised the national speed limit from four miles per hour to fourteen miles an hour (Wow!), the rally attracts entries from all over Europe.

Over 400 cars were entered in yesterday’s rally, which is not strictly a race but more an endurance test to see if cars built before January 1905 can go the distance. If they do, they get a bronze medal.

I wonder how many of today’s cars, many of which require a computer programmer to repair, will be in the race in a hundred years time?
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Sales Time Is Every Time!

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I’ve said for some time that the many furniture sales advertised on television are often just a scam.

Ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t give house room to much of the bulky furniture being sold at so-called ‘Sale’ prices, the frequency of the television adverts suggests that the sale price is the ‘real’ price.

Labour MP David Taylor has now told that Commons that it is virtually impossible to find sofas and armchairs at the full selling price and that shoppers are being misled by the television and newspaper advertisements. I’m not sure I agree entirely on this last point, but I agree that something needs to be done.

The Advertising Standards Authority have twice upheld complaints in the last year against DFS’s half-price claims in TV adverts, ruling that they were misleading, and Mr Taylor comments that, ‘there is no way of knowing whether the discounted price represents a real saving for the potential consumer or just whether it is a cynical, deceitful come-on’.

New pricing practices guidelines are set out in the Consumer White Paper and are supposed to tighten things up. This remains to be seen.

In the meantime, it would be good to see fewer of these wretched furniture sales advertisements on television.
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