Tonight across the country bonfires will be lit, guys burned and fireworks let off in celebration of the discovery of the failed Bonfire Plot of 5 November 1605.
The plot, in which explosives were placed in the undercroft of the Palace of Westminster, ended in the trial and execution of Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators who attempted to assassinate the Protestant King James I of England and replace him with a Catholic monarch.
In 1606, this day was declared a public holiday, Thanksgiving Day, and was commemorated for many years by the ringing of church bells along with special services and appropriate sermons. Bonfires and the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes (the ‘guy’) started soon after the discovery of the plot and this gradually evolved into today’s festivities.
I guess that the majority of youngsters these days have heard of Guy Fawkes but have only a vague idea, if any, of the circumstances in which he is memorialised this evening, and it’s unlikely that many have a clue as to why the conspirators wanted to kill the king. The emphasis these days is to set off as many fireworks as possible in the longest period of time.
The last government imposed stricter controls on fireworks, reducing their strength and decibel-ratings but Bonfire Night is, alas, an annual event in which many people, young and old, get burned setting them off. I suppose that not much can be done about this unless, as in some US states and other places, fireworks are banned except in professionally organised displays.
In any event, Happy and Safe Bonfire Night!
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
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Friday, 5 November 2010
Thursday, 4 November 2010
University Tuition Fees
I can’t say that I fully understand the complexities of the row over tuition fees or why they should be so high and also variable between universities. I do know that a nephew of mine has run up a huge debt which he will struggle to pay.
I was, however, reminded that it was not so long ago that there was a proposal to drastically cut university holidays and to truncate three-year courses into two years.
Would that not save the students’ money and also improve the throughput of them through universities?
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I was, however, reminded that it was not so long ago that there was a proposal to drastically cut university holidays and to truncate three-year courses into two years.
Would that not save the students’ money and also improve the throughput of them through universities?
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Wednesday, 3 November 2010
A Nightmare
That arch-busybody in British affairs, the European Court of Human Rights, has ruled that sentenced prisoners should be allowed to vote, a privilege originally denied them by the Forfeiture Act of 1870.
Though it is said that the Prime Minister is ‘exasperated’ by the ruling, I can’t say that I can personally get too worked up by it, particularly as prisoners on remand awaiting trial, fine defaulters and people jailed for contempt of court are able to vote.
It does strike me, however, that organising a vote for prisoners - presumably those able to prove British citizenship - is going to be an administrative nightmare for the Prison Service, an organisation not often renowned for its speed of bureaucratic action. With a population sometimes moving between prisons and with some prisoners gaining early release, getting a vote organised efficiently throughout the prison system is going to take a great deal of detailed organisation.
But in theory, they would seem to have plenty of time to get it together.
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Though it is said that the Prime Minister is ‘exasperated’ by the ruling, I can’t say that I can personally get too worked up by it, particularly as prisoners on remand awaiting trial, fine defaulters and people jailed for contempt of court are able to vote.
It does strike me, however, that organising a vote for prisoners - presumably those able to prove British citizenship - is going to be an administrative nightmare for the Prison Service, an organisation not often renowned for its speed of bureaucratic action. With a population sometimes moving between prisons and with some prisoners gaining early release, getting a vote organised efficiently throughout the prison system is going to take a great deal of detailed organisation.
But in theory, they would seem to have plenty of time to get it together.
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Tuesday, 2 November 2010
That One There!
Yesterday afternoon we walked our dogs in a local park instead of heading for Two Tree Island.
Treading over the fallen leaves that carpeted the ground, scenting the wispy smoke from a nearby bonfire and wishing that we had worn gloves against the bitterly cold wind, we were reminded that autumn is well on its way to becoming winter.
The thing that struck us also in the sunshine was the splendid view of the trees covering the hills in the far distance and blazing with an abundance of glorious russet colours. They reminded us that we need not have to travel to New England to see the Fall colours for they are here in abundance this year.
With a couple of friends, we did take a trip to New England a few years ago. It was a hugely enjoyable trip but the thing that amused us most, and has stuck with us ever since, was the brilliantly vibrant gold colour of a single tree that stood out among the many, many thousands of others we saw. Though we did a week’s tour of New England it was that one tree that was the most noteworthy and beautiful.
It was the tree standing opposite the entrance to our hotel!
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Treading over the fallen leaves that carpeted the ground, scenting the wispy smoke from a nearby bonfire and wishing that we had worn gloves against the bitterly cold wind, we were reminded that autumn is well on its way to becoming winter.
The thing that struck us also in the sunshine was the splendid view of the trees covering the hills in the far distance and blazing with an abundance of glorious russet colours. They reminded us that we need not have to travel to New England to see the Fall colours for they are here in abundance this year.
With a couple of friends, we did take a trip to New England a few years ago. It was a hugely enjoyable trip but the thing that amused us most, and has stuck with us ever since, was the brilliantly vibrant gold colour of a single tree that stood out among the many, many thousands of others we saw. Though we did a week’s tour of New England it was that one tree that was the most noteworthy and beautiful.
It was the tree standing opposite the entrance to our hotel!
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Contrasts
A 22-year-old man walked out of a £93-a-week job over a year ago, preferring instead to live on benefits and happily admits this to a reporter.
An 18-year-old who applied for more than eighty jobs since leaving college is so desperate to find work that she took up her mother’s suggestion and walks the streets of her home town for three hours a day holding a placard saying ‘Please give me a job’.
The one demonstrates clearly why benefit reform is so badly needed, while the other deserves as much support as the State or anyone else can give her.
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An 18-year-old who applied for more than eighty jobs since leaving college is so desperate to find work that she took up her mother’s suggestion and walks the streets of her home town for three hours a day holding a placard saying ‘Please give me a job’.
The one demonstrates clearly why benefit reform is so badly needed, while the other deserves as much support as the State or anyone else can give her.
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Monday, 1 November 2010
Corrosive
We live in times where attention to health and safety regulations have removed commonsense from many areas of our lives.
Think of schools that have banned conkers unless the contestants wear goggles or the council that banned cheese-rolling because the hill was too steep. There are hundreds of such examples, including the one I mentioned earlier this morning about Network Rail making it virtually impossible for a Women’s Institute to carry on with a railway garden they have tended for 26 years.
We also live in times where terrorists attack us or attempt to attack us in various deadly ways. In times when deranged men kill innocent people in senseless random attacks. These are times when incidents such as these need to be reacted to with great speed. And, generally speaking, our emergency forces do a wonderful job in responding to major incidents.
The coalition government have promised to do away with unnecessary health and safety regulations and I for one wish they’d hurry up and get on with it.
For a start, they could do away with the RA1 form that needs to be filled in by the Metropolitan police before they can commence conducting any sort of operation. The Risk Assessment Form contains 238 potential hazards that officers must consider before embarking on, say, attendance at a football match or, at the other extreme, reacting to a terrorist attack.
Once filled in, the form has to be accompanied by Form RA2 (an inventory of risk activities), Form RA3 (a calculation of levels of risk) and Form RA4 (the resulting recommendations). Then a Commander or Chief Constable has to sign off the recommendations.
A former Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner has said that a ‘self-serving risk assessment culture’ blights police operations. ‘A generation of senior police, fire and ambulance officers have grown up in an environment where avoidance of risk and the fear of being sued by an ‘ambulance-chasing’ solicitor is more important than public duty.’ He added, ‘This corrosive culture of caution and risk-avoidance is why the Aldgate firefighters were ordered to stay at the gates rather than help the grievously wounded.’
Corrosive indeed. Given that the risk of terrorist activity is now rated as severe, now is the time for the government to crack down on this sort of nonsense that serves only the ambulance-chasers and not the public.
,
Think of schools that have banned conkers unless the contestants wear goggles or the council that banned cheese-rolling because the hill was too steep. There are hundreds of such examples, including the one I mentioned earlier this morning about Network Rail making it virtually impossible for a Women’s Institute to carry on with a railway garden they have tended for 26 years.
We also live in times where terrorists attack us or attempt to attack us in various deadly ways. In times when deranged men kill innocent people in senseless random attacks. These are times when incidents such as these need to be reacted to with great speed. And, generally speaking, our emergency forces do a wonderful job in responding to major incidents.
The coalition government have promised to do away with unnecessary health and safety regulations and I for one wish they’d hurry up and get on with it.
For a start, they could do away with the RA1 form that needs to be filled in by the Metropolitan police before they can commence conducting any sort of operation. The Risk Assessment Form contains 238 potential hazards that officers must consider before embarking on, say, attendance at a football match or, at the other extreme, reacting to a terrorist attack.
Once filled in, the form has to be accompanied by Form RA2 (an inventory of risk activities), Form RA3 (a calculation of levels of risk) and Form RA4 (the resulting recommendations). Then a Commander or Chief Constable has to sign off the recommendations.
A former Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner has said that a ‘self-serving risk assessment culture’ blights police operations. ‘A generation of senior police, fire and ambulance officers have grown up in an environment where avoidance of risk and the fear of being sued by an ‘ambulance-chasing’ solicitor is more important than public duty.’ He added, ‘This corrosive culture of caution and risk-avoidance is why the Aldgate firefighters were ordered to stay at the gates rather than help the grievously wounded.’
Corrosive indeed. Given that the risk of terrorist activity is now rated as severe, now is the time for the government to crack down on this sort of nonsense that serves only the ambulance-chasers and not the public.
,
A Farce
I suppose we often say that things were simpler long ago and sometimes that is right as two reports this morning remind me.
In the ‘old days’ when trains broke down within sight of a station, you waited patiently for a little while and then opened the doors, climbed out if you could and hoofed it along the track to the station. I’ve done that myself at least a couple of times. But you can’t do that easily these days as there are few ‘slam-door’ trains left. Most of them now have electrically-operated doors controlled by the driver.
So when a rush-hour train from Kings Cross to Cambridge conked out on Friday evening, around fifteen passengers got fed-up with waiting more than thirty minutes, forced open a door, climbed out and walked 500 metres along the track to Foxton station. You’d have thought ‘Good luck to them!’ but the driver thought otherwise, locked the other 360 passengers in with a warning that they could be arrested if they tried to leave the train, and then called the police.
The first set of trapped passengers were released from the blacked-out train ninety minutes after it broke down and ferried, not to Foxton nearby, but back to Royston. Nearly three hours after the train broke down, the others were ferried back to Royston again where a fleet of 28 buses took them all to Cambridge.
I suppose that in the case of this train, there might have been a risk that some dimwit escaping from the trapped train might have fallen over and injured himself so, possibly, First Capital Connect were right to lock the other passengers in.
On the other hand, contrast the 32 ladies of the Bucknell Women’s Institute who for the last quarter of a century have tended a garden alongside their local railway station, even winning a Wales in Bloom award in 1992.
But no longer. For Network Rail has told them that they need to complete a detailed risk assessment, arrange insurance, sign a five-page licence that would restrict their activities, undergo safety training and fence off their garden. And all this for a station that has eight trains a day travelling at two miles an hour because of a level crossing nearby.
What a farce!
.
In the ‘old days’ when trains broke down within sight of a station, you waited patiently for a little while and then opened the doors, climbed out if you could and hoofed it along the track to the station. I’ve done that myself at least a couple of times. But you can’t do that easily these days as there are few ‘slam-door’ trains left. Most of them now have electrically-operated doors controlled by the driver.
So when a rush-hour train from Kings Cross to Cambridge conked out on Friday evening, around fifteen passengers got fed-up with waiting more than thirty minutes, forced open a door, climbed out and walked 500 metres along the track to Foxton station. You’d have thought ‘Good luck to them!’ but the driver thought otherwise, locked the other 360 passengers in with a warning that they could be arrested if they tried to leave the train, and then called the police.
The first set of trapped passengers were released from the blacked-out train ninety minutes after it broke down and ferried, not to Foxton nearby, but back to Royston. Nearly three hours after the train broke down, the others were ferried back to Royston again where a fleet of 28 buses took them all to Cambridge.
I suppose that in the case of this train, there might have been a risk that some dimwit escaping from the trapped train might have fallen over and injured himself so, possibly, First Capital Connect were right to lock the other passengers in.
On the other hand, contrast the 32 ladies of the Bucknell Women’s Institute who for the last quarter of a century have tended a garden alongside their local railway station, even winning a Wales in Bloom award in 1992.
But no longer. For Network Rail has told them that they need to complete a detailed risk assessment, arrange insurance, sign a five-page licence that would restrict their activities, undergo safety training and fence off their garden. And all this for a station that has eight trains a day travelling at two miles an hour because of a level crossing nearby.
What a farce!
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