[bits and pieces] while it is still possible

Trouble in the blogosphere

There does seem to be something going on. Today I could not access Sicily Scene [perhaps it's not a problem for you]. JMB had troubles yesterday with posting. There were troubles with accessing Bloghounds some days ago.

Entirely conceivable that the problems could be local server issues or even the computers themselves. There has been an increase in blogs coming up as potential spam also, so it seems. One to keep our eyes on.

The sphere itself appears to be under assault, doesn't it? Look at China for a start but the U.S. is going in for this big time as well. If you were a betting person, how long would you say independent opinion on the web can exist for? One month, one year, one decade?

Trouble in your sphere

I really dislike how some people go in for the Four Yorshiremen Syndrome and feel obliged to respond: "You think you have troubles. You're in paradise, my son. Oh what I wouldn't give to be in your position. Now, as for me, I really do have problems," as if it were some kind of competition.

We can't assume anything about how genuinely bad other people's circumstances are. I happen to know of some fellow bloggers' current woes and though they're different in nature, they're no less debilitating in their own way. I'd not like to be in their shoes and wouldn't swap mine.

What can we do? Help can only go so far, though we'd wish to help indefinitely. If I ever get to find some sort of peace and stability myself, one of the first things I'll do is try to repay the many kindnesses.

Trouble in my sphere

My N1 difficulty is apparent statelessness and so Monday, on current reckoning, will be the last day I can reliably post on my site. I've been able to keep the blog going since late May only through the good grace of Welshcakes, for whom it has been a real imposition, despite her never once complaining and to her go eternal thanks.

A quantum shift in my status sometime next week will bring the current phase to an end and if posts appear, then they will have been due to good luck but at the same time can't be relied on to continue. There is a point soon when they will stop altogether, possibly to reappear a week or so later, possibly not.

Government bodies

Much is written of DEFRA, the NHS and so on but I'd like to mention the FCO. One can only report as one finds and whatever the outcome of negotiations with this body, possibly not to my liking, possibly a blessed relief, I have to say that they have been courteous and helpful to a fault and should take a bow. Our diplomatic missions in other countries really are a pleasure to have to deal with.

Sicilian friendliness

I'm not in a position to judge the Milanese or Florentines but I can report that the people of the deep south here are rather special. It's just been one friendly face after another and my time would have been even more of a pleasure, had the official difficulties not pressed down so on the brain.

The scenery, the panorama and sweeping vistas are a sight for sore eyes and the dusky landscape burns itself into your psyche after a time.

Small pleasures

Today, we'll go down the hill to the Consorzio for our regular Saturday repast. We printed out the post Welshcakes did on the staff and she'll present it to them - the last opportunity before their own hiatus-vacanza. It will be hot out there today, if yesterday is anything to go by - it was 38 degrees - but the olive tree is a boon.

The whole town closes down next week and those who have not already left town for the country will most likely do so.

Readers of this blog

Have as good a summer's end as you can under your current circumstances and I do mean it sincerely. I'll post when I can.

[12 movie meme] hmmmm

Ordo's tagged me here and I'll try to get mine up [no, that didn't come out right] tomorrow.

[restructuring transport] some vision, some willpower, some money

In a BBC article in 2000, Alex Kirby reported:

A £500m revamp of Britain's ageing canal network has been unveiled. The two-stage scheme by British Waterways will restore or build over 300 miles (480 kilometres) of canals and waterways. It has been estimated there are between 20,000 and 25,000 boats on the British Waterways network and a similar number on the River Thames.

The first phase, to open some 220 miles (350 km) of canals and structures, will be completed in 2002 and includes the Anderton Boat Lift. The 115-ft- (35-m-) high Falkirk Wheel in Scotland is the world's first rotating boat lift and will open on 1 May.

A programme of nine further canal restoration and new waterway schemes is being announced by British Waterways in partnership with an independent charity, the Waterways Trust. Covering 100 miles (160 km) of waterways, from London to the Lake District

George Greener, chairman of British Waterways, said:

Canals were catalysts for economic growth two centuries ago, and with our partners we're restoring and opening them as fast as they were originally built. Our current programme is set to deliver £100 million into local economies every year, from Scotland to the south of England, and to create 13,000 new permanent jobs.

The other restorations were:

• Chesterfield Canal
• Huddersfield Narrow Canal. This involved reopening the Standedge Tunnel - the UK's longest, highest and deepest canal tunnel
• Kennet and Avon Canal.
• The Millennium Link reconnecting the Forth & Clyde and Union canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh and coast-to-coast across Scotland.
• Rochdale Canal
The nine new building and restoration projects are:
• Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway
• Bow Back Rivers, a network of tributaries of the River Lee navigation in east London
• Cotswold Canals
• Droitwich Canals
• Foxton Inclined Plane, on the Leicester Line of the Grand Union Canal
• Liverpool Extension to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which will link the national network to the port's spectacular waterfront
• Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal
• Montgomery Canal, an internationally important habitat for floating water plantain
• The northern reaches of the Lancaster Canal
• Sapperton tunnel will reopen in May

Yet Anne McIntosh, Vale of York MP and Shadow Environment Minister, reported something a little different in late 2007:

[There] is growing concern among those who use the canals that cuts to government funding for British Waterways will adversely affect the maintenance and enjoyment of the UK's canal network.

Through no fault of their own, British Waterways, the Inland Waterways Association and other agencies funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, have had their budgets cut. This has been largely due to the fact that Defra has overspent by £115m … following animal health crises such as foot and mouth and bird flu.

It costs £125m annually to maintain our canals. Even after the cuts that have been imposed, British Waterways has only 85 per cent of the money needed to fulfil that obligation.

It has been suggested that boaters will shoulder much of the burden, with mooring fees set to rise dramatically and annual licence fees to rise by a third. … Maintenance of the canal network has been further hit by the effect of the flooding this summer. British Waterways has admitted that £3.8m of maintenance this year has been deferred.

This is particularly pertinent at a time when the Government would like to see fewer foreign holidays made and greater encouragement of the holiday opportunities in this country. The canal network is also extremely useful to transport freight. Moving freight by water in this way is several times more environmentally sustainable than doing so by road, and this method takes lorries off the congested road network. Water freight makes a major contribution to the UK's economy and employs more than 200,000 people.

A reader, Keith L, further commented:

Canals and waterways are among various parts of Government which have unfortunately been lumped into the mega-dept of DEFRA and are unjustifiably losing out because of the massive incompetence of the Agriculture part of the dept. Canals would be better classed as Transport, or even Culture, out of the hands of the non-farmers who run farming. They are too important to fall victim to this unfair funding penalty.

Clearly, the canals are suffering from “interesting” accounting at the DEFRA level. Add to this, Gallimaufry’s comment in the last post on the matter on this blog:

The problem is gradient and your photo of a flight of locks illustrates the point. Motorways and trunk roads can have steeper gradients (yet additional climbing lanes are needed for lorries) than rail and canals. Massive areas of land would need to be turned into locks and reservoirs to satisfy their demands for water. It would be easier to flood the whole country. Also the canals (except Manchester Ship Canal)are too small for lighters carrying standard containers and are crammed with leisure users.

… and there is food for thought. I’d be the first to agree that the British terrain, particularly in hilly areas with very steep gradients pose engineering problems but query whether the sum total of water used would necessarily increase if it is using annually renewable sources.

A glance at the map of original canals and rivers shows that water can be diverted and not at any greater cost than laying miles of new motorways. I suspect, from Calum’s comment:

James, the Sicilian sun and/or wine has softened your brain. :-)

… that it is more a case of mind set, of our dependence on the fast, jet powered lifestyle where we can’t bear to be without the things we believe we need for even a short time. Yes, the hilly areas might well be better served by rack rail – if the Swiss can do it, why can’t we? Yes, airship might well be the way forward to transport people over longer distaqnces.

Look, this might be an idea from cuckoo land and yet that’s precisely where we’re now headed with soaring fuel prices and the whole infrastructure of society readjusting to more contained lifestyles.

Just a thought anyway. And how beautifully sustainable such a rearrangement of transportation would prove to be.

[sicily scene] culinary report card

Some readers out there might like a straight-from-the-horse's-mouth, inside report on Welshcakes' cooking after a certain time experiencing same in this sunny part of Sicily.

By way of establshing some sort of bona fides on the matter, I've eaten my way through France, most of Europe, Mexico, the North American continent, Asia and the antipodes and can safely report:

My goodness, this lady can cook!

Sicilian cooking likes strong tastes and uses a lot of sea salt. This latter doesn't particularly agree with me but the other essential ingredient - the olive oil - does and is vital to the success of many dishes, particularly the homemade breads.

Welshcakes does not just produce bread - she produces breads of varying textures and styles, each strictly according to recipe. Whereas you or I might slap in this or slosh in that, our Sicilian chef here measures precisely, times equally precisely and allows pots of comestibles to slow cook or stand as the case may be.

This allows for inventive touches, of course and many is the time that a dab of honey or the use of oranges has added that extra little something to the dish of the moment. If Welshcakes could be called "wicked", it is at these times when she adds the unexpected to the mix with a wry smile.

There is no rushing of any kind allowed. After one particular lunch, Welshcakes opined that she'd have to get a rope to tie me down to the table at lunchtime. You see, I'm one of those eat and run types - most certainly not the done thing in Sicily.

Having said that, I do like the things she just "whips up", such as the chicken and artichoke salad on a bed of greenery last evening. If we need a snack, she might take some prosciutto and greenery and wrap it round grissini or breadsticks.

This evening we are invited into the countryside and will experience Sicilian pizza of a different variety. Though looking forward to this, I am more than happy to stay home and eat what the lady here produces in her ever-planning mind. Wish I had a euro for every time we sit down with a glass of fruit juice and she has the pad out, thoughtfully thinking out which ingredients need to be bought the next day.

Incidentally, I'm not a total drone. As kitchen hand and scullery maid, I'm sometimes brought into the process and have even been known to chop a few vegetables on occasions, on the road to some new culinary masterpiece emerging from the oven two hours later.

Nigella eat your heart out. [Well actually, best to delete that last sentence.] Next report - the hairdresser, the cosmetician and the sheer elegance of Welshcakes' Italian dress style.

[fuel crisis] why not go maritime?

There was some great reading yesterday with Jam's story of the Cagots but today is equally interesting, with Gallimaufry's take on steam-powered vehicles. William Gruff came in with an interesting comment and an idea occurred to me, spurious at first, I admit but then I saw the possibilities.

It might just work.

1. All new road projects become canals, which take far less investment to construct - not the narrow canals of the past but broad "four lane" jobs with locks for the hills.

2. Existing roads can be converted over a twenty year period, thereby spreading the cost.

3. Small craft of the catamaran and junk sail [or lug sail] variety would be built cheaply, far cheaper than new cars and can ply the canals which link major waterways.

Objections

1. The fuel and construction sectors would never abide it.

Answer: They would if they had a stake in the canalization of the whole country ... plus fuel is simply losing all appeal as an investment. For those who didn't want to sail, crop fuelled putt-putts could be used as well.

2. The transport and cargo sectors would be decimated.

Answer; Why? Look how much more could be moved by water.

3. The whole pace of life would slow down unbearably, transport times, ordering of goods from another centre would triple in time and so on.

Answer: Yes. And what?

4. People would be forced into the very new-feudalism which libertarians are now railing against.

Answer: Yes, that's so. Three acres and a cow again. So, for that very reason, the globalists might just go for it, with available fuel swung into defence.

If one thinks about it, you could see how it would improve the whole mood of the nation - the noise, pollution, stress for the average person ... plus the globalists would be happy.

Also, Britain has a maritime history, the people are no strangers to inland waters. So why not?

[one question quiz] are you educated?

Who is Google's biggest client? [This means single user and including any new clients of the last few days.]

Answer is below in white.

The NSW Department of Education