[iceland] lesson in how to live frugally

Ever since the beginning of this blog, I've been running posts on Iceland and so the recent crisis can be seen from the Icelandic perspective.

Iceland is not Russia but there are some traits common to both. In a situation of total collapse, certain nations are going to survive and others are going to struggle greatly. Taking, say, Britain, the U.S., Australia, France, Iceland and Russia, I'd say the countries who have long enjoyed the high life are going to feel the change most.

Countries like Russia and Iceland will simply shrug and go back to what they know - living frugally, eking out an existence, keeping money in a box high in the cupboard. There is a primary produce market system. You go out and kill that cow and cut it up for the winter, you bottle vegetables, such as they are, in early autumn and you make jams and kompote, bottle them and put them in the larder.

Iceland review gives some added tips this way:

Being an Icelandic person in England right now is not what it used to be, and by used to be I mean the way it was a week ago before the virtual collapse of Iceland’s economy. It’s the people who have made it into what it is [though] and the people are stubborn.

Another reason Iceland will be fine is that we are geared for survival. At school we are taught how to sew, we are taught how to build things and use power tools, we are taught how to cook and when we are teenagers we are forced to work for about two to three months during summer doing completely basic labor jobs like working at fish factories, or as farm hands, cashiers at the supermarket… you name it! A job is a job in Iceland and no one is above any work so long as it pays the bills.

I think this attitude will be our saving grace and the cornerstone of rebuilding ourselves from the bottom up.

In the name of sensibility I have devised a list of five things that I think will help anyone navigating through the fiscal credit crunch storm.

1. Buy in bulk and don’t be afraid to go straight to the source. When I was growing up we went to the dock to buy fish and lots of it. Building up an acquaintance with a fisherman or perhaps even a number of them is easy enough.

2. Learn how to gut a fish, otherwise suggestion number one is a little pointless.

3. Buy a freezer chest. The freezer chest is an incredible invention.

4. Save money on gas, take the bus.

5. Get relatives who are living abroad to send you the good stuff.

The extended family network also helps, as all generations and branches of the family chip in to ensure survival.

I see Britain as being in a halfway position on this continuum of nations. Not having forgotten the deprivations of the past, perhaps the adjustment would not be as severe for certain sectors of society who are on the breadline even now.

There might be a certain savagery to Russian and Icelandic society at base level but they are going to survive under great duress and there's an underlying toughness there. People of this ilk in Britain might also survive.

[labour deaths] the stress of the job perhaps

The list had reached Fiona Jones, Piara Khabra [old age], John MacDougall, Ron Brown [age], Gwynneth Dunwoody, Rachel Squire, Terry Fields, Roger Stott, Bernie Grant and Tony Banks before I realized I'd have to leave off those who "legitimately" died of old age and its complications.

Not quite dead but assaulted include Anne Moffat so far but it seems that Harriet Harman [see last post] is a candidate for this too.

The premise I was exploring was whether there seem to have been an inordinate number of Labour MPs in seats coming up for bielection in the past few years and if so, why?

Is it hazardous to be a Labour MP?

[harriet harman] let's bully the private sector again

Please - I do urge you to go over to Flipchart Fairytales and look at the latest government coercion on the drawing board. To shamelessly lift a section of Rick's article:

The Government Equalities Office has launched its Post Your Pay Gap initiative. The idea is that companies use the online system to calculate the gap in pay between men and women then post it on the web-site. It’s a bit like a corporate confessional - “We know we’re doing wrong but we will try better.”

But just in case there isn’t a mad rush from private sector organisations to post their pay gaps, the equalities secretary, Harriet Harman, has said that she might consider compelling them to do so.

This is the Harriet Harman who is supposed to be the most able, intelligent operator the government has. Here is her level of intelligence and sense of fair play:

Equality minister Harriet Harman has set out plans to allow firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minority job candidates. She said firms should be able to choose a woman over a man of equal ability if they wanted to - or vice versa.

I have gone for a number of jobs recently and every time they have been forced to ask me to give details of my:

1 gender
2 age
3 ethnicity

No other details, such as experience or ability were required at this point of the interviews. If Ms Harman is equal and fair, then why should she be interested in these? Does she plan to discriminate towards me? Does she heck as like:

Allowing "positive action" would help organisations such as the police better reflect the communities they serve by recruiting more female and ethnic minority officers, said Ms Harman.

Positive discrimination? Positive? How is it positive to the ordinary members of the public? In the private sector they employ people they feel they need for the reasons they feel they need. I'm happy enough to stand on my own two feet this way but not with Numbers 1 and 3 officially working against me, even if Number 2 is working for me.

Let's look at Number 2.

The moment you send your CV, the employer sees your decades of experience and concludes your age. It needs no legislation. They can then make up any excuse they like as to why your application did not proceed. In the end they need only conclude they prefer the other person. End of story.

You can't legislate to make people do things which are their own legitimate concern to administer as they see fit. Age is a sad thing but it is inevitable and we just have to lump it. If we are still up to speed and look like we could be for some time yet then we must work hard to sell our skills, always remembering that there is a lot of competition out there.

[nobel prize] and the grumblings of discontent

The Americans seem a trifle miffed about the winner of the Nobel prize for Literature, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio:

Last week, Engdahl, the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary, called American literary culture "too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature" -- comments widely seen in the United States as evidence of the insularity of the Nobel itself and proof that American writers would be shut out again.

This is a storm in a teacup in one way but it is also a harbinger of troubles ahead where everyone and his dog seem a little testy at this time. The expression "trigger finger" springs to mind and a lot of shooting from the hip may well ensue, causing Europeans to call for action on the U.S. and vice versa.

Why do the U.S. and Europe need to be reminded that they are both socio-religiously from the same stock, the same economic structure and the same grey suited leadership? Conflict is stupidity between these blocs when there are other far more real enemies to contend with.

[crashes] and the marketing of faulty parts

One wouldn't think this could be so with Star Alliance

Regarding that Spanair flight 5022, which crashed on takeoff in August:

It is unclear why the wing flaps failed to deploy, but the error was compounded by the failure of the cockpit alert system, which should have sounded a warning to the pilots.

I hope it is not mischievous or misleading to suggest this as a possible cause:

From 2002

Yesterday it emerged that the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a warning to 167 countries over the potential danger caused by the scam ... The Rome daily Il Messaggero yesterday published a list of five air accidents that it said investigators suspected could have been caused by faulty spare parts. They included the crash of an ATI ATR 42 near Milan in October 1987, a Dornier 328 operated by Minerva Airlines which overshot the runway in Genoa in February 1999, and the crash of a Valujet DC 9 in southern Florida in May 1996.

The parts were found in Sicilia:

"[They] were in an appalling state," said Aniello Albano, of the Sardinian finance police. "The workshops carried out cosmetic operations on them in order to defraud the airlines."

Some other parts, the result of the cannibalisation of six Alitalia Airbus A300s by the Panaviation company, were about to be sent to the US where they were to be offered for sale by Danbee Aerospace, an aircraft parts broker based in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Nobody seems to suggest that this is a problem with the larger airlines but if you go budget, well ... everything is proportionally budget, isn't it? Star Alliance have a good record though and so it seems unlikely that it was a shoddy parts scam.

Interestingly, one common factor in many crashes seems to be the McDonnell Douglas MD-82. Just something to bear in mind, I suppose.

[the condemned] when genius is not

We watched an allegorical film last night, "The Condemned", in which a charismatic but evil genius manipulates those about him to help satisfy his perversions, in this case, putting some people on an island and watching them rape and murder each other until one is left standing, all lovingly captured for internet streaming.

He's suave and debonair, the so-called genius, with a pleasing exterior which conceals the sick individual beneath and it's enough to satisfy his "friends" and cohorts that he is a man with a mission, a man of ideas and the gift of the gab ... plus he has a lot of money.

However, one by one, those cohorts, starting with his girlfriend [in a manner of speaking] are sickened, not only by his antics but by the relish with which he watches the gore - this relish is what brings him down in the end.

It is a tale of how ordinary people can be hoodwinked and even bribed into assisting evil and that evil comes out in other ways too, for example, the two who get the most brutal treatment are the husband and wife who are first separated and then endure much, not unlike martyrs.

How dare they even think of the power of love at a time like that.

In the end, love does win out when the most flawed fulfils his ambition to get back to his love interest, killing off all the baddies along the way. For me, it pointed out quite starkly that those people considered genius, when they turn to evil, are already on the way out and are no geniuses at all - just clever and well spoken fools.

There is also the question of where they are going to end up, these people. The "hero" himself is so flawed that it is line ball where he'll be but what's fairly certain is the warm welcome the sicko is going to receive in the nether regions when he pops his clogs. He had his chances - he could have stopped the spectacle on a number of occasions but like a true fool, he either didn't or couldn't.

When you mistreat people, it all comes back on you one day.