Yes, there it was to cheer us all up this morning. But...of course it was too good to be true and the article was about the need to refurbish the place, strip out asbestos, century old plumbing and ancient electric wiring . It wasn't a scheme just to shut up its incumbents and let the country sort itself out without them for 5 years.
Putting that aside what else has occupied the "Silly Season" this past week?
-The core of the season,-when the media scrape any ballel for stories as the world is on holiday,- is this year squeezed from its usual six weeks during the core school holidays into about three. That's the gap between the pages-filling Olympics and the slighly less pages-filling Paralympics which will give a final ten day burst to Britain's carnival summer which started with the Royal Jubilee in June. The politicians are on hols bar the odd photoshoot of Dave, one in the sun at a Spanish cafe and one, yesterday, bravely sitting outside another in Cornwall between heavy bursts of rain. Nobody has bothered to photograph Ed in Greece , Nick in Spain or any of the Ballses anywhere. Goodness knows or cares where all the rest are, but hopefully they really are on holiday , having a good time and taking in some deep gulps of fresh air to aerate the grey cells so that, genuinely refreshed , they can contemplate the world unbefuddled, from some new angles and with revitalised energy. There's no harm in hoping.
-Shock horror from disappointed parents, children, teachers and their ghastly unions who exist in a world of denial that all teachers everywhere are anything but excellent. (One thing they never do is ask the kids, never mind the parents, for a view). Some grade boundaries have been re-set . That has produced a 0.4 % decline in average grades this year after years of constant inflation while real standards have declined. True, that it is tough on those who can say that if they'd sat the exams last January or last year when the barriers were lower they would have got a higher grade but the process needs to continue for quite a while as standards are moved up, questions are made more demanding and more weight is given to exams rather than ongoing course work so that the answers genuinely come from the pupils , not Mum and Dad or Wikipedia.
-More shock horror, sanctimonious handwringing and the like from some quarters over right royal goings on in Las Vegas on the part of Prince Harry. The man is 27, single, is a real soldier/airman, knows that the batchelor life can't last much longer, so what can one expect. Interestingly 68% of the British population range from slightly bemused to "good on you" stances. The remaining 32% range from "How can he do this when we are facing austerity (what?),-why isn't he sharing our pain?" through layers of the hypocritical whose real thoughts are probably more like "Lucky ------" to those who genuinely do feel that he is too old for these kinds of displays and should grow up and act with decorum. With the latter one can sympathise but the rest...no. The Prince probably does though need to discard some of his hangers-on who will probably never grow up and now best left behind.
-Over in America, BAe who have invested heavily in the country in hopes of gaining access to its military market lost its bid to build a new Humvee for the army. No surprise other than that BAe, not all American boys however much they like to look like ones, should be surprised. Not long ago they were beneficiaries when Airbus won a contract to supply a tanker/transport version of the A330 to replace the US Air Force tanker fleet. Howls of anguish all round. Eventually the contract was suspended, the specification rewritten to fit a smaller aircraft and lo and behold the rerun went to a version of the Boeing 767 whose well amortised civil production line is winding down. The real home team won. Let's be realistic. It always will.
-While still on that side of the Atlantic, viewers from this side of the pond can only gape as the Republican Party wheels out a Presidential candidate and running mate whose agendas look so illiberal, (no to abortion) bellicose (Middle East), hard faced (opposition to Obama's abandonment of a"pay or die" health regime), as to be downright scary. That may also be true in the Democrat heartlands most familiar to foreigners,- the North East and West Coast but in those areas where few from overseas tread they are part of what people believe America is or should be. Frighteningly for the rest of the world many/most Republicans really do believe they have God on their side. And their version of God isn't a particularly smiley one.
-As for Syria the cent/ penny about known and unknown genies unbottled by the events has begun to drop in Washington and London. Assad has been warned not to think about using his store of chemical weapons (wonder where those came from?) with a rider that nobody else should think of using them either. With the eventual outcome of this particular branch of the Arab Spring which has moved through a number of stages from demonstrations to civil war almost impossible to predict other than that Assad will eventually go, there are grave concerns about who might eventually end up posessing this nasty pile and what they might do with them.
-South Africa has had a bad week. A three cornered but more multi faceted than that spat between two rival unions and the mining company Lonmin, for which read any other mine employer opens up some of the fault lines facing the country and why it isn't getting the new inward investment it needs to provide a vast number of new jobs. In the mix are the rough, tough nature of the country's unions, the fact that much of South Africas's mining wealth has always been founded on cheap labour, the needs of businesses to stay competitive with (low) Asian wage rates, the failure of the employers and government to upgrade the physical living conditions for the miners and the poor and to get rid of the extensive shanty towns with their lack of adequate water ,electricity ,sanitation and paved roads , where crime and brutality inevitably thrive. Expectations from the New South Africa were always higher than could be met in the short term but the lack of visible improvement in many areas has produced enormous pressures very close to the surface. In the rural districts, especially in the Transvaal , this has been manifested by ongoing murders of white farmers, mainly Afrikaaners. Elsewhere including in the vast sprawling shanty towns between Capetown and the nearby wine growing and resort area at Somerset West and around the mines ,it is surprising that there has not been more trouble. Urgent action and a lot of money is urgently needed to improve conditions all round. Failing that it is difficult to see how things can remain as peaceful as they are.
-Closer to home Eurowoes continue. Hasn't it ever occured to most Eurozone leaders that when those who want to cut a deal, gain more time etc, they don't go to Amsterdam, Luxemburg or anywhere other than just the two places, Berlin and Paris. Doesn't that tell the rest that for all their denials that they have lost any sovereignty in signing up to "The Project" they have indeed done just that and when the chips are down there are only two players who call the shots? It's not much different for the non Eurozone E U countries either. Fine if all the member states are really happy with that but how many have put the question to their citizens?
Meanwhile both Germany and France have given some short term comfort to the Greek " We need more time" supplication . After initially looking very stony faced about the idea ,both countrys' "Greece must stay in the Euro" statements make it look as if Athens' day of reckoning may be delayed and billions more thrown in to achieve that respite. That looks like an expensive form of denial. It is unlikely that a Greek exit would be disastrous for the Euro. In fact it could be regarded as a useful trial of the whole process and effects of an a country binning the joint currency and provide useful learning about how to handle other looming and much bigger resource sapping candidates.
Usually Britain's August bank on the last Monday of the month holiday signals a mass return from summer holiday retreats and the imminent beginning of the new school term and the nation being almost all back to work for the first time since "the season" began with Ascot, Henley and Wimbledon in June. This year because of the way the dates fall, that doesn't happen until after next weekend, the first in September. Then there are a few more days lull while everyone readjusts, buys new uniforms, and basks in the last of the summer (?) weather as the first autumnal early morning dew and that unmistakeable nip in the air arrives . On Monday 10th September UK Plc will be almost 100% back at its desks, facing the post summer hangover, holiday credit card bills, and reaquainting itself with some daunting economic and political realities. The Party conferences will be there to help us .As a curtain raiser the brothers and sisters will have opened the Trade Union Congress annual snarl and rant the previous day. It must be a really fun thing to go to.
Putting that aside what else has occupied the "Silly Season" this past week?
-The core of the season,-when the media scrape any ballel for stories as the world is on holiday,- is this year squeezed from its usual six weeks during the core school holidays into about three. That's the gap between the pages-filling Olympics and the slighly less pages-filling Paralympics which will give a final ten day burst to Britain's carnival summer which started with the Royal Jubilee in June. The politicians are on hols bar the odd photoshoot of Dave, one in the sun at a Spanish cafe and one, yesterday, bravely sitting outside another in Cornwall between heavy bursts of rain. Nobody has bothered to photograph Ed in Greece , Nick in Spain or any of the Ballses anywhere. Goodness knows or cares where all the rest are, but hopefully they really are on holiday , having a good time and taking in some deep gulps of fresh air to aerate the grey cells so that, genuinely refreshed , they can contemplate the world unbefuddled, from some new angles and with revitalised energy. There's no harm in hoping.
-Shock horror from disappointed parents, children, teachers and their ghastly unions who exist in a world of denial that all teachers everywhere are anything but excellent. (One thing they never do is ask the kids, never mind the parents, for a view). Some grade boundaries have been re-set . That has produced a 0.4 % decline in average grades this year after years of constant inflation while real standards have declined. True, that it is tough on those who can say that if they'd sat the exams last January or last year when the barriers were lower they would have got a higher grade but the process needs to continue for quite a while as standards are moved up, questions are made more demanding and more weight is given to exams rather than ongoing course work so that the answers genuinely come from the pupils , not Mum and Dad or Wikipedia.
-More shock horror, sanctimonious handwringing and the like from some quarters over right royal goings on in Las Vegas on the part of Prince Harry. The man is 27, single, is a real soldier/airman, knows that the batchelor life can't last much longer, so what can one expect. Interestingly 68% of the British population range from slightly bemused to "good on you" stances. The remaining 32% range from "How can he do this when we are facing austerity (what?),-why isn't he sharing our pain?" through layers of the hypocritical whose real thoughts are probably more like "Lucky ------" to those who genuinely do feel that he is too old for these kinds of displays and should grow up and act with decorum. With the latter one can sympathise but the rest...no. The Prince probably does though need to discard some of his hangers-on who will probably never grow up and now best left behind.
-Over in America, BAe who have invested heavily in the country in hopes of gaining access to its military market lost its bid to build a new Humvee for the army. No surprise other than that BAe, not all American boys however much they like to look like ones, should be surprised. Not long ago they were beneficiaries when Airbus won a contract to supply a tanker/transport version of the A330 to replace the US Air Force tanker fleet. Howls of anguish all round. Eventually the contract was suspended, the specification rewritten to fit a smaller aircraft and lo and behold the rerun went to a version of the Boeing 767 whose well amortised civil production line is winding down. The real home team won. Let's be realistic. It always will.
-While still on that side of the Atlantic, viewers from this side of the pond can only gape as the Republican Party wheels out a Presidential candidate and running mate whose agendas look so illiberal, (no to abortion) bellicose (Middle East), hard faced (opposition to Obama's abandonment of a"pay or die" health regime), as to be downright scary. That may also be true in the Democrat heartlands most familiar to foreigners,- the North East and West Coast but in those areas where few from overseas tread they are part of what people believe America is or should be. Frighteningly for the rest of the world many/most Republicans really do believe they have God on their side. And their version of God isn't a particularly smiley one.
-As for Syria the cent/ penny about known and unknown genies unbottled by the events has begun to drop in Washington and London. Assad has been warned not to think about using his store of chemical weapons (wonder where those came from?) with a rider that nobody else should think of using them either. With the eventual outcome of this particular branch of the Arab Spring which has moved through a number of stages from demonstrations to civil war almost impossible to predict other than that Assad will eventually go, there are grave concerns about who might eventually end up posessing this nasty pile and what they might do with them.
-South Africa has had a bad week. A three cornered but more multi faceted than that spat between two rival unions and the mining company Lonmin, for which read any other mine employer opens up some of the fault lines facing the country and why it isn't getting the new inward investment it needs to provide a vast number of new jobs. In the mix are the rough, tough nature of the country's unions, the fact that much of South Africas's mining wealth has always been founded on cheap labour, the needs of businesses to stay competitive with (low) Asian wage rates, the failure of the employers and government to upgrade the physical living conditions for the miners and the poor and to get rid of the extensive shanty towns with their lack of adequate water ,electricity ,sanitation and paved roads , where crime and brutality inevitably thrive. Expectations from the New South Africa were always higher than could be met in the short term but the lack of visible improvement in many areas has produced enormous pressures very close to the surface. In the rural districts, especially in the Transvaal , this has been manifested by ongoing murders of white farmers, mainly Afrikaaners. Elsewhere including in the vast sprawling shanty towns between Capetown and the nearby wine growing and resort area at Somerset West and around the mines ,it is surprising that there has not been more trouble. Urgent action and a lot of money is urgently needed to improve conditions all round. Failing that it is difficult to see how things can remain as peaceful as they are.
-Closer to home Eurowoes continue. Hasn't it ever occured to most Eurozone leaders that when those who want to cut a deal, gain more time etc, they don't go to Amsterdam, Luxemburg or anywhere other than just the two places, Berlin and Paris. Doesn't that tell the rest that for all their denials that they have lost any sovereignty in signing up to "The Project" they have indeed done just that and when the chips are down there are only two players who call the shots? It's not much different for the non Eurozone E U countries either. Fine if all the member states are really happy with that but how many have put the question to their citizens?
Meanwhile both Germany and France have given some short term comfort to the Greek " We need more time" supplication . After initially looking very stony faced about the idea ,both countrys' "Greece must stay in the Euro" statements make it look as if Athens' day of reckoning may be delayed and billions more thrown in to achieve that respite. That looks like an expensive form of denial. It is unlikely that a Greek exit would be disastrous for the Euro. In fact it could be regarded as a useful trial of the whole process and effects of an a country binning the joint currency and provide useful learning about how to handle other looming and much bigger resource sapping candidates.
Usually Britain's August bank on the last Monday of the month holiday signals a mass return from summer holiday retreats and the imminent beginning of the new school term and the nation being almost all back to work for the first time since "the season" began with Ascot, Henley and Wimbledon in June. This year because of the way the dates fall, that doesn't happen until after next weekend, the first in September. Then there are a few more days lull while everyone readjusts, buys new uniforms, and basks in the last of the summer (?) weather as the first autumnal early morning dew and that unmistakeable nip in the air arrives . On Monday 10th September UK Plc will be almost 100% back at its desks, facing the post summer hangover, holiday credit card bills, and reaquainting itself with some daunting economic and political realities. The Party conferences will be there to help us .As a curtain raiser the brothers and sisters will have opened the Trade Union Congress annual snarl and rant the previous day. It must be a really fun thing to go to.
