As I drove home from a rather busy night shift the pundits on the radio were interviewing Kwasi Kwarteng (Secretary of State at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). Amazingly the chap made a lot of sense this morning. He was being given a load of stick about the national shortage of carbon dioxide (which goes into packaging to keep food fresh and puts the bubbles in your fizzy drink among loads of other industrial uses). Why is there a shortage? Because the two factories that make it have stopped doing so. Why have they stopped making it? Because there is no longer any profit to be had from it. It costs too much to make. Mr Kwarteng said he was looking at a range of ways forward. On the one hand was having the government do nothing, on the other hand was to nationalise the loss-making factories, and there were several options between. Mr Kwarteng was in a rather difficult position; a fundamental part of a capitalistic system is that loss-making companies go to the wall. And if no one can make a profit out of manufacturing carbon dioxide, then no one will make it. A Labour government would get stuck in and make the stuff, but that *isn’t* what Conservative governments do. That’s what we all voted for wo years ago. Didn’t the pundits realise this?
I got home and went to bed where I slept like a log. I woke to find both Pogo and Treacle fast asleep with me; having arranged themselves into the ample free space on the bed (rather than trying to shove me off). I got up shortly after mid-day, made toast and peered into the Internet to see an attempt at an argument had kicked off. On one of the fishing-related Facebook groups I follow someone had posted a picture of a flatfish he’d caught in a river. Several people told him he was a liar and he hadn’t caught that fish there, claiming he’d carried the fish for miles just to fake a photo. I made the mistake of replying that I’d once caught a plaice in the River Tillingham. I must admit if I hadn’t caught it myself I wouldn’t have believed it, and quite a few other people had the same sentiment. Many of them said that the fish I’d caught wasn’t a plaice but had been a flounder. I know what I caught; I was there and I’d seen it. But nevertheless half a dozen people were very vocal in telling me the identity of a fish they’d never seen.
I then set about the ironing – the afternoon after a night shift is usually spent doing the ironing. As I ironed I watched episodes of “Four In A Bed”. Today’s show featured some arrogant woman from Lancashire who wouldn’t shut up about how high her standards were and how no one can compete with how brilliant her B&B was. As she ranted on, so the show showed footage of other contestants writing in the dust in her rooms, and wobbling her toilet which wasn’t in any way secured to a wall, the floor or anything at all. Some other chap was running a rather grim hostel complete with (quite literally) piss-stained mattresses and was charging more than a hotel wanted per night. Mind you this wasn’t just any old hostel – the chap running it had proudly boasted that they had plates, so we were talking top of the range(!)
I then had a little fiddle about on my next Wherigo project. The basic Wherigo itself (the bit that leads the punters to the geocaches) is pretty much complete. Or would be if I actually had some locations for the geocaches. This afternoon I spent time putting in the nonsense and the knob jokes that people either love or hate. Those that love them will get me a pint at the geo-meets; those that don’t love them don’t go to the geo-meets, so that’s their loss.
“er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the new series of “Bake Off”. It was rather good.
No comments:
Post a Comment