Seen in the News

[Tizer]

Here he is again, in Africa now...
`Wagner chief Prigozhin seen in first video address since coup attempt' LINK

[Stanley]

That man and his relationship with Putin is a mystery....

[Big Kev]

India made a better job landing on the moon than Russia...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-a ... a-66576580

[Tripps]

Here he is again, in Africa now...

That man and his relationship with Putin is a mystery..

Can this be true? It's from TASS. Prigozhin

Read the small print though - We shall see. . . .

"Unconfirmed media reports suggest the business jet belonged to Prigozhin, but it was not immediately clear if he had boarded the flight".


PS - Sky now reporting that it is confirmed that Prigozhin is confirmed as dead, as is his deputy, but again reported by TASS.

[Stanley]

I heard those reports. Working on the principle that those who oppose Putin generally come to a sticky end, I think the odds are that the reports are true.

[Tripps]

The Director of the British Museum, one Hartwig Fischer, has resigned following the alleged theft of some items and their subsequent sale on ebay. The fact that George Osborne is the Chairman seems not to have surfaced yet in the press coverage.

[Stanley]

I saw that David, I think it was the comments from Greece on the safety of the marbles that tipped him out....
Osborne has certainly been mentioned on BBC news....
See THIS BBC report about the hunt for a perennial favourite, Nessie! (Well, what else can you do on a slow summer news week in a cold August....)

[Tripps]

I heard George Osborne's name mentioned for the first time (on my ususal news sites) in connection with these thefts. i also heard for the first time that they are reportedly talking about over two thousand missing items!


PS From the Guardian

Osborne said he doubted a “cover-up” had taken place over the suspected thefts, but acknowledged that an inquiry might still reach that conclusion. “I don’t myself believe there was a deliberate cover-up, although the review may find that to be the case,” he said. “But was there some potential groupthink in the museum at the time, at the very top of the museum, that couldn’t believe an insider was stealing things, couldn’t believe a member of staff was doing this? Yes, that’s very possible, and we won’t be the only institution that has fallen foul to that.”

Reminds me of Bunter denying he had eaten the cake - before anyone had accused him. I'd say they have tried to cover it up and failed.

[Stanley]

Admin of museum collections is something I have a bit of experience with and this whole affair shouts out to me that it's the tip of a very murky iceberg. It's a big subject so I shall be brief.
There are three levels of ownership, Possession, Title and Provenance. Very few artefacts in museum stocks can claim all three, most have only the first level, possession. The marble frieze from the Parthenon is a good example, there is no doubt that Lord Elgin took them illegally, he had no title and certainly no provenance. He donated them to the British Museum because they were too expensive to deal with and they became 'The Elgin Marbles'. There is no way round the fact that they should be labelled as stolen from Greece by Lord Elgin.
Another problem is the way museums accept objects into their collections for display. 'Permanent Loan' is a favourite but is a contradiction in terms, it's either permanent or a loan, it can't be both. Dr Ed. Furgol and myself addressed this at Pendle Heritage when we drew up an Acquisition policy for the centre and nothing could be accepted into the collections unless it had a clear title and provenance which laid out clearly how it was acquired by the donor. In addition transferring the item to the Centre carried with it full ownership to the extent that the Centre could do what it wanted with it, even sell it to raise funds. There was a separate category of 'Loan' which had its own rules, we recognised that in many cases (Such as the Parthenon Marbles) items or collections were 'loaned' to the institution to save spending on conservation, protection and insurance. Loans had a finite period, we had no intention of paying the costs of an item that didn't belong to us.
Most important there had to be a clear and accurate inventory of everything in the collections and this had to be maintained. This is expensive, especially in today's climate where such lists have to be digitised and searchable. I doubt if any of our public museums could, hand on heart, say that such a catalogue exists.
This is where we get back to the British Museum case. Their problem is that they haven't got an accurate inventory and this is why there is so much confusion about what is missing. Much of the loot could quite possibly never have been listed. Indeed, this could have been the criterion used by a smart thief to choose what to steal and I suspect this is what has happened. This would explain why the whole matter is so unclear. It would also explain why senior staff are bailing out before the shit hits the fan.
(By the way, I don't know whether Pendle Heritage ever put our policy in place. I'll guess not......)

[Tizer]

Most important there had to be a clear and accurate inventory of everything in the collections and this had to be maintained. This is expensive, especially in today's climate where such lists have to be digitised and searchable. I doubt if any of our public museums could, hand on heart, say that such a catalogue exists.

That reminds me of my problems with the GP surgery because its NHS patient records have not yet been digitised back beyond 2012 and the original `paper' records are hidden away in boxes and not available to the staff. It all boils down to lack of funds to get the job finished. The lack of access to records before 2012 means the GP doesn't know anything about my health before then. I've since scanned and given them copies of my consultant's and doctor's letters and other health data from the early 2000s and now these show up in NHS Access. I'm doing the NHS's job for them!

[Tripps]

Admin of museum collections is something I have a bit of experience with

Well - that's handy.

I doubt there's a chat board in the country which would generate that quality of response to this topic. Aren't we fortunate?
After reading that, I guess we have more understanding of what probably went on than the Chairman. I read today that they have eight million items.

[Stanley]

It's rather like the way public sector wages have been neglected and allowed to fall behind. Cataloguing, done properly, is expensive and nobody is willing to spend the money. The longer it's left the bigger the problem gets and inevitably one day, the matter comes to a head.
What's the betting they will not admit the problem and once more, will try to sweep it under the carpet.
For instance, I doubt if the miscreant will ever come to trial because if he is the whole can of worms will become public.

[Tizer]

`Why empty lorries are a problem and how to fix it' LINK
`In the UK, heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) travel empty for over three billion miles every year, according to the Department for Transport (DfT). This is the equivalent of driving to the moon and back 6,500 times - or more than 5,000 years of driving. And the problem is global. In the EU, one in five lorries on the road is empty and in the US it's almost 15%. These empty miles incur costs without generating income, which is particularly painful in a period of high fuel prices. And, with road freight accounting for 53% of CO2 emissions within global trade-related transport, firms like Zeus are looking for ways to reduce unnecessary journeys, costs and emissions....'.
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Newspapers such as The Sun, the Mail and the Express are catching up on a subject that The Times has been warning about for a few years now. The right-wing wing have now jumped on it and are trying to make it their own big campaign. In America the same is happening with Republicans and Ron de Santis has been almost making it his election motto. It depresses me to see the left-wing papers and politicians letting it happen when they should be the ones most concerned about protecting women's rights. Of course the reason is that the left-wing folk have been in thrall of the LBGT lot and are frightened of upsetting them....
`NHS hospitals accused of ‘erasing women’ after signing up to be graded by trans charities' Sun

[Tripps]

It doen't seem lomg ago that the big crisis in the transport industry was the lack of trained drivers, with the consequence of empty shelves in supermarkets. That hasn't happened and we hear little of it today.

I'm surprised the word cabotage was not mentioned in the article. Our Government's attitude to the matter, post Brexit, seems to be still under discussion, and consultation.

It's all about one group protecting itself from another. There used to be complaints that continental vehicles arrived here with enormous fuel tanks filled to the brim with fuel which had been bought considerably cheaper than that available here - thus enabling them to undercut local firms. Efficient use of resources using modern IT doesn't seem too revolutionary to me. Maybe I've missed something.

[Stanley]

David. Empty return journeys has been a problem ever since the wheel was invented. The only people who never have to suffer it are the ones who use tramp drivers like wot I used to be. That way the customer has no responsibility beyond the journey he has contracted for. I regarded empty running as an admission of defeat!
I've never heard of cabotage, I suspect it's made up by people who want to sound knowledgeable about the subject when in fact they aren't.......

[Tizer]

From Wiktionary
Borrowed from French cabotage (“coasting trade”), from caboter (“to travel by the coast”). It originally (16th c.) referred to restrictions allowing only French ships to trade or transport between French ports. Other countries adopted this concept and extended it to land and air travel.

[Tripps]

I've never heard of cabotage, I suspect it's made up by people who want to sound knowledgeable about the subject when in fact they aren't.......

A bit harsh I'd say ?

It's not made up, and is definitely a 'thing'. I learned about it when I joined the Customs around 1986.

[Stanley]

I stand corrected but still haven't heard it before.....

[Tizer]

`Rare footage of St Elmo's Fire as hurricane approaches' From US Air Force video

`Leeds Festival: Tents left behind at Bramham Park' LINK

[PanBiker]

Regarding the NATS centre and the outage that shut down Air Traffic Control. Apparently it was single block of corrupted data that crashed the system. I would have thought that with a mission critical system such as it is, the safety protocols should be somewhat more resilient than was the experience.

[Stanley]

Peter. I occasionally watch a bloke on Youtube who tries out different tents and recently he spent a night out in pouring rain in a cardboard tent. You erected it just the same way as making a cardboard box with slots and tabs. It was remarkably successful and withstood the rain well. They have been designed for use at festivals because they are totally recyclable. Perhaps the organisers should look at them and include the cost in the ticket!

[Tizer]

This beats watching wrestling on TV!...
`Watch: Badgers spotted playing on trampoline' LINK

[Stanley]

I watched it and it was good Peter but so was the clip afterwards of eight fox cubs playing in a back garden!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report of the departure of Sunak's Communication Chief.
The PM's director of communications, Amber de Botton, has resigned 10 months after taking the job, saying it was "the right time to move on". Announcing her decision on social media, she said it had been "an honour and privilege" to do the job, and thanked Rishi Sunak for his "support and leadership". Ms de Botton left her job as an ITV News journalist to join No 10. The PM's current press secretary, Nerissa Chesterfield, will replace her. Ms Chesterfield worked at the free-market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, before being hired by Mr Sunak to join his communications team in the Treasury early in his tenure as chancellor in 2020. Ms de Botton began her role in Downing Street, a few days after Mr Sunak became prime minister.
This is Sunak's fourth communications chief in less than 18 months....
Heard later.... Suella Braverman is quoted as telling Police Forces not to be too quick to declare themselves institutionally racist as 'Britain is not a racist country'.
I wonder what her evidence is for that belief?

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report that the fall in house prices continues.
House prices are 5.3% lower compared to August last year in the biggest annual decline since 2009, according to Nationwide. The building society said the drop represented a fall of £14,600 on a typical home in the UK since house prices peaked in August 2022. It said higher borrowing costs for buyers had led to a slowdown in activity in the housing market. Mortgage approvals are also about 20% below pre-Covid levels.
It is widely expected that there will be another increase in base interest rates because of reported wage inflation so the pain for mortgage holders isn't even diminishing.
As fixed term mortgages reach the end of their life and have to be renegotiated the pain will hit more and more householders and this is going to become even more of a problem.