Hi Everyone Having spent the last seventy years staring at the road in front of me as a car driver, it is a rare treat to be just a passenger. One of those rare occasions happened this week when our daughter drove us across country with the added bonus that our trip took us across the Peak District National Park. Just for once, I was able to fully appreciate the beauty of our countryside, even though the landscape is currently brown and not the green that we are so used to, a

Hi Everyone The nearly man, you know he has nearly won the Iran war and nearly opened the Strait of Hormuz, has been very quiet this week except for hiding in a catering van. Perhaps he is upset because he has lost a couple of golf balls. Anyway, this week I was a nearly man. We were returning from our trip to the Peak District when I realised that we were low on petrol. A check on our son’s phone revealed that the nearest filling station was 6 miles away while the petrol gau

Hi Everyone Another slow trawl around our local supermarket this week with the trolley as my support. It was a slow trawl as the Main Contractor only ventures in about once each month, so is keen to see what is new, whereas I make a ten-minute dash (well, slow dash) for those things that we have run out of, lost or cannot remember where we put them. The slow dash revealed that despite many promises, packaging becomes more overpowering with many packaged items nesting in an ev

Hi Everyone Some say that growing old is not much fun, and for some, that is true. Fortunately, I am only just reaching middle age, so the Main Contractor and I are very fortunate. I mention this as the big debate this week is social care: how can we make radical changes, and most of all, how to pay for it and by whom. Also this week it is reported that there are 442,000 fewer millionaires in the UK than there were last year. There are no doubt a number of reasons for this, b

Hi Everyone The new kid on the block has showered us with goodies this week, with no VAT to pay on our electricity bill, a reduction from £3 to £2 for all bus journeys outside London and a 20% reduction in business rates for pubs, clubs and music venues. All this is designed to give us “breathing space” with our cost of living. Apparently the VAT reduction will reduce our annual electricity bill by about £45 but does not apply until October, while the reduced fares on the alm

Hi Everyone This week, our latest Prime Minister was consigned to history, receiving a standing ovation in Parliament from many of the people who had confined him to history. Also this week, Parliament packed up their shorts, sandals with room for their buckets and spades until early in September. Next Monday, we will now have a new Prime Minister who, just a few short weeks ago, was not even a member of Parliament. Also, next Monday, he will name his cabinet members in the

Hi Everyone This week in Parliament, a lady MP has proposed legislation to provide children at school with a minimum of 30 minutes of outdoor learning each day. It has apparently passed its first stage and will now be back in Parliament fot it’s second reading in the middle of October. Having passed that stage, it then goes to the House of Lords before coming back to Parliament, probably in early 2027, to be hopefully passed into law. Back when I was in the infant and junior

Hi Everyone I decided about five years ago not to get involved in Cryptocurrency as Trump informed me that it was a “scam” and that “It is a disaster waiting to happen”. The other reason that I did not get involved is that I had no idea what it was all about. Now I read that Trump made $1.40billion dollars from Cryptocurrency in just one year. That prompted me to consult that other con man AI. This is what he said :- Cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual form of currency se

Hi Everyone It was probably a few decades ago when we laughed at Italy as they seemed to change their political leaders every few months. Now it seems that we have inherited the same disease. Some people think that we are becoming ungovernable, and with the evidence of a lawless social media, and news outlets pushing their own agenda, it is becoming a persuasive argument. Now our latest Prime Minister has been pushed out of office mainly by his own party. Now it is apparent

Hi Everyone I would hope that art, in whichever form you prefer, is part of your life, whether it is music, theatre, ballet, opera or art itself. Just last week a world famous artist died. David Hockney left us with a wonderful collection of dazzling work which will live on and decorate walls for many years to come. A few years ago, we were on holiday in his native Yorkshire, when we visited the village of Saltaire, which has a famous and lasting story of it’s own. The huge w

Hi Everyone Don’t you just love the headline I saw this week that said that Government ministers were promising to spend millions to ensure that 60% of schoolchildren will either walk or cycle to school by 2035 (yes that’s right nine years time). The money will be spent on cycle lanes and walkways near to schools. Does anyone really believe a statement like that? In nine years time we will have had at least one change in government, with probably at least one of the followin

Hi Everyone Events this week included the National Day in Denmark, Volunteers Week in the UK, and Fish and Chip Day again here in the UK. I mention the National Day in Denmark as our grandaughter is coming to the end of a memorable year at the University of Aarhus, Denmark's second city. It is reputed to be one of the happiest places to live, and from the experiences and friendships she has formed, it certainly seems to bear out that claim. Volunteers Week certainly deserves

Hi Everyone This week, two politicians who we thought had disappeared forever suddenly emerged with their ‘words of wisdom’. The first one talked about a lost generation of young people, with now approximately one million not in employment or further education, with the prediction that figure could rise by another 250,000 in four years' time. Back when I was looking for my first job, most left school at age fifteen, with some going on to sixteen and eighteen. In a typical cla

Hi Everyone If you a long time Rubbish reader, you will be aware of my opinion of HS2. That’s high speed trains to you and me. The original budget back in 2017 was £37Billion to build the railway from London to our second city, Birmingham and then onwards to Manchester in the west and Leeds in the east. In 2019, the then Transport Minister said it would cost £65Billion and that “we are on budget and on time” with the trains expected to be running in 2028. I called that an irr

Hi Everyone If you are a long time Rubbish reader, you will know two things about me. Firstly, that I am approaching middle age, and secondly, that I am a long time enthusiastic, frustrated, and suicidal supporter of my local football team. Back in my early days, the club was usually owned by a group of businessmen with a manager, a coach, and a trainer who ran onto the pitch with a bucket of coal water and a sponge to treat an injured player. The manager was the manager and

Hi Everyone Last weekend I went back to school. Fortunately, there were no teachers or head teacher there, so I managed to escape the cane, a detention or, worse still, having to write one hundred lines. On this occasion, it was a day long event with about 150 of us, with many approaching middle age, and with some even older than me. The school was a new, modern building with all the modern technologies, a lecture theatre, toilets for disabled students and lifts to the second

Hi Everyone I have to admit that I was not sure whether our King should go on his state visit to America, as I thought that Trump might use it to promote many of his own crazy ideas and opinions. The result was completely the opposite of what I expected. It was a triumph for our King as he brilliantly demolished all of Trump’s opinions in a gentle but devastating way while still gaining many standing ovations from not only the Democrats but also from the Republicans. Did it s

Hi Everyone My main blog page says, “I Support Ukraine.” That was put on my webpage in the first week that Russia illegally invaded an independent, democratic country. I am proud to have been involved in three small projects to help the people. Now four years on, Ukraine is still fighting for its future and as well as receiving help from its allies across the world, it has made great strides to help itself with homegrown drone and military technology. All this despite Trump'

Hi Everyone This week, I read an interesting headline which said: “What Trump could learn from Napoleon”. It did not persuade me to read the article, but I did decide to find out more about Napoleon's character to see what comparisons there were between the two men. Historians say that he was a small, highly intelligent man and was a superior organiser who could work efficiently for long hours. No comparison there then. He could charm people when he needed to, but could also

Hi Everyone This week, a teenager was asked which item cost the most, a first class postage stamp or five chocolate creme eggs. Back in 1914, just before WW1, a letter cost one penny in old money, less than half a penny in today's money. If you apply inflation to that one penny stamp from 1914 to now, a letter or greetings card should cost about twenty five pence to send anywhere in the UK. The answer to that question was predictably the postage stamp at £ 1-80. If you lived