A Lifeboat, Bribes and AI Food

Hi Everyone

No doubt there are a number of organisations that solely rely on public donations for their existence, with no help from government funds. Two names however, immediately spring into mind: the Air Ambulance and the RNLI {Royal National  Lifeboat Institution}. The RNLI boats are manned almost entirely by unpaid volunteers to save lives at sea all around the coast of the UK while, on some occasions, putting their own lives at risk. Their rescue service is available 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Whenever the call comes in, they are ready to respond. This week the Coastguard in the South of England asked them to respond to a boatload of over 200 illegal immigrants who were in trouble as they neared our coast from France. As soon as the news got out, protesters with the usual contingent of balaclavas and face covered thugs joined the peaceful protesters. That has resulted in personal and social media threats to lifeboat crew members. Due to the totally unacceptable level of abuse levelled at staff and volunteers, many are having to take action to preserve the safety of both themselves and their families, which will probably result in many of them leaving the organisation. My own view is that the rescue of illegal immigrants trying to cross the Channel from France should be dealt with by the navy or other boats and should not involve our valuable RNLI volunteers.  Unfortunately, the genie is now out of the bottle which will damage their reputation in some people's eyes for a long time to come. Of course, peaceful protest must be preserved, but now, on too many occasions, protests are taken over by extremists and thugs, which has to be a concern for us all.

I cannot wait for the next election. All the parties will try to ‘bribe’ us with promises that they cannot achieve, so we will have to see whose promises are the most reasonable before casting our vote. What we also know is that whatever starts in America usually finds its way over the Atlantic to us. Now Trump is promising $5000 to every American if the Republicans keep their Congressional majority in the Midterm elections. Apparently, this is the fourth time that Trump has made promises of cash payments with no one receiving anything to date. Now I am eager to know how much I will receive when I next cast my vote. Personally, £25 would be enough to get my vote unless, of course, it was from a party I could not possibly support. I hope that I am not the only one who thinks that this latest statement is bizarre, especially coming from the man who is supposedly the leader of the free world.

I think most of us occasionally like to cook something different. The problem is that when you discover a promising recipe, the list of ingredients never matches what you have got in your food cupboards so you have to shop for perhaps three or four ingredients before you even start to prepare your meal. The choice then is to either buy the ingredients you need, most of which will still be in your cupboards five years later or revert back to sausage and mash or gammon and chips. Apparently most Americans are sceptical of AI except when it comes to finding new recipes. Personally, I will wait until AI is clever enough to match the recipe to the ingredients in our food cupboards.

Just a Thought:

Joining the RNLI is a great way to meet people, usually clinging to a rock in their pyjamas ot 3-00AM. 

Honesty is the best policy, but a heavy brown envelope makes a great back up plan.

My friend cooked a pie this week. Now it officially qualifies as a geolidical rock formation.

Brian