Cricket

Well, who'd have thought it? England have beaten Australia and lifted the one-day triangular series trophy after playing rubbish at the beginning of the series. The first major overseas trophy since 1997, I understand.

Nice.

But I'd sooner we retained The Ashes.

Cricket

Well, who'd have thought it? England have beaten Australia and lifted the one-day triangular series trophy after playing rubbish at the beginning of the series. The first major overseas trophy since 1997, I understand.

Nice.

But I'd sooner we retained The Ashes.

Backache, frames and curtains

On Saturday my main mission was to find a frame for my nice new print and as despite living a bus ride away from the place for close on two years, I’d never been to Barnet itself, ellefurtle and I decided that we would jump on the 263 and go north for once.

It turns out that there is a decent art shop up there, so getting the frame was easy enough (framing the picture later was less easy, but it’s done now, after some cursing and general dark muttering). Furtle managed to find a box set of crime paper backs for £3.99 in WH Smith’s ‘if we discount the buggers enough someone will buy them’ box. Frankly at that price, even if they all turn out to be tosh, they are as cheap as toilet paper. She also bought a properly priced novel, which cost more than the other five combined. We have high hopes of that book.

Sunday afternoon saw us wandering (by foot) down to Finchley to be all domestic (aaaahhhh…). Suffice it to say that the exercise involved curtains and the purchase thereof. I tried to report that in an exciting manner, but pretty much gave up. It’s curtains, folks, for the computer room. There is absolutely nothing to work with in the excitement arena.

I do seem to have done something to my back, which is giving me gyp at the moment. Not badly, but gyp nonetheless. It started coming on during the walk back from Finchley, and the placing of it made me assume it was just my sciatica beginning to play up. That always starts at the base of my back, just to the right of the small of the back and then a few minutes later starts giving me grief on my right thigh. A brief sit-down of simply 30-90 seconds is usually enough to re-set it for a few more hours, but although it never graduated to my leg this time, neither has it properly gone away from my back. It’s not as bad as yesterday when the application of ibuprofen gel was required to take the edge off it, but even so…

It seems, kids, that Our Hero is becoming a bit of a crock in his old age.

Backache, frames and curtains

On Saturday my main mission was to find a frame for my nice new print and as despite living a bus ride away from the place for close on two years, I’d never been to Barnet itself, ellefurtle and I decided that we would jump on the 263 and go north for once.

It turns out that there is a decent art shop up there, so getting the frame was easy enough (framing the picture later was less easy, but it’s done now, after some cursing and general dark muttering). Furtle managed to find a box set of crime paper backs for £3.99 in WH Smith’s ‘if we discount the buggers enough someone will buy them’ box. Frankly at that price, even if they all turn out to be tosh, they are as cheap as toilet paper. She also bought a properly priced novel, which cost more than the other five combined. We have high hopes of that book.

Sunday afternoon saw us wandering (by foot) down to Finchley to be all domestic (aaaahhhh…). Suffice it to say that the exercise involved curtains and the purchase thereof. I tried to report that in an exciting manner, but pretty much gave up. It’s curtains, folks, for the computer room. There is absolutely nothing to work with in the excitement arena.

I do seem to have done something to my back, which is giving me gyp at the moment. Not badly, but gyp nonetheless. It started coming on during the walk back from Finchley, and the placing of it made me assume it was just my sciatica beginning to play up. That always starts at the base of my back, just to the right of the small of the back and then a few minutes later starts giving me grief on my right thigh. A brief sit-down of simply 30-90 seconds is usually enough to re-set it for a few more hours, but although it never graduated to my leg this time, neither has it properly gone away from my back. It’s not as bad as yesterday when the application of ibuprofen gel was required to take the edge off it, but even so…

It seems, kids, that Our Hero is becoming a bit of a crock in his old age.

World Affairs

You know, it’s interesting watching the news these days; interesting and not a little worrying.

I am not generally one to give a great deal of credence to conspiracy stories. I’ve worked as a civil servant long enough to know that most things happen by accident because some one left the filing in the wrong place or forgot to do something, setting off a falling domino sequence of cause and effect where the supposed conspirators end up reacting instead of controlling. It is chaos theory in action; there is no grand scheme behind it.

That said I do have the slowly emerging feeling that we are being softened up for some big announcement somewhere in the near future. When I say “we” I mean the western world, rather than the UK in particular.

It started last night when I was watching the ITV News at 11pm. There was a report about roadside bombs in Iraq and about how the finger of suspicion was being pointed ever more squarely at Iran. In many ways it was a news report no more out of the ordinary than any of the hundreds or similar reports that have come out of the country since the insurgency started following the fall of Saddam. What made my ears perk up was the use of language by the reporter. I do not remember the exact words, but three stick squarely in my memory. The reporter spoke about the mounting body of evidence that the insurgents were being supplied by Iran before observing that Iran was becoming an ”increasingly viable target”. I found this interesting and not a little chilling. Previous news reports had quoted at some length, denials that there are any plans to deal with Iran in some military manner, be it bombing, cruise missiles or all-out ground invasion.

Not now; now we’re talking about “increasingly viable” targets.

Certainly the war or words with Iran shows no sign of cooling off and we are being presented with “evidence” that the bombs are supplied by Iran.

The US is sending more troops to the area to deal with “security issues”, a move that is far from universally popular in the US itself. The UN Security Council resolution calling upon Iran to halt its programme of uranium enrichment expires on 21 February. They, of course, will continue to enrich uranium regardless and the Security Council led by the US will demand tighter sanctions and/or action.

The coalition had difficulty selling the idea of war with Iraq because distasteful as the regime was, people had no real stomach for interfering with what appeared to be the internal affairs of a sovereign state. (I hold my hands up and state right now that I wasn’t one of them – I thought then and still think now that Saddam had to be toppled, my problem with the entire affair was the complete and probably criminal naivety with which the coalition went in, expecting the country to bounce in jubilation immediately and move immediately to western democracy and peace, despite the place being a hotchpotch of tribal, ethnic and religious divisions that has had the peace maintained by terror and force for upwards of thirty years (Yugoslavia, anyone?).

If we can be sold the idea of an insane and oppressive regime interfering with a nascent democracy and fomenting the insurgency in Iraq, a country that has frequently called for Israel to be removed from the face of the map, has ideals diametrically opposed to supposed western ideals and which is developing nuclear capability (Note the use of the word ‘developing.’ People point to North Korea and ask why they aren’t getting similar treatment to Iran. Well, the belief is that North Korea already has the bomb. That demands respect in a way that a potential bomb does not), then there will be war.

The question is, who wants the war and what do they expect to get out of it? I do not believe that oil is the answer: that is too simple. It is and always will be cheaper just to buy the stuff than to send in troops and war machines costing billions. In any case, conflicting ideologies aside, the regimes in control of the oil generally want to sell it to finance themselves. Oil crises rarely last long, because in the end, it’s a game of chicken where both sides want pretty much the same thing. It’s only the dollar price that matters.

Sometime in the next nine to twelve months, I reckon we’ll know. Before the US elections and once the analysts have decided which candidate has the best chance of winning.

This is all fiction.

World Affairs

You know, it’s interesting watching the news these days; interesting and not a little worrying.

I am not generally one to give a great deal of credence to conspiracy stories. I’ve worked as a civil servant long enough to know that most things happen by accident because some one left the filing in the wrong place or forgot to do something, setting off a falling domino sequence of cause and effect where the supposed conspirators end up reacting instead of controlling. It is chaos theory in action; there is no grand scheme behind it.

That said I do have the slowly emerging feeling that we are being softened up for some big announcement somewhere in the near future. When I say “we” I mean the western world, rather than the UK in particular.

It started last night when I was watching the ITV News at 11pm. There was a report about roadside bombs in Iraq and about how the finger of suspicion was being pointed ever more squarely at Iran. In many ways it was a news report no more out of the ordinary than any of the hundreds or similar reports that have come out of the country since the insurgency started following the fall of Saddam. What made my ears perk up was the use of language by the reporter. I do not remember the exact words, but three stick squarely in my memory. The reporter spoke about the mounting body of evidence that the insurgents were being supplied by Iran before observing that Iran was becoming an ”increasingly viable target”. I found this interesting and not a little chilling. Previous news reports had quoted at some length, denials that there are any plans to deal with Iran in some military manner, be it bombing, cruise missiles or all-out ground invasion.

Not now; now we’re talking about “increasingly viable” targets.

Certainly the war or words with Iran shows no sign of cooling off and we are being presented with “evidence” that the bombs are supplied by Iran.

The US is sending more troops to the area to deal with “security issues”, a move that is far from universally popular in the US itself. The UN Security Council resolution calling upon Iran to halt its programme of uranium enrichment expires on 21 February. They, of course, will continue to enrich uranium regardless and the Security Council led by the US will demand tighter sanctions and/or action.

The coalition had difficulty selling the idea of war with Iraq because distasteful as the regime was, people had no real stomach for interfering with what appeared to be the internal affairs of a sovereign state. (I hold my hands up and state right now that I wasn’t one of them – I thought then and still think now that Saddam had to be toppled, my problem with the entire affair was the complete and probably criminal naivety with which the coalition went in, expecting the country to bounce in jubilation immediately and move immediately to western democracy and peace, despite the place being a hotchpotch of tribal, ethnic and religious divisions that has had the peace maintained by terror and force for upwards of thirty years (Yugoslavia, anyone?).

If we can be sold the idea of an insane and oppressive regime interfering with a nascent democracy and fomenting the insurgency in Iraq, a country that has frequently called for Israel to be removed from the face of the map, has ideals diametrically opposed to supposed western ideals and which is developing nuclear capability (Note the use of the word ‘developing.’ People point to North Korea and ask why they aren’t getting similar treatment to Iran. Well, the belief is that North Korea already has the bomb. That demands respect in a way that a potential bomb does not), then there will be war.

The question is, who wants the war and what do they expect to get out of it? I do not believe that oil is the answer: that is too simple. It is and always will be cheaper just to buy the stuff than to send in troops and war machines costing billions. In any case, conflicting ideologies aside, the regimes in control of the oil generally want to sell it to finance themselves. Oil crises rarely last long, because in the end, it’s a game of chicken where both sides want pretty much the same thing. It’s only the dollar price that matters.

Sometime in the next nine to twelve months, I reckon we’ll know. Before the US elections and once the analysts have decided which candidate has the best chance of winning.

This is all fiction.