I have sorted all my paperwork out for tomorrow and I ready for a day of meetings (should enable me to catch up on my sleep, lol). I will let the train take the strain for a change and venture into London on our great rail network. Fortunately I don’t need to use the underground as the venue for my meeting is only about a 10 – 15 minute walk from where I get into London. No doubt it will pour it down with rain tomorrow then, at least I will have my umbrella with me so I shouldn’t get too wet.
Posts archive for: 2 July, 2008
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Loading a Mini Excavator
@ 2008-07-02 – 13:59:38
This is how you load a mini excavator, years of practise but no Health & Safety, our bosses would go ballistic if we did this.
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Unloading an Excavator
@ 2008-07-02 – 13:54:01
It takes years of experience to unload an excavator like this; unfortunately I don’t have a video off them loading onto the back of wagon. Health & Safety, what Health & Safety?
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Lunch Time Walk
@ 2008-07-02 – 12:43:10
I have just had a walk round our local pond; although there was no sun today it is still warm and humid. One good thing about the weather is that there wasn’t a smoker in sight, great for my asthma. But it was threatening to rain and there were a few spots in the air. The wild life was the same as yesterday and this time I managed to get some shots of the grebe. Hopefully they will come out okay, but I won’t be able to download until I get home, that’s assuming I am able to get on the computer.
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British Influence
@ 2008-07-02 – 10:12:14
I found this article rather interesting, I was aware of some it, but it shows once that once again our influence in the past is coming back to bite us in the arse and this is not the first instance of this happening.
That Robert Mugabe's regime has brought Zimbabwe to its knees is unquestionable, but the responsibility for creating that regime lies uncomfortably closer to home. Michael Holman, a journalist who grew up in the town of Gwelo in Zimbabwe, explains.
Missing from the acres of newsprint devoted to coverage of Zimbabwe’s deepening crisis, absent from the radio and television coverage, is an unpalatable fact: Robert Mugabe is a creature shaped by British colonial rule. And a century after white settlers established the racially skewed land ownership that remains at the heart of the country’s turbulent politics, colonial chickens are coming home to roost.
It was British settlers who, in the 1890s, occupied the country soon to be called Southern Rhodesia; nearly a hundred years later, London played midwife to the birth of Zimbabwe, hosting the Lancaster House constitutional conference. With an almost audible sigh of relief, Britain welcomed an independent Zimbabwe.
But its responsibility lives on. Between the arrival of settlers and the handover to Mugabe in 1980, the UK record was a shoddy one.
Three decisions stand out:
- At the break-up in 1963 of the Central African Federation of Southern and Northern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) in 1963, it was Britain that allocated the bulk of the Federal army to white-ruled Rhodesia. This gave the minority regime of Ian Smith the muscle to make a unilateral declaration of independence two years later, in 1965, and to wage war against Black Nationalist guerrillas.
- It was Britain that effectively vetoed landlocked Zambia’s request in the early 1960s for World Bank funds to build a railway that would link it to the east African port of Dar es Salaam. The decision forced continued dependence on trade routes through apartheid South Africa – and rebel Rhodesia.
- And it was Britain that reneged on the spirit, if not the letter, of a provision in the Lancaster House settlement intended to tackle the worst feature in the legacy of white rule - half the land was owned by whites. The UK contributed (in real terms) to the buyout of 5,000 white farmers in Zimbabwe just half the amount it had provided for a similar exercise in Kenya in the early 1960s – although its former East African colony had barely a thousand white farmers.
No one suggests that Robert Mugabe does not shoulder the bulk of the blame for today’s tragedy. Nelson Mandela has shown how leadership can transform a country. But it is this historical involvement in Zimbabwe that gives a unique British dimension and responsibility.
Of course, Zimbabwe matters for other reasons: the crisis is proving contagious, spilling over to southern African neighbours. Refugees head for South Africa and Zambia; Botswana puts up an electric fence to keep them out; SA dockworkers refuse to handle a China arms shipment bound for Zimbabwe; divisions between President Mbeki and his successor-in-waiting, Jacob Zuma, worsen; and there have been xenophobic attacks on Zimbabweans in South Africa.
And we should care about Zimbabwe not only because Britain’s past policies still influence events, but because we live in an inter-dependent world, where disease knows no boundaries; in which terrorism thrives in failed states like Somalia; because more and more economic and political refugees head for Europe; because a weak, misgoverned Africa will lack the capacity to play a role in the international, co-ordinated response essential to the success of any anti-global warming strategy.
Time is surely running out for Robert Mugabe. But the editorial writers who sharpen their pens in anticipation may be in danger of missing the point: they should be preparing not only the obituary of a dictator, but an epitaph for an empire – as well as a turning point for Africa. -
New Housing
@ 2008-07-02 – 08:10:32
The Government has said that we need new housing, lots of new housing. It has plans to build 160,000 new houses in Essex alone. With that in mind what is the meaning of the following article eon the BBC’s website.
Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey has said it is to close a third of its 39 offices, with the loss of 900 jobs, as it seeks to survive the housing downturn. Taylor Wimpey added it had so far failed to agree a deal to raise extra funds, reported to be about £500m, through an emergency share issue.
It said it expected the UK housing market to remain weak in 2008 and did not anticipate any short-term recovery. Finance director Peter Johnson will also stand down at the end of 2008. The gloomy news from Taylor Wimpey came as the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said that building of new homes had fallen at the fastest pace since 1995.
Taylor Wimpey announced on Monday that it was planning to raise funds to bolster its finances. But "current market conditions" meant it had not yet been able to strike a "satisfactory" deal, it said. Taylor Wimpey said on Monday that it had been hit by a "significant downturn" in the housing market, and said it expected to write off the value of its land bank and work-in-progress by about £550m in the UK.
There have been reports that rival housebuilder Barratt Developments is also looking to its to strengthen its finances. Barratt has debts of about £1.7bn which it used to buy rival Wilson Bowden last year - when the housing market was at its peak.
If we require so much new housing then why are these contractors struggling is because they are not very good, we have had a quite a few enquires and tender packages sent to us in the last month for housing, a lot of it affordable homes with some normal housing and a few luxury homes.
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Wimbledon
@ 2008-07-02 – 07:26:45
Today is another big day for Andy Murray, he his up against Rafael Nadel in the quarterfinal of Wimbledon. I do which he would control his arrogance though. Yes it was a great result on Monday, but he has been reported as saying that he’s the best left in and can win the competition. Confidence is great thing and crowd always back him up, but for me I dislike his haughtiness it’s a flaw he needs to overcome, that and he hates the English (this he said in a press interview a few years ago).
But fortunately we English aren’t like that, I hope he does really well, maybe he can win but he his certainly up against today.
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Wednesday
@ 2008-07-02 – 07:15:07
Wednesday, middle of the week and after Friday my favourite working day, from here it’s all down hill to the weekend.
I have brought my camera in today, but being the typical British weather it looks like rain so I doubt that I will get the chance to use it, I was hoping to go across to the pond at lunch time. There are a few water birds I would like to photograph, we have a few Grebes across there and I would dearly like to photograph them. I won’t get the chance tomorrow as I am in London for meetings all day.
