The Friday before Christmas 2009 could become an important day if I progress an idea developed on a car journey during some of the worst wintry weather this year. I begin with the weather where so far there has been widespread disruption but no evidence of the longer term damage and loss of life caused by the severe rainfall and flooding in Cumbria within the past month.
I write against a backdrop in which the world’s leaders, notably President Obama of the USA, appears to have produced the basis for reaching an agreement to effectively tackle the threat of long term damaging climate change, and which will have the effect of International law if the participating 192 countries attending the summit can all agree. This may seem an impossible dream given the wide disparity between the interests of the rich nations who can afford serious efforts to change the basis of their economies from the escalating use of fuels which damage the environment without destroying their wealth and power in the process and the majority who see the proposals only as a means of preventing their economic development in a situation where many are likely to find any rising of temperatures and more extremes of weather conditions to their greater detriment. The idea that the majority of the nations would be allowed to dictate the role of the G 20 and vice versa was always idealistic but essential to try if these countries are not to irrevocably damage their comparative economic positions during the process.
The problem for the lay person is the lack of universal certainty about the nature of the problem. The sun is cooling but at a speed which involves billions of years before the earth planet would become uninhabitable by the human race unless alternative energy, air and food sources can be created within vast arks or underground cities. The viable alternative is space travel and colonization to another human life sustaining solar system. This is unlikely to be available for more than a fraction of the present expanding human population. Where there is agreement is that deterioration of the earth’s atmosphere is occurring at a significantly faster rate with the effect of raising the overall temperature of the waters around the polar ice caps thus raising sea levels and threatening major areas of the planet with flooding as well as greater extremes of weather conditions turning new areas into deserts, others into inland lakes, obliterating some low lying islands, and having to cope with more frequent storms, dramatic temperatures highs and lows. Some of this is likely to have happened whatever humanity has done or will do, but according to the majority of scientific opinion the speed and likely irrevocability of damaging changes is human made and the window of opportunity to slow down and then halt the process is closing rapidly and more rapidly than governments and the media would like us to believe.
The problem confronting governments in their collective roles is that no individual government is going to sign up to a legally binding agreement which disadvantages them comparatively and no group of countries with common interests whether economic, political, religious or social is likely to do likewise. The position of the undeveloped countries, is that they want why should their progress be halted or reversed in order that the already developed nations can maintain their relative position, especially as it is the developed nations who have caused the problem. Given by definition the innate role of governments it is unlikely that any turkey will vote for Christmas or be willing to grow up a chicken.
Over the past few days we have experienced forecast snowfall moderate in nature over some city and urban areas as well on high ground and rural areas across some parts of the united kingdom. I travelled through blizzard in Durham and Yorkshire on Friday, but found the roads clear and sunlit, although busy during a trip from the midlands to the south coast on Saturday. It was evident that while local authorities are concentrating on keeping the main roadways open no effort was being made to grit and salt other roads despite the forecast because of the unwillingness to stock up with the equipment and human power for use or a short period once or twice in any year.
This approach was not politically acceptable in the past.
Today some disruption, an increase in breakdowns and accidents, including breakage of human limbs is inevitable. What needs to be investigated and will be investigated is the failure of five cross channel trains in the tunnel at the same time and failure to have appropriate emergency help, including food and water available. The problem was exacerbated by the break downs occurring in both tunnels. However most people appear to forget that all travel is potentially hazardous.
In my case the only inconvenience was that it appears the car radio blew its fuse. I say appears because until the fuse is checked I cannot be certain that the problem is greater. The radio has a button which if pressed results in the latest road and weather reports in the area of travel breaking in to whatever else is being listened to, radio or disk player. This is usually irritating if the button is accidentally pressed while travelling and one does not want to make the effort to stop, check the location of the button and switch it off. Over the present trip which involves stays in four locations and around 800 miles of travels the system would have been exceptionally useful.
According to the radio booklet the most likely cause was the blowing of a fuse and which therefore needs to be changed, I had no idea where the fuse was located but had the opportunity to visit a Halfords store on the way to my Saturday stopover and someone explained that the information is the vehicle manual. I should have known this fact although I have not had previous cause to consult the booklet for the location of fuses boxes and their individual functions. Unfortunately while it was easy to find one of the two fuse boxes, the one at the top of the engine under the bonnet I am unclear about the one under the dashboard inside the car. The weather conditions and being on travels is also a factor against trial and error expectation about removing covers.
The absence of the car radio was in one sense a good thing because it meant I had no distractions and could concentrate on the driving. During the past few days I have also mapped out in some detail a new component work of 101. A piece of conventional writing, with a prologue, chapters and an end piece, but with the addition of audio and visual material and hopefully an on line edition but whether I shall seek to publish within my lifetime will be considered, if and when this work is completed. What is important is that I have worked out a structure and a focus which I presently find satisfying and leads to this sense of wanting to concentrate wholeheartedly from this moment on but apart from under an hour at a motorway stop midmorning and rising from what was to have been an early night to translate some of the handwritten notes into typeface and commence this piece I have been preoccupied with the travel and a number of anxieties and uncertainties in relation to the rest of the trip.
I came on the travels well prepared in terms of food with tins of beans and rice, packets of soaps, prepared rolls, ‘pan’ au chocolates for breakfast and Danish pastries crackers loads of fresh grapes as well as one pint of skimmed milk which spilt in my shoulder bag soaking the special Christmas and New Year edition of the Radio Times, my once a year purchase and several partially used note books.
I have enjoyed three meals in restaurants in addition to the various al fresco concoctions, a quickish breakfast when starting out, an in expensive meal in a pub of gammon with egg and chips followed by apple crumble and coffee with a glass of diet Pepsi and a more expensive meal at a Brown‘s restaurant which comprises Tomato and Basil Soup, a half chicken roast, Pepsi and coffee. On another day I would have more tempted by their board of ham, cheese Olives and dips and their fish platter, the latter enjoyed on a previous occasion, but having roast on a Sunday has become a tradition but I have no idea since when this became national event. According to Wikipedia this began when good Squires treated their serfs to a roast Oxen on Sundays after a good week’s work. It originated in ‘Merry’ England and spread to the white populations of Commonwealth Countries and to parts of North America.
The limitations of Travel Lodge TV is such that I had hoped to survive through the internet players with BBC. ITV, Ch 4, Sky and the Met Opera. Only the BBC provides a comprehensive live service and even then some sport is not available as I found when I had hoped to watch the Newcastle V Middlesbrough game on Sunday evening. I was able to watch a new Wallander on Channel 4 live entitled the Joker, a title whose significances still escapes me. It was cleverly written, as usual, when the primary suspect for the murder of a comparatively young mother of a child, a police man, turned out to be the father of the child. The description of the child being a witness to the murder and the impact when she is confronted by the man again was authentic and the acting as usual was also exceptional. However the main storyline was conventional and lacked the political or social significance of many others in this excellent series in the original Swedish. The award winning British version was to have continued after its first season but has not done so.
I travelled along parts of M27-A27 for the 5th time in one year, approach this vital road link parallel to the south coastline from the M3 in the west and the A23 in the east. I have now travelled the greater part of its length having continued westward for Southampton docks on my most recent visit to the Isle of Wight to where the road links to the M23. On this trip I continued to travel west from Portsmouth to Chichester for a stop over at Littlehampton which is located just off the road itself with a garage and Burger King, with first floor room overlooking private houses and their gardens and therefore one of the quietest stay overs I can remember, and the following morning continued along the coast to Worthing and Brighton coming within a short distance of Arundel Castle. The route takes one close to so many childhood memories with the day seaside trips to Brighton, Littlehampton and Bognor and the occasion when all the family, or at least the majority of the family went to Portsmouth to visit a first cousin whose parents had emigrated to the USA, become citizens and was in the USA navy. There was also at least one family holiday in Bognor Littlehampton area.
I have stayed at the Morden Travel Lodge at least once before, I think two or three times, between 10 and 25 years ago and taken relatives to eat at the Harvester restaurant there perhaps less than a decade ago. Amazingly I fount my way here last night from Sutton, although I have to go around the Rosehill roundabout a second time before confirming that I needed to take the side road exit to lower Morden rather than the main continuation marked to Morden and London. This roundabout has a history because it is at the end of the road passing St Helier Hospital and I also took the road towards Sutton where there was a mobility store which I visited from 1999 to 2003 in relation to my birth and care mothers. There is a circle route from Wallington which goes to Carshalton and Wrthye Lane where the mothers went to a Catholic Church for a time when they fell out with a modern priest at St Elphege and the new Church was built with the old one converted into a social centre, and then continues to St Helier, to Rosehill and back to Sutton, or the more frequently used route from Wallington on the old 654 Trolley bus to the Grapes pub at South Sutton, where as to day it was necessary to continue to North Sutton and then take a road a road parallel to the High Street passed the Empire cinema to join the main road continuing to the Rosehill roundabout. Later today I moved for the fourth stop over for two days at Whyteleaf
I write against a backdrop in which the world’s leaders, notably President Obama of the USA, appears to have produced the basis for reaching an agreement to effectively tackle the threat of long term damaging climate change, and which will have the effect of International law if the participating 192 countries attending the summit can all agree. This may seem an impossible dream given the wide disparity between the interests of the rich nations who can afford serious efforts to change the basis of their economies from the escalating use of fuels which damage the environment without destroying their wealth and power in the process and the majority who see the proposals only as a means of preventing their economic development in a situation where many are likely to find any rising of temperatures and more extremes of weather conditions to their greater detriment. The idea that the majority of the nations would be allowed to dictate the role of the G 20 and vice versa was always idealistic but essential to try if these countries are not to irrevocably damage their comparative economic positions during the process.
The problem for the lay person is the lack of universal certainty about the nature of the problem. The sun is cooling but at a speed which involves billions of years before the earth planet would become uninhabitable by the human race unless alternative energy, air and food sources can be created within vast arks or underground cities. The viable alternative is space travel and colonization to another human life sustaining solar system. This is unlikely to be available for more than a fraction of the present expanding human population. Where there is agreement is that deterioration of the earth’s atmosphere is occurring at a significantly faster rate with the effect of raising the overall temperature of the waters around the polar ice caps thus raising sea levels and threatening major areas of the planet with flooding as well as greater extremes of weather conditions turning new areas into deserts, others into inland lakes, obliterating some low lying islands, and having to cope with more frequent storms, dramatic temperatures highs and lows. Some of this is likely to have happened whatever humanity has done or will do, but according to the majority of scientific opinion the speed and likely irrevocability of damaging changes is human made and the window of opportunity to slow down and then halt the process is closing rapidly and more rapidly than governments and the media would like us to believe.
The problem confronting governments in their collective roles is that no individual government is going to sign up to a legally binding agreement which disadvantages them comparatively and no group of countries with common interests whether economic, political, religious or social is likely to do likewise. The position of the undeveloped countries, is that they want why should their progress be halted or reversed in order that the already developed nations can maintain their relative position, especially as it is the developed nations who have caused the problem. Given by definition the innate role of governments it is unlikely that any turkey will vote for Christmas or be willing to grow up a chicken.
Over the past few days we have experienced forecast snowfall moderate in nature over some city and urban areas as well on high ground and rural areas across some parts of the united kingdom. I travelled through blizzard in Durham and Yorkshire on Friday, but found the roads clear and sunlit, although busy during a trip from the midlands to the south coast on Saturday. It was evident that while local authorities are concentrating on keeping the main roadways open no effort was being made to grit and salt other roads despite the forecast because of the unwillingness to stock up with the equipment and human power for use or a short period once or twice in any year.
This approach was not politically acceptable in the past.
Today some disruption, an increase in breakdowns and accidents, including breakage of human limbs is inevitable. What needs to be investigated and will be investigated is the failure of five cross channel trains in the tunnel at the same time and failure to have appropriate emergency help, including food and water available. The problem was exacerbated by the break downs occurring in both tunnels. However most people appear to forget that all travel is potentially hazardous.
In my case the only inconvenience was that it appears the car radio blew its fuse. I say appears because until the fuse is checked I cannot be certain that the problem is greater. The radio has a button which if pressed results in the latest road and weather reports in the area of travel breaking in to whatever else is being listened to, radio or disk player. This is usually irritating if the button is accidentally pressed while travelling and one does not want to make the effort to stop, check the location of the button and switch it off. Over the present trip which involves stays in four locations and around 800 miles of travels the system would have been exceptionally useful.
According to the radio booklet the most likely cause was the blowing of a fuse and which therefore needs to be changed, I had no idea where the fuse was located but had the opportunity to visit a Halfords store on the way to my Saturday stopover and someone explained that the information is the vehicle manual. I should have known this fact although I have not had previous cause to consult the booklet for the location of fuses boxes and their individual functions. Unfortunately while it was easy to find one of the two fuse boxes, the one at the top of the engine under the bonnet I am unclear about the one under the dashboard inside the car. The weather conditions and being on travels is also a factor against trial and error expectation about removing covers.
The absence of the car radio was in one sense a good thing because it meant I had no distractions and could concentrate on the driving. During the past few days I have also mapped out in some detail a new component work of 101. A piece of conventional writing, with a prologue, chapters and an end piece, but with the addition of audio and visual material and hopefully an on line edition but whether I shall seek to publish within my lifetime will be considered, if and when this work is completed. What is important is that I have worked out a structure and a focus which I presently find satisfying and leads to this sense of wanting to concentrate wholeheartedly from this moment on but apart from under an hour at a motorway stop midmorning and rising from what was to have been an early night to translate some of the handwritten notes into typeface and commence this piece I have been preoccupied with the travel and a number of anxieties and uncertainties in relation to the rest of the trip.
I came on the travels well prepared in terms of food with tins of beans and rice, packets of soaps, prepared rolls, ‘pan’ au chocolates for breakfast and Danish pastries crackers loads of fresh grapes as well as one pint of skimmed milk which spilt in my shoulder bag soaking the special Christmas and New Year edition of the Radio Times, my once a year purchase and several partially used note books.
I have enjoyed three meals in restaurants in addition to the various al fresco concoctions, a quickish breakfast when starting out, an in expensive meal in a pub of gammon with egg and chips followed by apple crumble and coffee with a glass of diet Pepsi and a more expensive meal at a Brown‘s restaurant which comprises Tomato and Basil Soup, a half chicken roast, Pepsi and coffee. On another day I would have more tempted by their board of ham, cheese Olives and dips and their fish platter, the latter enjoyed on a previous occasion, but having roast on a Sunday has become a tradition but I have no idea since when this became national event. According to Wikipedia this began when good Squires treated their serfs to a roast Oxen on Sundays after a good week’s work. It originated in ‘Merry’ England and spread to the white populations of Commonwealth Countries and to parts of North America.
The limitations of Travel Lodge TV is such that I had hoped to survive through the internet players with BBC. ITV, Ch 4, Sky and the Met Opera. Only the BBC provides a comprehensive live service and even then some sport is not available as I found when I had hoped to watch the Newcastle V Middlesbrough game on Sunday evening. I was able to watch a new Wallander on Channel 4 live entitled the Joker, a title whose significances still escapes me. It was cleverly written, as usual, when the primary suspect for the murder of a comparatively young mother of a child, a police man, turned out to be the father of the child. The description of the child being a witness to the murder and the impact when she is confronted by the man again was authentic and the acting as usual was also exceptional. However the main storyline was conventional and lacked the political or social significance of many others in this excellent series in the original Swedish. The award winning British version was to have continued after its first season but has not done so.
I travelled along parts of M27-A27 for the 5th time in one year, approach this vital road link parallel to the south coastline from the M3 in the west and the A23 in the east. I have now travelled the greater part of its length having continued westward for Southampton docks on my most recent visit to the Isle of Wight to where the road links to the M23. On this trip I continued to travel west from Portsmouth to Chichester for a stop over at Littlehampton which is located just off the road itself with a garage and Burger King, with first floor room overlooking private houses and their gardens and therefore one of the quietest stay overs I can remember, and the following morning continued along the coast to Worthing and Brighton coming within a short distance of Arundel Castle. The route takes one close to so many childhood memories with the day seaside trips to Brighton, Littlehampton and Bognor and the occasion when all the family, or at least the majority of the family went to Portsmouth to visit a first cousin whose parents had emigrated to the USA, become citizens and was in the USA navy. There was also at least one family holiday in Bognor Littlehampton area.
I have stayed at the Morden Travel Lodge at least once before, I think two or three times, between 10 and 25 years ago and taken relatives to eat at the Harvester restaurant there perhaps less than a decade ago. Amazingly I fount my way here last night from Sutton, although I have to go around the Rosehill roundabout a second time before confirming that I needed to take the side road exit to lower Morden rather than the main continuation marked to Morden and London. This roundabout has a history because it is at the end of the road passing St Helier Hospital and I also took the road towards Sutton where there was a mobility store which I visited from 1999 to 2003 in relation to my birth and care mothers. There is a circle route from Wallington which goes to Carshalton and Wrthye Lane where the mothers went to a Catholic Church for a time when they fell out with a modern priest at St Elphege and the new Church was built with the old one converted into a social centre, and then continues to St Helier, to Rosehill and back to Sutton, or the more frequently used route from Wallington on the old 654 Trolley bus to the Grapes pub at South Sutton, where as to day it was necessary to continue to North Sutton and then take a road a road parallel to the High Street passed the Empire cinema to join the main road continuing to the Rosehill roundabout. Later today I moved for the fourth stop over for two days at Whyteleaf
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