OldTrilobite

Worrying article in the latest Which? magazine, exposing the racket of fake reviews on social media. I cannot understand how it can be legal for a business to pay another business to flood their website, Google or Trustpilot with entirely fake 5-star reviews. Very worrying, though I don't use Facebook etc. Everyone should try to read a copy in their public library. It's not online, though there was an earlier January online article about fake reviews. The latest Which? article does not cover sites like Amazon or Tripadvisor, where there may also be fake reviews. It is hard to know what one can trust.

Yes, I can certainly relate to that. I was expecting such a response. I'll give my defence later. My complaint is that the TV adverts seriously distort the reality of the British population. The 2011 census analysis reported that of the 56.1 million in the population of England and Wales, 86% were white (British born or European), 7.5% were ethnically Asian, and only 3.3% were ethically 'black' (plus 3.2% 'other' or mixed race). If one includes the census results from Scotland and Nothern Ireland, the non-white component becomes even smaller. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/2011census/2013-05-16 The figures for the latest census are still being analysed, and will be released shortly, but appear not to differ greatly from the 2011 census. The commercial ads that are shown on British TV freeview channels these days give a wholly distorted impression of our ethnic diversity. I have not carried out a quantitiative analysis, but one gets the impression that about half the TV ads feature actors who are ethnically of south-asian or african origin. In many cases the TV ads show actors who are exclusively non-white. I am offended by this distortion of reality, and can only suppose that the creators and sponsors of these adverts are mistakenly trying to prove how 'woke' they are. There has been a similar distortion in other countries. A Gallup Poll, published in June 2001, revealed that the average American (USA) believed that black people made up 33% of the US population - the actual figure was 12.3%. About 17% of Americans polled thought that at least 50% of the US population was black: https://news.gallup.com/poll/4435/public-overestimates-us-black-hispanic-populations.aspx My complaint is primariy directed at the companies that commission and create these adverts that will tend to make British people think that non-whites make up a much higher proportion of our population than they actually do. This is a disservice to us and could even provoke a racist backlash. Am I a racist? Please give me a sound definition of 'racist'. It is all to easy, these days, to slander anyone by calling them 'racist' or 'paedophile' or 'pervert' without producing any evidence that would stand up in court. Maybe I do have some racist tendencies, but I must tell you that one of my closest friends, when I was a post-graduate working towards a higher degree, was a delightful companion from Pakistan. We spent many hours together, at work and going out to curry dinners together, and we kept in touch for several years after he returned as a professor at a Lahore university. We only lost touch when Pakistan became rather hostile to Britain. I later worked in a research institute where some of the staff were non-white and there was never any prejudice. As a professional biologist I am very aware of the benefits of bringing 'fresh blood' into a population. Breeders know it as 'hybrid vigour'. We in Britain should be welcoming immigrants for the genetic diversity that they bring. Young immigrants, maybe escaping from wars, ethnic or religious persecution, or simple poverty will come to our country with an above-average courage, willingness to risk much, and a sense of initiative and adventurous drive that can only enhance the genetic pool of Britain.

When the TV ads come on, do you sometimes wonder whether your TV set has suddenly tuned itself to a Nigerian channel? I suppose that the companies who commission, and make, the TV adverts are all trying to prove how woke they are.

Both Deborah James and Colin Blakemore have up to date biographical entries in Wikipedia. Blakemore's is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Blakemore The Royal Society of Biology has a short obit in the latest newsletter; they will publish a full obit later in the Society's magazine. Martin

I hope that it worked for you and didn't hurt. News that has made me sad very recently: The death of Deborah James, "bowelbabe". She died on the same day as my (much older) birthday. Let us remember her courage and cheerful acceptance of her end by contributing to her "Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research". Also the death of Professor Colin Blakemore on June 27th. One of Britain's top neuroscientists, humanist and conciliator. Died, aged 78, of motorneurone disease.

Some of us also thought that petrol stations would not be able to set their pumps to anything over 99.9 pence!

Our very ancient Mazda MX-5 apparently requires E5 petrol. We don't use it much but nevertheless I had to top it up at the local BP place yesterday. E5 'Ultimate' now £2 per litre (less 0.1 pence). Thirty quid for 15.01 litres. The little village garage sells reasonably priced petrol but they only have E10.

Needlessly over-gunned. I am a fairly good shot with my air rifle. But you have to hit pidgeons in the head, because a normal .177 pellet won't get through the thick wing feathers. A long time ago my late father got fed up with pidgeons attacking his cabbage patch, and asked me to get him a cheap shotgun. Found a nice little hammer-action .410, second-hand at a London gun-dealer, which he used occasionally. One day, when he was away at his office, my daffy mother noticed a pidgeon on the cabbages, so she got the little shotgun, loaded it, opened the bedroom window but in her excitement she pulled the trigger before the gun was lined up. Result: an expensive large hole in the good bedroom carpet. 😧

Some bird crap is like glue. It took me about quarter of an hour of hard scrubbing to shift what what probably pidgeon poo on the slats of our garden seat. Must try to find a way of stopping the beggars from perching on the top slat and emptying their cloaca.

1. Mine was also mainly brown, with a few grey bits and a few ginger bits 2. I liked it, but wife hated it! I stopped shaving on board the boat that took me to the USA for a year in the 1960s. Lots of snide comments from friends for first few weeks. It took months to get to what I wanted: what the Royal Navy calls a 'full set'. Then I found that at the time beards were strongly disapproved of in the very Republican part of Western USA because they were associated with the anti-Vietnam-war hippies of California. I was once refused service in a smalltown restaurant in SW USA. Best casual remark by a stranger: "Oh, Jesse James is back in town". Eventually I shaved it off - it got too hot in the Utah summer and wife kept nagging me to get rid of it. Now I wish I had kept it...

Kenneth Williams': "Infamy, infamy: they've all got it in for me" is the immortal joke in his Carry on Cleo TV video. Do any of you suffer from a particular Infamy Curse? In my case it is wire coat-hangers. They have all got it in for me. We put shirts etc on them to hang them on the line after washing, and in my case each one does its best to annoy and frustrate me. It tangles with the next one, or throws itself onto the ground, or will not hook onto the washing line easily. In my wife's case it is computers. Every time she tries to log on to send in a repeat prescription request, or send a greetings e-card to someone, the computer does its best to give her grief. Fortunately she will generally put the shirts on the wire hangers, and I can usually do her essential online tasks. Which of you suffer from some form of The Infamy Curse?

One problem is that the ethanol can absorb water, and over time this can cause some corrosion and tend to emulsify old petrol. I have just bought a new Honda lawnmower and the instructions recommend using E5 petrol. The retailer said that E10 would be ok but not to use any that was more than 30 days out of the filling station pump! He went on to recommend using one of the commercial additives to 'protect' against this ageing effect. I don't know if he is right or exaggerating. 30 days sounds like a gross exaggeration to me, but as it was quite an expensive lawnmower I have bought some Wynn's E10 Protector to add to the jerrycan. Rather expensive - 12 quid for 250 ml at Halfords. Enough to treat 250 litres E10 petrol. Claims "Makes E10 safe for all petrol engines; prevents corrosion and fuel oxidation." I also try to run the Honda carburettor part-dry by turning off the fuel tap for the last few minutes of grass cutting (not practicable on most cars! Most have fuel injection these days.) My 2012 Fabia should be ok with E10 but my very ancient MX-5 does need E5, apparently. Not on sale in small rural petrol stations.

Rant away, dear friend, rant away. It helps to keep the blood pressure from rising too high.

I believe that the woke/pc gang have made a similar mistake in their objection to 'man' as in 'spokesman', 'chairman'. I think that the 'man' ending is actually gender-neutral as it is also derived, via Yiddish, from old German 'mensch'. The word 'mensch' is gender neutral, meaning a good person male or female. Quote: "Mensch definition, a decent, upright, mature, and responsible person." It does not specifically mean only a man, a male person. To try to get us all to say 'chairperson' merely betrays the ignorance of the bigoted.

Which is why Britain has lost most of its manufacturing: pottery, umbrellas, industrial tools, electronics, etc. We all buy cheaper Chinese-made scissors and knives, frying pans, keyboards... I agree that PV solar panels are the only practicable non-fossil-fuel option for home generation, unless one is lucky enough to own sufficient acreage to be able to put up a wind turbine. Making 'green' electricity on an industrial scale is a different matter. I watched the 'Solar Panel Factory' roottoot mentioned, on YouTube, and thought it a rather self-satisfied promotion of an Indian production plant. Impressive, but no mention of production energy needed. India (& China) still rely on coal-fired electricity generators. Engineers speak of 'embedded' and 'embodied' energy: the energy (and by extrapolation, potential pollution) required to make something from source through transport, refining, purification, manfacturing and distribution. I have unfortunately mislaid the figures comparing the embedded energies for PV solar panels with wind turbines. Wind has a distinct advantage in lower embedded energy costs. Solar panels are suitable for arid sunlit parts of the world (like parts of India) but wind turbines seem far better suited to Britan and northern Europe. They don't wreck agricultural land nearly so much either. There is a large field of solar panels somewhere off the Cambridge-Newmarket road, where the panels are so tightly packed that grass struggles to grow underneath. One could never graze anything under these panels, nor grow any normal crop. Apologies for taking this discussion somewhat off-topic. I'll shut up now!

I know it's not anwering anyone's questions, but I have been wondering if PV solar panels are as 'green' as we think. Two-thirds of them are now made in China - a country notorious for powering its industries with electricity from coal-fired generators. I assume that making the silicon elements of these panels must use a lot of electric power, and perhaps result in much Chinese CO2 emissions (and other pollution). There is a row brewing here in East Anglia over a proposal to build a really gynormous PV generating plant, covering a huge acreage of good farmland.

There is a rumpus going on in one of the colleges of Cambridge University. There is a marble memorial in the college chapel to one of the university's and college's major benefactors: a Tobias Rustat. An activist group wants the memorial removed from the chapel because it upsets them. They assert that his money was 'dirty': that he made his fortune from the slave trade. He was an investor in the Royal Africa Company - a major shipper of slaves to the West Indies. However, if one checks the facts (I trust Wikipedia here) one finds that he made his fortune because he was a courtier in the court of Charles II, who was the 'Royal' behind the Royal Africa Company. The slave trading was largely run by Charles's brother James (who became James II). Rustat did play some role in the Royal Africa Company (as a courtier to Charles II it is likely that the King expected him to) but Wikipedia estimates that less than 2% of his wealth came from it. A position at a monarch's court was, in those corrupt times, a guarantee that one would become rich. It seems that the college activists have been spreading much misinformation about Rustat, according to recent reports. As the Royal Africa Company had the King's backing, (and much of his investments) then surely every art gallery in Britain should be removing every portrait of Charles II, and his brother James, and putting them out of sight in the basement.

I agree that McAfee has a poor rating. I have it available because it is free from my ex-academic work, but I rely primarily on Malwarebytes to keep me clean. I doubt that McAfee poses an actual risk if it is installed. It is many years since I had a virus warning from whatever anti-malware I had at the time. I guess I am lucky (and careful) 😀

I am still using Win 7, although there are no more regular updates. I use a desktop PC because I don't much like laptop keyboards. I do have antimalware installed: McAfee is provided by my ex-academic link, and I have Malwarebytes free version to run from time to time. As I don't browse dodgy websites or reply to unwanted emails, I feel save to continue with Win 7. My wife had Win 8.1 on a laptop a while ago and it was such a disaster she gave the whole thing away to a post-grad student! My PC is probably too old to run Win 10 or later. With two-factor authentication, where a pass-number is sent to one's mobile phone, I think online banking is reasonably safe, though I would not use it for any major things like house or car purchase. I don't keep a big balance in my accounts, just in case.... Dealing with HSBC was awkward and one reason I switched to Barclays. I also use Nationwide: I like dealing with N'wide as the local branch are also so very helpful.

"Land of Hope and Glory" (from Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance) was on Classic FM at lunchtime today. Not much hope and damn all glory....

I can confirm that. I did my 2 years National Service in the Navy: the Fleet Air Arm. While stationed on an airfield near Lossiemouth, our workshop was miles from any toilet and we all went to pee around the back of a disused radio control van. One morning when I ****ed on it, it was like being kicked in the privates by a mule. We didn't know that the day before some incompetent civvy electricians had been doing some rewiring, and had accidentally wired the whole chassis of the van to three-phase live mains. The short circuit current must have been huge, because one could stick voltmeter probes into the (moist Scottish) soil several feet away and still register an AC voltage. I have never fathered any kids. Maybe there has been some connection?

A little more info about rural bus lane enforcement: Trying to get definite times about the rural bus lanes in South Cambridgeshire, I contacted the County Council. They told me that enforcement on the rural roads was purely a matter for the police. Although the lack of times on the bus lane notices implies that they apply 24/7, the Cambridgeshire police tell me that their view is that outside conventional rush hours (07:30-09:30 and 15:30-18:00) all available lanes can be used by other road users without risk of a penalty charge. More sense than the desk-pilots in the council offices!

Typical of the thoughless decisions made by the planning incompetents that skomaz has been writing about. I was very grateful for dropped kerbs at the right-hand edge of a dual carriageway some years ago. I was overtaking two slow lorries, and alongside the rear one, when without signalling and obviously without checking his mirror, he pulled into the right hand lane. Thanks to dropped kerbs I was able to run onto the grass of the central reservation without damage. It did give me a fright though.

The cycle lanes in Cambridge town are used, but as measured in terms of people moved per metre per hour they are economically unsuccessful. Your comment on spending central government grants is probably spot on and the motive for much of these roadworks. The latest scheme includes building a cycle lane the whole 12 miles between Cambridge and my village. I would guess that this will cost the taxpayer at least ten thousand pounds per cyclist. It is part of a grand scheme for other 'improvements' on this road that the planners estimate will cost £42 million to £46 million - and we know how in practice the final cost ends up as double the estimated cost, or more.