Blogging Clouds.

Posted on February 16, 2025 by john graham

The blogging clouds have been casting a shadow over the last few years, although maybe they have been in the making for much longer.

COVID seemingly came out of nowhere, or at least, that’s what the Chinese government and others would have you believe.

UKRAINE was a war waiting to happen, although the early signs were sown in the Crimea several years before.

GAZA has been a simmering cauldron about to boil over for a very long time.

CLIMATE CHANGE is the ungraspable issue, which is greeted with head in the sand responses.

These are global issues which are far from resolution. Our politicians appear like rabbits in their headlights. The only strong response is to pretend it isn’t happening.

The LAST LAUGH LOONEY PARTY was trying to get elected in the UK, but was beaten by Bodj for a short while and then by Lizzie Distrust, followed by Riski, and now by hapless Sir St-St-Stammer. They have all done quite a good job of introducing daft ideas, but unfortunately none of them seem to have worked.

People are still ‘working from home’ long after Covid has passed.

The wars are rumbling on in Ukraine and Gaza with many, many lives lost and destroyed cities, towns and villages.

While fires rage and floods abound, we are still debating climate change.

The accidentally good news is that the LLLP has got itself elected in the USA !

SO NEXT WE WILL SEE IF TRUMPING DON’s even dafter ideas can change the world.

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Blogging.

Posted on February 12, 2025 by john graham

Blogging gets harder by the blog. Grumbles are plentiful, but smiles are more difficult to find. They are more rewarding though!

I have been blogging since 2010. Over 14 years of Grumbles and Smiles. From the outset the threads were about older people, even more so now I have grown into the subject😀

Health and housing have been two of the dominant themes of many of my posts; not surprisingly, because it’s the field in which I spent most of my career. The rapidly changing world around us and how it impacts on older people has also been a backdrop to many of my blogs.

It is perhaps for this reason that politics and politicians have increasingly featured in many blogs more recently.

The Last Laugh Looney Party has been a regular contributor. They represent any and all parties, as our politicians twist and turn in their endeavours to remain in power, or regain power.

SO WHERE ARE WE TODAY? What is the LLLP contending with and how will they go about addressing the issues?

THE NEXT BLOGS WILL TRY TO SHED SOME SMILES INTO THE GRUMBLES.

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Avago Init – De-Regulation.

Posted on February 9, 2025 by john graham

Regulation should be about the setting of standards and protection of the public interest. A completely unregulated world would be like the Wild West. Exciting, but dangerous!

On the other hand, over-regulation can stifle innovation and creativity. It also slows down change.

Regulation is also a watchword for lawyers. A feeding ground for disputes and delays.

So Sir Keyer’s new government, in his relentless slow dash for GROWTH, has vowed to clear away as many regulations as possible. And he has nominated the All-Star, bulldozer-busting Deputy Prime Minister- Angie Raindeer to Avago.

Chancellor Rachel Rivet has already tried to steal a march on her political rival, by asking all the Regulators to come up with some proposals for less regulation. But turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, so that didn’t work

So where will Angie start? She has already shown in the two previous blogs on Planning and Housing that she can get things done with radical ideas and the use of AI. So she will press on with that. Whatever that means?

There are 116 Regulatory Bodies in the UK, which between them cost the taxpayers £5 billion a year to run.

Ofsted. £130million budget 1275employees

OFGEM £89 million budget 1187 employees

OFWAT. £19 million budget 226 employees

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Avago Greenland solution

Posted on January 30, 2025 by john graham

The Deputy Prime Minister, Angie Raindeer is one of the few success stories in our Labour government with her innovative application of AI to solving some of the country’s biggest problems.

So Sir Keyer has asked Angie to Avago at Immigration. “Avago“ is the latest buzzword for Angies down to earth, practical approach to the government’s 5 strategic Missions.

After her recent freebie visit to New York, Angie has taken a keen interest in American politics and Trump mania in particular. So her first thought on immigration was to build a wall, but then she remembered Humpty Dumpty and his great fall. So she dropped that idea.

Next she pinched another of The Donald’s ideas (the President not the Duck) what about Greenland? How about making a pre-emptive bid for the UK to take over Greenland.

Angie knows a lot about Eskimos from reading about them in her childhood. You know — Nanuk of the North and Eskimo Nell all having fun in the snow. And her Raindeer surname is bound to ring a bell.

There are only 57,000 people in the whole Greenland population, so Angie figured if she went across and did a bit of dancing with them and offered them free Captain Birds Eye fish fingers and free Devon ice cream for life, they would be sure to vote to join the UK rather being taken over by the USA.

So there it is, Angie Raindeer becomes the new UK High Comissioner to Greenland.

At a stroke Angie has solved the immigration problem, because all immigrants will be sent there while their immigration applications will henceforth be ever so slowly be determined in Greenland in the very, very cold climate and with very, very long nights in tents. That may deter a few people from coming to the UK and the lawyers who represent them.

The new UK colony gave Angie another good idea. In future all Public Enquiries can be held in Greenland, because it will significantly speed them up if the lawyers don’t want to catch cold 🤡🥶

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Avago Init – Speedy Housing.

Posted on January 26, 2025 by john graham

Deputy Prime Minister Angie Raindeer is flush with the success of her new planning reforms; which with AI automatic approval you can build anywhere.

So next she has to turn her attention to how she can build 1.5 million homes in the next five years. Especially given that her newly introduced employment laws mean that all the construction workers are working from home. Once again Angie’s innovative answer is AI.

Angie thought why not order all the bits required to build a house from Amazon. And with her Deputy PM Prime card she can get next day delivery. SIMPLE, why did the Tories not think of that?

Then on day two Angie needs a Bob the Builder robot to assemble all the bits. And Bobs your uncle——- there’s your house. Just another 1,499,999 to go!

What about the utilities, I hear you say. No worries Angies thought of that. The utility companies are hopelessly slow, so she intends to do without them by going off grid. Water will be delivered daily by Deliveroo and waste will go into composting toilets. All electricity will be provided by solar panels, except when it won’t. Which means you may have to hibernate in the winter until global warming heats up in 2050.

ONCE MORE ANGIE RAINDEER HAS PROVED WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE BY AVING A GO WITH AI.

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Avago Innit —- Speedy Planning.

Posted on January 22, 2025 by john graham

Deputy Prime Minister- Angie Raindeer has got the bit between her teeth with AI. She has first focussed on speeding up the planning system to help her achieve her Mission of building 1.5 million new homes in the next five years.

To start with she is gathering all the data on where all the vacant land is. Which is everywhere where there aren’t already houses. So there is no problem there then!

Next Ange thought she had better look at why things were so slow in the past, so she drew up a list of all the problems and possible solutions :-

  • Newts – they seem to lead to endless delays, because you can’t find them in the first place. So with AI you can finally find and track them with drones; then capture them all and put them in a zoo, so people can finally see them.
  • Bats – they are a protected species so we have to look after them, even if it does cost £1.5 million for every bat cave. Angie has a better idea – belfry’s – we all know bats and belfry’s go together and churches are empty most of the time.
  • Archyology(old fings) – digging foundations can lead to long delays if you find an old piece of pottery or a bone, because you will soon have a gaggle of students ever so slowly digging with toothbrushes hoping to discover some long lost history. Angie says we should look to a brighter future with Labour, not the Tory’s past 14 years.
  • Rare Wild Flowers – now that rewilding is all the rage, god forbid you find a rare wild orchid on your land, because that will prevent building for a millennium. Angie says get your wild flowers from Interflora in future, so if you’re in a hole, stop digging.
  • NIMBYS – these people stand in the way of all new housing developments, so Angie says “move on if you can’t appreciate her beautiful new housing projects”.
  • Not enough Planners – this is a big barrier to speeding up the planning process. Angie has a solution, which is to get AI to automatically grant approval to planning applications, if they are not approved in a month by human planners. That way we don’t need any more planners.

So we can immediately see how Deputy Prime Minister, Angie Raindeer with her Avago Innit attitude has captured the spirit of AI.

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Avago Init.

Posted on January 19, 2025 by john graham

The Labour government has been in power for 6 months and progress has been slow. Their parliamentary Majority is high, but their Missions are going nowhere fast. Ministers are falling by the wayside, as Mr Musk mocks them from across the pond.

Not daunted, our Prime M-M-Minister Stammer has stolen an idea from the wealthy Musk playbook. Our future prosperity rests with A I. That will solve all our problems very very quickly.

Sir Keir made an inspiring speech about it this week, in which he was very clear. His ideas are based on a report by a young techie entrepreneur. I read through its 50 recommendations and must admit it was a bit beyond me. It was all about ‘ compute’, which apparently we need a lot more of. And ‘data’ which you can’t get enough of. But when you get both of them, everything will be just tick-a-te-boo.

Now Sir Keyer has put his deputy, Angie Raindeer in charge of his new very clear initiative and told her to “Avago Init”. Cos that what this AI is all about.

Just wait for Angie’s first ideas, which will use AI to speed up everything, except the traffic and the railways.

Then we will see what AI is all about and how it will help Angie and Sir Quayer to turn round the Nations prospects for the future.

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What’s Clutter ?

Posted on January 5, 2025 by john graham

It seems like I have to return to the theme of clutter every year at about this time. 77 blogs already, one for every year of my life. It’s a never ending story. Clutter gets everywhere. Most of all inside my head.

What is a clutter of socks called? A foot overload🤡

GP’s give a clutter of pills, so that nobody need go away empty handed. Some to take before eating; some after food; some before bedtime; some twice a day; some with no alcohol, which is great at Christmas !

Excess pills = a happy day for BIG PHARMA 🤡

Next, there are all the things lying around the house that you have forgotten you have. Gadgets that didn’t do the job; stuff you got just in case and then never needed; clothes you’ve grown out of; things that might come in useful one day. Broken things you never got round to mending.

Junk

There is always more. The advances in technology that leave you behind. Functionality that you didn’t ask for and never use. Cables for your last computer that don’t fit the new version.

EXCESS TECHNOLOGY
EXCESS RED TAPE

More and more rules for everything and complicated forms to fill in. A feast for civil servants jobs and for administrators WFH🤡

EXCESS RUBBISH

Why have one bin for your household rubbish when you can have ten?

EXCESS EXCESS.

My New Years resolution for 2025 :———

🤡LET’S GET BACK TO THE SIMPLE LIFE🤡

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Keeping Fit

Posted on December 29, 2024 by john graham

In the quiet week of reflection between Christmas and the New Year it is time to consider my progress with keeping fit and my plan for the year ahead.

High Intensity Training in my quest for peak fitness.

Over the last twelve months I have gone to the gymn every week to work on the treadmill; the rowing machine; twice on the bicycle and the some weight lifting. It’s hard work and wipes me out for the next day. Still the physio assures me it is doing me good.

Fortunately The Daily Mail in its ‘Good Health’ pages may have come to my rescue. They report that a Canadian physician, Dr Peter Attia, has championed the benefit of these extreme workouts. He obviously is highly respected because he is followed by celebrities and charges lots of money. Others too, including billionaires are following these extreme fitness gurus, in pursuit of ‘ activating cellular pathways’ and stimulating production of brain-derived neuro-trophies factor (BDNF). Who doesn’t need some of that?

There is more……. You mustn’t forget you telomeres, the longer the better according to research at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

However, the good news is that Johns Hopkins University in the USA casts doubt on long telomeres being good for you. I hope you are still following this🤡

Closer to home Professor Stensei of Loughborough University told The Daily Mail that the evidence wasn’t conclusive that vigorous exercise extends longer life. Other exercise related research at British universities uses very long words to describe research you also need to consider. At Leeds they are worried about ventricular arrhythmias. While at Lancaster Rhabdo is a growing phenomenon and raises concerns about ‘ over training’ syndrome.

I wasn’t concerned about my BDNF or my telomeres and certainly not Rhabdo until these researchers highlighted the issues.

Maybe I will stick to a walk in the park in 2025.

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Spying Washing Machine ?

Posted on December 18, 2024 by john graham

I know you can’t believe everything you read in the Daily Mail, but there have been some worrying stories recently about spying by foreign countries. How do you spot a spy? Who knows? That’s the whole idea of spying😈

Chinese balloons flying over Washington😈Russian submarines shadowing our submarines😈mysterious Chinese diplomats befriending Hardup Princes😈. Where does it all stop ? What are they trying to find out ?

The latest scary example is a report in Which magazine that discovered that your washing machine can be telling tales on you. So can your air fryer, your door bells, your TV’s and obviously your security cameras.

All these so called ‘smart’ products can potentially collect and pass on endless details about your behaviour. In future you may never have a minute or a secret to yourself🤡

Now President elect Trump has suggested shooting down the balloons over the USA. But it would be a bit drastic to fire a ballistic missile into your washing machine.

I’ve got a better idea. Switch on all your gadgets and turn the radio on to a continuous loop of every episode of the Archers. That information overload will not only totally confuse whoever is listening, but soon turn them off the idea of spying on your everyday life.

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