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Save Our Silence

cb — 2008-05-07T19:17:10+01:00

The plans by the National Air Traffic Services to increase the traffic above Cambridgeshire are up for consultation. These plans put many more aircraft in the skies above the rural areas and threaten the relative tranquility of those areas. As if it wasn't enough to have cars and lorries charging along the smaller country roads, they now want to make more noise above us.

Well, take it from me, they will be noisy. I live in Gamlingay and there are aircraft now flying across the village towards Luton on a regular basis and they make a noise. When the holds are moved to above the village, the noise will get much worse. Although the holds are set at 7,000ft and above, airliners flying at that height are still instrusive, especially if they change power settings. And there will be nothing to stop them descending below those heights when they are cleared to do so to make their approach to Luton.

So, if you care about the amenity of relative quiet in your countryside, have a look at the Rural Peace website. It will tell you some of the facts about the changes to air traffic above our countryside and let you understand what is behind the arcane language and noise graphs on the NATS website; it should prompt you to do something about it before it's too late.

cb

Happy New Year

cb — 2008-01-02T12:12:44+00:00

May I wish all my readers and viewers all the best for the New Year. Let's all pray (or just hope if praying is not for you) for a little less conflict, a little more talking, and a little more loving ...

cb

Spinning all the while

cb — 2007-10-09T17:20:00+01:00

George Brown really did look silly when he posed "with the troops" in Basra last week. When I first saw one of these ghastly publicity shots, it was of Tony Blair just after the Kosovo Campaign. Blair was in Iraq, looking earnestly as if he was giving a morale-boosting speech to the troops, but they were all behind him! Since Blair had arrived briefly at RAF Brüggen (from where the RAF were launching raids on the Serbs), and talked to no one, I realised that he was going places only for the photos. But who was he fooling? Certainly no one who had been at those places to be "visited" by Blair. And, I suspect, no one seeing the photos in the newspapers was fooled. Well perhaps people who read the Sun or the Daily Mail ...

And that brings me back to Broon. Blair managed to carry off the deception for a while as he was young(ish), good(ish) looking and used a winning(ish) smile. Broon manages none of these attributes and so we see through the deception to the rather cynical person beneath. Add to this the fact that it appears that he was in Basra to announce the withdrawal of 1,000 chaps and chappesses, 500 of whom were being withdrawn anyway and the silliness of Broon was pronounced.

Then it appears that he was out in Basra to draw attention from the rather unwelcome success that Dave was having at the Conservative conference in Blackpool, and Broon looks more and more like a spinning stuntman. How ghastly! And what an insult to the poor troops who are bored and terrified in varying measure for his political ends (he supported the Blair administration did he not?).

Sometimes, I despair ...

cb

The BBC is still the best

cb — 2007-07-20T06:46:58+01:00

The BBC is the best broadcaster in the world, in my view. I have not come across better in the private sector in the UK or anywhere in the USA (awful place for telly!). I don't speak many other languages so I can't really comment on those of other nations, but I am confident to surmise that there is no better outside the English-speaking world.

So I am disappointed by the latest news that there were deceptions in some phone-in programmes; The Director-General yesterday on the Today programme (BBC ...) was obviously having difficulty remaining composed and his language failed him. But I am confident that the problem is a limited one; and that the revelation by the Corporation shows it is open and is trying to maintain the standards for which it is famous.

I hope that these problems will be resolved and go away, like the irrational attacks by Prime Minister's Press Secretary a couple of years ago went away. The strange behaviour by the Government then has not had an adverse effect and I don't believe these problems will either.

cb

Sympathy for George Galloway

cb — 2007-07-19T06:35:49+01:00

Well, I hold no brief for George Galloway MP, but Mark Steel has it right in his article in yesterday's Independent, Why should Galloway be the only fall guy? This is the august body that gave Mr Blair a standing ovation, that judged it wise to go to war in Iraq and they are censoring Mr Galloway for bringing the House into disrepute. They make themselves look ridiculous!

cb

April Music

cb — 2007-07-16T19:06:34+01:00

Well April played a storm on Saturday at the Mersea Island Festival. Once Slade (a remnant) had finished, April were there to keep the fans entertained through several encores.

See their web presence at www.myspace.com/iamaprilmusic

Alastair Campbell – too much coverage

cb — 2007-07-13T18:54:39+01:00

Well I forced myself to watch the Alastair Campbell Diaries last night, on BBC2. Why is it on the BBC? Why is it on at all? Why did the Today programme put him in the prime 0810 slot a few days ago? Thank goodness I missed it.

Tony Blair always was one for posturing and Campbell's non-event of a book seems to be a series of postures and poses adopted for effect. He reminds me of Robson Green, the actor who has only a limited repertoire of expressions and gestures ...

Music on Mersea Island

cb — 2007-07-02T10:50:45+01:00

There's going to be a music festival on Mersea Island in a few weeks. The new band "April" is going to be on the Acoustic Stage and it's going to be good. Please be assured that, just because my son Adrian (Barka) will be playing, I am not biased in this assessment of the prospect ...

The Fun of Work

cb — 2007-04-01T12:54:39+01:00

I've just had a week of fairly hard work. We had 12 students to come and fly for the whole week; with decent weather we would have been able to fly around 50 sorties, so giving each at least 4 sorties. But of course the weather was poor, starting off with fog most mornings and clearing more slowly each day. On the last day it didn't really clear and we flew in hazy conditions all day, managing to get above it for basic instruction, but then having trouble getting back down without using ATC's DF. So, those chaps trying to fly Climbing and Descending or Circuits had a pretty boring week as far as flying goes.

For most of the basic sorties we had some time to teach and practise aerobatics:

A loop on a beautiful day, earlier in the year.

:-)

cb

Ryanair

cb — 2006-08-25T14:19:05+01:00

So RyanAir is suing the Government. It's not for the money, no, no ... it seems to be a matter of principle. Now this is RyanAir, and I am not sure that principle can sensibly come into the same passage of text. But they have found a law under which they say that the Secretary of State for Transport is almost bound to recompense businesses for extra costs resulting from a dire emergency; and Mr O'Leary says that he will present any monies gained in a successful court case to charity. But I am sure that he will find a reason to deduct airport taxes, fuel surcharge and credit card fees from the sum before he presents it to a charity.

I find it ironic that Mr O'Leary has found such a law, mainly because the Government reckons that it imposed the security restrictions under a different law, thus disqualifying RyanAir's suit. But it is also ironic because Mr O'Leary's company used the law to excuse its non-payment of compensation for losing a valuable (well £50) part of my baggage that its ground staff in Knock made me put into the hold for reasons of security. The law that it used was the the Prague (or Warsw?) Convention on carriage on an aircraft: that it was required to compensate me only according to the weight of what they lost, not its value.

I am steadily going off flying on airlines. I am not afraid of flying as I am a professional pilot, nor am I afraid of dying, not in the overall scheme of things. But I cannot bear to waste my time in the transit process, in trying in vain to have a comfortable journey or to deal humorously with my fellow-sufferers. The whole process of getting there from here is demeaning in the way we have to queue, try to get a decent seat or try to have a pee during the flight. But most of all I hate the waste of energy in getting airborne, the damage that is being done to the environment.

But the greatest irony is that between the protagonists, I don't know whether I would trust the Government over Mr O'Leary.

First Post

cb — 2006-08-06T09:10:33+01:00

The first post is the introduction, I suppose. This blog will cover a number of subjects, but especially bits about politics and conflct. This is mainly because it does not seem possible to influence events outside your household through the normal democratic means. The Member of Parliament who represents this constituency seems to be hard-working, but ineffectual. That's not his fault but the fault of the current Government; Tony Blair has managed to emasculate the normal parliamentary system. That would be a Bad Thing even if he were right, but his principles seem to be shot through with aligning this country's foreign policy with that of the USA. And that would not be too bad a thing if were not so, unquestioning ....!

cb