I’m sure every decent citizen of Britain was appalled this morning to hear of the police error that led to a young lad of 16 being effectively handed over to the mob he’d given evidence against following his witnessing of some horrible gang violence.
Apparently the case came to the attention of the BBC after they discovered that the lad’s name and address had been given by the police to THE GANG! And yet on the news this morning they described it as inadvertent. Surely this is utter lunacy?
It has wrecked the lives of the family as they have had to be given new identities, new homes, consequently needing new jobs, and will have to live a lie for the rest of their lives. And that’s aside from the horrendous expense. They have been given £550k in compensation and £50k costs, but that’s just scraping the surface I suspect. And what’s £550k worth against completely starting your life from scratch, and the fear that the situation is bound to create.
I lay fuming in bed listening to the story this morning. To me the worse part of the whole thing is that it wrecks people’s confidence and will make others even more reluctant to even admit to knowing anything let alone giving evidence in court against people they know to be dangerous, lawless and ruthless. It takes a strong person to stand up in front of someone and say they saw that person commit a crime, in the knowledge that the criminal may not be convicted, and even if they do go down, how long will they be locked up for?
Yesterday I had a meeting over in York with a chap who’s setting up a creative agency. I caught the train and at the start it was a most pleasant journey, pulling out of frozen Manchester and winding into the foothills of the Pennines, but then first stop was Huddersfield and the train filled. The guy sitting next to me firstly ate a bag of stinking chips, then shouted a conversation in whatever African language he spoke into his mobile. He perhaps didn’t grasp the concept that the phone saves the need to shout.
But then York looked like a film set in the snow. My man took me to the Minster instead of lunch. An odd, but inspired choice. We contemplated the years of man hours that went into even small elements, let alone the amazing whole. We then went to his office to talk work with our heads truly on a different level.
I’ve probably been there before, my parents took me most places of significance when I was a lad, but kids don’t care when they’re young and it dropped from memory. Yet I think at any age I’d have been fascinated by the gargoyles in the chapter house. We watched a young guy cutting in a piece of stone with amazing precision, and checked out a goblet with a 32 carat diamond encrusted into it. Surely it was a replica we were looking at?
It’s a different world in York, a special place and I was delighted to spend a few hours there.
Ah I just wish I had the vocabulary and requisite mental capacity to describe just what an amazing morning doggo and I experienced earlier today.
It’s going to be a busy day so we left for the park at 7.00 ish, just getting light. It was cold. Like really really cold, in fact the cars that are in the shade are still well frozen outside. The frost was thick on the ground and the grass unyeilding, but we walked fast and loved every minute.
Strangely the dog seems to find her ball far more difficult to find in this weather. Perhaps the contrast is reduced for her, even though for me the bright orange ball stands out even more on a white background than when it’s against grass. Fortunately she enjoys the chase and her whole back end wags when she’s doing her sad impression of tracking. A spaniel would have the ball in seconds.
It was even good to be at the desk far earlier this morning. I’ve already done as much as it usually takes until 11.00 o’clock to do, but that in itself was a necessity, I need to leave at ten to get the bus to town to get the train to York for a meeting that will hopefully lead to some work later in the year, and then a gentle time ambling around the beautiful town that I can never get Mrs G to visit.
Right that’s it. Let’s hope we don’t tuck into the ales too seriously, I have a semi meeting this evening too. It’s a meeting in a pub, but it’s another that may well end up in a couple of us considering some work together.
Jon and Mrs G are just back form the big smoke and a great wedding of two lovely friends.
Rik and Annie have been together for seventeen years, and have just tied the knot at The Polish Club on Exhibition Road where all the museums are. Getting down to town was a drama as there’d been a train derailed and so we had to get off at Milton Keynes, then Mrs G got us a car to share between us and an American woman who is new to England and some fellow who’d otherwise have missed the meeting he’d caught the train for.
We stayed at The Pelham, a boutique hotel just opposite South Ken station. Heaven knows how much that cost us, I didn’t dare look.
But, while it was probably costly, it was also very nice. A reasonable sized room, with a huge and magnificently comfortable bed, and a view of the top of the V&A which is even more stunning looking at from a similar level.
We drank, ate, bantered, laughed, danced, drank, and drank. Met old friends, met new folk. Mrs G got pawed by a few older guys – she always attracts them. Then just a short stagger down the road to the hotel, and this morning a great breakfast and a walk around Chelsea, including an hour dreaming over the gorgeous furniture in the Conran Shop.
Train back to Manchester and slushy snow and bloody cold. I’m sure it’ll settle in for the night and might even make teh city look pretty by the morning.
Bit on the fragile and tired side now, but a great night, in fact day and night.
This morning I heard that the Chinese State Investment Company had taken a 10% stake in one of our water companies.
OK. They are PLCs and there should be little control over who buys what, but such news does bring out a scary xenophobia in me.
Our power companies are mainly French and German. The whole of Europe is becoming ever more dependent on the morally corrupt Russians for natural gas.
So what happens if we fall out with these guys? I mean like really fall out? Like we’re at war with them?
Hell, we’ve been at war with the French throughout history, yet now one of our major electricity suppliers is owned by the nationalised French EDF. So it’s a nationalised industry in France, But they own part of ours?
Picture this. We’re back at war with France. We’re bombing the bejesus out of each other. Then some cunning general just decides to flick a switch and the whole of the south west of England has no power. OK, it’s taking things to an extreme, but am I the only one worrying about this?
The gas pipelines are the biggest concern though. Running through some pretty unstable previously Soviet states I know what I’d target if I was a terrorist wanting to make a major strike for my cause.
What a jolly though to lead into the weekend with!
I don’t watch a lot of TV, but we caught the Richard Wilson rant against automated call services last night and although teh programme and the man got on my nerves I do find the whole topic interesting.
I have a lot of sympathy for the topic and while I find the systems clever, I also find them utterly infuriating. Where I lost patience a little was when he took his rant to the parking machines. In my experience it’s a choice whether you pay by phone or coin. Is that not the case everywhere? If there are areas where you can’t but pay by phone I think that is a huge imposition, especially on the older folk, many of whom don’t have mobiles, and those who do are often sort of scared of using them.
Just writing this reminded me of the need to change the registration details of my car with Ringo who run a lot of the mobile call meters. It was easy. Really easy. I actually like the meters you can pay on the phone as I rarely have enough cash on my. The slight down side for me is the fact that I usually pay for more time than I would if I did have the cash on me, just because it doesn’t seem like real money.
So back to Grumpy old man Wilson. Yep, got the point. Should have been 30 minutes not an hour. And it scares me how many people will be losing their jobs as a consequence of such systems. And so so cheap!
It leaves me fuming listening to the parlimentarians shouting and braying at each other most of the time.
We’re in the shit. Deep, deep in the shit. And it can’t help having the opposition tearing apart every proposal that is put forward. I truly don’t know why anyone would go into politics these days.
It leaves me wondering whether a similar position existed back in the 30s and that was what allowed someone like Hitler to come to power. He was dangerous, maligned, and generally bloody awful, but he at least offered an alternative and that was what the Germans may have been desperate for at that time.
But last night young Ed finally came out in support of DC on the Scottish question saying what a waste it would be to break up the Union. I fully agree. And I think DC was shocked, not quite into silence though.
Then the Scots came out and said that the state of their banks is England’s problem!
How rich is that?
In fact it’s a bloody good job I’m not involved in politics, I couldn’t just sit back and let such insanity go on around me. I’d have to go extreme and at the moment I don’t know which way that extremity would take me. I’m naturally left leaning, but that doesn’t seem to be the answer just now.
At last Cameron seems to have called Salmond’s bluff and told him to get on with it and decide whether he wants to be free of Westminster or not. And it seems to be a cunning move. The wee Jock doesn’t seem to know where to turn.
I respect the Salmond. He seems to know his stuff, but I have often wondered if he’s a one trick pony, that his calls for independence are all that he has to offer.
I wonder often what the fuss is. If they stay, so what, if they go, so what? If they discover another oil field after they go then they’ll be laughing, but if they don’t, i wonder how they’ll support themselves, the country just doesn’t seem big enough. And what would happen if the RBS crisis hit after independence, surely the coffers north of the border wouldn’t be deep enough to cope.
I worked in Edinburgh for the best part of a year not that long ago and I got the impression that most people were rather ambivalent and didn’t understand the fuss. It’s only on the sporting field that it all comes out. That old “I support whoever is against the English” makes my blood boil. In fact it was summed up nicely, but hopefully inaccurately, by a girl I used towork with when she said “You quite like us, but we hate you”. How sweet.
I’m not a Cameron supporter, but I’m behind him all the way with this one.