With all that’s going on out there, you might not have noticed a bit o’ news wot’s bumped into our lives. And that would be?
Billy at the window is dumping Skype come May. Now that’s a bit o’ kit I started using back in the day when younger and had a habit of trying anything new relating to ‘puters. Am I right in saying it was
just for messages back then as ‘smart’ phones weren’t a thing. Time passed, my little nest of vipers ended up over here and liked to keep in touch with her family in a land far, far away. Excuse my memory, but this was costing something
like four pounds a minute until, after a little research I discovered how cheap - four pence a minute? - international calls were using Skype. It’s served us well for many a long year. Yes, I started using it for phone
calls as well. Wot to do now? With news of the demise of Skype I did an Interweb search on the off-chance there’s some software equivalent to Skype out there now. Result? Ma heed’s spinning with the dizzying
number of bits o’ kit there are out there. So far, many are disregarded as they require the person called to be running the same bit o’ kit and be online so the search/research continues with, at time of typing,
two I keep going back to. And those would be Yolla and Talk360. But the ‘search’ continues. As, at my age, does spinning head syndrome...
Quote; Steven Spielberg.
“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a
daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.”
I spotted in the ‘news’ a couple of daze ago that a substantial natural gas field had been found below our feet that, with fracking,
could keep us warm for an estimated ten years. Let’s say six years with our ever expanding number of bestest ever friends from warmer climates wot will want to keep warm 24/7. And the response of our Net Zero
common sense zar? Why ban all fracking of course. Anyhoo, it jogged my old heed back to 2013 and a post regarding a planned protests at an onshore oil drilling site wot’s below; How it may have gone down; Important police person, “We have very reliable intelligence that those protesters, camped over the road, are planning a spot of civil disobedience shortly
and we’re advising you to shutdown operations for a while.” “Well, that’ll cost us a shed load o’ money but I guess we’d better shut down like you say then.” “Good. We’ll be in touch when it’s all over. Hay, if there’s any tofu on site, best lock it up before you go, eh?” How it should’ve gone down;
Important police person, “We have very reliable intelligence that those protesters, camped over the road.....” “Camping? You mean trespassing, right?” Interrupts the Drill-site Manager. “Errrr....
Anyway, reliable intelligence that they’re planning a spot of civil disobedience shortly and we’re advising you to shutdown operations for a while.” “Whoa!! Let’s see if I’ve got that
right. You know that some of those that are trespassing over the road are planning to, in effect, attack our perfectly legal workplace?” “Errrrr..... That’s about right.” Shuffling his feet somewhat. “And
you want US to shut down? US?” “Errrrr.....” Nervously glancing left and right. “Didn’t I read somewhere that old Bill can now arrest people for inciting unrest an’ stuff? Even for just thinking about it? Or was that last bit just something
I picked up in the Daily Mail? Anyhoo, why don’t you leave us alone and just whizz over there and lift the instigators? And keep hold of ‘em eh? Seems every time you drag one of ‘em away, giggling and smiling
for the cameras, they’re back in twenty four hours after a shower and some nose-bag. Which reminds me; that guy we sent to the village for milk a couple of weeks ago? The guy who had to push his way back to the gate
and that beardy-weirdy shouted, ‘Assault’. Remember? Any chance of getting him back before we finish up here?” “Errrrr.....” unnecessarily checking the shine on his shoes. “Never mind. Let’s try this so there’s no mistake. If this was my house and you knew that a couple of guys in a car over the road were planning to break in, you’d
pop round and advise me to move out ‘till the house’d been done over, right?” “Errrrr.....” Sweat forming on brow and in armpits. “Rather than move out, am I correct in believing it’s now acceptable to use reasonable force, if confronted with a stranger in my house and to restrain said bad guy ‘till
you lot’v completed your Risk Assessment and roll up to arrest or caution him?” “Errrrr... Oh, wait a minute!! I can answer that one. It is, indeed, acceptable to do as you say.” He beamed, dreamily lost in thoughts of Risk Assessment paperwork. “Here’s
my plan then.” Said the Drill-site Manager, “I was going to construct a big fence, topped with razor wire, round the work-site. Sadly, after this conversation and if we are attacked, all I can see you boys doing
is issuing health and safety advice on the use of wire cutters and ladders. With that in mind, instead of all your chaps cluttering up the place, doing nothing, at great expense, could you just keep a couple of them out there
to direct traffic and send the rest of them back to doing nothing where they came from? Are you up for that?” “Errrrr.... Oh, traffic. That we are! May get some ticketing in as well!!” “Okay; here’s what we’re going to do at this perfectly legal work-site where, by the way, we’re drilling, conventionally, for oil and not fracking for gas.
Got that bit? Good. Please tell the BBC then. Please. “Right, what we’re going to do is spray paint a line round this legal site and I’m bringing fifty guys in from other locations and we’ll form a ring of Roughnecks
round the site. We’ll be five feet inside our perimeter so those musty, fusty, crusty fools will have time, as they advance, to realise the folly of their action before they get their lights punched out.” “Errrr.... Fifty? Come on! There could be as many as five hundred of those musty... members of the public ready to att... cause civil unrest!!” “You’re right. Fifty Roughnecks is probably a tad over the top. Thirty then; on split shifts. All done? Good, we’ve got an oil well to drill here so bu-by.” Let’s finish with an old fracking clip. Just substitute the lady in the clip with any of our net zero common sense leaders. Timidadians? No warning required as anything naughty is only in the ear of the beholder... Okay, be warned;
Quote; Margaret Atwood.
“Would I laugh?" "Matter of fact, you would," says Zeb. "Heart like shale. What you need is a good fracking.”
My little nest of vipers was watching the televisual receiving device yesterday afternoon and it seemed to be wall to wall game shows. The two
- or was it three - shows wot caught my dwindling attention were on that BBC channel and all offered quite substantial monetary rewards. Wot popped into my old heed was where that money may come from. The answer was of course
advertising revenue. Whoa! Wait a pocket pickin’ minute, this is the BBC, right? So it must be coming from wot folk are required to pay in televisual license fees. How cool is that then? With the ever dwindling number of folk forking out for a license thus revenue ever dwindling how about this dumb BBC idea. You’ll have noticed that many charities
have changed from give us x a month to join our lottery. This suggests two things to me; It will have increased money coming in and they already had very healthy floats. So BBC, as you can find money for game shows, how about you start a weekly lottery with many fine prizes? And the winners are drawn from? Why their TV license number of course.
Offer many substantial winning chances and guess wot? There will be a good chance very many folk will be queuing up to get a TV license and a chance of winning some easy money. JD, you win again...
Quote; Bertrand Russell.
“Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.”
