Be Happy

Many of my fellow Brits go on holiday and get drunk and become very disorderly every summer. Why? Because our lifestyle causes lingering misery that we take along with us so one feels a need to slow down their brain. It is very sad that we have become like that. We have become so miserable that we need alcohol to slow down our brains so we can stop being miserable while we are on holiday. 

The way we live is wrong, no small talk, no greetings and no fellowship. If you greet people and they don't respond then that should be a measurement of how low and sick our society is. If you live in a world where greetings are strange behaviour and small talk is silly then no one will be happy. We are selfishly creating a society that is impossible to feel happy in. The rich would be alone and the poor would be frustrated but no one would be happy. 

We have become a society of people that love only themselves. I see it everywhere, I see individuals that sit in the group booth seating area of cafes so families  or groups can't use them. I see people putting their feet on seats on public transport. I see teenagers publicly swearing even though there are young children present. It's like their mind is just me me me me me me me all the time. 

I'm not criticising my nation because I hate it. I'm criticising my nation because I care. I want people that are yet to be born in the future to  grow up and live a life that is happy. Right now our society makes that almost impossible. 

This county is an extension of my body. I know many little places and many little worlds on this Island. Even in London, a city I dislike, I know it well. I know Croyden is in the south of the city and has trams like the northern cities do. I am familiar with the part of London that is nearest to me, Uxbridge, where the number 10 would be on a clock face. I know Upminister and Barking are in the east of the city where the number 3 would be if London were a clock face. I know Heathrow Airport is where the number 9 would be on a clock face on the west side of the city next to Ealing and Acton.  

I know reading town("redding"), the mini London with a train station as big as an airport. It sits on the river Thames ("tems") like London does and is the location where the river kennet and Thames merge together to make a much bigger river. My favourite pub in Britain is the 'Last Post' next to Southend central train station. I go there for my birthday to have a drink and relax for a while. It has a lovely garden and themed decorations, there are also hotel rooms above. I know sidmouth, the peaceful place where so many people love to live after retirement. 

What I am trying to say is I know my country very well and I know what it needs and many splendid things about it. Little gems in the muck. Happy pretty places on a grim island.  

Iran and USA at War

There has been some exchange of missile strikes between America and Iran. I'm an ordinary man I don't think about it. All I will say is the world is filled with ordinary people like myself that are not interested in war. 

I sit down and make a nice cup of tea or coffee and turn on my Nintendo. I play computer games and read a bit and try not to think about it. It's good to be an ordinary man sometimes. No one gives me a second thought or considers me a target to be eliminated. I'm just there.  

I sit down and play computer games. Sports games like golf, adventure RPG games. Things like that. Then there's netflix. I can sit down and watch Netflix, a nice crime- mystery documentary. It is so easy to please an ordinary man, a TV connected to games console and access to netflix is enough for me. 

Monitoring stuff

I ask my smart speaker to tell me the news more often these days because the situation in the middle east is escalating. America attacked some of the Iranian nuclear sites the other day. They were very pissed off about  the incident. There is a lot of tension in Iran. Almost all people on earth are like me, they don't want war, they just want to carry on with their lives, yet there is war. The source of most of these wars is dogma; that is the only way I can explain it. 

I'm also keeping an eye on the Squad Micro EV car site. Their site claims they're making a 4 seater EV model but I find it hard to believe from the images. Perhaps the seats at the back are very small. The price looks too good to be true. This is the website for the car https://www.squadmobility.com/.

I like electric cars that charge themselves. 

Current Events

Whenever I see a jumping spider, I always see them purched on front doors; it seems to be a favourite spot for them to hunt. I'm guessing the long flat surface of the door gives them an advantage because they can see clearly all the way across it and they can judge where they will land more easily. That's just a speculation on my part, I don't don't really know why they prefer to hunt on front doors of houses. They look very cool to me, they are very colourful and have lense eyes. They also have iridescent fur in places on their bodies. It's always a treat for me to see one. The world is changing but simple treats like natural wonders stay the same. 

Isreal and Iran are on the news these days, they're exchanging missile fire quite often, they're definitely at war. Israel wants to spearhead hesbullar at their source and they're convinced they're making nuclear weapons. Iran are claiming they're enriching Uranium to build nuclear power stations and never admitted intent for such a thing.

Donald trump's game is pocker, he won't let up his intentions. His face and cards are hidden. If he has a game plan, he won't share it. It could be a shrewd move. It also suggests he may not want to make a decision at this stage. Perhaps he is waiting to see if things will settle down on their own. 

The world is full of ordinary people like me that aren't interested in war yet there is war. 

Israel Iran War

 I learnt recently that Israel and Iran are at war. Israel claimed Iran is developing nukes and planning to use them against Israel; they launched air strikes at sites they thought were used to enrich Uranium, the key material used to make nukes. Iran retaliated and launched many missiles towards Israel. 

In the past at the end of world war 2, America used nukes to force Japan to surrender. On paper it made sense. They thought surrender from a nuclear strike would cause fewer deaths than an invasion. The problem was the cruelty factor was overlooked. They didn't understand the devastation a nuclear bomb would cause because they were never detonated over a city before. When Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit by nuclear bombs, millions of people were subjected to varying degrees of suffering. Some people were vaporised instantly, others had their skin burnt off in places and died days later from infections, there were others that received lethal doses of radiation and slowly died weeks later from organ failure. There were even more people that passed away years later because of cancer and had offspring that died of cancer. The suffering caused by the bombs lasted for decades; There were countless burns, endless pain, slow deaths and grief, sicknesses that were never witnessed before were common.  I would compare a nuclear blast to a plague. 

If Iran is developing nukes and planning to use them against Israel, I ask myself how they could do such a thing knowing the cruelty it would cause. If humans could deliberately cause that level of cruelty to other people, perhaps people don't deserve to be here. Life has gone wrong. Mankind is too evil for the Earth. 

After America nuked Japan, they never used the nukes again because they witnessed the cruelty of the weapon. They have many nukes but they won't use them. I hope the world has learnt from it. 

Ahmebadad Plane Crash

 I learnt yesterday on the news that there was a plane crash in India in the city of Ahmebadad. There was 1 survivor of the crash, the other 239 people on the plane perished. It is sad news for all those people that lost friends and family. I'm guessing there was an issue with one of the parts of the plane. I think the survivor was able to get up on his feet and walk away from the crash, that's amazing. A true miracle. 

It was while I learned of a plane crash that I also  learned that Coventry city in the centre of England was developing a lite tram network. I imagined they asked themselves if they could make a tram network without installing overhead power lines and sleeper blocks under the road. They came up with a small single car tram that is battery powered, it can run on basic small gauge rails that are bolted to the asphalt. The trams are charged up at night or when they're not operating and then they run during the day. There are no power lines to maintain and very little structures, just the small metal rails that are bolted to the ground. I think other cities are looking into this technology. It is very low cost, low noise and low maintenance. 

I was wondering what would happen if the Paraceratherium  ever met the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Paraceratherium was a giant rhino that went extinct  about 11 million years ago, the tyrannosaurus Rex went extinct 66 million years ago.  The Paraceratherium looked like a giant horse and towered over all the other animals on land.  

I thought the Paraceratherium would win most times because it was a mammal and had endurance and was much bigger than the T Rex would have been. The two animals never existed at the same time so I can only speculate. 

Mark Five Pigs

I recall in the bible in Mark chapter 5, Jesus met a man that was possessed by 2000 demons. When they saw jesus, they could see the Angel of the lord living in the body of a man and they were terrified of him. The demons knew there was a heard of 2000 pigs nearby so they asked Jesus to send them into the pigs instead off hell. Jesus let them go into pigs instead of hell. 

When the demons entered the pigs, there was a problem. 

The pig's minds could not process the emotions of the demons. In a pigs brain, everything needs to make sense. The demons had a strong desire to go into the water because they don't breathe and the water is dark and out of sight from Jesus. A place to hide from him but the pigs didn't restrain themselves, they just ran and all drowned. 

I was wondering if Jesus knew the pigs would panic and drown themselves when the demons entered them. Was he surprised? I don't know.

I was wondering  what the story was trying to tell me. Is there a hidden message in there? I don't know. 

Jenifer Castro

I learned recently that a passenger of the flight in Brasil was suing the airline and a passenger because she was filmed refusing to swap seats with a child passenger. This is what happened. 

A lady called Jenifer Castro paid a fee to have a window seat on a flight. The child wanted to sit in her seat and the mother asked her to swap seats, she said no. The mother of the child started insulting the passenger and a second passenger not related to the mother started filming her. 

This is my view. She did nothing wrong and that should merit some respect. If you film someone and put it on social media, you're inviting multitudes of people to mock that person and even attack them. Plus you could damage their reputation and cause them to lose their job. Saying no to a child isn't a bad thing. I think saying no to children is good for them because they will learn they can't have everything their way. Perhaps they will develop some strong metal in their character and stop being a spoiled brat that gives up when life gets hard. 

I think there isn't much respect in global society so I thought it was a breath of fresh air that someone is pushing back. Be nice to other people and stop inviting multitudes of people to mock people for silly things. Respect people's privacy. If someone is doing something wrong then that's different I guess but don't mock people on social media for silly things like seats and stuff like that. 

Here is a video about the issue https://youtu.be/iEZ4U-YKdAQ?si=TtB3ui-N5_PN2Pla (remember youtube plays adverts before the video starts, unless you have a premium account). 

Play Weekend

Son, 

I saw the prices Nintendo want to charge for some of the games on their new console coming out later this summer, I wondered what planet they're on. They're charging £70 for some of them. I won't pay £70 for a game, not these days. Maybe in five or ten  years, £70 won't be so much. 

I tried out the game titled 'caravan sandwich' over the weekend. It is a nice game. That is the highlight of my week. Knowing I'm not going to work that night and I sit on the couch and start playing some games and a nice cup of coffee. The game is a 3rd person open world adventure  game. You get lots of missions and you try to complete them by solving puzzles and finding things.  

They just remastered the game 'the thing' from the horror movie. I'm in two minds about the game, I never played it before so if I got it, it wouldn't feel like deja vu but it is an old game, there are new games out there. 

Flow Thought

A lot of things are undervalued in this world, let me give you an analogy that covers an alternate use of water. What you think is open to debate. 

When you run a clothes washing machine, about 50 litres of grey water spurts out the back and is sent down to the sewer line. To me the used grey water from the clothes washing machine is very useful so it would be collected into a water butt tank. The grey water is quite hot so the water butt tank gives off heat during wash cycles. The grey water also contains detergent chemicals that break up organic compounds and perfumes. The water butt feeds into a toilet cistern tank, you flush 5 litres of grey water at a time. The cleaning chemicals that are still in the grey water act on the sewer pipe and help break up skid marks deep in the pipe. Why flush with fresh water when you won't drink it? I wouldn't care much if the water I flushed with had a grey hue to it; I'm guessing the toilet bowl would need to be grey in colour to hide the grey stains from the flushes. 

My analogy doesn't stop there. When you defecate and urinate, the materials you expel are the harder portion of your food and chemicals that can't be broken down by your body, they are quite tough. I thought to myself that sewage contains tough materials that are embedded in fats and oily fibre compounds. They could be sent to a tank beyond your home, the tank has air pumped out of it, that causes the water content of the sewage to boil away without heat being applied. The dry material left in the tank is sent to an incinerator to be burnt.  The ashes of the burnt sewage could be mixed with resins or plastics to make bricks and road surface material. 

Because your poop contains some very tough particles, those particles could become ingredients to make roads and  bricks. The incinerator would burn away the soft fatty portion of the dry sewage leaving behind dusty ashes that are very strong when mixed with resins or cement. 

This is a common thought I have in my head. I always thought it was daft to use fresh drinking water to flush a toilet. 

Nationalisation of British Railways

Recently the new labour government had decided to re-nationalise the railways, they're doing it by not renewing the contracts of the line operators; when their contract finishes, the line becomes part of the states public controlled services. As far as I know, south western railways have already become part of the state owned railways. 

I thought it would be a good idea to abolish peak time rates, even if it makes the off peak rates more expensive. I think a lot of Brits feel blind sided or ripped off when they pay for peak time rates, they don't get a better service for paying more for their ticket. I think the price of the ticket should reflect the distance travelled alone.  Perhaps they should set the price to 5p per kilometre for the whole Island of Britain. Perhaps 10p per kilometre if that is what it costs to abolish peak time rates.

In my model, the distance from Wembley park station to Finchley Road is 7 kilometres , so the price would be 35p because they were charged 5 pence for every kilometre travelled. 

Another example would be going from Barking station to Southend Central, the distance between those stations is 43 kilometres  so they would pay £2.15. it would be £4.30 if they were charged 10 pence per kilometre. In my model there is no peak time or rail card. The customer pays for the distance they were moved by the train, that's it. 

The distance between London and Edinburgh in Scotland is about 500 km  but the trains bend and turn around the valleys so I think a train journey would be about 600km, in my model, the ticket would cost about £30 or £60 for 10p per kilometre. That is probably the longest journey people will make on this Island. 

Lane Loitering

I'm not sure about other countries but here in Great Britain it is illegal to loiter in the overtaking lanes on the motorway(highway). The first lane you come into on the left is Lane 1 and you're required to stay in that lane unless you're overtaking another vehicle or the lanes are bifurcating into different roads or if a lane is closed. If you overtake a car then you're required to return to lane 1 afterwards.  

As far as I know, lane loitering is one of the stipulations of the Dangerous Driving Law and people that loiter in the overtaking lanes(2 and 3) can receive £100 fine and 3 penalty points on their driving license. A lot of people don't know that it is illegal to loiter in the overtaking lanes and they don't know that sanctions can be placed on them; I know that because when a police car appears, some cars move to the first lane and others continue to loiter in the overtaking lanes. I see it for myself.  

Loitering in the overtaking lanes for too long makes the road more dangerous because if their car stops working, they may not be able to reach the hard shoulder on time and can cause a crash. I find it difficult because I'm required to overtake on the right hand side of the vehicle and cars that are going too fast use that 3rd lane as well and they get annoyed because I'm overtaking a car that is in lane 2. What can I do? 

Middle of Spring

 It is the middle of Spring, a bank holiday here in Britain. I recently learnt that an old colleague of mine passed away in his sleep last week. He didn't look very old so I felt shocked. I'm guessing one of his organs stopped working like his heart and that caused him to pass away while he was sleeping. 

The news of his death caused me to make a firm decision about getting a virtual reality head set. Knowing life is very short and could be shorter than you think can be unsettling. I have used family and friend's meta quest head sets before; I like playing golf in virtual reality. If I get one of my own then I can use my short down time every day to play a game of golf. The good things about playing golf in virtual reality is you can teleport to where the ball is and the weather is always nice, unless you don't want it to be; another good thing about virtual reality golf is you can play any time you like. You can play at 3 in the morning if you like.

If I can get my virtual reality head set by the middle of summer then I have achieved my goal. Being British is loneliness, you're surrounded by many people but almost all of them don't want to talk to you, unless you're annoying them, then they talk to you like a nuisance. Society makes you pay many bills to get by and you feel empty. If I say a greeting like good morning then most Brits would feel upset by that. I don't understand why anyone would want to live here. I hang on prayer,  hard work and perks. Little treats to make me smile, like a virtual reality head set. So many Brits go on holiday and drink alcohol to forget about their misery and then they behave badly because they're drunk. I don't. I drink tea and coffee. 

I don't know what is going on but I don't like the idea of Britain getting involved in the Ukraine war. I think we should mind our own business. Lets hope the two nations can settle down and put their differences aside. 

Virtual sunny Day

Son, 

the other day I learnt that a colleague I worked with about 10 years ago had passed away in his sleep. He went to sleep and didn't wake up again. The guy didn't look too much older than myself. 

I thought to myself I should try and get a Meta quest virtual reality headset. I have been putting off buying it for a long time; I love to borrow other people's virtual reality headsets and play golf in virtual reality, why don't I just get one? I could be like the colleague that went to sleep and never woke up again. Then I'll never get to use it properly. 

I also wanted to know the difference between diet coke and coke zero. It turns out diet coke contains aspartame sweetener but coke zero contains a mixture of different sweeteners and less aspartame. I prefer diet coke, I like the way it tastes. I don't drink it often enough to worry about the so called negative effects of aspartame. 

I put roller coaster tycoon on the Nintendo, why? Because I stop overthinking when I play that game. I concentrate on the game and forget about my worries for a while. It's a bit like drinking without the negative side effects. Late in the evening when there is nothing left to do, over thinking is pointless. Just do something that consumes your thoughts. 

Tape for It

You forget how vulnerable you are until your phone stops working. Anyway, most phones seem to come with a pin tool to open the sim card-chip slot. I decided it is a good idea to tape the sim slot tool to the charger brick because I would lose it otherwise, it is so small. 

I feel the same way about micro SD cards, they're so small, I feel like a strong breeze could blow it away and it could fall into a crevice that I can't search. I remember when we used to use cassette tapes, they were the perfect size, they were small hand sized plastic cartridges with magnetic tape reels nested inside them. You wouldn't lose those things so easily. They mostly stored music but there was a time when they also were used to store computer data. 

I'm not saying memory modules should be the size of old cassette tapes, I'm just saying it would be nice if they were a bit bigger. Perhaps if they were the size of a standard bank card or something similar to that. Perhaps if they were just big enough you wouldn't worry about the wind blowing it out of your hand. Perhaps they could make a sheaf to contain it for use on a computer and the size is enough that it would be easy to hold 
 

Disneyland Southend

 I learned recently that Universal was building an amusement park in Bedford. I thought to myself that Disney are rivals of Universal and may also want to build an amusement park in Britain; if they did, I thought it would be a good idea to build the park next to Southend airport if it was possible. Perhaps if Rochford golf club sold their land or they used public green land nearby. If they did build Disney land next to southend airport, they wouldn't need to worry about noise complaints because the airport already makes noise. Southend is near London and on the coast so it already has tourist gravity. There is also an amusement park on the sea front in Southend itself. People would visit the area more knowing there were two amusement parks. 

If you want to know what Southend airport is like, I found this video made by a travel journalist and he covered everything about the airport. I was impressed by his knowledge and comprehensive overview.

Shai Explores Southend Airport Video 

From the government's perspective, it would also bring relief to Heathrow and Gatwick airport because tourists could fly to that airport instead and stay in a resort and still visit London. 

I think it is a good idea to build an amusement park next to Southend airport, what do you think? 

Walk Less

They started installing the new Piccadilly trains on the London metro rail network, they're made by the German company Siemens. They're a lot like the sub surface trains, you can walk freely from carriage to carriage and the train is open plan but still shaped like a Swiss-roll.  I thought I should mention some tricks I know of to get about without walking much. 

If you want to visit London and you want to walk less, I can give you a few tips. There are some special stations where the line crossings are very close together. I noticed that some people will get off at baker street station if they want to change lines from Metropolitan to Jubilee trains, they come side by side at Finchley road. 

The Bakerloo and Jubilee line come side by side at baker street station, there is a wall between the two platforms but there is a crossing near the end of the platform about 6 meters across. The platforms that are side by side are heading in the same direction. The eastbound Jubilee and Bakerloo platforms are side by side and so are the west bound platforms and they both have a discrete crossing near the end of the platform that often gets unnoticed by tourists, they head to the exit instead and work their way back again. 

A similar thing is true of 'Mile End' but there is no wall between the platforms. The central line, Hammersmith line and District line all share the same platform island, they come side by side and changing lines there is as easy as stepping off one train and onto another. 

New Pope

Yesterday I learned that the Vatican cardinals had chosen a new pope to replace Pope Francis, he died from an age related illness on the 22nd of April. They chose Robert Prevost, he was born in the USA and had dual nationality, he is both Peruvian and a USA citizen. When I think of the Name Robert, I instantly think of the famous British Radio manufacturer, they make all sorts of hybrid FM, Dab and Internet Radios and like to use polished wooden panels on some of their models, they look very cool. They Renamed him Pope Leo XIV(Leo the 14th). I think Leo means Lion in the Latin language. Pope Leo has a ring to it. 

Close to the time the pope was appointed, we had local councillor elections. The results of those elections had shown that the British community had largely written off the main parties and gravitated to independent leaders and the Reform Party. The Main Labour and Conservative parties had become very unpopular in recent months. 

While the Pope was appointed and local British councillors were elected, Nintendo had started manufacturing a new games console called Nintendo switch 2, it is like the Switch 1 but it can handle PlayStation 5 games and can run 4k games at their intended frame rate, for a portable console that is astonishing. The pre order market for the console had opened so one can buy the console before it was manufactured and shipped over. They will be shipped to Britain by June onwards. It is backwards compatible with switch 1 games. I don't like the prices of the switch 2 games though. 

Unfortunately there was a conflict at the India and Pakistan Border. The Indian government believes the Pakistan government was involved in an attack on their territory in Kashmir. The Pakistan government deny their involvement, they claim the terrorists worked alone and had nothing to do with them. There was an exchange of missile fire and the two nations are at loggerheads at the moment. Hopefully they will avoid war. I wish the best of luck to both nations. 

Just There

 The other day I was sitting outside looking at the trees swaying in the breeze thinking of nothing for a little while. I see the trees were driven by purpose, it was reaching out, reaching out for the light and reaching out below for water, the solvent of life. I live for those little moments when I forget about who I am and where I stand in the world and just observe the world. Looking up at the clouds and the grass on the ground and breathing in the fresh air in the morning. 

My steadfast tea drinking parents that I love very much always showed me the beauty of reading. Recently a few years ago they bought me a kindle paper white. It imitates the inky paper-like nature of real books. With amazon prime, you're permitted to read through a selection of e-books on your kindle account. I thought I should mention that on here because that feature wasn't available when I first set up my kindle  account. At this time of this post, you could read a lot of popular books for free. It's still nice to keep real books. Some of the best books I have come across have been from charity shops; I'm guessing that when people are done reading them, they send them to the charity shop to be read by a new person. They're making space on their book shelves. 

Take time to be still and allow the good positive thoughts to seep through your mind. Perhaps on your day off, early in the morning. 

One Hundred Men vs one Gorilla

I noticed in recent days a debate about one hundred unarmed men fighting one silver-back Gorilla was trending on social media. I think it was a popular debate on all platforms; x, Facebook, Tick Tock and You Tube. It is an interesting debate, the Gorilla is much stronger than the men but they outnumber it. Would the Gorilla beat the one hundred men or would it get tired before it was done beating up all the men to death. 

I was thinking to myself that in a lot of car parks there are 15 disabled parking bays and only one or two of them are being used, the other 13 disabled parking bays sit empty. I was also thinking to myself I could learn sign language so I could have a conversation with the Gorilla. 

Alan: Hello 

Gorilla: Hello

Alan: When I park my car, 13 out of the 15 disabled parking bays sit empty, if you cripple 100 men, I would call it capacity building. 

Gorilla: That's True, Why do they want to fight me to the death? 

Alan: There are 100 gullible thugs out there ready to respond to an internet debate. They risk their life for fame.

Gorilla: They're Daft

Alan: True.... Have you seen the movie 'The thing' from 1982 ?

Gorilla: The Zoo keeper showed it to us 

Alan: Do you think Palmer knew he was an assimilation? He got the other assimilation burnt. 

Gorilla: He knew, it was all a part of his deception, remember he looked very nervous during the hot needle test. 

Alan: I thought that he didn't know because, he was infected by contaminated food and slowly taken over from the inside.

Gorilla: So why were there torn clothes in the kitchen? was he not taken over in one go?

Alan: I thought the torn clothes were from Blair or Norris. I think Blair was assimilated quite early. 

Gorilla: Could be. But look at his face during the hot needle test. He looked worried. 

Alan: That's true. But maybe he thought McReady had gone insane and was about to burn everyone. 

Gorilla: We can debate about this later, the zoo keeper is bringing lunch, see you later alligator. 

Alan: In a while Crocodile. 

What April 2025 Means To Me

 April is that kind of month when you don't know what to wear. The weather seems to change by the hour from hot to cold. There were lots of little comforts, little familiar sights, Dandelions and Daisies sprouting flowers on all the grass verges and lawns. Migratory Birds returning to nest. Longer days, temperature in double digits. Lots of things like that. 

We went on our first short break for the year to celebrate Jacob's birthday in Southampton in Paulton's park. It's nice to use public transport to visit these places because the Journey is a part of the break. An opportunity to see another part of your country. You also get to see how your country is linked together through infrastructure. You can't really appreciate all that when you're driving. 

In the background was a lingering trade war between America and China. Import tariffs were shooting up higher and faster than the temperature. At the same time there was hope of the Ukraine war coming to an end. Negotiations were under way. I thought to myself they should let go of the Crimea Peninsula because the people that live there consider themselves to be Russian anyway; that was the one area of Ukraine that didn't resist the Russian annexation. The rest of the occupied lands are different. I don't know but the war is pointless and is going on for too long.   

The Pope passed away during the last third of the month, he was aged in his eighties and his death was common for his age group. While I was writing this post, they were in the process of choosing the next Pope to take his place.  

Lull FM

 If the government ever decided to pass a law to phase out fm radio, it should be broken. I would even think of setting up a pirate radio station myself. It's not illegal to think about making a pirate radio station only to do it. The trouble is if I went to prison for operating a pirate station, I would get bummed for sure. They would say what did you do, one guy would say I assaulted a traffic warden, another guy would say I robbed a bank then I would say I operated a pirate FM radio station. They would be like "bum him". The other problem is I'm boring so my pirate station would lull people to sleep. I would call it Lull FM.  

FM is a special gift because you don't even need to buy a radio to get it. An ordinary person like myself can make an FM radio. I just need some sort of dial to only allow one frequency to pass through, antenna, transistors, and a speaker. 

The FM signal seeps into the antenna and causes one side of a transistor to resist power less, this causes the wave to be copied, you can then pass the signal to a second transistor to amplify the current and so on and feed it strait to the speaker, I think that is why they call it a transistor radio. The dial could be a variable capacitor with a physical dial-head or if you're gifted you could make a digital dial with a micro chip or something like that. 

What is the advantage of this? FM works, it's simple and the radio itself uses less power because it's not running a micro processor to decode a signal. The sound is copied directly into the radio wave as it is. 

An ordinary guy like myself can make an FM radio or get a small one with change from fiver. Digital radio is different. The whole signal shuts off and on in pulses to encode characters. The code is interpreted by a micro processor, a small computer chip. One chip gathers the data and the other decodes it and turns it into sound waves. 

The advantage of digital radio is they can use signals that can't carry sounds very well because it's the pulses and interruptions in the wave itself that carry the data. They can cram many stations into a small space and each station would have perfect sound. The radio itself has to do more work so the battery would run down a bit faster in digital mode. 

I would say, lets keep both. I would prefer to listen to BBC radio 4 news hour on FM knowing my battery would last a bit longer but there are lots of other stations out there on digital so I can use both. 

Psalm 22

 A lot of people are looking to Nostradamus for prophecies about the future but I thought I should mention the Psalms of Kind David. I think King David was given vision and images from the future and he wrote them down as songs. 

I recall Jesus quoted Psalm 22 when he was on the cross. He said my father, why have you forsaken me. Psalm 22 describes a person being abandoned and scorned. It also mentions a person's hands and feet being pierced, I was amazed by this because the Jews and the Romans at the time of King David didn't use crucifixion as a punishment, I don't think they even invented it at the time. When I read through it, it was like the song was describing what it is like through the eyes of the person being crucified. It even describes the odd sensation of bones being out of joint and the pain and sadness.

I was wondering if he saw things that were happening today. I wonder if there is a psalm chapter that is describing things that will happen in the near future or recently. 

Look up Psalm 22 for yourself and decide if it is describing a painful humiliating death by crucifixion. I'm not infallible, I could be wrong. 

 

Angry Fired UPS man

 I watched a video online of a man having an angry outburst after being fired from his job at UPS. Let me share the video with you and you can have your own thoughts. 

Angry Fired UPS man video (remember youTube Plays ads before the video starts) 

I was in three minds about the video. I thought to myself that his anger was genuine. He felt like he was being cheated by the management team. I don't know the reason he was fired but i'm guessing there was an expensive mistake and he was blamed for it. He mentioned that they don't bother training their staff with the new system they use. I sensed his anger was building up for a long time. He also mentioned that they let him work a whole shift before being fired, if he was on a fixed salary then the extra spurt of anger would make sense. Perhaps if they fired him at the start of the shift, he could resign to save face so he felt like they were trying to screw him over. He mentioned he thinks they're cowards like the problem was their fault but they fired him to protect their jobs.  Was he a mistreated staff that had been with the company for 10 years? I don't know. 

I also thought to myself that he didn't think it through; he was still wearing his uniform, perhaps the video was recorded 2 minutes after he was fired. He is also showing the world he has trouble restraining his anger and does things without thinking about it. People might think they can't accept when he is wrong. It may put other employers off. Any hope of getting a reference from them for his next job may be difficult. Sometimes you need to think things through a bit.  

The other thought that came into my head was the whole thing was a parody. None of the people in the video worked at UPS, they were just actors looking for internet fame.  Who knows what the truth is. 

Another thing that pops up on social media a lot is what I call the 'Covered Mirror Paradox'. I don't think all those people are daft, I just think they're misinformed, every square cm of skin on your body reflects light in all directions and every square cm of Mirror also reflects light in all directions so light coming for the side will be reflected by the exposed part of the mirror and make it look like it an see behind the towel.  You can cover one portion of a mirror and the other parts of the mirror will still reflect the object behind the blind spot because light goes in all directions. Perhaps if they used polarised light then the result would be different. 

A few thoughts

 I have a few thoughts in my head as time passes along. I was wondering why they tend not to sell radios with DAB FM and AM frequencies together, they usually have DAB and FM but without AM or they have FM and AM but no DAB . There are also very few pocket radios with DAB radio. Britain is an excellent place for digital radio. They have a radio station for everything, there are christian radio stations, radio stations where they talk about sports all day like radio 5, they even have radio where they read out books. I always look at radios in online shops. I never buy them because I have a radio already.  

I was also wondering why the Pterosaur was named with a silent P when it was named in recent times; why do they need to make everything more complicated than it needs to be. It was an extinct flying reptile. The name is pronounced Terosaur. 

I was also thinking about reading ("reding"), a town in Berkshire west of London. It sits on the river Thames just like London does. The train station in reading is amazing, it is like it is the gateway to the west. Trains from reading seem to go everywhere. There is even a train that goes to the coastal town of Bournemouth that doesn't go through London there. 

Getting About

 In London there are about 4 types of Trains used on their metro rail system, Deep Level trains, they're small and shaped like Swiss rolls, foreigners often think they look like toy trains, they can pass through deep tunnels that were built in the late 1800s. Then you have  Sub Surface trains, they're shaped like loaves of bread and can run on the same tracks as Deep level trains but can't go through deep level train tunnels. They have their own square tunnels that run under the old broad way roads of London. Then you have overground trains, they're more like the commuter trains, they even use ac power from overhead power lines. Recently the mayor decided to give the different parts of the overground network different line names because life wasn't complicated enough. Finally you have the DLR, Docklands light railway, they're small self driving trains, they're also often compared to toy trains. I think you have to press the open door button to get off. 

Some people that I know think Deep level and Subsurface trains can't run on the same rails. Those people should visit 'Ealing common' station, they share the same  northbound and southbound platforms. The same is true of 'Rayner's Lane'. 

To me the key stations are the ones that give you a smooth way to change lines by simply stepping off and waiting on the same platform. Stations that take you places beyond.  Ealing common lets you get off a Piccadilly train and Catch a district line train going in the same direction. The district line will go to Barking, trains at Barking station go to the Thames Estuary and as far as Southend on sea, the Nearest coastal town to London. The District line also goes to Victoria station, the national coach station, national express, mega bus and flixbus coaches from there go across Britain and Europe. Three subsurface lines share two platforms at kings cross station, Hammersmith line trains also go to Barking and the circle line trains also go to Victoria. St Pancras Station is next door to kings cross and there is a pedestrian tunnel connecting the two stations, Trains from St Pancras go to France and Kings Cross is also a Terminal station for trains from the north on the surface. Kings Cross and St Pancras are sometimes considered the same station because of the way they sit side by side. Some people say, there is a route to everywhere from those two stations. They wouldn't be wrong. 

Finding A Way

 I find a lot of people make superficial judgements about ordinary people like me. They may think I look at dirty things or I drink a lot of alcohol or stuff like that but every person in this world has depth to them, that includes me. I was lucky because my father always encouraged me to read a lot from a young age. I read for fun and my mind is set to find good deals and ideas to get by. 

My Home island of Britain has many small areas of outstanding natural beauty. Little zones of paradise and I'm always looking for ways to get there.  I don't always pick the fastest way but to look for the smoothest way. 

I found a smooth way to get from the north west corner of London to the national coach station in Victoria. From there, you can go across the whole island on a long distance coach and access those remote little paradises without paying too much for transport. What you do is take the Piccadilly line train from Uxbridge Station and get off at 'Ealing Common' that station only has 2 platforms, northbound and southbound but they are shared by two train lines, so you can step off a Piccadilly train and catch a District train on the same platform heading in the same direction. The district line train will go to Victoria Station, the national coach station is in Victoria  next to the train station on the same road. This route is not the quickest, it is the smoothest. You don't need to traverse connecting corridors in other stations and walk up stairs, you just step off one train and onto another.  

The other thing I found was those overseas shops like Temo sell sofas for less than £200, it looks too good to be true. I thought that was cool because luxury sofas cost more than £1000 in most shops. Next time you see a guy looking at his phone, don't jump to conclusions about him, he could be just reading or looking for a good deal. 

What March 2025 Means To Me

Lots of things happened in March but my thoughts were dominated by the disaster that happened in Myanmar. They had what I call a near 8 Richter earthquake. On the 28th of march, Myanmar and nearby countries were rocked by a 7.7 Richter earthquake. When earthquakes are that strong, the strongest of buildings and trees are toppled over. If they happen under water, it can kick vast volumes of water into a tsunami. My poor heart sank low in my chest when I saw the buildings topple over and collapse on the news. Multitudes of people were facing a horror that I can't imagine. When I was a young man I recall those types of Earthquakes were quite rare, they would happen once in 5 or 6 years; these days they seem to happen twice a year. Every year, two crowded communities in the world are struck by a near 8 Richter  earthquake. Some people say it is a natural cycle of the earth, others are saying it rains more in dry places and the fault lines are lubricated. I don't know what is happening, I just notice there are near 8 earthquakes happening more often as time passes by. 

The other thing was the trump tariffs, he wanted to increase the import tax of goods entering the united states to make them less competitive against  American goods. I think he also wants them to move their factories into the states avoid the tariffs and increase manufacturing jobs. I don't know much about economics but I thought it would be a good idea to give them time to prepare, I would say they have 9 months to prepare for the new tariffs. It may also be a good idea to raise tariffs in stages as well.  I think businesses need time to prepare for changes like that. Don't rock the boat too much I say. 

I'm an ordinary man, I can't do anything about it so I continue reading and doing my hobbies. Window shopping can also keep the restless mind settled. I look at all the prices of hotels in the coastal towns of Britain so I can go there for a short break on my birthday and have a nice cold drink, a small glass of whiskey twice a year. One for my birthday in a paradise and the other for Christmas.  

Myanmar Quakes and Trump tariffs

It was at the end of March on the 28th when a powerful 7.7 rs earthquake struck Myanmar and caused devastation. I felt pity for all those people that lost loved ones and their homes; in the game of pool, sinking the black ball 8 is game over and the same is true of earthquakes. Anything close to 8 in the Richter scale will devastate the nation around it, the ground is leaping and undulating with too much force for strong buildings to stand up. A near-8 earthquake will topple the strongest of buildings. It will spare wooden bungalows and tents but anything with supporting walls will topple over.  

There were two thoughts in my mind around the time of the earthquake. One was short breaks and the other was trump tariffs. I get what president Donald Trump is doing, if there is a bigger import tariff, it would make imported goods less competitive against domestic produced goods and it would pressure companies to move some of their factories into the united states to avoid the import tax altogether. He is looking to create lots of jobs in the long term. It is a very big risk and bad news for us. I'm in two minds about his decision, other countries will do it back to him and he may cause everything to become too expensive. I don't know what is going to happen, I try not to think about it too much. 

The other thing is short breaks, I like to look at all the coastal towns in Britain and see if there is a good deal available somewhere. The price of a train journey in Britain isn't based on distance but what tools you have available. If you have a good rail card and use the internet to book early that you will get a much better deal. All the different train operators have different perks, some give you a discount for return journeys, others let you use more than one rail card. There is no consistency. If you travel 50km, it will vary a lot depending on the time you get on the train and your perks. The possibilities are endless because you can use a bus service to get into a discounted zone so you can use a mixture of different transport services. 

Barter Hero

 I imagined a future where sentient machines decided that mankind needs only one religion so they stop being prejudiced and violent towards each other. The machine brings all the thoughts together from all the holy books in the world. Every Scripture and every religion is one in this world and the sentient machine makes itself into a God. The machine builds a giant talking statue that preaches all the scriptures and everyone must accept the talking statue as their God. Some people refuse to embrace the global religion so their bank accounts are frozen. People get frozen out of all transactions if they don't convert to this religion. The banks were adding more and more stipulations to keep their accounts open and people felt it was unfair, this time they have gone too far. You can't buy anything or get paid without a bank account so being frozen out means abject poverty. You can't even sell anything without a bank account because cash has been abolished.

Along comes a hero, the Barter man. A man that gets by without transactions, he trades stuff with stuff to get stuff. He has one paper clip in his hand, he knows someone needs it to press a reset button on their computer so he swaps the paper clip for a pen. Then he finds someone that needs a pen and swaps for a torch. Someone needs a torch so he swaps it for a drill. Then he swaps the drill for a bar stool, then he finds someone that really wants a bar stool so they swap it for a steam punk lamp. Finally someone gives him visa gift cards with £500 credit on them to get the trendy lamp. In one day the Barter genius traded a paper clip and finished with £500. The key to the man's success was knowing what everyone needs. He can get by very well in this terrible world until the machines start marking followers and killing non compliant people. 

Consistent little daisies

The world is changing a lot, we're turning into a cashless society; a world where the banks can decide they don't like you and sanction you from trade, you can't buy or sell anything because you need a bank account. Its OK now but in the future, people will have their bank accounts frozen because of their views and opinions. They won't be able to buy anything or get paid from their jobs. Day by day, greedy selfish people will turn our world into a place where it is impossible to be happy. We could end up in a dystopia.

In this world where people come into your life but leave and the rules change, there are a few things that stay the same. In spring time the Daisies emerge from the grass. I see them on the grass verges by the curb, I see them in the lawns at the park, I see them on common greens and grassy nulls. I see the little flowers with paper white petals and fluffy yellow centres. Daisies are consistency, they're a reliable attribute of our world, something that doesn't change. I must thank the sweet lord for these little gifts I see all around me. The morning rising sun, daisies in the grass, fresh air and the stars in the sky. 

Build Away

 I recently noticed that our leader Keir Starmer was involved in negotiations with other nations to form a resistance against Russia and to help Ukraine. This annoyed me a bit because they were cutting funds for many things like transport subsidies and elderly fuel allowance to try and balance the budget. If we were that far gone then what help can we be? Doesn't defence support cost a lot of money? I hate the Ukraine Russia war but I think we shouldn't get involved. The name Keir means darkness in the old Celtic languages, the old people are turning off their lights a lot so the name fits. I'm not involved so there is no point thinking about it too much. I'm just an ordinary man. 

I downloaded the Minecraft game on my Nintendo over the weekend. It is the first time I played Minecraft. I like computer games where you build stuff, especially if they have a sandbox mode with no resource limits. I don't like violence in computer games, I like creative games that let you make things. In the olden days I would play roller coaster tycoon and build beautiful theme parks. I was surprised that Minecraft supports multi play split-screen. 

Its nice seeing Daisy Flowers growing out of the grass, our world changes but they stay the same every spring they appear. 

Spring Time

It is Spring time now, you can tell, activists have started climbing up stuff and gluing themselves to things, "Yawn". It would be nice if they opened their minds a bit and  considered the other side of the story. Narrow minded people that only embrace one view. It will officially be spring after the 20th of march but I saw Daisy flowers sprouting out of the ground and the temperature rose above 10 degrees Celsius during the day. 

It looks like NASA has been preparing to go back to the moon; back in the '70s it was all about the Apollo missions, I wasn't born then. Now it is about the Artemis missions. They're building space launch vehicles with similar power to the Saturn 5 but more modular. There are separate booster rockets and the main rocket parts are reusable. They don't need to rebuild a whole space ship every time they launch. The cost is everything these days. Everything needs a cheap solution. Those astronauts are very brave, travelling to space is very dangerous.  

What February 2025 Means To Me

 It was very cold in February and always overcast. There was very little sunlight. A sad month it was, a member of the family passed away; he wasn't old really. He has a young son as well. I feel pity for the boy. What can I do, I can only make sure I'm healthy and hope I live long enough to leave behind an aged family that feels prepared for my passing. I don't smoke, I drink a glass of Whisky twice a year and nothing else, I don't take drugs and I eat set meals 2 or 3 times a day, if I pass away early it would be down to bad luck. I downloaded an old computer game I used to play often called Roller Coaster Tycoon classic edition. I thought to myself I should always make time for leisure because I don't know how long I have in this world. I don't even know if I will still be alive tomorrow. Luck can run out and your time can be up at any time. In the olden days, text based games with still images were also quite popular, they had games like Myst and Kings Quest. I liked those games, they worked well on any computer because it was never about the graphics, it was all about solving the puzzle. I think software publishers still make modern text based games even today for those that appreciate those things.

I saw some altercations between politicians on the news, it has nothing to do with me; I hope they can peacefully settle their differences in the near future. I tried to think about the bigger things in this world. I looked up at the sky at night a few times every day and  most of the planets are still about on the horizon together, that's cool. I could see Mars, it looks like a pink star when it is low on the horizon or an orange speck when it is high up in the sky. I also could see Venus quite well, it was especially bright in recent days. It's amazing to think how big the Universe is. 

In the Air

I noticed there is a lot of air rage these days. Passengers have angry physical outbursts on planes.  I'm an ordinary guy, but I understand what is happening. The last 3 flights I took, I was very angry; I restrained my anger, all you would see is my expressionless poker face, you wouldn't know I felt very angry but I was. I felt like I didn't have any personal space and the seat in-front of me reclined without warning and pushed my tray table into my stomach slightly. I had no personal space, not even an armrest to myself. I also noticed many of the long distance flights had been dropped permanently since the pandemic so I was forced to take connecting flights. The trouble with connecting flights is you get worried you'll miss the flight if your first flight is delayed. To cut a long story short, you feel like the air line is taking the piss out of you. To top it off, I noticed they were giving out gin and tonic and wine drinks; it is as if the airline wants the passengers to fight. Take away their personal space, make them stressed and get them drunk, a good mix. They should take away the undersold first class, set the lighting to pink and provide seating that lets everyone have their own personal space, everyone has an arm rest to themselves. They will lose some of their seats but there will be less unsold seats and you could put special boxes on unsold seats to add to the air freight of the plane.  

I learn something new every day, today I learned that most of your taste comes from smell. You can trick yourself into thinking you're drinking flavoured water when you're actually drinking plain tap water.  There is a product that capitalises on this human trait, air Up. It is a drink bottle that feeds a scent in the air to your nose and makes you feel like the water you're drinking is flavoured. 

very clever.  

 

Olden Days

 When I was a kid, my father showed me how to solve logic elimination puzzle books. They were magazines filled with puzzles where you had to eliminate all the outcomes until you're left with the truth. Soon after that Sudoku became popular, but I still prefer logic elimination puzzles. 

You know you're getting old when you talk about the olden days. I tell all my nephews and nieces about the olden days, when domestic internet didn't exist. The olden days, when connecting to the internet was about your computer making a temporary dial up connection long enough to download the page and then stop, the olden days, no wifi, no social media, no streaming. Lots of small talk. 

Those were the days. There were computer games that were text based. There still is. You go on a quest in a little text based world. People still make them. Some of them are really interesting. The good thing about text based computer games is they work well on all platforms. You use your imagination and add the graphics in your head, but some of the text based games have still-graphics so you don't need to use your imagination so much. You just see a picture. 

Little Essex Getaway

There is a place you can go if you're a tourist to London, if you had a bad day and need a quick day trip  to the coast or if it's your birthday and you want to take a short break for a few days. It's the little quirky city of Essex county, 'Southend on Sea'. I go there for a short break some times. If I got a ticket to the blues and feel a bit down or If it's my birthday. 

I live north-west of London; I look at London as a clock face to simplify it in my mind. The number 12 is 'High Barnet', 10 o clock is 'Uxbridge', 6 o clock is 'Croydon', the tram district. 9 O clock is Acton and Stains, the bit next to Heathrow Airport. The Nearest Part of London to me is Uxbridge at 10 o clock. Barking and Upminister is 3 o clock. 

I take a bus to Uxbridge Train station so I can get to Barking station, I change at kings cross but the Hammersmith train to Barking stops on the same platform. From Barking station I take a 40 minute train ride to Southend on Sea.  The c2c train ticket costs about £8 but it's not subsidised like the London trains so I'm not complaining. The same 50 km distance from Barking to Southend on Sea would cost less than £4 in London, you would literally get change from a fiver.    

I walk out the sea front and breathe in the fresh sea air and look out at the Kent peninsula on the distant horizon. If you look to your left you can see the open ocean. At night the place is lit up like Las Vegas and the sea is dark but there are always ships passing with lights on them. It's not the best place to go, but it is good for a day trip or short break. 

I imagine some of the tourists that visit London live very far from the sea so it could be a chance to enjoy the coast without spending much time and money.  

London Crossing

London isn't perfect, it is a city with issues, high costs, high crime, little small talk. There are a few perks to London. Most of the important landmarks are by the river, you can walk along the river Thames ("tems") and see most of the important landmarks, Elizabeth clock tower with the Big Ben mega bell inside, Houses of Parliament, London Eye observation wheel, Tower Bridge, Tate Modern art gallery, Tower of London, St Jame's Park that leads to Buckingham Palace, Restored Shakespeare's Globe, St Paul's Cathedral, the Walkie-Talkie, The shard and various others. They're all together in a 1 hour walk by the river. Even Chinatown, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square are a 5 minute walk from the Thames; remember it's pronounced "tems" not "Faims".  

For me there is a special perk, You can go across the city and use the subsidised TFL zone to get to the Thames Estuary smoothly.  If London were a clock, Uxbridge would be where the number 10 is on the clock face. I can go on the Train from Uxbridge and get to Barking near the number 3 on the clock face and get change from a fiver, £3.60 during off-peak time. The distance is 50km,  if I drive 50 km, the fuel costs a bit more than £3.60. The route that is smoothest is the one I use to get to Southend on Sea for a short break. I take a bus to Uxbridge, then I get the Metropolitan train at Uxbridge Station; it's a terminal station so all trains head east from there,  then I get off at King's Cross, I stay on the platform and catch a Hammersmith Train to Barking  and tap out on the platform. Then I use my C2C ticket to board a C2C train to the Coast in Barking Station , sometimes it comes on the same platform island as the Hammersmith train. It's not the quickest route but it is the smoothest, I get there very fast and don't walk very much. Remember the Uxbridge Line and the Hammersmith line share the same platform at Kings Cross so I would just step off the Metropolitan train and get the Hammersmith train where I stand. 

If I took the bus to Slough and took Cross Rail, I would get to the east side of London a lot quicker but I would have to do more walking and I think it would cost a bit more. 

Using London to chip the price off a journey, yes please. 

Journey Day

Jacob, My son. 

It has only been a few days since a member of our family passed away. It had a profound effect on me, I stopped eating at work, I eat a large dinner before work, then I work through the night, get home, sleep then I have breakfast when I wake up. I thought to myself I should never get sick or pass away because of a poor lifestyle. I'm not saying that's why he died, I would put that down to bad luck. One day my luck will run out and my time in this world will be up but I hope I will have aged enough for everyone else to be aged. 

I'm thinking about all the train journeys we could have in the near future. All the places we could visit.