RIP Brian Patten

 Another Poet lost.

Minister for Exams

When I was a child I sat an exam.
This test was so simple
There was no way i could fail.

Q1. Describe the taste of the Moon.

It tastes like Creation I wrote,
it has the flavour of starlight.

Q2. What colour is Love?

Love is the colour of the water a man
lost in the desert finds, I wrote.

Q3. Why do snowflakes melt?

I wrote, they melt because they fall
on to the warm tongue of God.

There were other questions.
They were as simple.

I described the grief of Adam
when he was expelled from Eden.
I wrote down the exact weight of
an elephant's dream

Yet today, many years later,
For my living I sweep the streets
or clean out the toilets of the fat
hotels.

Why? Because constantly I failed
my exams.
Why? Well, let me set a test.

Q1. How large is a child's
imagination?
Q2. How shallow is the soul of the
Minister for exams?

See also Gust Becos I Cud Not Spel

Labour Conference

 Very pleasing, sensible things being said.
Starmer calling out Frage's racist policies.

Lammy good on Justice.  Coooper and Mahmud excellent.

Mackerel Sky, Yesterday Evening

 

RIP Tony Harrison

 Sad news of the death of Tony Harrison, much admired by us hear at the Trees.

Guardian Obituary

And A Kumquat for John Keats

S&D Railway 200

 So, the TV and newspapers are full of the celebrations, as are our social media feeds.  

Two hundred years ago today, Locomotion No.1 pulled the first (ish) train of paying passengers, on the new Stockton and Darlington Railway.  Along with several coal chaldrons.

It marked one of the real beginnings of the railways, and the immense social change they brought.

So this is our desk.  Just for today.

(For the record, Hornby Locomotion No.1., with two sets of Accurascale chaldrons).

Orange Gibbon Alerts #3

 

If you look into the matter, you realise:

In the last ten to fifteen years, the availability of halal meat in the UK has increased dramatically.

In the same time period, diagnoses of Asperger's syndrome in our land have dropped to zero.

We'd better tell the Orange Gibbon.

Orange Gibbon Alerts #2

 So the Orange Gibbon claims Climate Change is a scam on the very day the effects of it are being seen in Typhoon Ragasa.

Better show him the videos...

Orange Gibbon Alerts #1

 

Trump is sharing more rogue comments. Pretty much all of which are rubbish.

But, perhaps the most damaging one is that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes Autism.  

Which is total rubbish...

Consider.  Autism was identified as a condition before the First World War.

Paracetamol was synthesized in the 1950s.

It is the safest painkiller we have, and not taking it - because of the reasons the Gibbon gives - when there is a real need to reduce pain or trauma, could cause harm to the mother and baby.

Ignore the Orange Gibbon speak!

See also this Guardian Opinion Piece.

A Painful Time

 Rats!  We at the Trees have Shingles... the NHS have been super.

Titchy

 So, it appears the Far Right are overjoyed that the demo organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as Tiny Tommeee) attracted 100,000 people - or thereabouts.  
Now not all of them were violent racists.  Not all of them were thugs.  But a certain number were.
And there were people who had just become 'concerned' apparently - after reading a lot of far right rhetoric, in the press and social media.

So it seems worth noting that this wasn't a huge event.  In October 2019, the anti-Brexit march attracted between ten and twenty time that number (depending on estimates).  And none of the Remainers attacked the police.

So we know who the real patriots are, and they weren't those marching last weekend.

Reform and Vaccines Redux

 Further to our previous post on ReformUK (who we keep wanting to call REFUK) and Vaccines, this piece from the Guardian today:

The General Medical Council is examining comments by a controversial doctor who used a speech at Reform UK’s conference to link Covid vaccines to cancer in the royal family, amid mounting condemnation of him by senior medics.

The regulator, which is charged with upholding professional standards in UK medicine, is also progressing with an investigation into Aseem Malhotra, currently an adviser to Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy, over a previous claim. It may consider whether to stop or limit his ability to work as a doctor in the UK in the interests of protecting the public.

There have been warnings from medical bodies that his “pseudo-science” remarks could undermine trust in doctors.

Keir Starmer used prime minister’s questions on Wednesday to hit out at Reform UK and Malhotra, saying: “The man who wrote Reform’s health policy has made shocking and baseless claims that vaccines are linked to cancer and that has been endorsed by Reform.

“These dangerous conspiracies cost lives and it shows that Reform can’t be trusted with our NHS.”

While not a surprise, the idea of giving such an extreme conspiracy theorist a platform at the Reform conference is another proof, were one to be needed that they aren't fit to run a bath.

It will be contrails next.  Just watch.

The People Have Spoken

 Congratulations to Gary Linker, for winning TV Presenter of the Year at the National Television  Awards, ending the hegemony of Ant and Dec.

The People Have Spoken!

Quite fun

 We rather enjoyed this clue in last Saturday's Guardian Prize crossword.

A super surface!

On Amol On UC

 University Challenge has only had three question masters.  

Bamber Gascoigne (1962-1987), who always gave the impression that he knew more than anyone else in the room, and that he probably wrote the questions, while at the same time giving out a real sense of enthusiasm.  We did meet him once, back in the 1970s, when Durham were in the final. (I wasn't on the team, but the much-missed Ken Brown was).

Jeremy Paxman (1994-2023) was the second person to take the role. He came over as the arch-inquisitor, not suffering fools gladly.  Replaying his persona as questioner on Newsnight and other current affairs programmes into the UC role.  But he lacked Bamber's warmth.

And so to Amol Rajan. To be honest, we haven't had that much time for him as a journalist, either at the Independent or on the BBC Today programme.  He seemed to us to come across as both shallow and a know-it-all.  An amazing trick.  However, he has done very well, we think, in the UC job.  To our surprise.  He shows Bamberish enthusiasm, and glints of knowledge, while still being firm.  

A success, we believe.

Nighttime Air on Rye Lane

 

Weeping...

 So sad to see what has happened to the terrific Chinese willows at the North end of the Rye.

Here is an older picture, from the Trees.

And sadly, here it is today...

Thirty Years Ago Today...

So it appears that Windows 95 was launched thirty years ago today.  We remember it well, a big change from Win 3.1 and its variants.  

One of us was shown an early version at a show a few months before.  The conversation went something like:

'Look, this is the new beta test of Windows 95.'

'Great! Looks exciting.  What does you mean by "beta test"?'

'Well, it works fine unless you press the wrong thing at the wrong time.  Then it falls over.'

(We've used this defense for everything we've written ever since...)

The last PC running Win95 left this house last year.  We rather regret that now....

The BBC ran an article about Win95 on the National lunchtime news.  It spent some time with the NW Computer Museum.

Why didn't we know about this?

Rover

 Rover appears to have shrunk quite considerably...

Trees on Tour: Around Trafalgar Square

A couple of months ago...

 

Salmon en Croute...

 

A Visitor (a Few Weeks Ago)

 

The Trees Still on Tour: A Bath in Boroughbridge....

 

The Garden Tomatoes Have Started!

 

The Trees on Tour Again: The Great Cluster in Hercules

 

The Trees on Tour Again: Brighton Beach

 

Letting off Steam

 Why is Steam so pushy?  Whenever I boot up, it pushes itself at me, as if the only thing I wanted to do was gaming.

Amazingly, I do have a life!

The Summer Beehive Cluster

 

Dear England

 

So, in the wake of the Lionesses' victory at the Euros, a brief reflection on Dear England at the National.
As you can perhaps see, the stage set was stark, and effective.  
The play was fine, with wit and humour. It was mostly about Gareth Southgate and his humanising of the role.  And it worked well, when talking about the old English fear and failure at penalties.

But, I can't help but think the large number of men in England shirts sitting in the row in fron to me were hoping for aa show about football.  And the glories of England...

Oh, well.

Reform and Vaccines

 According to the Guardian newspaper, "Half of Reform voters have 'little or no' confidence in the Covid vaccine'.  If that is true, it is somewhat astonishing.  (And to be fair, that was a few months ago, and the number of Reform voters has increased, recently.
Now, we at the Trees don't actually believe that nearly half of Reform voters are as thick as mince, tempting as that may be.
Rather, they have been gaslit by social media posts, often on X and FaceBook.  
But how did this happen?  Of course there are nefarious people building the popular Far Right who love to deploy these myths.  
But perhaps also, scientists have become over-complacent and stopped explaining things as well and as often as they should, the results proving efficacy have been somewhat inaccessible to the lay reader, and there has been a lack of Government investment combating the lies of the Far Right.
Where are the people organising a response on the conspiracy sites like X?
We need to respond to Farage, Putin, Trump and Tufton Street with the truth.
Every time.

The Trees on Tour Again: Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway

 The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, or The La'al Ratty, runs into the Esk valley, from Ravenglass to Dalegarth stations.  It has the same gauge as the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (although it is somewhat shorter in length), and they occasionally share engines.

We also had a stroll down to the Esk and visited the Eskdale mill in Boot.