Statement from 'The Sun' bad news for Brown

Once again we have seen Gordon Brown's fortunes take a turn for the worse. Last week he was doing what he likes best - demonstrating in his own eyes at least that he is a world statesman with his visit to the other side of the pond. Yesterday he delivered a passable speech to the party faithful but today received the bad news from Britain's biggest selling newspaper 'The Sun' that with the election possibly still many months away they have already decided to back Cameron.

Now this was always likely to happen at some stage but it's the timing that is so devastating for Gordon. When he might have thought that the content of his speech would be the subject of the day it is the statement from 'The Sun' that is the lead headline on the BBC at least. Assuming the Conservatives form the next government are we going to once again see that awful headline "It's the Sun wot won it".

One or two comments on that speech: I noticed that Brown's praise for our troops in Afghanistan was a very long way into the speech. It gained a short standing ovation but I get the impression that Brown doesn't really empathise with the troops whereas Cameron last year lauded our men and women out there right at the start of his speech. I imagine it will be the same at the Tory conference next week. Whatever one feels about our presence in Afghanistan surely you shouldn't insert your praise almost as an aside in your speech when our forces are risking their lives in that country. Yes Brown is something of a phony when it comes to our armed services.

As is the way of these things Brown made some new policy announcements or in fact reannouncements in some instances. As an example he stated that ID cards would no longer be compulsory. Good I thought - then I did a reality check, wasn't that decision announced a month or three back? Yes it was! So it's a bit of a nonsense padding out a speech with old news!

By all accounts it's only 'The Daily Mirror' that is doing any vigorous flag waving for Labour this morning. The Party might get a small bounce following a conference that is not quite so dire as many predicted. But any upsurge will be small and temporary and the Tories of course have the advantage of being the last of the main parties to have their annual conference and so can react to what the others have said and done.

Banjo and Hammered Dulcimer

For some time now I've thought that I should regularly share some of the great musical videos I've found on the internet, YouTube in particular being a wonderful free resource. There is a lot of really good music (to my ears at least!) out there - I'm not keen on heavily amplified music and there's no chance of any 'heavy metal' getting a show on this blog, that's for sure!

This evening then there is this recent addition to YouTube featuring two of my favourite instruments: the banjo and hammered dulcimer. I'm trying to learn to play the hammered dulcimer and would love to be able to play the banjo as well. To me this is a wonderful relaxing video to watch and to hear. I was a little bemused by what was happening outside to distract Christie; the answer is in her blog: she wrote a piece about doing this recording and someone added a comment querying what she was looking at right at the start. It turns out from her reply that her neighbour was just about to get out his lawn mower but realised she was recording and just came over to listen outside the window! Mystery solved then. After watching this video I shut my eyes to just listen to the sound and let it wash over me. Enjoy!

Additional note posted 29 September:
I should have added that the two musicians seen playing in this video are Matt Evans and Christie Burns who both teach at the Mountain Music Folk School in Chattanooga in the USA. Now when one embeds videos from YouTube there is a choice of sizes - with such good definition I selected the largest which I see cuts across the blog labels in blue on the right hand side but I think that loss is worth it to get a nice large video!

Morwellham in hands of Administrators

At the end of last week the sad announcement that Morwellham is going into administration was made. A press release dated the 25th named the two gentlemen from Grant Thornton who are the administrators and stated that the centre will be open till the end of October prior to a winter shutdown. As to what happens after then I just don't know but my guess is that it will continue under some guise or another. Let's hope so.

Morwellham - no news is good news possibly

Just a couple of days ago I had written about the travails at Morwellham Quay and mentioned the impending meeting between the various stakeholders that was due to take place yesterday. So far as I know this happened but as to the result of the deliberations there is no news yet.

I had thought there would be a press release today but the fact this hasn't happened so far as I can see could be indicative of avenues still being explored. If every possibility had been exhausted at the meeting then perhaps a statement to that affect would have been quickly forthcoming.

One piece of definite news though is that the sell-out concert by 'Show of Hands' tomorrow evening has been confirmed as going ahead but with the 'Ship Inn' closed audience members have been advised to bring their own refreshment - more info for those interested in this concert on the Morwellham website.

'Honest Food Campaign' wins Tesco over

Now here is some really good news to report. Back on the 22nd of last February I filed a piece about the 'Honest Food Campaign' an initiative that seems to be driven by Nick Herbert, the Tories shadow to Hilary Benn the DEFRA minister. A particular concern for Mr Herbert has been the use of food labelling by supermarkets whereby certain meats are described as being produced in Britain when quite emphatically the pigs, chicken or lambs have not been born and bred in this country. The labelling all depends on where the last process took place: for instance a joint could be stuffed in this country and for that reason alone could be described as "Produce of the UK". Utterly misleading of course and something I've railed about before.

This is an example then in which an opposition party can be proactive. I'm not criticising Mr Benn particularly - I imagine he has a very full in tray in his large and diverse department and anyway being a vegetarian one shouldn't perhaps expect him to have the same passion on this argument as some others.

Why I am highlighting the campaign right now is the fact that Tesco, the Nation's largest grocer by far, is going to alter its labelling so that "Produce of the UK" really does mean that the bird or beast comes from this country. For some reason beef already does have stricter labelling - possibly due to the past BSE scare.

We are of course very conservative with a small 'c' in Britain and worthwhile campaigns like this don't alter attitudes and behaviour overnight; it's just a case of keep grinding away and eventually success will happen.

Lib Dem Mansion Tax proposal is barmy

We are well and truly in the party conference season now and no doubt as usual all the parties will put forward eye catching but ill conceived and totally impractical policy proposals. At the moment it is the turn of the Lib Dems and Vince Cable has produced an idea that has agitated more than a few bloggers, including me it has to be said. What is being dubbed as a "Mansion Tax" would see those with properties worth more than £1 million pay a tax of 0.5% on that part of the value in excess of this one million figure. Well intentioned Cable may be in trying to rob the rich to pay the poor but his idea is a nonsense in many ways. He has talked about using Land Registry figures in initially assessing where these £1 million plus properties are because of course the LR will have records of the sale prices. But taking the parish I live in for example there are few houses in this price bracket and the ones that are don't regularly come on to the market. One and two bedroom terrace cottages, three and four bedroom houses - yes we have plenty of those so price valuations are (relatively) simple but the 'mansions' Vince Cable is targetting are much harder to realistically price and the whole valuation exercise will be a bureaucratic nonsense I believe.

Another point - and I've not noticed anyone mentioning it yet - is the situation where someone inherits a very large but run down property with acres and acres of land that needs mega amounts of money (and it could be millions) to get the house up to scratch. Yes the whole property by virtue of size and location may be deemed as being well in excess of the one million figure in value but this might be a classic instance of "asset rich and cash poor" - I think that is the expression. There are stately piles around in which the owners find it almost impossible to renovate and maintain, no fault of their own and The National Trust can't take them all over, that's for sure.

No Vince, this is an ill conceived idea. You need to go back to the drawing board I'm afraid.

Gone past 'Use By' date and I'm still alive

I'm sure that I've mentioned this before: I have a real thing about wasted food. It's not just the economic cost (to me) of uneaten food chucked out it's the fact that so many people in the world are starving so that I shouldn't be wasting my share. Then there is the extra going into the back of the refuse lorry, and ultimately landfill and that is costing us all money. In fairness it has to be noted that as I am a one person household it is perhaps easier for me to ensure that food waste is virtually non-existent.

Usually I'm pretty canny with my shopping and so seldom find myself with part used grocery items when the 'best before' or 'use by' date arrives. However there have been a couple of times just recently when that sort of skill has been wanting. In the first instance I had a pot of coleslaw (yum yum) that took me a few days beyond that date to eat with my salads. Fortunately I have a very useful bit of kit to detect whether it was still OK to eat, the good old hooter otherwise known as one's nose! Each time it came out of the fridge I had a look and gave it a sniff - no problem so I continued to use it. I also this morning finished a bottle of 'cranberry and raspberry drink' and that was a couple of days over the 'use by' date. Now by some miracle I'm still alive, I didn't get any sort of food poisoning either! I'm not saying every product is so lenient regarding these dates but what I am getting round to is the enormous waste created by perfectly palatable food finding its way into the dustbin when there would have been no problem consuming it.

Here endeth the lesson ...

Morwellham might know its fate tomorrow

I had been a little reluctant to blog on the topic of Morwellham. For those who don't know it was a long established port cum village on the east bank of the Tamar a little way downstream of the river's tidal limit of the weir at Gunnislake. It really rose to prominence in the 19th century when the output of the Tamar Valley mines went into the stratosphere, only to drop into a deep slumber in the twentieth century. After considerable site clearance it was reborn as a heritage / tourist attraction. Fine but one problem encountered I felt was that it didn't quite know how to pitch itself and to what audience. Following on from that was the fact that its day to day management wasn't always of the best to be honest. I'm not criticising individual staff who have really done everything they could, its just that over the years they haven't always been led or motivated as well as one would have hoped.

It is difficult with any 'attraction' to keep the crowds coming after the early euphoria has died down. For instance with the 'Eden Project' huge numbers visited in the first few years but it has to keep on thinking of ways to attract new audiences and to get those who came in the early days to revisit. One way of getting more footfall is to promote unrelated events at such sites and Morwellham (which is fortunate in having plenty of space) did this again the other weekend when the Tavistock Food Fair selected the location for this year's venue. All useful income but sadly not enough.

Morwellham has been the recipient of considerable grant aid to carry out improvements and repairs but this money is for capital works only and as its visitor numbers have dropped off it has been dependant on West Devon Borough Council and more particularly Devon County Council to keep 'the show on the road'. In early September came the bombshell - the new administration running the County Council decided to pull the plug on their financial support. Without being party political here I should point out that there has been a change of administration with the Tories taking over from the LibDems as the main party. Anyway without another source of money it seems that the attraction won't be able to continue.

Now I'm privy to slightly more than there is out there in the public domain but not being a trustee do not know the intimate detail. My reluctance to spout about Morwellham to anyone is the fact that I don't want to inadvertently talk about something that is semi confidential and fuel rumours. To give the trustees their due they have tried to keep the public informed to a degree and in fact one can read some of this in the 'latest news' on the Morwellham-Quay website.

There is a crunch meeting in Exeter tomorrow (Tuesday) in which the trustees and stakeholders can sit around a table and try and find a way forward. Personally, and this is a gut feeling not something I've heard, I think that there will be a future at Morwellham. It may not happen immediately but my feeling is that some solution will be found - I just hope that I'm right! We should get some sort of clarity on Wednesday I would think. In the meantime one's thoughts are with those already made redundant or who might find themselves without a job soon.

A butterfly success story

The continuing amenable weather is good for our butterflies, I'm seeing quite a few in the garden and elsewhere locally but no species that unusual it has to be said. However one particular spot in the south west has reported a good season for the sadly now rare pearl bordered and small pearl bordered fritillaries. The location I am referring to is the Marsland Nature Reserve where Devon meets Cornwall on the north coast. I think that the reserve straddles both sides of the stream that forms the county boundary here but it appears that it is the Devon Wildlife Trust that is responsible for it. The DWT has an excellent website and so far as its reserves are concerned it has a map of Devon with all the reserves named and with dots to indicate their locations. Click on the relevant dot and a new window opens relating to that particular reserve - the one for Marsland can be viewed here. A very good arrangement I have to say.

It is good to know that numbers of these two rare fritillaries are increasing here through careful management. Not only are these two species evidently thriving but the site has recorded some 34 species of butterfly in total. I find it interesting to see the way wildlife has redistributed itself in the short period of my lifetime. On the one hand nature has had to find new homes because of (a) loss of habitat as more and more of our land is paved over by roads, airports, housing, retail and industrial developments and (b) farming has become more intensive generally. On the credit side, if you will, organisations such as the County Wildlife Trusts, National Trust, RSPB, Woodland Trust and others have increased both their expertise and the size of their holdings so that specific species can recover their numbers to a degree, as with the previously mentioned butterflies at Marsland. One mustn't forget that much maligned government department DEFRA is playing its part too in encouraging farmers to participate in various environmental schemes. Another aspect of all this is the way many of us have altered the way we use our gardens. I've seen old photographs of this small terrace of Cornish cottages with their large gardens totally given over to growing vegetables it would seem because there isn't a tree or bush in sight. Very different today with quite a wooded feel to the gardens. It's not just village gardens either: I can think of a steep sided valley in this Parish whose west facing slope was once a mass of market gardens growing principally daffodils and strawberries. Now abandoned for horticulture the land has reverted to woodland.

Here is a point to ponder then - we are now more reliant on imported food than when I was a boy, and that is worrying on a number of levels. But it could be argued that some gardens with their shrubberies and folk putting up bird feeders have become more wildlife friendly in recent years. And is the change from market gardens to woodland that I have just written about a plus for wildlife worth having? I certainly recall the pleasure of walking this woodland in the middle of the day and seeing a tawny owl sat on a branch. What I'm trying to say (I think) is that while population growth will inevitably increase the pressure on wildlife it may not all be bad news for nature.

Just a brief comment on Marsland Mouth to round off this entry: well it's quite some time since I've visited that area but it has that magic of seemingly being much as it must have been half a century ago. That part of my peninsula still feels incredibly remote, the two nearby villages of Morwenstow (of Reverend Hawker fame) and Welcome appear not much bigger than hamlets. One last point - the rugged coast here faces almost due west so with the better visibility and brighter skies of recent days there should have been really good sunsets to be seen over the sea.

Weather has turned for the better - at last

We have now had a few days of glorious early autumn weather - very comfortable warm weather by day but markedly cooler nights. Our newsletters for the local history group were ready yesterday for delivery and I popped over to Ian and Helen's home to pick up my quota as I do the deliveries in and around Gunnislake. Published three times a year in A4 format and with 16 pages in each issue we feel that it is something we can be reasonably proud about. Today then I completed almost all my deliveries and I must say it was an absolute joy not to have to carry them round in a weatherproof wrapping which not infrequently has been the case in the past.

It is amazing just how much some warm sunshine raises the spirits and with the days rapidly getting shorter it is extra welcome. Having good light until the sun actually sets is great and we are now getting that. This very enjoyable settled spell reminds me of my first holiday in Penzance a good many years ago. It was at precisely the same time of year and the weather was absolutely identical to that we are now experiencing. In fact it was my introduction to the magic of such places as Porthgwarra, Penberth Cove and Lamorna on the south coast of Penwith and I still recall the elation of visiting them when I walked that part of the Coast Path. There are so many parts of our coast that are really special and to be fair it is difficult to say any one section is the best. I suppose though my choice of the length from Gwennap Head going east to Lamorna as being just about my favourite is coloured by the fact of those memorable few days when I first went there.

Just reverting back to my first paragraph for a moment the Calstock Parish Local History Group has a website here which you might find interesting if you are intrigued by the very varied history of this part of the Tamar Valley.

Heron looking for early breakfast

Although I consider myself very fortunate in living where I do there is the odd downside. Perhaps the greatest of these is the fact that my garden is detached from the cottage so that I don't directly overlook it. This of course could be a deciding factor against purchase in the mind of a prospective buyer should I ever put it on the market - not that I have any intentions in that direction I hasten to add!

A near neighbour and friend though doesn't have my problem - she can step straight into her garden from her back door. But even better, her bedroom window with a low sill gives a lovely view over the lawn, flower beds and pond. The last named in fact can't be more than 20 feet away so it was with huge delight a few days ago and early in the morning (about 6 am apparently) that she a heron glide in to land by the pond! Now herons seem to like to be up and about at the crack of dawn looking for a tasty breakfast. My friend tried to move as stealthily as she could to get her camera but sadly she was noticed and the heron took off and was away. Perhaps a frog has been able to live for another day! No fish in her pond but plenty of amphibians. Quite some time ago she had seen a heron perched atop a holly tree in her garden that was fairly close to the pond and she said it was quite comical to see it on that particular species!

I have a pond, much smaller than my friends one, rather murky at the moment I'm afraid but happily always produces a few dragonflies. Like my friend I don't have fish in the pond and though I like fish in the same way that I like all wildlife I just cannot get any enthusiasm for buying some to go in a garden pond. Much better in my opinion to try and provide suitable habitats in the garden for a variety of creatures and hope some move in. Whether Mr Heron has paid my little pond a visit I know not but I have had grass snakes slither their way up to the pond and they are fairly spectacular when full grown in my opinion.

Presumably quite a few people with garden ponds have had herons turn up looking for an easy breakfast but at such an early hour these wonderful birds haven't been noticed perhaps.

Light bulb nonsense

I consider myself to be environmentally aware but I don't go along with every green fad - I prefer to think things through and make my own judgements rather than blindly following what the environmental lobby says is right. In fact I think I am more genuinely green than they are sometimes! What is currently exercising a lot of people is the phasing out of the good old tungsten filament lamp in favour of "greener" alternatives. In fact yesterday (Sept 1st) saw the end of manufacture and restocking by shops of the 100 watt version, that is not to say that old stock still on the shelves in a store can't be sold but such has been the rush to stock up by customers I do wonder if there any left. It's 100 watt bulbs now but lower wattages are due to be gradually phased out as time goes on.

Why aren't compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) gaining greater favour then? Seems as if it is mainly down to the quality of the light they emit, some folk being very uncomfortable with them. Then there is the higher purchase price and the time delay in reaching full power. My particular problem (and in the great scheme of things I suppose its size is like one grain of sand in the Sahara) is that I have three dimmer switches in my cottage. Not put in by me, evidently the idea of the guy from whom I purchased my home but I'm quite happy to have them though. I was always under the impression that low energy bulbs and dimmer switches weren't happy bedfellows but before writing this I thought that some research on the internet was called for. It seems that there are dimmer switches and dimmer switches and that one type might be compatible with certain CFLs. Complications right away then. One of my dimmers is a 2 gang job with one switch for the kitchen and the other the downstairs switch for the two way landing light. The latter has a 60 watt bulb of the old fashioned variety but normally I would have the dimmer so it is only part on, say 40 watts which is all I need most of the time in that location. It's switched on for very short periods of course. My point then is that the existing bulb, which very very rarely needs replacing, is not eco unfriendly. So why am I being told otherwise?

And another thing - admittedly tungsten bulbs get chucked in the dustbin when they pack up so ultimately go to landfill, not a good destination in view of the shortage of tip space but in reality take up very little room compared with the bulk of the rubbish we throw away. But there is talk of recycling CFLs, such chatter may have arisen because of the minuscule amount of mercury inside them. How would such a thing work in practice? A recycling truck might go down a street one day and there is just one CFL to pick up - is that going to be kept separate from other things? Don't make me laugh! It's like radio batteries for instance, they have nasties in them and strictly shouldn't go in the bin when discharged. But what is one expected to do? Hold on to them until some recycling scheme for them pops up in your area in the future. Hardly. Incidentally I have a 'wind up' torch thus don't need those pesky batteries. Surely this is the way to go if you want to be green.

Council staff taking lots of sick leave

In my last post I had a pop at the BBC, although I should say it was a very small part of what I wrote. Nice then to congratulate them (well BBC Devon in particular) for using the Freedom of Information Act to find out about sick leave in the County's district councils. This came to light in a discussion on today's early morning programme - in truth it might have been someone else using the FOI Act but the programme flagged up the results anyway.

The upshot of this investigation was that councils, or some in particular, had well above the average levels of absence through sickness. The results for Devon councils showed very marked differences: for instance the real bad boys were 'East Devon' with over 12 days off per year compared with say 'West Devon' with a sickness rate half that. Now such statistics need to come with a health warning - sorry about the pun! - for instance the per person absenteeism might be grossly distorted by a relative few on long term sick e.g. suffering from depression (a very real illness of course). Thinking back to the time I worked in the Civil Service there were certain people that I can only describe as "the usual suspects" who always seemed to be going sick although immediately before and after they appeared in the rudest of health! I have to say I have the good fortune to have so far avoided serious bouts of flu or any other stay at home sickness and toward the end of my time in the CivilService ones attendance record started to be noted on your annual report. During my stay at that office it was policy to move people around on a fairly regular basis so that one was forever answerable to a different supervisor and one of these was someone with a lamentable attendance record, a fact that peeved me when I came in almost without fail.

A quick aside here: when I left the Civil Service the then head boss of the office wrote me a very nice thank you letter for my endeavours and was kind enough to mention my excellent attendance record - that was much appreciated I have to say!

Back to the Radio Devon programme and it seems that the BBC staff lose a minimal number of days through sickness. So good for them! One area though that the BBC, using our money of course, could be much more economical in is that of travel it seems. Thanks to Paul Waugh of 'The Evening Standard', probably the best political blogger from the mainstream media, we know that London Mayor Boris Johnson and his team were in the economy section of the Eurostar train to Brussels when they were passed by John Sweeney and his BBC Panorama camera crew heading for First Class. Boris made a comment to Sweeney about he, Sweeney, making for the front of the train. Covered in embarrassment Sweeney mumbled that he had got a really really good deal in first class. Hm ... Paul finishes his piece by pointing out that another BBC crew is following Boris around today - Michael Crick and Newsnight's separate cameraman and producer! The BBC rightly gets flak for its profligate spending of the license fee. Having said that some of the best TV in the world emanates from it so not all bad.

Sky invites party leaders to TV debate

A very significant entry today by Adam Boulton on the Sky News political blog. Apparently Sky have hand delivered invitations to the leaders of the three main UK parties to participate in a debate before the next general election, now less than a year away. The possibility of such a thing happening has been on the cards for some time but Sky have stolen a march on their competition by actually putting the wheels in motion. A huge raspberry from me to the BBC by the way: although the Sky thing has been news all morning the Beeb have made no mention of it on their News website front page or even on their 'politics' page for that matter. This is an example of the BBC's arrogance that I'm afraid is all too common. I should mention as well that Sky are happy to let their rivals run the programme (unedited) on their own channels.

What of the response so far of the three said leaders? As expected both Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg have quickly said "yes" but at the time of writing nothing yet from Gordon Brown. In fairness to Mr Brown he, not before time, has said some more about the release of the convicted Libyan terrorist Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, so it could be argued that he didn't want to get sidetracked into commenting on the Sky invite. One of Brown's big problems (and many have commented on this) is that faced with an awkward question he is nowhere to be seen but failure to respond in the next day or two to whether he appears on the debate will only reinforce the suggestion that he dithers and lacks courage. It sounds as if we will see an empty chair if he fails to turn up - always assuming that he hasn't resigned or been forced out by then!

In this highly visual age Brown has the misfortune to be mediocre in front of the camera - witness his performance on that YouTube video. On the other hand both Cameron and Clegg are much more comfortable in these sort of surroundings and certainly the former can think on his feet in a way that Gordon certainly can't.

I have to say that I'm very pleased to see this move by Sky, it is high time that the electorate had the opportunity to connect with government in a way that has been lacking for many years now. One of my many criticisms of Tony Blair is that at election times it was next to impossible for the ordinary voter to get to ask him a question when he visited somewhere or other - his minders would hand pick his audience so that he wasn't faced with penetrating questions; in other words a total abuse of democracy! Fans of Blair might want to negate my view here, pointing out that he took on a TV audience at the time he was committing this country to the Iraq adventure, credit to him for that, but that situation had a single issue and obviously he could have his various answers well prepared in advance.

Any reservations on my part? The first difficulty is the little matter of finding the right person to chair the debate. Some might suggest Jeremy Paxman or John Humphrys as attack dogs who wouldn't let the politicians get away with things but they are wedded to the BBC and I can't imagine that organisation allowing them to do such a thing! Can someone totally neutral then be found who would make sure the party leaders did answer the questions posed. Also there are the minority parties such as UKIP, the Greens and BNP. I can imagine them crying "foul" if they don't get similar air time to put their points across. These last mentioned would I believe have to be in a separate programme because more than three parties at any one time is totally unmanageable if one wants to get in depth answers about policies. It seems that Sky would be happy to host separate programmes for Scotland and Wales (and presumably N Ireland) so that the nationalist parties from each of them could have their say. These doubts in my mind are relatively trivial though and it will be fascinating to see how things pan out.