Right wing politicians

Posted on May 13, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Brexit, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1934, englanders, Pandemic, Politics, Refugees, Right wing, Sadness, scandal, UK2 Comments

What public figure do you disagree with the most?

I cannot be specific. There are too many politicians I strongly disagree with. I know that any person can be bad. Whether they support right, left or central politics. But somehow they all seem to be capable of misdeeds.

So why right not left? I just think currently in our country, we have had too right wing politicians for too long. They have been in power for thirteen years and things have not improved. Our health service which was the best in the world has been partly sold off, and what’s left is succumbing to cuts in beds, loss of doctors and nurses who are leaving to go to better paid jobs abroad.

We voted to leave the EU (Brexit) and turned our backs on a whole continent that supported us. We have always been ‘little englanders’, but that was a ridiculous idea and we are all suffering for it now.

Our politicians want to ignore human rights and are getting more and more vindictive. A series of political scandals including the miss selling of Protective equipment for the pandemic, (which was not fit for purpose). Sewage being poured into our rivers and sea, and tax cuts for the richest, all have destroyed our reputation. And we have awful treatment of migrants who cannot safely get into this country so are risking their lives trying to cross the channel in small inflatable boats. And one of our ministers had the gall to call them ‘migrant shoppers’ or similar phrase, as if they were not desperately seeking refuge.

So no, I know there are awful people everywhere, but I need to think about our government. If we cannot act in a humane way how can we expect anyone else to do so?

Mass trespass

Posted on April 17, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Derbyshire, History, Kinder Scout, Life, mass trespass, Rambling, Time, UK, WalkingLeave a comment

On 24th April 1931, 500 ramblers climbed over a wall and walked up Kinder Scout, a hill in the Derbyshire peak district. That mass trespass was onto countryside that was exclusively used for hunting and shooting. For those people it was the start of a fight to allow the right to roam.

The trespass led eventually to the first National park in the Derbyshire peak district which was opened on 17th April 1951 almost twenty years later.

There are many more National parks in Britain now, and people have many more freedoms than they had in the past, but there are still restrictions on what you can do. A recent court ruling stopped wild camping on Dartmoor. Worryingly people are using portable barbecues which have set fire to grassland and heathland in recent years. The right to roam has also caused erosion of pathways and peat bogs in places like Kinder Scout and the pathways up the hill had to be restored and widened.

The situation needs to be managed, to allow us to move about more freely, but to also protect the environment. However a large proportion of the land in Britain is owned by the military and or the royal family, so some places like parts of Salisbury plain will continue to be out of bounds.

Snowdonia sketch

Posted on March 10, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Beauty, Drawing, Landscape, Life, Memory, Sketching, sky landscape artist, Snowdonia, UK, Wales2 Comments

Drawing from 2021. I was watching Sky Landscape Artist of the year and I decided to do a drawing of Snowdonia in North Wales. This took half an hour. I have relatives that live near to Snowdon so it’s a place I love. The landscape near where I live is more rolling hills, certainly no mountains nearby.

One of the things about the UK is that there are so many variations in the landscape. Flat, hilly, mountainous, green, forested, heathland, waterlogged, dry, arable, coastal. You can see why people fall in love with it.

Minus 10°C

Posted on December 9, 2022December 9, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Chilly, Cold, cost of living crisis, Freezing, Ice, Icy, minus 10°C, Poverty, UK, Weather, WinterLeave a comment

Ice or a plastic star? Just a Christmas decoration…. Its too cold outside to go and take photos, but the frost as sparkling on the pavement earlier this evening. I’d been out to panto rehearsal, and walked across the road to the shops and I had to hold onto a handrail because it was so slippery. There was a report on this evenings TV decrying the poor standard of housing in the UK and the cost for the poorest people to heat their homes. If you want to know its 10% in France and 18% in the UK.

So tonight it’s going to be minus 10°C in places. That’s quite cold for this country.

Strange word?

Posted on November 13, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Goubernatorial, Government, History, Life, spellings, Thinking, Time, UK, us5 Comments

I have been watching the news about the USA midterm elections with fascination. We have supposedly fixed term elections of five years for the Government, by elections where we choose councillors every four years but they don’t always coincide, and a few mayoral elections that are only for a few cities that have chosen to have them, like London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

But this strange word keeps appearing in the US election ‘Goubernatorial’? Is that the spelling? It’s how it sounds. I would say Governatorial, as it is about the election of State Govenors. It is a real mouthful. Is it meant to be confusing, to sound clever, is it Latin? Or Greek? Who knows.

I think there’s a saying, something like: the United Kingdom and the United States of America are two nations seperated by a common language. Spellings of Sulphur (UK) and Sulfur (US), someone told me the Americans came up with simpler spellings. Also Neighbour (UK) and Neighbor (US)… Why not Neybor if you really want to simplify. And the pronunciation of Aluminium as Aloominum? Why? Many questions!

Air Con?

Posted on July 19, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 40°C, air conditioning?, Heat, Heathrow Airport, heatwave, Hot, Life, UK, Weather8 Comments

Three frozen bottles in front of our fan. It’s not air conditioning, but it’s creating a cooling breeze. It got up to 27°C today so far in our living room. Last night it was 24.7°C. I got up at 5am to open up a indow and the back door to achieve that it had been a degree higher. We have the windows shut and the curtains closed. I know this temperature is nothing compared with other places, but I don’t travel to hot places so it’s a bit of a shock to my system.

In other news it is the hottest day in UK history. It is at 40°C at Heathrow Airport.

We are complaining, but wild fires are burning in France, Spain, Portugal and Greece. If you don’t believe in Global Warming think again.

There’s an old song ‘mad dogs and English men go out in the midday sun’. It’s due to cool down tomorrow.

Springwatch

Posted on June 5, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged badgers, Bbc TV, Birds, chicks, Hedgehog, Herons, Life, Nature, Owl painting, Springwatch, UKLeave a comment

I’m enjoying Springwatch on BBC TV. It started last week and runs Monday to Thursday for three weeks. It shows you wildlife in different parts of the United Kingdom. So far there have been birds and mammals, views of Herons on the nest, nature red in tooth and claw (a hedgehog munching on some ground nesting baby birds – who knew? ) and lots more. The presenters including Chris Packham are very informative and share lots of interesting and sometimes obscure information. We are promised among other things film of Badgers this week.

Eurovision is on!

Posted on May 14, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Europe, eurovision, eurovision song contest, Life, Music, Singing, UK, Ukraine, VotingLeave a comment

Eurovision is on tonight. A four or five hour song contest with European and a few non European countries challenging for the win. There are forty countries that compete in semifinals then twenty five in the final. Half the votes in the final come from the voting panels of each country and the rest come from a phone vote open to the public. The results take almost longer than the singing part. The singers can get up to twelve points from each judging panel and voters, so the total can rise well over a hundred or more. I’d like the UK to win but we got NO points last year. As we can’t vote for our own country I will be voting for Ukraine. They have a very good song called ‘Stephania’ I think, by the Kalush Orchestra.

Russians violence continues

Posted on April 19, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Children, Death, Fear, missiles, murder, Peace, Russia, threatening, UK, Ukraine, violence, WarLeave a comment

They sent missiles into Ukraine last night and struck over 1000 targets. Its frightening and Putin is accusing the UK of threatening to bomb Russia. Is Putin mad? What the hell is he doing. These are war crimes. Civilians killed, women raped and murdered, ordinary people shot in the back of the head. At least 205 children killed and two thirds of children displaced within the country. This is senseless. If you are a Russian reading this, think about it. Your soldiers are murdering innocent people. Why? Its crazy and stupid. We see the photos. It’s not a surgical strike. You are destroying Ukraine. Stop it.

Spring flowers

Posted on April 17, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bluebells, Daffodils, Fortnight, Gardening, Life, Plants, Spring, Time, Tulips, UK, Weather2 Comments

It’s almost the end of tulips and daffodils season. Soon it will be bluebells and other spring flowers… Leaves are opening on the trees. Buds swelling with the water that is falling from the April showers. We decided to go out for the day and headed south for a few miles. You could see more leaves on trees the further south we went. I remember hearing on a TV programme once that you could see the spring slowly creeping up the country as the days lengthened and the daffodils flowered. It might have said it takes two weeks to go from the far south to the far north? Not absolutely certain though.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: UK