The Unoriginal Muse

In Wales, Carmarthen to be precise, there is a museum of various oddities and bits charting the history of Carmarthenshire, from the roman period to the present (which apparently stops when the Commodore 64 was invented). Amongst the roman artefacts on display were numerous coins - there are always coins - showing elements that later went into the design of “Britannia” on the back of the fifty pence which I found interesting. There were also numerous items displaying a rather blatant affinity with the nazis, at least if some people are to be believed, including a rather nifty gold filgree necklace and the two grave markers show below.

I know I keep banging this drum but it’s not without reason. This cross is older than history. The fact that a few modern groups use it as a stand-in for the swastika doesn’t mean that anyone displaying this cross belongs to one of their groups.

A gravestone bearing the Solar cross

A grave marker bearing a solar cross. The inscription reads 'Memora Voteporix Protecti' - translating as something like 'in memory of Voteporix the protector'

So there you have it. The romans were nazis. And they were also quite fond of those stylised eagles on everything too.

An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.

The laser process creates a unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament—the tiny wire inside a light bulb—and theses structures make the tungsten become far more effective at radiating light.

Regular Light Bulbs Made Super-efficient With Ultra-fast Laser

So we’re using these bloody useless fluorescent bulbs why?

I love this bit.

In addition to increasing the brightness of a bulb, Guo’s process can be used to tune the color of the light as well. In 2008, his team used a similar process to change the color of nearly any metal to blue, golden, and gray, in addition to the black he’d already accomplished. Guo and Vorobeyv used that knowledge of how to control the size and shape of the nanostructures—and thus what colors of light those structures absorb and radiate—to change the amount of each wavelength of light the tungsten filament radiates. Though Guo cannot yet make a simple bulb shine pure blue, for instance, he can change the overall radiated spectrum so that the tungsten, which normally radiates a yellowish light, could radiate a more purely white light.

Interest in the flats has been remarkable. We haven’t put them up for sale at any agencies but we’ve already had a dozen or more people express an interest. One is definite: we’ll be renting the first flat out to a Columbian family who want to send their children to my old school down the road. Someone else has expressed keen interest in the top flat - and they say they have more than enough money to buy it and that they aren’t in a desperate hurry to move, so they can wait until it’s finished.

What did it? There are still flats for sale in the big block behind us, flats for sale all over town in fact that just aren’t moving. The ones across the canal are still a quarter empty and the development further along teh canal is almost half empty too, and just not budging.

The size might be a factor. Those other developments are huge, but the actual flats in them are tiny. I went looking at a couple a while back to see and they’re just pathetic, and badly finished as well. Rush jobs, cheap, shallow, no space… and no storage. Our flats come with a storage room underneath the building, which seems to be almost unique these days. Everyone see’s the storage and their eyes go like this: O.O

It’s a huge selling point. People want storage. They want somewhere to put their junk, because it’s obviously not going to fit inside the house.

Fingers crossed the two flats sell…

I’m not much of a fan of Cromwell for various reasons (he banned christmas!) but the man sure knew how to make a speech, as Helen szamuely reminds us. (also at EU Referendum).

“…It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

“Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

“Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d; your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean Stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings, and which by God’s help and the strength He has given me, I now come to do.

“I command ye, therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. You have sat here too long for the good you do. In the name of God, go!”

“That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”
Matthew Henry - Commentary on the Whole Bible

I feel strangely proud. I have a Union flag flapping right outside my window and it’s immensely pleasing, even if it is currently hanging from the scaffolding around our building. There’s a Swedish one next to i for the wife, sort of like residency flags on the royal palace, only rather less rich. It’s nice to be able to turn around and see the Union jack waving at me outside the window.

I’d show pictures but every time I go to take one the wind dies.

The unacknowledged resentment against Islamic imperialism. I have to admit this is the first time I’ve heard about a muslim “protest” being so completely wiped out by my fellow countrymen.

In the last few years the British peoples grew polite to the point of obsequiousness in the face of Islamic terror. We didn’t want a row, we didn’t want to fight but they pressed and pressed and now, as the poem goes, there will be merry war.

Another odd conversation I had while I was in Swede was with Christina’s mother and sister, on the use of certain words. It made me surprisingly uncomfortable given what I know about this family, Swedish culture and so on. It was about the “n-word”, as people call it. I’ll let the classic film Blazing Saddles say it…

The conversation was about words that people can’t say and the different words in different languages. It brought home just how pervasive some guilt complexes can be, because the moment she said “we aren’t allowed to say ‘nigger’” I actually felt myself break out into a cold sweat and my heart start thumping, as if someone was going to come in screaming “racist!!!” at me. Just for being there when the word was spoken. What an odd reaction was that? It’s just a word.

It makes me wonder if the sheen of political correctness over Sweden is perhaps thinner than in other countries. Or perhaps it’s becoming harder to cow them with the racism line. I’m not sure. It was an interesting experience though…

… revealing something beautiful. The Gatehouse.

Click the pictures for more info.

The underpass to reach the car park was a necessity due to the tight space but it adds a rather nice character to the building as a whole and makes it look just that little bit different.

These flats are the first step on our family’s grand vision of cool visionnnessing…ary… whilst we’re in a recession it might seem odd to be building new properties, but house sales are still going on around this area and it’s still very desirable as a place to live. People are still buying, and that means we can still sell.

For now we’re going to sell two of the flats and probably hold onto the third. That one is a little smaller and a litle more qirky so it’ll be harder to sell in the current climate.

The longer term goal is, believe it or not, developing property in Paraguay. Raising sufficient capital here will allow us to begin developing there, where costs are much lower. Developing there serves two purposes - it provides much-needed rental accommodation in a country that is currently growing at a fairly rapid clip, and it gives us an “in”, getting us known in a country that’s practically made of silver. Almost literally made of silver, in fact.

Longer term still there are plans for a large chunk of the family to move out there permanently. it’s a nice country… but we’ll see, I suppose. I know Chris wouldn’t be too keen on the idea so perhaps we won’t be going - but, if things get really bad here, at least we’ll have somewhere to run to. But they won’t get bad. I think this is the year things will change.

But that’s another story.

And, soon perhaps, I should explain why I mention the family so much. But that’s another story too. Tomorrow I’m going to be playing with a little digger, digging up the road so we can lay an electrical cable to eventually provide power for this place. The gas guys are coming in as well to connect the gas main.

A little ways back I made a few predictions. “Why we won’t matter” it was called.

To a certain extent I was right, but in important ways I was wrong. As is perhaps obvious I completely failed to predict the current, escalating labour situation in the UK that is threatening to be a repeat of the strikes that threatened Thatcher’s government in the late 70 and early 80s.

The dispute in a nutshell is over an Italian company bringing Italian contractors in to maintain a new acquisition, rather than using British workers. This is one of the fundamental aspects of EU labour law - that workers can work anywhere - and it’s bringing to the fore just how little power the government has to act.

Will it bring down the EU? On it’s own doubt it will but it reveals how entangled we are in a dramatic way. It may be the first sign of the coming collapse. It’s just surprising how quickly it arrived, and how fast the temperatures have actually dropped. Yet there’s something enduring about strikers in the snow. Possibly the memories of the winter of discontent still linger in the popular consciousness coupled with the understanding that anyone prepared to stand in sub-zero temperatures might just have a point to make.