Latin

 

My daughters exams in Latin and Psychology were okay apparently.  She has a mathematics paper tomorrow and then four more papers after that (for this week, her exams continuing afterwards). I am not sure she has watched Life Of Brian, but if she does, I am sure she would be able to comment on the accuracy of this scene… 

The Tories and COVID

Nadine Dorries today has tweeted that Jeremy Hunt’s “pandemic preparation during six years as health secretary was found wanting and inadequate.” She is not the most reliable of people when it comes to facts, but in this she is right.  

In 2016, Exercise Cygnus was carried out along with Exercise Alice.  In the first, the need for ventilators was noted, in the second, issues about having decent stocks of PPE, having a working contact tracing system in place along with pandemic related travel restrictions were noted.  

I was lucky enough in the pandemic to have access to decent PPE, but that was not the case for too many.  Our test and trace system has been viewed as funnelling money to the Chumocracy and while COVID would have arrived even if we had travel restrictions, it would have bought the UK more time if it had been put in place sooner. 

I know that she has tweeted this because she does not want Jeremy Hunt to oust Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, but she has not realised that she has admitted that the government should have been better prepared for the pandemic.

Top Gun: Maverick

loved the film. My wife came with me to watch it. I did not want my children to come, one has watched bits, is revising and did not like what she had watched. The other has not watched the first at all. I am biased as I may have watched Top Gun about 100 times or so, but I did like this. I was concerned that it was going to have too much testosterone in it, but it did not. Yes, a lot of the plot was predictable, but the film was well put together. I suspect that most of those who did not like the original would not like this.

Today was the street party.  I had gone to work in the morning after taking Leia out for a walk and got back too late to help my wife take food to the party.  I did get to take Leia as my daughter stayed at home to revise while my son had helped my wife take the food down.  There was an ‘interesting’ discussion about the less admirable aspects of the local Boys Grammar School where two women appeared to be defending it or making excuses.  We did leave early, my son having left earlier to returned home.  I ironed and then my wife and I went to the cinema.  

Tomorrow is going to be busy for her and me in our jobs, but I do feel refreshed after this long weekend.

We Got This and Dylan Moran

My wife and I have been looking forwards to this.  Sadly, it did not match up to previous comedy shows or even the past performances of Dylan Moran.  At best I would describe this as the ramblings of a previously articulate drunk interspersed with  great insights which would have been better for the heckling.  But some of his responses to heckling were the funnier parts of the show.  We did like bits of it, but both agreed that we were expecting a lot better.  While he says that he was boring sober, I would have loved to have seen him perform sober as I suspect the show would have been better had he done so.  While I get ready for sleep, we are watching some of this past performances on YouTube to reassure ourselves that he was funnier in the past.  Ultimately, the attitude of Dylan Moran is that I doubt he cares for the opinions of those who felt he could be better as many did love him.  I could have a go at the worse hecklers for moving seats to be closer to us, but I had taken us to the wrong seats earlier and we had to move to the correct ones before the show started.  Oops! 

Our son looked after Leia while my daughter continued to revise for her seven exams this coming week.  We had offered to take both out to lunch, but he opted to stay at home while my daughter accompanied us to The Whalebone.  We enjoyed our meal, though my wife and I felt that more seasoning would have improved our main courses.  My daughter did feel too full to finish her dessert, which was great as I got to finish it for her!  We helped her revise by testing her on questions that she asked but I ended up in a slight disagreement over Colour Constancy.  I said A and B are the same colour below, she disagreed.  To be fair, in her exercise book, they were not, but if you zoom in on this image and crop the squares, they are.

Stranger Things

My daughter and I have finished watching the first part of Series 4.  We both enjoyed it.  I was hoping to watch it from the start with my son, but he has started to watch it himself.  I then agreed to watch this from the start again with my daughter, but she has started to watch it from the start herself.  I understand what they have done so as I am not at home often enough to watch it with them.  I need to think about ways about changing this.  But that may mean a change in job.

When Vader met Kenobi

I had thought that this was a bad episode when I first watched it, but that was only because I thought it changed the film Star Wars itself.  I was wrong though.  

I am referring to the series Kenobi.  We are watching it together.  Part of me apologises for the title spoiling things, but Vader and Ben Kenobi meet again.  This battle does not go well for one.  I thought that they had not met since the battle on Malastare, and this may be my recollection of the books. But I also got the quote from Star Wars wrong.  I thought it referred to when the two last met.  Oops.

I am looking forwards to the next episode.  It looks like the series is to be a lot better that the prequel trilogy and also the sequel trilogy. 

Are the deaths of innocents an acceptable price to pay for lax gun controls in the USA?

Yes, this post is about the lack of sensible gun controls in the USA. there has been a mass shooting in a school, but also a hospital in the news. Living in the UK, we have legal firearms here. My job includes providing information on licences to the police who are responsible for the decision to issue them and I have no issues with legal firearms being used for hunting and also for sport. 

 

In the UK, in 1996, following the mass shooting killing primary school children and their teacher, a ban on handguns was imposed. Before this, following a mass shooting in 1987, semi-automatic weapons had been banned. Since then, we have had incidents where the murder of more than one person has occurred, but these have been relatively rare, one example being, how Derrick Bird killed many innocent people, followed by the murderous rampage of Raoul Moat. But this was in 2010 and while mass murder has occurred since then on several occasions our most recent high profile case being in August 2021, we have lower rates of mass shootings than the USA. Gun crime exists here, but the rates are far lower than in nations like the USA, just like how the overall murder rate in the USA is higher than in other developed nations. 

 

The call in the USA by many is for weapons like the AR-15 to be banned. Those who are against it cite the second amendment to the US constitution which allows the right to bear arms. But this was made in a time when a well trained person would take almost a minute to shoot three times. I have discussed this with my wife, and she is of the view that nothing will change in the USA. And to be fair, she may be right. Despite the murder of many young children in Sandy Hook, the AR-15 and similar weapons are still legal. This is probably due to the campaign contributions made by organisations like the NRA to protect the right of Americans to have them, though this has meant the continued murder of children in schools. Something that does not happen anywhere near as often outside the USA. 

 

There is an argument for firearms to be used to defend schools in the USA, but they forget how Scot Peterson was the "Good Guy with a Gun" at the Parkland mass shooting affecting the Stoneman Douglas High School. 

 

Others point to mental health being an issue, not guns, but we have mental health issues in the UK and other nations without mass shootings. The party in the US associated with fighting against Gun Controls, has also worked to limit access to healthcare and Trump himself made it easier for those with mental illness issues to get guns.  Violent video games, music and films have also been blamed, and while they may be a contributing factor, they also are present in developed nations other than the USA.

 

Thoughts and Prayers will not reduce the level of gun violence in the USA, action to bring in sensible gun controls will. But in the absence of such sensible gun controls, I just wish that those in the NRA just admitted that they consider the deaths of children to be an acceptable price to have weapons like the AR-15 and high capacity magazines.  They really need to consider why there are no drills for active shooters in Western European schools and universities.