It’s my son’s birthday today and he, Mrs HH and I went to the D Day Story museum in Portsmouth. We’ve lived nearby for over 30 years and have never been, so his birthday was a good excuse. I’m not into war stuff so wasn’t sure what to expect, but I thought it was excellent. It’s very clever in that it uses the stories of real people, many locals, to bring things to life, and it covers the terrible impact on the French locals who died in their thousands.
Outside there is the only surviving landing craft, which is an incredible thing, with some really knowledgeable volunteers on hand to provide information. The other highlight for me was the Overlord Embroidery, which illustrates the story in an embroidery with 34 hand stitched panels, 84m long in total, like a modern version of the Bayeux Tapestry, which of course isn’t a tapestry at all, but also an embroidery.
It’s a really good day out, and well worth a visit. This is the final scene of the Embroidery, showing French locals tending to a casualty.
Watching the total eclipse. From where I live, it’s about a 40% eclipse right now. It’s not noticeably dark, but with the correct glasses it does look very cool.
This is scary stuff. Potentially the highest tides ever. It’s not may flood, it’s will flood. We are far enough from the sea not to be in danger, but of course we know plenty of people who live on the affected roads.
Well, the Still & West will be flooded again! Of other interest to me is that St.Mary’s Stadium in Southampton is also in the red zone, and there’s a match scheduled for tomorrow evening.
And of course, Southampton will get two flood tides: 00:30 & 02:00.
At 11-15am UK time, just listening to Alan Bates giving evidence to the Stat. Inquiry about The Post Office. Aided by Jason Beer, KC, there’s a filleting going on of the PO fish.
My position on this is that the Board are appointed to ensure internal ‘control & command’ structures are installed and are robust enough (‘3 lines of defence’ models atypically), to prevent anything like this arising. If they aren’t, it’s an outright failure of governance, noting how many big corporates have sub-c’tees to spread the load. I can’t help thinking this has all the hallmarks of an unaccountable public sector approach to matters. It’s staggeringly bad from so many perspectives.
Big bucks are paid to harbour and manage responsibility, not simply ‘go with the flow’ and pick up the outsize rewards.
Fifty year old black ash felling today. Shame , but it’s only about 18 years old in human lifespan. It’s about 60 feet high so it would become gigantic.
My tree-man refers to Ash trees as the largest garden weeds going, and potentially damaging as they grow, not helped by many being wild sown by birds regurgitating seeds.
Had my Aortic artery scanned today……offered by the NHS for those in their 65 th year. Turned up early, i was directed to sit outside a particular door, sat for few seconds and they called me in. Probably out in less than 10 minutes, all OK.
I lost my cousin during covid, he refused to do bowel screening tests, had colon cancer. Covid finished him off. Ironically his wife was a midwife, but he ignored her too😥
I too have a deep desire to stay away from hospital (I had a major infection that needed a two week stay) , hence my desire to do physiotherapy and delay surgery .
I do however think you have to do preventative things, even if it is a simple as boosting your good CL with omega 3 tablets.
In the last fifteen years I have had no pills from the NHS , though this looks as if it will change
