Thursday, February 07, 2013

Here's looking at you


See World Voices...

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Australia: Eyeball


At the far reaches of the lounge bar in the Wayside Tavern the manager was cornered, by three angry men, total strangers all and oozing menace.

Their intention was to "get" him as retaliation for the eviction a few minutes earlier of the 4th member of their party.

With superior numbers, apparent superior physical condition, psychological preparation, and with youth on their side, the ambush was sprung. They announced their intention in coarse language, positioned themselves with one on each side (the wall being the 4th side) and made their move.

The manager was no slouch, as would be indicated by the fact after a 20 year career in the cabaret (nightclub) industry he still wore a fully tied (not a clip-on) necktie to work every shift.

Effortlessly, but with no holding back, he got stuck into the trio, twisting thumbs brutally, using catapault force to kick crotches, poking eyes, using elbows to drive the wind from lungs & so on.

The entire incident took only a few seconds, the tie remained immaculate and he wasn't breathing heavily.

Seeing the (brief) melee Mine Host & two other staff whizzed across the room, just as the manager completed establishing his supremacy.

However something seemed odd. While two were prone on the floor, conscious but unable to move, the third of the assailants was upright but hunched over in extreme agitation.

In a mind numbing flash, we all saw at once that an eye was popped out, hanging loose on his cheek like a marble on a string.

Time stood still.

Then, proving (as always) that if you have enough people around, you will have one of everything, a nearby customer strode over, got Mr Eyeball to stand up straight, positioned the eye high on the cheek, and with the heel of his hand calmly bumped it back into place (as if it were a trackball going back into a computer mouse).

The three assailants gingerly got to their feet and equally as gingerly stumbled away.

Nobody moved or said anything for a while. Then the manager, unruffled as always, noted that the training he had received many years before, on how to defend himself when unarmed, had taught him to poke into eye sockets, but there had been no mention of what to do if the eye popped out, and it was "quite handy" that the unknown patron happened to be on the spot to save the day.

Then we all returned to our work as if nothing had happened.

Reproduced by kind permission of the author. This article originally appeared here. All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment.

Monday, February 04, 2013

Cigarette packaging row: Art entry # 2


Continuing the series on redundant, nannyish consumer advice.

Drink: here.

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Freedom is created by limitation

Seen via "Tom Paine", a discussion piece by Professor Sandy Ikeda on what a free society would look like.

I comment:

Why should we want a free society?

Do people mean by that merely, a society in which my own freedom is maximised? In which case, this has always been achieved - by powerful individuals.

Maybe a better way to approach the problem is to establish limits on the wealth, power and ability to manage public information and communication of those who most want dominance. Perhaps the key to freedom is restriction.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Sunday, February 03, 2013

Technology, faux defence and oppression


(Why are the architects of our future Hell so fond of crap rock music accompaniment?)

The Mail on Sunday revels in a whizzy new gadget:

... and then tries to reassure us:

While Black Hornet is a priceless tool in Afghanistan, it is unlikely it could be used on Britain’s streets because of civil liberty concerns.

"Unlikely"...

As Shakespeare's murderous Scottish usurper says:

 ... But in these cases
We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught return
To plague the inventor.

The West has a history of using poor people in faraway places to refine the weapons they intend to use in their main agenda, even though it should ultimately come back on themselves:

Ethiopia, Guernica, Poland, London, Berlin.

Now we have cybersurveillance and Hellfire missiles, purportedly to protect us (the wholly good) from Puritans of a different religion (the wholly evil):

Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, ...your home.

Perhaps the first use will be against a terrorist cell in a remote Northern counties farmhouse; or kidnappers holed up in a tower block; or drug dealers on the Broadwater Farm Estate.

Even without our having to postulate malice, the logic of power is that it must be exercised, and (often incompetently) abused. Look at how our police have employed guns, CS gas, pepper spray, tasers.

But worst of all, civil governance has now entered the Information Age, as Orwell so presciently predicted. Already (I suspect) GCHQ is roboscanning everything you email, phone, Twitter or Facebook;  maybe also the titles of the books you borrow from the library, the programmes you stream onto your laptop or smart TV, your medical records, your movements as reported by your cellphone. If they don't, they could. If they can, they will, one day.

Fifty years after the first publication of "The Making of the English Working Class", E.P. Thompson should be here to write the sequel: The Breaking of the English Working Class. The poor were thrown off the land and into factories and slums, thus snapping not only their rural bondage but the bonds of obligation that also tied their social superiors. Noblesse oblige - but not richesse.

After generations of hard work and struggle there was a brief flowering of post-WWII prosperity and playful liberty. That is coming to an end here - though perhaps it is springing up in the New World of the East.

Now we have millions who are to be managed like useless and potentially destructive pets, and whenever they - or incoming competitors - look as though they may rise, a fresh wave of immigrants is employed to push them down another level.

And, like the micromanaging computers needed to keep the aerodynamically unstable F16 in flight, all this wonderful spying and coercive technology will someday be so useful in maintaining an otherwise totally insupportable social order.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Simon Beck's Snow Art

 
Doing the rounds via email, the intricate temporary-art snowfield images created by Simon Beck. His Facebook page and photo gallery here. 
 
Simon is an English cartographer (educated: Millfield and Oxford) who stays in France during the ski season, but is thinking about continuing his work in Norway.
 
All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Friday, February 01, 2013

Nick Drew: abandoning nuclear could kill hundreds in Germany

See the fourth and final part of the Denmark/Germany energy series here.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Nick Drew: abandoning nuclear could kill hundreds in Germany

See the fourth and final part of the Denmark/Germany energy series here.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Inside Spain: behind the protests

On World Voices, the Crunch news from a Spain-domiciled Englishman. It made me realise how little I know, and how much I want to. Here's some of my supplementaries:

1. The media in Spain: who and what would you read if as a foreigner you wanted to get at the truth (and what are their hidden biases)?
2. The 15-M Movement: how did it mutate? What are the Movement's personalities, images and symbols?
3. How are modern social media (Twitter, Facebook, iPhone video etc) stimulating and organising people within our democracies?
4. How does (doesn't) the weird party-list-based voting system work in Spain?
5. What are the Spanish Government's work creation initiatives, and do they work?
6. What are the effects of extra tax as experienced by business owners, wage earners, shoppers - and what do they do to get round / deal with it?
7. What are Spanish public servants like, to deal with?
8. What have been the effects of terminating contract workers in the public sector to save money, as a first resort before considering the need for some of the permanently employed?
9. What does  the increasing unemployment look like on the street?
10. How does the modern protest resemble (how is it linked with) political agitation and enmities in the past (cf Orwell in Catalonia)?
11. Who else has noticed the return of the beggars - and how are they different from the cripples and  beggars of Spain decades ago?
12. What is Spain's experience of immigrants, especially from non-EU countries? Are there any attempts to control their numbers? Any tensions, as in the UK?

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Spain: The pain in Spain leads many to complain

Picture: Wikipedia

There was a time when Spain was as exotic and unexplored to Brits as Mali; but even now, there is much about the country that the tourist probably doesn't know, and I certainly don't. CIngrams has taken up my suggestion of a piece on the Spanish experience of the Great Financial Crisis, and for me it stimulates many further questions, which I'll put onto the Supplement page.

He begins by looking at the local protests:

The 15-M ‘movement’, which started at the time of the local elections in 2011 (held on the 22nd of May) mainly consisted of the usual young, hairy types who like to think that they can change the world by shouting slogans. They began peacefully, and in most places they continued peacefully, and the arguments they made were, on the whole, valid criticisms of the cumbersome and opaque electoral system, which multiplies parliaments and civil servants at many different levels, which gives members of those parliaments no incentive to represent the people who vote for them, as they owe their position entirely to the often unknown party controllers, to whom they must be loyal. Parties are state-funded and you cannot choose, and sometimes do not know, who you are casting your vote for. That is decided by the party.

Some of their complaints were about the banks, and showed a certain ignorance of economics typical in the young and those who have not yet worked for anything of their own, but I found them to be approachable, peaceful, not stupid, and I wondered if the government would actually start to take them seriously at some point.
 
Noises were made, but nothing much happened. As usual. What tends to happen is that these protests, even when based on good ideas and conspicuously peaceful, are taken over by the usual suspects, or fade away to nothing. Both of these things happened. The Occupy movement was quiet different from the 15-M, and the original purpose and form was lost, and just fizzled out.
 
Once the government started to recognise the gravity of the situation and actually do something rather than make political noises, it started by doing the wrong things, then attempting the impossible. They decreed, back in 2009, a programme of digging holes and filling them in again, in an attempt to pretend unemployment was lower than it was. Some useful work was done, but much of was a waste of money. They raised VAT, in an attempt to bring in some very short term income, while depressing commerce and investment in the medium term. Only a politician would think that a good idea. They also got rid of as many contracted personnel as possible, in order to reduce their wage bill. Something they were, at the same time, trying to stop other organizations from doing.

Civil servants in Spain have jobs and pensions for life. They cannot be laid off if they become unnecessary, and they are extremely difficult to sack even for laziness and incompetence. Whenever I have to deal with the civil service the difference I see between them and similar workers in the productive economy is enormous. (I could go on about this for hours. Forces self back to point.) So there are two ways the government can reduce its wage bill. One is to terminate the contracted staff, that is those who are not full‘funcionarios’, or who work for companies hired for specific projects. These are mainly building works working on roads and public buildings. The local and national governments here threw many thousands of them onto the dole when the money really, really ran out.

The second way is to reduce the salaries of the permanent workers. Incidentally, the idea of giving public employees unbreakable contracts for life comes from the 19thC and was intended to stop incoming governments from sacking most of the civil service and filling it with their friends. But a solution to a specific problem of corruption when the civil service consisted of only a few thousand people at most, has been allowed to continue until the present day, when there are over 4 million people whose wages are guaranteed with our money. There has never been the political will, or courage, to touch this system and there probably never will be. It is possible though that it will slowly be allowed to wither, at least by governments of the right, and most public employees will indeed be on contracts which can be ended when they have done what they were hired for. I am not too sanguine, however.
 
The early protests were led by the Civil Service unions, for this reason. They got little sympathy from the public because with 4 million unemployed (it’s nearer 5m now) and a similar number unable to reach the end of the month and with the possibility of losing everything at any moment, the public felt that people with a salary for life had little to complain about, even if that salary was a bit less than it used to be.

The unions see it as a good excuse to increase their standing with their members and attack the new, centre-right government. The new opposition suddenly claims to have all the answers it couldn’t find when it was in charge. Everybody complains, but everybody expects someone else to get them out of trouble. That is human nature, but it makes the problems worse, and more difficult to solve.
 
The trade unions regularly appear on the streets, waving flags and shouting slogans that express their grievances and suggest some solutions. They achieve nothing, of course, but it adds to the circus of life. They have not normally been violent except during the national strikes they called in May and November last year. These were poorly supported but in the larger cities the far left makes sure they are noticed and make the evening news, by giving their members permission to break things and attack people. This is for their own political ends, and is not going to solve any of the social problems that exist.

Beggars are also appearing on the streets. Not the usual drug addicts and gypsies, but ‘normal’ people were clearly once working families and who’ve tried every other way they can think of of making ends meet. This shows that, despite what I say in the next paragraph, there are problems much more serious than ‘the government isn’t giving me as much as I would like’, which you hear from most people.
 
People don’t realize or have forgotten what it is that makes an economy work. So many people now believe that government spending isthe economy, and that banks are evil, that it will be hard to re-create a country where hard work, investment, successful businesses employing people, are recognised as good things, to be encouraged and aspired to. The Chinese immigrants are now doing what the Indian and Pakistani immigrants did in Britain forty years ago. They are taking over small shops in large numbers, working long hours seven days a week, offering people things they want, when they want them, at good prices, bothering no one and making sure their children study hard so they can be doctors and lawyers and won’t have to spend 12 hours a day in a little shop. The number of people who routinely moan about this as though it were a bad thing shows that the recovery will take a long time. It doesn’t occur to them that they could do it themselves. It’s too hard for them, so they want someone else to do it. They then seem to assume that they themselves should somehow earn more for not doing it than the people who do actually do it.
 
Similarly, there are many immigrants from South America and Eastern Europe (The non-gypsies and non-gangsters) who are working very hard at what the local people don’t want to do. Most domestic cleaners, carers for children and the elderly, and many agricultural workers and bar staff, for example, are now immigrants, and have been for some years. Some unemployed people would jump at the chance to look after the elderly or work long hours in a bar, but most wouldn’t, and anyone with any kind of qualification fails even to understand the question.

It’s going to be long, slow and messy.
 
Extract reproduced with the kind permission of the author.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

What Lessons From Germany and Denmark? Conclusion

Denmark has demonstrated to the world that a substantial amount of wind generation capacity can be supported in an electricity grid operating feasibly  -  provided there is ready access to large quantities of hydro-electricity.  Germany has yet to demonstrate the feasibility of its own unique mix of wind power and solar generation with the damaging impact these have in combination on the operation of the electricity marklet, and of grid.  To date, it has narrowly avoided disaster - but only by dint of massive imports from sources that make a mockery of its own 'green', anti-nuclear policies; and by redoubling its efforts to build new coal and lignite-fuelled capacity.

In this concluding post we consider the costs of operating in the Danish and German ways.  Did anyone say it was going to be cheap ?

Denmark doesn't have to answer charges of outright infeasibility.  It should, however, be called to account (if only by its electricity consumers) for the cost of operating as it does.  Advocates of wind-power are inclined to state that every unit of wind-based energy generated is a (largely) carbon-free and (almost) marginal-cost-free contribution to the total amount required, even if they acknowledge that something needs to be on standby for when the wind doesn't blow satisfactorily (roughly 75% of the time).  Those claims are highly misleading.  When considering an entire grid-system as a whole, factors must be taken into account such as the material downgrading of efficiency suffered by gas and coal plants when placed on standby for intermittent deployment; and increased power losses arising from decentralised generation.  These factors erode the magnitude of the benefits claimed, sometimes very significantly (though rarely nullify them altogether, as some ill-judged armchair criticism of windpower asserts).

The other main source of whole-system cost derives from the import-export dynamics required to balance the Danish grid.  When imports are required, Denmark pays full price for hydro-sourced electricity from Norway.  By contrast, when Denmark has a wind-powered net surplus, it must effectively dump this into the Nordic market at close-to-zero prices.  Thus, the balance of trade by value goes heavily against the Danes.

Proponents of wind should be made to recalibrate the benefits they assert: but the full data required to make a comprehensive empirical assessment - even in as small a market as Denmark's - are not made available by the grid operators. One is inclined to assume there are political influences at work: but whatever, we know beyond a doubt that the facts tell negatively against the economics of wind.  The Danes have decided - hopefully in a democratic, if not transparent or quantified manner - to pay for the privilege of their chosen generation mix.  With enough money given to good engineers (and Norwegian hydro-generators), most things are possible.  Having met the engineers, however, I may tell you they tear their hair.

The German situation has all of the opaque Danish issues and much more besides.  We have noted before how solar and wind generation distort price-formation in the German wholesale market - solar in a predictable way, wind in a random manner.  Specifically, and much to the (ignorant) joy of green advocates, they trash the wholesale price (the 'day-ahead' spot market for electricity), being bid into the market at very low prices reflective of their marginal cost, the owners being paid anyway at guaranteed high rates.

But the resultant low (sometimes negative!) market price in no way benefits the average consumer.  What happens next is instructive.  As soon as the day-ahead market closes, perhaps at very low prices, the grid operators must then quickly come up with a supply plan for the day in question that is actually going to satisfy demand.  As a starting-point for this exercise, what the day-ahead market generally gives them to work with is a supply-demand match that is more-or-less balanced in terms of global amounts, but can be horribly out of balance in detailed terms; (a) geographically - there is frequently far more generation committed from windfarms in northern Germany than can be accommodated (the centre of gravity of demand is south of a median line); and (b) in terms of reliability - wind cannot be predicted with sufficient certainty 24 hours ahead.

So the grid operators must revise the despatch schedules, and call on imports and various costly sources of short-notice balancing, in order to keep the show on the road.  Of course, they mostly succeed (good engineers, enough money, etc) - but at a cost.  The key is this: they are entitled to charge the extra costs - and they will always be extra, there is never a cheaper way of doing it - across their customer base.  It doesn't appear in the record of wholesale market prices, but it shows up tangibly enough on the bill.  In consequence, Germans pay the second-highest electricity prices in the EC.

So much for direct cash costs.  As mentioned several times, the elephant in the room that threatens to roll over and crush the other occupants is that, unlike the Danish situation, this costly and dishonest state of German affairs is not stable.  Already, voltage in the grids is unreliable to a degree that many high(ish)-tech manufacturing processes cannot tolerate.  They are having to fend for themselves, either by generating their own electricity, or installing costly modulation equipment - quite a commentary on Europe's greatest economy.

To this second category of unwanted (and unforeseen?) costs we may in future need to add the catastrophic consequences should part of the German grid fail, as is widely anticipated.  The prime candidate for the epicentre of a rolling blackout is the region between Karlsruhe and Munich, from where it would cascade outwards to the whole of southern Germany, eastern France, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic.  A week of this in winter will cost lives - many lives - and if the cash cost even matters against that backdrop it will be very large, too.  In case this is thought to be scare-mongering, the reader should be aware that the German Networks Regulator (Bundesnetzagentur) has spoken out on the subject from the moment the nuclear power-plant closures were announced; and the grid operators have contingency plans in place for outright disaster scenarios.

Thankfully, so far, the good engineers and the money have prevailed.
*  *  *  *  *  *  * 
Civilisation is energy-intensive (Lovelock).  What, then, are the lessons for (e.g.) the UK ?  Beware large-scale unintended consequences:  the renewables lobby will leave us to find out the hard way.

No-one has gone as far down this road as Germany, and we may be destined to learn vicariously from them - at their cost.  In terms of basic physical feasibility (never mind the cost) there is a practical maximum proportion of power that can ever be sustainably had from wind until electricity storage can be made cheap and very efficient: and this is not yet a prospect that may be relied upon.  The precise maximum proportion that wind can (physically) contribute will vary from market to market - hydro is critical - but we cannot all tap into Norway as Denmark has done.

If politicians insist on going for wind-power (and solar power) in as blind and grand a fashion as has Germany, (a) the direct cash costs will greatly exceed what we have been led to believe; (b) indirect costs will mount in parallel; and (c) eventually it becomes positively dangerous to life and limb.

I haven't even touched on whether there are any actual benefits accruing to anyone other than investors and manufacturers in the wind and solar industries.  They would need to be very big, and certain ... 

READ THE EARLIER PARTS OF THIS SERIES:
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE


All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Nick Drew: EDF nuclear energy horse-trading nearing climax

... and goodbye to a colourful industry player: see Nick's latest here.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Nick Drew: EDF nuclear energy horse-trading nearing climax

... and goodbye to a colourful industry player: see Nick's latest here.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Nuclear Endgame - and a Rogue We Will Miss

Looks as though the nuclear strike-price endgame is in prospect.  EDF had softened us up with mention of £140/MWh for their Hinkley output; I had predicted £119.95: DECC seems to be trying to keep it under the hundred, "whatever that means", as the Inde's writer justly puts it.

Because whatever the notional outcome, bear in mind that (a) it will be index-linked, and the electrons will not be in action until 2021; and more significantly  (b) there are so many valuable concessions EDF can be given under the table by way of capped liabilities etc, the headline figure needs to be very heavily qualified - except we probably won't find out in our lifetimes.  (I remember selling diesel fuel to the old GLC / LTE: they would do anything to keep down the nameplate price - the only thing that was reported to the politicians at County Hall - including offering 12 months' interest-free pre-payment !  Easy when you know how.)

Anyhow, we may be sure it will be trumpeted from the rooftops as a great triumph for all concerned - double (prices) all round !
Marchant: Rogue CEO

With impeccable timing, the industry figure who has done most to highlight the outrageousness of all this has jacked his hand in, and we will miss him greatly.  Ian Marchant, the unlikely CEO of Scottish and Southern - only SSE and Centrica of the Big 6 remain as independent British companies - is calling it quits.  I'm guessing not many readers will have met Fat-boy Marchant, but suffice to say he is not a typical FTSE100 boss. His irreverent, flamboyant speeches, and more importantly his plain-speaking comments on the electricity market 'reforms' in general, and the nuclear nonsense in particular, have been a delight over the years.

Hopefully he will still be around in some capacity or other, and we hope for even more uninhibited outbursts from that ample quarter.  

This post first appeared on Capitalists@Work

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

The weather's odd in Africa, too

Wet heads three months early - see World Voices.

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Central African Republic: Rain three months early

Garoua Boulai, Central African Republic - from Google Maps

It's not just in the UK and USA that we've been having unusual weather. Susan from the C.A.R. reported an unexpected tropical downpour on Thursday night - normally the dry season ends in April.

NPR News says experts don't know whether the apparently changing weather patterns are linked to the vagaries of El Niño * or claimed (and disputed) global warming, but reports that "since 1995, 70 percent of hurricane seasons have been busier than normal."

Or, since that makes 17 years so far, perhaps that's the new normal.
__________________

* But a Bermudan insurer has decided it can predict weather events from sea temperatures.

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Cigarette packaging row - my art entry

Following yesterday's challenge, here's my first:

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Monaco - Grim Pix

See World Voices on the fightback against the media, here.

Monaco: Fighting Hollywood and Fleet Street

 
There's a whiff of invidious republicanism in the entertainment and news media, but the Empire fights back...

The Monaco Times reports that the Palace disapproves of the forthcoming film about the late Princess Grace. The Mail on Sunday today depicts it as a tale of imprisonment in the gilded cage of a sham marriage.

On a separate issue, the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times has lost a court case over its defamatory reporting of the wedding in 2011 of Princess Charlene and Prince Albert II, and has agreed to pay £300,000 in damages.

Covering both, and staunchly loyal to the House of Grimaldi, is "The Mad Monarchist" blogger, describing himself as "Unreconstructed reactionary ever plotting counterrevolution and the restoration of the Old Order."

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Cigarette packaging: new art competition

Here are some suggestions, but you can extend the concept. Please post on your blog and notify us of your entry by comment below.