vivweb01blog

Editor's note: Looking back at this blog from 2022 has been instructive in showing just how much has changed since then...and how much hasn't.... Putin is obviously as resolved as ever to continue is 'special operation' in Ukraine, and as the devious campaigner that he is has found ways to circumvent all attempts by the west to broker a cease-fire deal. Even that arch-deal maker himself, Trump, in 'legacy-seeking' mode, has singularly failed to make any impression, and has now finally realised that Putin has been 'playing him' all along. His surprise overnight BBC interview confirmed this, but Trump obviously hasn't given up yet on arranging his 'master deal'. When he does realiise it's hopeless, things could get quite unpleasant for Russia on the economic front, and more to the point, for anyone found to be continuing to trade with Putin. Sadly the religious option we considered in 2022 will clearly not 'fly' Kirill remains a sta...

Editor's note: I first published this blog a year ago - little has changed since then despite a change of government to one supposedly more aligned with green objectives (if you ever believed their election manifesto, that  is). There is clearly a mountain to climb, here, particularly now that the principal offenders, almost all of whom are US based, have the MAGA doctrine to shield their environmental misdeeds. Roll on November 2028 !  ----------------------------   Introduction ‘Big Tech’, as the corporate technology giants are often collectively known, have a business model that is based on planned obsolescence.  Their argument for defending this practice in the face of recent and growing worldwide concern about e-waste is that they are merely responding to consumer demand, and must therefore ‘innovate to survive’.   What they carefully avoid highlighting is that their products are designed to be replaced frequently,  are usually not ‘upward compatibl...

The Trump ‘rumour mill’ has been active again this week, with attention focussed on a possible ‘walk-away’ from the Ukraine peace negotiations, and the possibility of future back-tracking on prohibitive tariffs as part of Trump's now-celebrated ‘deal making’ strategy. The Greenland and Canada acquisitions do seem to be on the back-burner – for now at least, although Charles may have some explaining to do regarding 'a certain speech' when he has his next audience with 'the Donald' during his state visit to UK. I did pick up on one quite interesting variant on the territorial acquisitions front which might be of interest to UK readers, however – 'bonnie' Scotland. Apparently, Trump and his acquisitions team have picked up on the problems the Scottish Nationalists are having in government at present, and 'twigged' that Reform are likely to do well in the Holyrood elections next year. Their recent increase in vote share in the Hamilton by-electio...

Editor's note: I can now confirm from personal experience that the situation with respect to availability of 'routine' appointments is truly dire.  I attempted to book one at our local GP practice over the counter yesterday and was told '...sorry, there are no available appointments on my system'. An attempt today to book an appointment online via the SystmOnline software our practice uses for bookings showed no appointments available in the period where booking was available, ending mid-September (i.e. at least an 8-week wait, with no guarantee of anything would be forthcoming after that.) This is clearly unacceptable and confirms that a policy of 'Rationing by Availability' by the NHS is firmly in force. On the basis of recent media reports, I suspect this is country-wide and not just an isolated case. The government has emphasised the need to keep the population healthy to help the NHS, and we are regularly encouraged not to delay if we detect anything ...

Please excuse the rather hard-hitting question in the title of this blog, but needs must - this is potentially pretty serious, partcularly if you're one of our many hard-up pensioners….. The Labour leadership is getting desperate now, and as we all know, desperation often leads to serious mistakes…this certainly would be a monumental one. OK, what's all the fuss about ? There are a number of evil rumours abound in the media (and not just the socials) that Reeves is now actively considering means-testing the State Pension in October as part of her 'Black Hole filling' project.  The Inter-generational Foundation think tank is reported to have gone as far as recommending it to government as a way of  "..distributing resources more fairly between the generations..". Starmer has already been challenged on why he has allowed the tax threshold freezes to bring some pensioners, who have the state pension as their sole income, into the basic rate tax net at al...