So while we await my digesting of the Truss energy masterplan ...
... at the weekend, granddaughter Drew (9) entered a 'roar race'. Nope, me neither. These racers are small electric bikes with a 'reverse megaphone' attachment. The louder the kid roars into the megaphone, the more power they get! Bloody brilliant, I wish they'd been around several decades ago.
Anyhow, gD was pretty confident of her decibel potential, and so it proved. Overcoming a severe jostle-induced wobble at the start - did I say this is fiercely competitive stuff? - she got well into her power-yelling, and snatched the lead around the outside in the closing couple of yards, to take first place on the podium.
Grand-paternal pride, or what?!
To round things off nicely, gD's cousin (8) had staked her pocket money on gD to win, knowing all too well the power in her playmate's lungs. We're talking Yorkshire here, where people seem to make a book at the drop of a hat (is this a legacy of whippet racing, or summat?). The cousin cleaned up.
A very satisfactory outing. The energy stuff can wait.
ND
17 comments:
Congratulations on getting your priorities right, Nick.
As a proud Grandad myself, I know what it means…
Great stuff, many congrats to your gd.
Philip Pilkington over at The Critic speaks for me on Trussonomics.
I would have gone up the M6 at Mach 2 today if we had one of those. Wife was driving, quite terrifying.
Sorry. I'd win that race right now.
Well done your granddaughter though.
Competitive Grandad...... who knew ?
Good stuff Nick :-) Tho' I would state that whilst neither my generation or my kids had "roar races", we did have tin drums, which too could generate a truly appalling noise.
Sadly, no tin drum competitions tho'...
It would be fun if Speedway took this up, remembering many happy nights at the Belle Vue Speedway stadium watching Ivan Mauger lead the Belle Vue Aces (symbol, the Ace of Clubs on the back of their vest) to victory over whoever, and laughing at the noobs who stood at the corners of the ground, little knowing that cornering involved taking the bike right down low and spraying cinder into the stands...
And the smell of the fuel...
It's the grandchildren of the quiet ones you have to look out for....:D Proud for you Nick <3
Step granddaughter turns 10 any minute. Asked for slippers...size 8...I think we are breeding some Amazons, thankfully!
P'raps Steven Bray should be given one of these vehicles, pointed towards a cliff.
Poole Pirates Speedway
Back in the day when enforced Health and Safety meant being told off for throwing fireworks at each other after 10pm.
Mrs D was into speedway. Being a Midlands gal, it was the Coventry Bees @ Brandon, and the Warwick Blue Diamonds
DJK - that's a highly salutary essay you've come up with there: thanks
I really hate to spit in the punch, and well done gDrew, but this document sounds like a step nearer to WW3.
https://www.president.gov.ua/storage/j-files-storage/01/15/89/41fd0ec2d72259a561313370cee1be6e_1663050954.pdf
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/09/15/btuv-s15.html
On Tuesday, a group of former prime ministers, foreign ministers and other high-level officials from NATO countries published a document effectively proposing a formal alliance between Ukraine and NATO countries that, if adopted, threatens to transform the proxy war in Ukraine into a full-scale conflict between NATO and Russia. The document, titled the Kyiv Security Compact, was formally presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who endorsed it, called for its adoption and published it on the website of the Ukrainian presidency.
The document calls for “the US, UK, Canada, Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, Turkey, and Nordic, Baltic, and Central European countries” to make “legally and politically binding” agreements to ally with Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia.” The document affirms the intention of Ukraine to join NATO and the European Union, declaring, “Both NATO and EU membership will significantly bolster Ukraine’s security in the long-term. However, Ukraine needs security guarantees now,” the document says. It adds, “Ukraine needs iron-clad security guarantees. These will come predominantly—though not exclusively—from NATO countries.”
The document was drafted by the “Working group on security guarantees for Ukraine,” which included senior politicians from all of the imperialist powers. The group, co-chaired by former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, includes former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt, former UK Foreign Secretary Lord William J. Hague of Richmond, as well as former ministers from Germany, Italy, Poland and France. Fully aware of the inflammatory character of the document, the group’s communications stressed that “members [of the working group] are taking part in a personal capacity, not as representatives of their organisations.”
Also proud Grand dad somewhat older GC but she is supposed to be studying but is all over world ocean racing sends in her Uni work on net - doing well. The opportunities' for young are unbelievable. Such confidence I look back on my youth trogging round gasworks with box of test bottles for £225 pa!!
>“members [of the working group] are taking part in a personal capacity,"
One can only hope that "Mad" Liz Truss & co see some sense and reject this.
In 1939 a British Empire of 500 million people, with vast reserves of natural resources and manufacturing capability, was actually in a position to offer realistic guarantees to Poland. Now, well not so much.
"to offer realistic guarantees to Poland". I don't see how.
The only way to help Poland on the necessary time scale would have needed the French to play ball and invade Germany from the west with whatever help our tiny army could afford. They wouldn't.
The Polish Guarantees were an attempt to stop Hitler thinking there could be yet another, no consequences, Land grab of a territory on his border. They guarantee was completely unrealistic, as dearieme says.
Up until the expression of guarantee the UK, a daft ace, in being so cautious and vague in expressing support and consequences, that Chamberlain was warned he was going to end up guaranteeing every country against every other country, if they didn’t start naming names.
( The Entente powers were trying to not name Italy and Spain as fascist aggressors. And to not name Germany, so as to leave some room for wriggling. Once Poland was called as an ally, then there was no more room. .
As it turned out, the desire to name enemies turned out far better than could have been foreseen. More so, as when the USSR invaded Poland a few weeks after Germany, in September 1939.
Neither Great Britain or France declared war on the USSR. Due to the deliberate action of limiting the guarantee of defence of Poland, to one of assistance against only Germany aggression.)
BTW the guarantee of defence of Poland was March 1939.
Hitler had the time to call it all off if he really wanted.
@BQ Polish pogroms against Germans in Danzig in elsewhere applied pressure to the German government to act.
History isn't as clear-cut as it is made to look in hindsight.
"and" elsewhere, not in.
Odd the way your fingers type your thoughts sometimes.
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