Winter, long in coming, has finally arrived
At the end of this week we’re presented with MSM front pages, proclaiming doom and gloom for the coming weeks. The top place of the BBC’s compilation is given to the DM, warniing their readers and all who check out the BBC site: “Don’t fall ill, don’t rely on trains and forget sending Christmas cards: week of strikes holding Britain hostage”. (link).
Lower down, the Red Tops are desperately trying to drum up enthusiasm for the footie game later tonight. If England wins, I’m sure we’ll all be happy to survive the coming week. If the Frogs beat us then next week’s misery will feel even worse, especially since it’s staying cold.
However, haven’t we’ve been in this situation before, not because of strikes but because of lockdowns? Surely we can’t all have forgotten that we were perfectly capable of surviving those times!
Still, there’s the cold. Helpful as always, Auntie B. has compiled a little Q & A article: “UK weather: How long will the cold snap last?” (link). They answer that question in the second paragraph. It is profound:
“Forecasters think we’re likely to be experiencing icy temperatures until at least early next week and maybe beyond that, but what’s causing the cold snap and should we be surprised?” (link).
Yes, that’s all – the rest of that article is filled with explanations about the causes. for this cold snap. I wonder if being cold in December surprises anyone, but then again, the Lockdown/WFH generation may feel shocked, especially since fleeing to warmer climes might be a bit less affordable and the strikes might hamper those ‘experiences’. Perhaps they ought to read this warning in the DM. As always, the headline and subheadigns are a lovely summary:
“Met Office warns FOUR INCHES of snow could blanket London as Troll of Trondheim sends temperatures plunging below zero… causing Gatwick runway to ‘FREEZE’ and trapping passengers onboard planes for ‘HOURS’ – The Met Office forecasts snow could hit the capital as early as Sunday morning – The UK will see at least seven days of freezing temperatures as low as -10C – Passengers at Gatwick saw snow on Friday and complained of delays due to ice” (link)
If you scroll down a bit in yon article you’ll find a nice interactive weather chart. Lo and behold: there’s hardly any wind! The outlook for wind power producing fabulous green energy which ‘costs nothing because the wind is free’ looks rather, ahem, disappointing.
‘Tis a pity we can’t cut off electricity to all those greenies and the families of those ‘Extinction’ and ‘No Oil Rebels’, to grant them their wishes. Let them freeze. I wonder though if that lot, happy to glue themselves to roads, will keep doing it, or if they prefer to glue themselves to artwork in museums where it’s adry and warmer than outside.
Meanwhile, there’s a rather disturbing report in The Times, about a new ‘chatbot’ released in the USA. Hands up anyone who hasn’t had to do battle online with “I’m here to help” chatbots which make one rush to the equally infuriating phone helplines where one at least gets to hear execrable music for hours, just to be able, hopefully, to talk to a person even though their English is barely intelligible. See this:
“More than two million people have been playing with ChatGPT, discovering that it can write scripts, essays, contracts, computer code, jokes, poems and marketing pitches to a high level. It synthesises long pieces of text, does business analysis, translates languages, gives creative suggestions and can answer hypotheticals. It has provided a lot of fun for those trying it out, but has also opened up some tantalising possibilities. Think of all the knowledge in the world: what would it be like to have easy access to that through a piece of artificial intelligence with which you could casually chat?” (link, paywalled)
So this new Ai technology, this ‘ChatGPT’, will make life easier for everybody online? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but is the generation which has grown up with ‘the web’, is ‘generation smartphone’ no longer capable of doing all those online tasks themselves? Surely it’s only us old, useless boomers who don’t know the first thing about ‘teh interwebz’, so is this AI for us? Apparently not:
“In the past ten days, however, it has become apparent that the technology behind ChatGPT, developed by the OpenAI company in San Francisco, could revolutionise education, business, science, health, professional services and consumer behaviour. […] For those who study the impact of technology on society and work, its consumer applications could seem trivial compared with the potential transformation in health, education and justice.” (link, paywalled)
Blimey! Transforming ‘justice’? The mind boggles … For sheer but shortsighted hyperbole look at this statement:
“Richard Susskind, co-author of the book The Future of the Professions, said: “Almost everything that we do today online will be more convenient because of this, booking the cinema, buying clothes and so on. But my excitement, in many ways, is not about enhancing our existing daily uses of technology. It’s about how we have, in our guts, the sense that we can solve the global health problem, we can solve the global education problem, we can solve the global justice problem by somehow having different ways of spreading the expertise.” (link, paywalled)
Yes: everything will be so much better, so much more convenient, and all the world’s problems will be solved! Globally! Conveniently forgotten are the problems of HiTech strangling personal freedoms – Twitter is the most prominent example. Conveniently forgotten is the question about ethics: should an AI ‘govern’ our daily lives, from ‘health policies’ to driving our cars?
Is ‘agency’, the way we ourselves run our own lives, now going to be made subservient to an AI because it’s ever so ‘convenient’? I’m sure it’ll be convenient to present one’s smartphone with QR codes because AI sez so! The lockdown ‘experiences’ showed we accepted this. Mind you – no politicians need to be involved, AI will do it all.
Let’s better not ask about what ‘social justice’ parameters are being programmed into that AI and who determines them. Let’s not ask if there’s a way out. Better not question how much more of scarce electricity will be needed for running those extra server farms and charging yon smartphones! Never mind asking what’ll happen should something disrupt all this fine electronic traffic, from horrible weather disrupting electricity supply to even more horrible ‘space weather’, crashing all electronics. Here’s the always helpful Auntie B with a report. Will ‘generation smartphone’ be able to survive?
I’m sure though that even such an AI ‘chatbot’ won’t change the poisonous gossip from Whitehall. The latest is a sweet little report in The Times, about ‘a friend of Carrie’ quitting her job: “Nimco Ali: adviser to Home Office quits with Suella Braverman attack” (link, paywalled). Oh dear. We read that Nimco said she and Suella are ‘on a different planet’ and that she’s ‘not comfortable’ working with her. Oh dearie me!
Right at the end of that gossipy report we find this: “It is understood that Ali’s contract was due to come to an end in the next fortnight.” (link, paywalled) – a big Nothing Burger then, only worthy of notice because it’s another dig at Ms Braverman, painting Ms Ali as ‘victim’. Nice.
Since it’s the weekend and we all need something to read while the nation is being told to succumb to ‘footie fever’. I highly recommend this blog article by Aurelien: “Peter Pan goes to Ukraine – Some people never grow up”. At first glance it’s about the Ukraine but in fact it’s a devastating analysis of the infantilism of our western society and our politicians.
Given the report on that new chatbot, I wonder what chances there are for people in our western society to grow up when they happily park their brains and let AIs do all the ‘inconvenient’ things for them. I wonder when we’ll read the first AI composed articles telling us that reading rots our brains.
I however shall spend this cold weekend with my books, with my music and playing with my dog. Keep warm, keep sane and resist the wreckers of our society and culture.
SY
“In today’s Times there is an opinion piece by Matthew Parris who, reluctantly and with much hand wringing, concludes that deportations to Rwanda or some British Overseas Territory is now the only way to stop the boats crossing the channel. ”
Yes this is exactly the way that useless wankers think.
There are a myriad of alternatives.
Where can I send my fee proposals?
I am at a disadvantage as I do not own a pub frequented by a NobHead.
Get me out of here (please).
I am convinced that he expressed this view because he knows it won’t get off the ground and that suits him fine. The last thing this wet wants, is for political pressure to build up for us to leave the ECHR, the Global Compact on Migration and other EU/International agreements which will widen the opportunities to effective border controls. Having said that some of us have known for 10 years or more that the Tories have no intention of controlling mass immigration.
Viv, you have raised more important question today but all I feel like saying is that we should drive a few tanks over the just stop oil protesters. Cars wont do because it would damage the suspension!
Bear with me on this one. Speaking of the Troll, there is a new Netflix film of that name, set in Norway obviously. Embarrassing even as a B-movie; no cliche of the genre is omitted. Loose ends, or beginnings, everywhere. At least no overt or subliminal woke messages for a change, er, save one. A big one. Trolls apparently lived alongside humans, so why did the Trolls disappear into seeming hibernation beneath the mountains, and why so angry? We are told in passing that it was the ‘Christianisation of Norway’ wot did it! So ‘Christianisation’ drove a species into near extinction. Yes, I know the whole thing is junk, but why slip in that daft premise, and why now? Another nudge for the stressed out snowflake generation, the target audience? Happy Christmas from Netflix.
Phil O’S. I wondered why the sudden demonisation of Norway. Hydro electricity? Or does it go back to WW2?
Only Trolls I’ve ever come across in my past reading were in Tolkien’s books.
In reply to Stout – direct comment not working…
1962-63: I remember it well too, snow drifting up to the bedroom window sill and having to dig our way out through the front door. Travelling difficult too with one road over the Pennines being blocked several feet deep at its summit for many days. I wonder how the woke would deal with such things today? Writing of the woke here is an interesting article on them:
https://thorsteinn.substack.com/p/woke-is-fascist-reflections-on-simon
Evil beings who would destroy life as we know it; presumably they think that they would not be affected by their actions. As for most in government they are beyond evil. What will it take to waken up the populace at large?
AI – rubbish in, rubbish out. I stopped listening years ago. Stout, I suspect my language would be just as intemperate to put it mildly.
1962-63 saw blizzards and the river Thames freezing. I grew up without central heating and winter meant waking up to ice on my bedroom window and my breath condensing. Frosts were frequent and while the timing of snow varied most winters saw some snow. Everyone seemed to accept winters were cold. Indeed, it was the definition of winter. Life went on without media hysteria. Has the prevalence of central heating turned us into a nation of namby pambies? Or is it the new culture of safetyism /anti-discomfortism?
Carrie’s friend, and Carrie herself, are indeed on a different planet (to sane people). Nimco Ali’s self-regarding opinion is no more news worthy than that of any other tofu eating Guardian reader except, as Viv points out, its target is Braverman. Evidently, the Braverman must go movement has not gone away, but it may already have missed its chance. In today’s Times there is an opinion piece by Matthew Parris who, reluctantly and with much hand wringing, concludes that deportations to Rwanda or some British Overseas Territory is now the only way to stop the boats crossing the channel. The beginnings of a shift in liberal opinion perhaps. There’s a chance then that Sunak and his cabinet will not hold Braverman back, but support her against her mandarins. I’m not holding my breath, but it is hard to abandon all hope.
A battle against AI and automation was lost some time ago. Well, there was no battle as it insidiously sneaked up on us and we woke up too late. It has many cheerleaders in positions of influence and we, the sceptical and disadvantaged masses, don’t stand a chance. But, we should gear up somehow against the WEF’s plans for digital IDs and currencies, plans already well advanced in some European countries. One of the leading companies in all this is Infosys, founded by the father of Sunak’s wife and in which she has a significant shareholding. Absolutely no influence on Sunak’s backing for digital currencies. None at all. Like Johnson and Prince Harry, these upstanding men are completely unaffected by the views and interests of their wives. If only.
Snow is forecast for the south tomorrow. As there is no wind it will not be a blizzard. The only blizzard we can expect is from government nudge units (faithfully implemented by our now completely brain dead, compliant media) as they seek to soften us up for net zero and digital IDs and currency. This will get worse in the New Year.
I have a New Year’s Resolution ready for all this, but a sense of decorum prevents me from sharing it as the language would be intemperately rude.
Talking of people on a different planet. Some people never grow up… they attend parties to raise money for their social set. Never mind the consequences….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/matt-hancock/article-11505019/Matt-Hancock-launches-Pandemic-Diaries-Former-Health-Secretary-smiles-book-release.html#article-11505019
And what the f is Tice doing here? I suppose he is supporting his girlfriend but it’s not somewhere he should be ..Big mistake imho
What indeed. In response to a tweet of a picture of him and Hancock he claims he was berating Hancock and critics should “think outside the box”. That is naive if not also disingenuous.
I should make clear, as other comments of mine about Reform seem not to have been understood in the way I intended, that I do not rate Tice whom I see as a follower of whatever way the wind is blowing and not a leader or agenda setter. He caught on about immigration far too late. Unless Farage takes a more active role I doubt the Tories have much to fear. Even Sunak has grasped that immigration is a problem. He doesn’t need the slight rise of Reform to tell him that though it is yet to be seen if he has grasped the solution – withdrawing from the ECHR. amending anti-slavery rules, internment camps while illegals are processed, and deportations. In short, remove the pull factor. That is now Reform policy at least. 7000 new members since Truss is a drop in the Tory ocean. It generates £175K but £2 million is needed to fight a GE.
Reform getting on the radar in the media as they now do is no bad thing. Where Reform falls short is over the culture war, something of paramount importance since, as Lord Frost made clear, it needs to be won to create the possibility of diminishing the state and reducing taxes and stimulating growth. Tice is too focused on disaffected Tories like himself.
Stout. What I would like to know about Tice, is whether he has access to really big money. Can’t think of any other reason for N.F. letting him take the lead.
Tice owns a property company worth c. £500 million.
“Matthew Parris who, reluctantly and with much hand wringing, concludes that deportations to Rwanda or some British Overseas Territory is now the only way to stop the boats crossing the channel. The beginnings of a shift in liberal opinion perhaps. There’s a chance then that Sunak and his cabinet will not hold Braverman back, but support her against her mandarins. I’m not holding my breath, but it is hard to abandon all hope.”
Perhaps Parris floats this view because he considers that it would fail. Lets face it Parris’ views have tended to support the continuation of population replacement as have the Tory wets who are in the majority in the Party. He doesn’t (I presume) mention that the Tories have never attempted to remove the ‘pull’ factors – never allowing permanent settlement, no housing, no money, withdrawing from the ECHR and associated legal structures that make the the removal of illegals process so difficult. And why does the RNLI rescue these people at sea and bring them back here? Why not take them back to France from whence they came? If this led to a confrontation with France then fine. Italy has stood up to France on this issue I believe.
There is an obligation to rescue people at sea under Maritime Law, a duty the Border Force and RNLI seem to delight in. The French regard rescue as achieved by handing people over to the British. Life in the UK is much better than in camps around Calais – fewer bleeding heart liberals in France it seems and when French cops go into camps as they occasionally do they do it with a vigour completely lacking in our cops – so of course the illegals come. The UK’s pull factor at work. The French make a pantomime of trying to stop them because, quite rationally, they are happy for them to leave.
The EU is the problem for not controlling its borders in the Mediterranean. Even now it is too little, too late so far as they make any attempt at all. Once in the EU – Greece and Italy mainly – illegals are give free rail travel across Europe to the French coast. The EU aid and abet invasion and should be regarded as a hostile power.
Viv. Thanks for the link Peter Pan goes to Ukraine……. Interesting perspectives – no easy solutions.
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To be honest though, looking at what passes for journalism these days something written by a charbot could well be a very big improvement. A quick look at all the world’s knowledge (censored of course to the correct message) published on social media and video blog sites should be enough for anyone to see where that particular ‘journey’ will end.