AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Why do we sing hymns at Mass? The practice has become almost universal during the past 50 years, following the introduction of the vernacular in the liturgy. There is, in reality, no place of them in a Catholic Mass, since the parts that are meant for the people to sing are the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei , which together make up what is known as the Ordinary of the Mass. In English speaking countries, there were at first no musical settings for the text of the Ordinary, which was recited in a normal speech tone. In order to provide some music, hymns were inserted as replacements for the Introit, Offertory and Communion antiphons (that part of the Mass known as the Proper), plus a Recessional hymn. Thus evolved the notorious "Hymn Sandwich". Here in Sweden the situation was considerably better as there was a long tradition of Gregorian Chant in the vernacular. It was a natural and obvious choice to adopt this music and build on the tradition when the verna...

Doro produces mobile phones which are supposed to be for people who want a simple device. I have had one since August. It must be the worst mobile phone I have ever owned. The model I purchased was a Phoneasy in gloss red with a camera. The message facility is awful. Very poor predictive text with limited vocabulary. Cannot change language without closing and changing Settings, and it is difficult to find. It takes EIGHT key presses to delete each and every message. Calendar fixtures cannot be copied to another day or time. The online backup facility did not work. Battery life not good considering it is just a phone. Microphone aperture is in the corner exactly where it will be covered when holding the phone. Very poor build quality. Squidgy keys - have to be pressed on exactly the right spot. Red lacquer scratches easily and has started to wear through to the grey plastic underneath. The back detachable cover has started to split at the corners. There is more but that i...

Following the recent shooting, I got involved in a discussion on the Guardian's web site.This was the response I got to my question about when does a clump of cells become a person. "At conception. However, being a person does not provide the right to use another person's body. Born humans can't demand the use of other people's organs - even those of their own parents, even if they will die without them. Why should unborn people have more rights than anyone else?" This raises an interesting issue. If we laid eggs it would make matters so much simpler. They could be kept in the fridge or sold on ebay. Or eaten. It is something for genetic engineers to get working on. They could try inserting a few chicken genes to see what happens.

Sweden has now closed its "open door" to refugees and people who purport to be refugees. The details are not clear yet but this is obviously a complete about-turn. It is an admission of a gross error of judgement on the part of the Swedish government. There is a lot to be said in this kind of situation for the robust style of British parliamentary debate. In a similar situation there would have been several minutes of booing and jeering the the Commons. It would have been well deserved. The Swedes can be too polite. There are times when it is necessary to be forthright.

It is amazing the number of people who apply the label "bigot" to those who try to warn them about the essentially intolerant nature of Islam. They will have to learn the hard way. The Syrian refugee crisis has brought this to the surface. There is a genuine desire to extend feelings of compassion, expressed in the phrase "what would Jesus have done?" The majority of the refugees - at least 90% - are Muslims. Surveys suggest that between 20% and 40% of Muslims take their religion seriously, This means that there is always a reservoir of individuals who are radicalised or could become radicalised. That risk continues from generation to generation as relatively few from this group assimilate by intermarriage; in the UK, the radical Muslims are the grandchildren of the original immigrants. Radical Muslim is a misnomer, for these are nothing more than individuals who take seriously one of the fundamental tenets of Islam - Jihad. Thus, an open-doors policy is exposing ...

Even after the Paris bombings, people are still going around in public with clothing which marks them out as Muslims. Have they no sense of shame at all? Do they lack any sensitivity? Or do they quietly approve of the massacre? What a display of brass neck. Have they failed to notice that Islam has become a toxic brand?

The other evening I had a long telephone conversation with a left-wing friend. This is what she did not want to hear. I am shocked at how the left in general are welcoming an influx of people who espouse the most reactionary, racist and illiberal views circulating on the planet.Antisemitism is embedded within Islam.Committed Muslims worship a man who personally ordered the massacre by beheading of 600 Jews and the enslavement of their wives and children. In the Koran, Jews are referred to many times as pigs who need to be killed. Objecting to this kind of thing is not racist, but they should no more be welcomed than one would welcome an army of Waffen SS. It is a continuation of the process which began with the ethnic cleansing of Christians and Jews from the Saudi-Arabian peninsula in the seventh century. The first victims of this, are, as always, the Jews. Both in Malmö and here in Gothenburg, they face constant harrassment, violence and threats of violence (including death an...

It is not generally known that Merkel was brought up in East Germany. This could explain quite a lot. Here is part of the Wikpedia entry. Like most young people in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Merkel was a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official youth movement sponsored by the ruling Socialist Unity Party. Membership was nominally voluntary, but those who did not join found it all but impossible to gain admission to higher education. She did not participate in the secular coming of age ceremony Jugendweihe, however, which was common in East Germany. Instead, she was confirmed. Later, at the Academy of Sciences, she became a member of the FDJ district board and secretary for "Agitprop" (Agitation and Propaganda). Merkel claimed that she was secretary for culture. When Merkel's one-time FDJ district chairman contradicted her, she insisted that: "According to my memory, I was secretary for culture. But what do I know? I believe I won'...

 A pleasanter subject altogether - the Presces and Responses by William Smith, Cathedral organist at Durham.

There is a flood of what are described as "lone refugee children" arriving in Sweden. Most of them are male and appear to be in their mid-twenties. Some of them have undoubtedly been through the mill, but whatever else they are, they are not children. One must also ask where are the girls? This is not to say that they should not be given refuge but to describe them as children is misleading and destroys trust in the the authorities and media who persist in using the term. One wonders what else is being hidden. Who is a refugee and who has been sent to form part of a terrorist sleeper cell? It is not as if it is difficult to establish someone's age if they are between 14 and 20. X-rays of wrists and teeth, and a dental examination will reveal how old they are. Some of these "children" have receding hairlines which means that it is highly improbable that they are not at least 25 years old.

Titta på bilden av detta "flyktingbarn"  Artikeln i Metro beskriver honom som 18 år gammal. Hans historien är visserligen hemsk, men värför beskriver honom som "barn"? Detta är löjligt. Den vikande hårfäste och skrynklig pannan gör att killen ser ut som om han är 25-30 år gammal. Stackars barnet börjar bli skalligt! Ålder kan konstateras genom röntgenering av handled, tänder och undersökning av tänder. Stoppa denna påstående att unga män är "barn". Folk är inte idioter. Och var finns flickorna, förresten?

Turkey's election result gives the lie to the claim that Islam and a liberal democracy are compatible. If only they were. The root of this is the religion's theology and the relationship between man and God - slave and master. That is not conducive to democracy in the way that the Trinitarian Christian concept of God is - the Christian God becomes man and in doing so, humanity is divinised. So different are the two concepts of God as to make nonsense of the claim that "we worship the same God". Sadly we do not. The result is also bad for Turkey from another point of view. Erdogan is a committed anti-semite; this follows logically from the numerous statements in the Koran that Jews are variously pigs, or descendants of pigs. Anti-semitism can be regarded as some kind of mental illness, or a symptom of mental illness, that either affects the sufferers' inability to think rationally, or is a symptom of a general inability to think rationally. Anti-semites make t...

Swedish texts have been set to Gregorian chant both for the Catholic and national Lutheran churches, as well as for religious communities, although there are important gaps. There is no setting for the Creed, nor for the Entrance or Communion antiphons, or the Alleluia verses. All of the settings appear to have been written in five-line notation instead of the four-line neum notation which was invented for Gregorian chant. This gives rise to difficulties. (A) With five-line notation the lines must be closer together. It is more difficult to see a note on a four-line stave than a five-line one. In most cases the upper line, and often the two upper lines, are redundant because Gregorian music does not normally extend over the range provided by a five-line stave. (B) A five-line stave with clef mark indicates an absolute pitch, whereas the four-line Gregorian notation has a doh or fa clef and indicates relative pitch, like tonic solfa notation. This allows choirs to decide where to ...

Today's earthquake is a reminder that Afghanistan and Iran sit on top of an earthquake zone. Hopefully a big earthquake will destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities sooner rather than later. The Al Aksa in Jerusalem mosque are also on an active fault. With a bit of luck the next earthquake should reduce it to a pile of rubble. Those of us who follow earthquakes will remember that the Israelis have good rescue equipment, including heavy lifting gear, and were amongst the first to arrive after the Haiti earthquake. This means that they combine doing a good deed with keeping their own people up to date in their training. The Palestinians will then blame the Israelis for not giving them priority when it comes to rescue operations. They will probably also blame the Jews for the earthquake itself.

Recent events have focussed attention on the need for security in places where people gather. So far, there have been incidents involving lone individuals, but organised activity is also a possibility; last week, in a quiet suburb of Gothenburg, a restaurant owned by an Assyrian Christian was sprayed with ISIS slogans – “Convert or die”, “Caliphate is here” and the Arabic “N” (ن) symbol applied to Christian property in places which have been taken over by ISIS. There have been incidents in the recent past which might have been prevented by basic security, including Hisingen fire of 1996 which resulted in 63 deaths, and an attack by a nude swordman on a church in South London in 1999. Catholic churches are at risk because they are well attended, especially those which host congregations membership from Syria and Iraq. A particular difficulty for Catholic churches is that their congregations are large enough for strangers to be able to slip in without being noticed. WE SHOULD NOT BE FR...

In this video , Michael Voris is heavily critical of Pope Benedict's resignation. What is one to make of it? I have always had misgivings about it myself. For a start, what precedent has it set?

Worthing, on the south coast of England, is one of the places where people go to spend their last few years in peace and quiet. That has long been its reputation. It has never been quite true. Trains between Brighton and Worthing can get pretty rowdy late in the evenings especially at weekends. But this from the local paper a couple of days ago is something altogether different. Teenage girl cornered by ten men and sexually assaulted while one brandished knife .

Proposals are being put around for a tax on sugar. The aim is to discourage people from eating food and drinks with sugar. Advocates of this idea have grasped the obvious point that if you tax something, people are discouraged from doing that particular thing. So why do governments persist in raising most of their revenue from taxes on successful legal economic activity - on things like work, goods and services? Do politicians have a few missing vital connections in their thinking apparatus?

Allah rejoices when a Jew is killed, so it is no surprise to read that at Park View Academy in Birmingham , where Muslim took over the board of governors, is promoting antisemitism among its pupils. This has resulted in disciplinary action. The next target needs to be the mosques themselves. If their leaders are promoting antisemitism, then they need to be prosecuted and sentenced if guilty. After that, there needs to be a crackdown on distribution of the Koran itself. An authorised version is required, with the bloodthirsty passages removed. If they are not meant to be taken seriously then they do not need to be there.

The first assumptions following yesterday's school murders at Trolhättan were that the perpetrator was a Muslim. That is in itself significant and indicates the prevailing level of mistrust. It now turns out, however, that the assailant was a weird young man with extreme right-wing interests. Whether he was sane or not, he looks like another in the Breivik mould. Had it been a Muslim, it would have led to a stepping-up of the wanton unpleasantness that identifiable Muslims have to put up with. That it was not, is, to put it mildly, unhelpful to the immigration debate currently in progress in Sweden. Either way, it is an indication that there is a limit to the numbers of newcomers a community can absorb before the tensions become too great, and that the greater the cultural differences between newcomer and host, the smaller the number that can be absorbed. This is a simple and obvious fact that politicians are ignoring. The numbers flowing in as a result of the current Swedish o...

This article , which is not open for comments, criticises Netanyahu for referring to the role of the Palestinian leader from 1920, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The claim is that the Mufti was responsible to convince the Nazis to go for the Final Solution when he visited the Nazi leaders in 1941. The theory surfaced about a year ago. The timing is right, because the Final Solution was not agreed on until 1942. That does not of course mean that he played a decisive role; it might well have been more like one extra stone that tipped a balance.Certainly he was well aware of what was going on, supported it all the way through and was firm in his opposition to the emigration of Jews to Palestine. My criticism is of the article's silence on all the rest of the Mufti's previous activities. He was encouraging progroms against Jews in Palestine from as early as 1920, when interest in Zionism amongst Jews was minimal and the prospect of any Jewish state was remote. Throughout the 1920s...

An increasing number of newspaper articles no longer have an opportunity to comment, or if they do, then it is closed after a short while.Thus the journalists are withdrawing into an ivory tower where they no longer receive feedback from the public at large. In the internet age, is that people will stop taking notice when what they read does not correspond to what they see on the ground, or to the information that the pick up from the rumour mill. This affects in particular articles on what is the issue of most concern to most people today - immigration. There is a widespread and well-founded fear of a large influx of Muslim immigrants. Unjustified fear of immigration in the past has given rise to the "Cry Wolf" syndrome. This time there is a wolf. The trouble is that, as was to be expected, the populist right has picked up the cause and is running with it, whilst the mainstream politicians are either blind, or too cowardly to admit that there is a wolf. This is poiso...

Catholics should not need to be reminded that what is happening today with the Islamic invasion of Europe is primarily a battle in the spiritual war against the devil. Islamic terrorism works by instilling fear – that is its aim and purpose. If we become terrorised, then the devil has obtained a foothold in our own souls. We must strengthen our own faith and courage. Catholics have nothing to fear. We have the all the angels and saints and the entire company of the heavenly host on our side. We have, in particular, Our Lady, St Michael, St Eric and St Brigit, Patron Saint of Europe. Whilst we do not deliberately seek martyrdom, if it comes, we avoid the torments of purgatory and gain the crown of glory with the saints in heaven. Our first efforts must be to increase our efforts at prayer, including this one which has been neglected for many decades, which was revealed to Pope Leo XIII in a vision in 1884. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection agains...

The flow of news and comments pieces on the subject of immigration, and in particular, Muslim immigration, continues to rise. Also on the increase is a tendency not to allow comments. In the age of the internet, this will backfire. The mainstream news media are beginning to lose their credibility to the rumour mills. This kind of suppression is a dangerous trend and feeds extremism.

For several years now we have read about attacks on congregations during church services in countries like India and Pakistan, Nigeria, Tanzania and other places where there is a significant Muslim presence. The time has now come when we can expect to see similar things in Western Europe, for example in Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and, probably at the top of the list – Sweden. ISIS has arrived in force in Göteborg and other Swedish cities. Members of the Islamic group have been present for several years. Their supporters stand in the main shopping centre in Göteborg every week, but the activists have previously travelled away to the Middle East to commit their war crimes. Some have now returned. More have come with the flow of refugees, as ISIS announced they would. Estimates are that several dozen arrived each week. At one refugee residence in West Sweden, a reliable source expressed the view that nearly all the men living there were ISIS; a single Christian from Dama...

Islamic body count.

Perceptive comment in a response to a an article in the Guardian. The comment was about an article in the Guardian. "Countries with a Jew obsessed leadership generally come unstuck. This is NOT because Jews are so powerful that they are able to disrupt and destroy our enemies. Rather it is because leaders with that kind of madness generally make terrible choices. Jew obsession is a reliable leading indicator of terrible things to come - Syria being an excellent example." The comment applies equally well to Israel obsession and Iraq is another example. It makes one wonder where countries like Sweden are heading.

The unfolding mess in Sweden is the consequence of a national character which is mixture of good intentions and hubristic arrogance about the country's ability to cure all the world's problems, combined with lack of sound reason and an understanding of history. In normal circumstances it could have got away with it but the combination of a grand coalition with current events has produced a series of bad decisions across all policy areas. Just a thought.

"Racist" has become a meaningless term. It is just a way of saying that you disagree with what someone is say without having to bother to say why, whilst at the same time trying to claim the moral high ground.

The events which led up to the 1967 Six-Day War and the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamel Abdul Nasser ordered the UN Emergency Force stationed between Israel and Egypt to evacuate the Sinai. Two days later the Voice of the Arabs proclaimed, "As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel… The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence." Extermination of Jewish existence. Now, you could argue maybe they mean the state. On May 20, 1967, Syrian Defense Minister, Hafez Al-Assad proclaimed, "Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilat...

Too many people still think that Islam is just another religion. It is not. Islam is primarily a political programme whose aim is to spread totalitarian theocratic rule under Sharia Law. A significant feature of Islam is its antisemitism, which was present from the outset. Once Sharia Law is in place, Jews and Christians become Dhimmis and subject to the ruinous Jizya tax, humiliating regulations and other restrictions - it is forbidden to repair or enlarge places of worship and all external signs must be removed. Islamic antisemitism has theological roots and from the earliest times Muslim authors were producing texts similar in style and tone to Nazi propaganda. The animosity, which is found amongst around 90% of all Muslims, has nothing whatsoever to do with Israel. Jew killing is regarded as pleasing to Allah. It is a mystery why members of the liberal-left get so angry and throw accusations of racism when this is pointed out. The Islamic programme contracts everything that left-...

Indonesia and Malaysia are sometimes quoted as examples of moderately Islamic countries. They are indeed better than most.Indonesia only part of the Muslim hegemony relatively recently, and reluctantly, when it was invaded by armies with the express purpose of spreading Islam. Only Bali is now Hindu. That has been the target of numerous bombings. Indonesia's invasion of East Timor was, characteristically, followed by a mass slaughter of Christians, estimates range from between 200,000 and a million. Indonesia is only relatively mildly Islam because sharia law was rolled back under the Dutch. It is now returning in force, with sharia police in more and more places . The other milder Muslim country, Malaysia, is also the way it is as part of the post-colonial legacy. Their radical Muslims are busy causing trouble in neighbouring Thailand.

Photographs of a dead child have unleashed a wave of generous feelings towards refugees. . Something is bound to go wrong before long and then the mood will turn sour. Good intentions need to be moderated with sound reason. Not all the people flooding into Europe are refugees. They will inevitably include amongst their numbers fortune-seekers, people who want to live off welfare, terrorists, jihadis, criminals, psychopaths, and people with infectious diseases. Just as immigrants to the US had to pass through Ellis Island, every single one should be interned pending investigation. Genuine refugees from war zones should be admitted. Economic migrants should be admitted selectively. Criminals, jihadis and terrorists and psychopaths should be returned to where they have just come from. There is also a need to set firm limits on the number who will be admitted. The capacity to absorb newcomers is limited. It is not doing them or the wider society any favours to raise hopes and encourag...

A curious side issue in the Labour Party's leadership campaign is his call for carriages for women only. "Ladies Only" compartments were usual on trains in Britain at least until the late 1950. But why the fresh call for them? Could the real problem be that too many seats are being crammed into too small a space? And could that be due to the fact that a railway carriage in 1955 cost around £6000, compared to £2.6 million today - a real increase by a factor of nine, so every square inch of floor space costs that amount more? Now there is a question that really does call for an answer, because the 1955 carriage wins hands down in terms of spaciousness, comfort and general ambience.

It has been a couple of months since I last wrote anything in this blog. I have been spending too much time on Facebook. A friend gave me a copy of "The Old Ways" by Robert Macfarlane for my birthday, which I have now read. The book describes a series of journeys on foot or in sailing boats, each lasting several days, with nights spent in fishermen's or shepherds' shelters or under hedgerows. Mostly, the journeys are in Britain though there is a dangerous excursion around Ramallah..The book gradually shifts focus, to Edward Thomas (composer of the short poem Adelstrop  in June 1914). Macfarlane has a fine sense of landscape and the book was an enjoyable read, though I could not connect with his outdoor sleeping habits. I found some aspects of the book irritating. He has a propensity to use words of extreme rarity, to the point that, presumably at the insistence of the publisher, he had to provide a glossary of well over a hundred; most of them could either have be...

The high-speed rail project may be swept up in the latest railway crisis as a 2012 review released under Freedom of Information shows officials believed it was unaffordable. Article in Guardian

It has just been announced that the Midland Main Line and Trans-Pennine electrifications have been shelved due to rising costs and the need to cut back. It was inevitable that HS2 would put financial pressure on other rail investment and so it has turned out. In a rational world, the electrification of the Midland, and reopening of the direct line to Manchester, would be a priority The other drain on finance is the Inter City Express or Incredibly Costly Express, Britain's most expensive train ever, which is replacing stock which is good for another 20 years. The replacement for the 1980s Pacers will also end up being a money gobbler. It is unlikely that the new trains will cost less than £2 million a vehicle. It is worth getting this in proportion. In 1955, a new railway carriage cost £5000 - around £250,000 after allowing for inflation, but let us double it for luck and allow £500,000. Of course the 1955 design would not be acceptable today. It would need retention toilets, thoug...

It might be unfair to call this a vanity project, but the new route 55 which started last week is being promoted as Gothenburg's first electric bus. It is not, because there were a few trolleybus routes running until the early 1960s. It is a hybrid, with charging points at each end of the route, using an overhead supply and a pantograph on the roof of the bus. Charging takes about five minutes. It runs on electricity on the flat sections of the route in the centre of the city, which makes it quiet and emission-free when running on its batteries, but the engine starts up as soon as it hits a slope. This probably takes battery power as far is it will go. The underlying problem with batteries is the poor energy density, both in terms of mass and volume - they are bulky and heavy and can not store enough energy. They are also expensive due to the use of materials which are relatively scarce. The technology will ultimately be seen as a dead-end. Road transport fuels must have a high en...

Dublin trams are 7-car sets. That is too long. It is time to think about getting double-deckers.

Last Sunday, Sverigesradio broadcast the main 11 o'clock Mass from St Lars, Uppsala. This is a flourishing, lively and diverse parish which attracts many new converts to the faith. As the priest said in his sermon, there are seventy different languages spoken amongst the parishioners. The sad thing is that the liturgy there could be so much better than it is. As a world-class university city, the parish should be a shop window offering the very best from the 2000-year-old tradition of Catholic music, a tradition which pre-dates Christianity by at least a millennium. The occasion of a broadcast should have been taken as an opportunity to put these treasures on display. Unfortunately, the liturgy was barely even recognisable as Catholic. The service began with a well-known Anglican hymn "Holy, holy, holy" to the setting by the Victorian composer Dykes, and there was a popular Swedish hymn at the offertory. The Ordinary was one of the adaptations to the Swedish text to ...

Passengers in London were stuck in a train for four hours yesterday, with the air conditioning out of action. It became sweltering hot and turned into an ordeal. I was in a similar incident in Sweden but after 15 minutes the adjacent tracks were closed to traffic and passengers were allowed off the train. The incident turned into a trackside party with people drinking cans of beer, walking their dogs in the woods, etc, for the four hour it took for a rescue. In this instance, which was in the middle of London, people could have just been escorted to the nearest station to continue their journey as best they could. That said, there was no need for anyone to endure sweltering temperatures. In the first place, some of the windows can be opened by a member of the staff, with a key. Where were they? There are also hammers provided for emergency use. This was an emergency. The train companies would have had a hard time prosecuting for wilful damage. Faced with a big repair bill, they wou...

It seems to me that four things are necessary to build up a parish. 1) Good quality traditional liturgy. It does not have to be Tridentine form with Palestrina every Sunday (though these things help), but it does need to be as good as possible within the resources of a parish, and significant Latin content is beneficial. 2) Hands-on good works in response to a local challenge. 3) An ongoing education programme for parishioners, including interested non-Catholics. 4) Some social activities - at least coffee and biscuits after Sunday Mass.

I have been looking at cameras lately, since my Leica M9 spontaneously cracked its sensor and has had to go back to the factory. Hopefully they will not charge as it is a common problem and Leica are aware of it. However, the M9 has not been without its problems, mostly due to dust and other muck on the sensor, which was impossible to get off. In the end I took it to the Leica service centre and it took the technician nearly half an hour to clean it, free of charge, I should add. The only way to avoid dust and muck is to avoid changing lenses as much as possible. That defeats the aim of an interchangeable lens camera. The ideal would be to have a fresh sensor for every shot, which is what you get with film. The best camera I have ever had was a Leica M2 , a 1957 design. It was easy to use and has a hair-trigger sensitive release. The snag is that it has no built-in meter so you have to carry a meter, or guess. There is a clip-on meter, but that makes it clumsy to use. I have a L...

My neighbour gave me a Samsung slidephone she had for several years, and I have got another five years use out of it. Must be from around 2003, I would guess which makes it 12 years old. The software flow is a bit annoying but I can live with it. Last week it took a trip down the toilet and after I had dried it out, it was draining the battery, so I looked at alternatives, including smartphones. For £500 you can get a Samsung S5 which will survive a dunking but it will not go in a back pocket. They are all too big, too fragile, too expensive and mostly not watertight - they should be IP67 as basic. The idea of a qwerty touch screen is madness. If you have learned to type without looking, like I am doing now, you would not be able to use it. The manufacturers have focussed on selling ever more high-tech and totally failed to get the basic things right. Are consumers THAT stupid? Smartphones must be amongst the worst-designed consumer products ever. In the meantime m...

It is 2009 since I last reported on events on the North Western Railway , home of Thomas the Tank engine. A lot has happened since then. Most important was the retirement of Sir Topham Hatt, the Fat Controller, in 2011. His successor is a former manager from the Big Railway, Naomi Toot. When she first arrived, the engines were sulky and resentful. They were not going to be ordered around by a woman. Ms Toot took a firm-but-fair approach and did her best to avoid conflict, but when they thought she could not hear, they referred to her as “The Handbag”. However, she had a habit of turning up in the shed just when she was least expected and soon found out what they were saying. She was not really bothered by the rudeness. It was just what she expected and she took it in her stride. All the engines were at least sixty years old and they had spent most of their years at a time when women were expected to stay at home and do what they were told. Ms Toot solved the problem by appointing an ...

The desire for a standard fleet of stock on London Underground's surface lines has resulted in the premature withdrawal of the District Line D78 stock, despite the fact that it has another fifteen years of life left in it. It is now to be converted to a fleet of Diesel Electric Multiple Units for use on branch lines, as a replacement for the 4-wheeled pacers. The proposal is controversial, and is being dismissed as a scheme for fobbing-off the north of England with London's cast-offs. That is unfair. If the engineering can be made to work reliably, and the passenger accommodation is good enough for the length of journeys, there is nothing wrong in principle with the scheme, which sounds like a good way of achieving value for money. But looking at the drawings, one has to ask why anyone has thought is worth while covering up a perfectly neat and functional front end with a contrived and meaningless add-on?  Article in Rail magazine

This refurbishment for Abellio seems sensible and economical. New seat covers, carpets, retention toilets and LED lighting are about all that is needed. Whilst mark 3 stock will always have its shortcomings, these minor improvements will put this stock streets ahead, in terms of comfort, of anything else on Britain's main lines, existing or proposed. The programme is for the upgrading of 119 mark 3 vehicles, mostly about thirty years old. Article in Rail magazine

Whilst the Nazis must bear the brunt of the responsibility for the Holocaust, it would never have happened were it not for the co-players. The Nazis just wanted the Jews out of Germany and, once the war had begun, the countries it was occupying. But most western countries, including Britain and the US, refused to accept Jewish refugees except under strict conditions which most potential refugees could not satisfy. As early as 1936, the British closed off the Mandate territory of Palestine as a place of refuge, in violation of the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo accords and the League of Nations treaty of 1922, in response to pressure from the Arabs. The role of the Palestinian leadership, in particular, Haj-Amin-el-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, cannot be over-stated. Even in 1941, the Nazis would have been satisfied with deporting the Jews of Europe to Palestine, but the Mufti travelled to Berlin and persuaded the Nazi leadership not to do that. This was the decisive move t...

Cut the cackle about how the muslim community and their "muslim friends" are horrified about the Paris murders and that this will add to islamophobia. How many of these commentators have got muslim friends? If decent muslims don't like it they should renounce their death cult. But they do not. Time for tough action. Put every single one of them all on a special register for a start.