Page 16 w The Top
A View From
Welcome to my monthly column “A view from the top”. Hopefully you will find my rambling readable maybe even enjoyable. You may agree or you may disagree with my views, I care not. These are my views long held and forged over a life time of work, travel and experience. Now that’s over let’s have a look at what is really winding me up.
My World and Me. As I pass along the wonderful rocky road that is my journey of life it is becoming more and more apparent that I am starting to miss out on the rapid pace of change that modern technology applies on an almost day to day basis to the way I live my three score and ten. From an early age I have always had an interest in all things firstly mechanical and secondly within the environment of communications engineering. The mechanical aspect came from the second hand Meccano set my mum and dad gave me as a special Christmas present way back when. All those tiny nuts and bolts coupled with cast metal squares, rectangles and elongated bars meant that, in the comfort of our house, I could explore the world of basic design and construction. Indeed this passion and its learned skills in using basic tools was responsible for my success in being taken on by the GPO (General Post Office) as a telephone engineer trainee way back in the late 1960s. Can you wire a three pin plug was the question? …Plug successfully wired …Career off to a flying start and through the transformation, GPO to Post Office and ending up at British Telecom. All through those years my understanding of all things electrical, mechanical and ethereal in engineering concepts grew, and as such I grew intellectually as well. Now retired for a number of years and “out of the loop” I am finding that the modern world is passing me by. During a discussion over a few beers with my ‘drinking and put the world to rights discussion buddies’ the subject of 3D printing came up. As a concept 3D printing is brand new technology…so new that it has already morphed into terminator printing which at first sight appears to be the work of the devil. In terminator printing solids are actually grown out of a liquid bath (as in the terminator films) and in 3D printing layers are built up in 4,000 of an inch sections into complete objects. It’s all beyond me …I somehow had an idea that these new printing techniques would allow the office photocopier of my yesteryear to produce several rounds of cheese sandwiches at lunchtime. Where next for this struggling modern day technophobe…I know as I talk to my mate Keith he
QF Focus Magazine
is as confused about the modern world as I am or maybe more so…he thinks global warming is all made up…he supports Leyton Orient and I suspect he is a member of the Flat Earth Society …. together we will put the world to rights.
Should I feel guilty?
Now I love to wander around the shops in our local area…I also like to partake in the occasional café con leche, read the local free papers and await with trepidation for the local Lidl and Aldi to change over the weekly market in “other goods” in both shops… all those screwdrivers and garden implements you never knew you needed. Whilst on my travels I am becoming more and more aware of the amount of people who sit outside shops or who hold up placards and signs requesting that I should help them as they are hungry or have other mouths to feed. It’s difficult as this happens so often to me now that I am starting to resent their presence and have taken to walking past them trying not to look at them. However as soon as I pass them I feel awful that I have ignored them or at least have attempted to ignore them. I struggle with the lot of other people…as do, I am sure, many of you reading this. What is the solution…I cannot give to all of the poor people I see otherwise I will be joining them…I cannot ignore people who seem to be suffering and yes I know all the stories about them driving around in Mercedes Benz cars. I will ponder on as I have to move from my coffee as a bloke with an enormous battery powered violin has just parked himself next to my table and my peace is shattered.
Should the Monarchy Buzz Off? I have just read a wonderful piece about the value of nature and its contribution to our world. Specifically the story is about how the humble British bee contributes more to the British economy than the Royal family on a yearly basis. At the last count the British bee via its pollinating of crops …apples, strawberries etc added a buzzing 651 million pounds to the British economy in the last year…The Monarchy however via tourism pulled in a paltry 150 million. Add this fact to the cost of us tax payers having to fork out for the Queen’s council house at Buck Palace needing a refurbishment, then it’s obvious where the value comes from. Perhaps now the Royal Mail has been sold off to profit speculators, it is time to take Elizabeth’s head off the stamp and replace it with a real profitable Queen Bee. As the great scientist Albert Einstein famously said “no bees equals no people” due to the effect on food crops by pollinating bees. The same cannot be said about the Royal family.
Benefits and the European Union. Almost all that is written or discussed in Britain about the European Union seems to centre upon the fact that the indigenous population resent the fact that “Johnny foreigner” can come to Britain and claim benefits. The actual detail is very complicated and confusing and in some cases seems to be stretched to extremes…as in foreign workers in Britain claiming child benefit and sending it back to their host country where the kids are actually living. As a step toward sorting out the whole mess and bringing some clarity to the subject I offer the following. In the case of a European union citizen coming to Britain to seek work without a specific job offer then the host country must be made to sponsor the job seeker up to and for a determined time …be it six months after which if work is not found then the job seeker has to return to the country of origin (EU). If work is found then after an additional qualifying period (2 years), all rights of benefit become available to the qualified citizen up to an agreed accrued amount based on contributions made into the system. More work to be done of course on my fledgling scheme but the emphasis must be on all the countries of the European Union doing exactly that…working in union!
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