Election Time is Here Again!

Well the Borough Council elections are next week and what’s happening?

Well we’ve had a leaflet from our sitting Conservative Councillor and he has always been good with communication. We’ve had a leaflet from the UKIP loony, and nothing else. Apparently, there are Labour and Lib Dem candidates but not that you’d realise!
Seems like Labour are still in a massive sulk as they lost last year :-). I can only hope they keep up their sulking and self destruct.

One thing that will be interesting is that in Wolstanton, my favourite County Councillor, who is also a Borough Councillor is also up for re-election. It’ll be funny if he gets kicked out!

Wi-fi is dangerous say Teachers

Oh dear one of the teaching unions are now saying that Wi-fi networks in schools are potentially dangerous.

Some have also said that it causes pupils behaviour to become disruptive. If they really want to be concerned about these sort of things, then they'd better look into the 20 – 30 mobile phones that are already in each class!

There is a story I've heard, probably apocryphal, that an IT technician put a wireless access point into a classroom. A week later the teacher came to the tech saying that he was suffering from headaches and nausia and it must be the access point causing it. The technician said that it was doubtful as he had yet to turn it in!

😉

MRSA

My Mum went to see a consultant yesterday as she has a hernia that needs operating on. She is, quite reasonably, worried about MRSA. Her consultant told her that as she's only going to be a day patient that it shouldn't be an issue.
What he did say though was that the number of nurses have decreased and the number of administrators have increased! So much so that it's the administrators who decide where cleaners go and where patients go on ward, not the doctors and nurses.
Which means in simple terms cross contamination is a major issue. It's all gone to pot in the last 8 years or so apparently.
So that would be only 2 years after Labour won power……..

Longport Station

Seems like Stoke City Council is trying to remind people that Longport and Longton stations still exist. There are posters on bus shelters round Hanley etc. to advertise the fact, which is to be commended.

All very well and good except that neither are, of course are, in Newcastle as it's a different Council. Longport is the nearest station to many people in the Borough.

Big Journey

While sorting out my old photographs today, I came across the ones I took 20 years ago today (Sgt Pepper taught the band to play…..!).
It was this day that I caught the following trains

  1. Etruria to Stoke
  2. Stoke to Euston
  3. Kings Cross to Edinburgh
  4. Edinburgh to Glasgow Queens Street
  5. Glasgow Central to Crewe
  6. Crewe to Etruria!

That was a great day’s line bashing. Couldn’t do it now of course, because Etruria is now closed and I don’t get free travel on the railways any more so it’d cost me a fortune!

Great day though!

Daffodils

It's great looking out of the front door in the mornings at the moment. There are thousands of daffodils on the Marsh. It really brightens up the area and looks really nice. However, the local frackwits have started rip them up and kick them etc. Morons…….

I Wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Name a Train

Looks like one of the train operating companies is to name a locomotive with a Scouting name.
Naming a locomotive with a Scouting related name is not a new idea.

In the 1930's the London Midland and Scottish Railway named one of it's Royal Scot locomotives, number 6169, The Boy Scout. They also named one, number 6168, The Girl Guide.
In the 1950's British Railways named a Britannia class locomotive, number 70045, after the then current Chief Scout, Lord Rowallen.
I'm interested to know which TOC it is. How about 'The Scout'?

Whinging Teachers

Oh dear the NUT are banging on about their ‘poor’ pay again. They are looking at strike action again as their proposed pay rise is to be about 2%.
Oh dear, us poor support staff are to get the same rise and does anyone care? Nope! The poor dears aren’t underpaid anyway. The thing they can’t get in their little heads is that schools can’t function without non teaching staff (teaching assistants, support assistants, technical support, caretakers, cleaners etc.), just as they can’t function without teaching staff.