The Diary of a Country Bumpkin

It seems that climate campaigners have won the case to stop the expansion of the third runway at Heathrow airport.

This comes in a week when Greta Thunberg is back in the country protesting and reading a speech probably written for her by her father from her telephone.

Whilst being a great believer in free speech it still seems a little ridiculous to have people travelling for miles to protest against other people who wish to travel and to this end I have a solution for this ridiculous situation.

Anyone who was protesting about Heathrow should have their passports taken away just in case they want to fly abroad to protest at a G8 Climate change conference as they have done in the past.

All the young people who are supporting Greta Thunberg should face severe penalties should any of them be found to have travelled to school in the back of daddies or mummies Range Rover or similar vehicle.

The COP26 United Nations climate change conference is taking place in Glasgow in November so if either of these groups wish to go there to protest I suggest they start walking now as it’s quite a long way away.

Some of you may not be aware of the recent sad news of the death of “Mad” Mike Hughes a daredevil, amateur rocketeer and believer in the flat earth theory.

It is always sad when we loose one of life’s eccentrics especially in fairly tragic circumstances such as these. Contrary to the original report which said he was trying to reach 5000 feet to prove that the earth was flat, he was in fact just attempting the flight for a television programme called “Homemade Astronauts.”

He built the rocket himself with the help of his partner Waldo Stakes but alas there  appears to have been a slight design fault as his parachute deployed too early whilst the rocket was on the way up when I’m sure it would have been more useful had it deployed on the way down.

RIP rocketman, daredevil, eccentric and all round good egg “Mad” Mike Hughes.

It seems not a day goes by without some story in the papers concerning Prince Harry and here is another one, from a bloggers point of view it is the gift that keeps on giving.

The latest episode in this long running saga is that Canada will not be paying for protection for Harry and Megan as they are no longer members of the Royal family.

Unfortunately for Harry and Megan they have chosen to leave the Royal family and join the ranks of the independently wealthy who one assumes have to pay for their own security, as the old saying goes, “you’ve made your bed now you’re going to have to lay in it.”

Let’s hope they manage to find a sensible way to earn a substantial some of money as I imagine the cost of security would be quite substantial, judging by the photo I found the bill for sunglasses alone must be fairly hefty.

I wish Prince Harry would stop shooting himself in the foot, I do like the fellow but it’s very hard to write anything positive about him when he acts so foolishly.

It seems Prince Harry has flown in from America to promote his new eco friendly travel company and was introduced to the audience as His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex but asked to be called Harry. One bullet for each foot?

Unfortunately both Harry and Megan are being advised by an American PR company which may explain everything as most Americans seem to know little of what happens in their home state, let alone what goes on in the wider world.

This being the case I have some sound PR advice for Harry, stop flying all over the world on long haul aeroplane flights and then coming to preach to us about eco travel, it’s not rocket science this PR lark is it!

Just having a tea break after checking my emails and my latest post on Facebook, such a busy life!

Some of you may be familiar with the latest news that Tesco intends to cut 1800 of its in store bakery staff, this policy I assume follows on from the decision to cut the checkout staff.

Personally I make a point of never checking my goods out when in a supermarket on the grounds that firstly, I am putting someone out of a job by doing so and secondly the supermarket are not paying me to do the job of the redundant checkout person.

I wonder, will they be asking the customers to go to the stores and bake their own bread, nothing would surprise me in this modern world anymore!

I had seen the wonderful Aviator Hotel some time ago and had meant to go but suddenly got the chance this weekend at the See you at Sywell event.

Angella and I had a fabulous time in the company of some wonderfully friendly people.

How very sad to see great swathes of our beautiful countryside under water especially when it can’t be rocket science to solve the problem.

I know I tend to look at things in a very simplified way but surely if we dredge all the rivers this will increase the flow they can handle, although I believe the EU has stopped us doing this.

The argument I believe is that if you dredge the river banks you will endanger all the small animals who live in the river banks, conversely if you do nothing and the river floods the animals will die anyway, from the small animals point of view it’s a bit of a Catch 22 situation.

The other solution is so obvious to the vast majority of people but seems to have escaped the notice of local planning officers, stop building on flood plains! I’m forced to wonder who is stupid enough to buy a house built on a flood plain, perhaps it should be made law that developers have to declare when selling these houses that there is a severe danger your house will be under water during the winter period.

If I’m not mistaken when engineers build a dam they have to dig a new channel to divert the river whilst the building of the dam is in progress, perhaps we could use the same principal with rivers that flood by digging another channel and joining the two the flow rate surely must be doubled.

Let’s stop blaming global warming for the problem and instead start blaming the real culprit, the planners who are unwilling to take the appropriate action to solve the problem, as I said it’s not rocket science.

I was watching the news last night which I think may have been on Sky when I was met with a female reader who appeared to be dressed in a pair of black stretchy jeans and a red casual top.

Whilst not advocating a return to the good old days when Her Majesty’s BBC newsreaders would wear a dinner jacket whilst on the wireless, I think we can do better than skinny jeans and a casual top!

I have just watched the fabulous drama The trial of Christine Keeler on BBC 1 with Sophie Cookson as Christine Keeler and would recommend you to watch it if you can, it gives a fascinating insight into the morals and sadly the hypocrisy of the times.

Perhaps even more interesting was the Tom Mangold documentary Keeler, Profumo, Ward and me which was shown on BBC 2.

The awful treatment of both Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies and especially Stephen Ward the society osteopath, his trial and abandonment by MI5 which led to his unfortunate suicide and death are most revealing.

Finally there is no other way to end a story of Christine Keeler without using the photograph that will forever be associated with her.