two hands to hold

As a gun-free Brit, I notice that the US gun lobby have been quick to aggressively comment all over any sites suggesting U.S. gun laws are inadequate in the wake of the latest atrocity.

A few months ago someone made a map showing gun stores and Starbucks, illustrating there's about five times as many gun stores as Starbucks in the USA. This statistic has already been heavily contested, but there's still a gun store within an hour drive for most people, including many Walmarts and similar outlets which carry firearms.

One of the challenges to the frappuccino statistics was that some of the so-called gun-stores might be Federal Firearms Licensed (FFL) individuals operating from their kitchen tables and assisting cross state line arms sales. That's all right then.

I decided to look at Washington D.C., whose 68 square miles appears to only have one licensed gun-store.

When I extended the search to the rest of the neighbourhood (Maryland, Virginia etc.), I was soon up around 100 stores. I picked one at random, and took a look at some of the stock.

As well as BB guns and other items aimed at a younger market, there were also bigger guns available. In America it isn't legal to own a machine gun without a special licence, but an assault rifle is like a one-shot-at-a time variant. They seem to be pretty commonplace.

As I glanced through the stock list of this Virginia-based store, I noticed this one: A Sig Sauer MPX, which looks like something out of an old Bruce Willis movie.

I noticed that the Sig is available as both a semi-automatic, which is generally legal, and as a Class 3 fully automatic weapon, where holding the trigger will fire bullets continuously. Now this is, as the blurb describes, a full weapons system, so by the time all the bibs and bobs have been added its probably a $2000+ purchase.

Something less expensive maybe? That's when I noticed this smaller advertisement, for a youth rifle.

A 10/22 rifle with a 25 round magazine clip and a bucket containing 1400 rounds of ammo for $395! And it's a stainless steel collapsible rifle for ease of transport. "Teach your son to shoot special".

Somewhere in between? Walmart was the biggest seller of firearms in the US but it withdrew most of its high powered rifles late in 2015.

Amongst the high powered items, the AR-15 is still readily available and popular because of its adaptability. Here's a less expensive Colt Expanse M4 ($699) and a mainstream Colt AR15 ($999), from a further nearby store in Virginia.

I didn't check all the legal points, but I did notice in Florida these two guns don't require any form of licence (an $8 background check is all that is needed) and it is actually illegal in Florida to keep a list of firearm owners. The simple version is that if it requires two hands to hold then its available across the counter.

That lower gun is the one dubbed "America's gun" and has frequently featured in the 1001 US mass shootings since Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 right through to the weekend's Orlando nightclub tragedy.

At 164 days into 2016, excluding gang-related, the US has had 133 mass shootings, including 15 in Florida.

Canary Wharf time check

Sometimes you just have to. If you know what I mean.
#onlyplaceinworldwhereicandothis

#iphonepictureismoredifficultthanitlooks

On top of London #upattheO2

To the Dome, for a bit of a climb. We'd assembled from across various part of London, to climb over the Dome. I worked close to the Dome for a while and often used to see people setting out on the expedition, but this is a first for me.

At Base Camp, we were given clipboards and a massive form to fill in. Waivers, emergency numbers and even shoe sizes. All logical, of course, because we'd be given gilets, harnesses and boots for the climb.

A briefing, a few moments to climb into the harnesses, put all of our belongings into blue boxes for safe keeping and eventually emerge at the start of the actual climb.

A few more safety checks as we were clipped onto a runner line that went all the way to the summit. Our special gripper locking safety wheels needed to be at the right angle to pass through certain loops and then onto the climb itself.

The first few steps were curious, the walkway was boingy and we needed to manipulate the safety system without trapping our hands inside the mechanism. We soon found our rhythm and were climbing properly. The way up started steep but became progressively easier as we approached the top. Logical really with the flattish shape of the Dome.

Plenty of time for pictures and a wander around at the top. A cameraphone-only zone because we'd all been asked to leave any bigger items back at base camp.

After the range of triumphant pictures against all manner of scenic backdrop - Canary Wharf, the ex-Olympic Village, West India Dock, Victoria Dock, The Thames Barrier - it was time to clip on again and start the descent.

Amusingly, there were a few angled sections to the descent, which progressively looked more and more sheer. I'm told it was 30 degrees, but it felt like 60.

Back at ground, we did the group hugs and handshakes and then triumphantly handed back our gear.

Great fun. We'd been on top of London.

31.5m workers and an annual net contribution of £5.5bn (€7.1bn) is £175 per worker per year

Ever since Boris upgraded his French "get control" Renault truck to the bright red German Neoplan Starliner bus his big message is about £350 million per week which he'd give "to NHS". Plus figures about impacts on workers and pensioners. Some are calling his figure misleading or mis-representational.

That's part of the challenge with this situation. Because of the complexities, a vote almost needs to be a categorised (e.g.) 55%/45% split rather than a 100%/0% binary option.

Confusingly, the 'IN' bus is also red, courtesy of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party - Notice it's IN, not Remain. All the buses are being referred to as 'battle buses', which was the term given to the London double decker buses used in the First World War to transport British troops to the terrible front line fighting in Europe a century ago.

Then we get wing nut Ozza on telly a couple of days ago brandishing part of an Airbus. It was good form of distraction, like that well-expensed MEP who keeps showing us his slippery passport. Again we had numbers, but most of it designed as one-liner headlines contradicting whatever the other person says.

No wonder the electorate is hacked off with politicians.

My own attempt to cut through the numbers gave me some interesting points.

• The weekly spending on EU after adjustments, is around £136m per week. I know it still sounds a lot, but at governmental spending levels it really isn't
• The net contribution per member of UK population (64m), per year from UK to the EU is £86.38.
• The net spend per UK worker (31m) per year, from UK to EU is £175.34. More than a TV licence, but less than a Sky subscription.
• These figures and their gross equivalents are a drop in the ocean compared with the government's overall spending of somewhere between £759-772 billion per annum.

No wonder Osborne wants to run distraction, based upon these bigger numbers.

I decided to tabulate the biggest UK government spending items for 2015/2016.

• After state pensions and welfare, healthcare becomes the second biggest spending category with a current run rate of €3,774 (£2,948) million per week.
• The entire unadjusted EU budget of £11bn is 1.42% of the total run-rate, and after the adjustments is 0.72%. A lot of money, but small in the scheme of running a national budget.
• The amount of interest being paid on the national debt is six times as much as the EU spend.
• The concept of leverage of the EU funding has hardly been raised. That'd be the swing of gain or loss resultant from changing/removing the payment. The average annual exports to EU are about £220bn. Around a 3% downturn as a result of hiccups with trade agreements would neutralise the EU contribution.

So, who pays what?

Quite interesting (click through for a bigger version), but not as interesting as how it plays out after the adjustments have been made.

It is clearer with this about who are the net funding beneficiaries and those that are net givers. I could observe that the ends of this chart seem disproportionate. Maybe the EU understand this better, although when I looked at their budget at a glance publication it was over 2,200 pages long and started with a semi-permeable membrane of stuff about sugar taxes.

Bureaucratic overload.

I know, I've only picked on one of the topics and lightly dusted through it. It illustrates the complexity of this whole thing and the increasing likelihood that many people will vote instinctively on the day.

Me, I've already voted.

class war - a review

An entertaining read.

Dave Coote is having a slow meltdown. The framing of his life is being challenged.

A changing job he can’t reconcile, a prime relationship that’s drifting. Pressures from a teaching career that has slid sideways and is now being inspected.

Add grit from a slapdash Academisation and privatisation of teaching. Scoundrels in the halls of power.

Maybe Coote is like the similarly named water fowl that feigns stupidity, hiding its intelligence to amuse itself, even at the expense of status.

Despite bursts of enthusiasm for classroom teaching, the depressive Coote is losing his grip, in a series of self-damaging situations, across a discovered corruption and somewhat miraculous love interest.

Coote is no Patrick Standish skirt chaser, and there's no 'Moon and Sixpence' separation and quest by Coote, more a "Nicky Hutchinson meets intern Alice McDonald" from Our Friends in the North. Generally, we see Coote as the person that things get done to, rather than as an initiator.

I know folk who have drifted through similar mid-life situations and found myself comparing Coote with how real life scenes had played out. The boss who crashed his family life and job to live on a boat with his lover. Lasted a few months and was very messy.

A different situation when innocent business trip photographs showed an old flame. Hushed spousal tones before a split. The list goes on but empirically there’s more of the expensive crashes than the happy-ever-afters.

For Coote we also get some faintly autistic sequences. Coote's world overwhelms, he displays anxiety, a feeling of social disconnect and need for time alone. Add some methodical descriptions of computer use and his sound system giving us almost pencil-arranging rules determining ways to do certain things. It’s cleverly written because the possible ASD hovers as a spectral shadow rather than as a bad actor pretending to be drunk.

I enjoyed reading the story, as the character continued to take ever more destructive forks in his road. Kind of sex and drugs and rock.

Thursday Thirteen looks up

1. I've been up a few hills recently, and the picture above is a recent example.
2. The saying on the stone is "Take a moment to behold as still skies or storms unfold"
3. I suppose it can be read in the other order as well "As still skies or storms unfold, take a moment to behold"
4. It's on the Cock Bridge to Tomintoul route, just before the Lecht ski station.

5. As well as the stone, there's the four obelisks, from which to dally and enjoy the view.
6. I've sat inside each of the structures and looked out across the scenery.
7. And looked through the peep-holes in the stone to see distant objects.

8. Like Corgarff Castle.

9. I've visited that castle in sunshine and in snow.
10. Just back along the way is a wooden shack that sells lovely warming soup - it tastes good whatever the weather.
11. And around here it is important to look up as well as along at the scenery.
12. I think it was Enid Blyton books where the Famous Five used to hide in trees because adults don't look up.
13. Whether it's always true or not, it's useful to remember.

Wordless Wednesday

On the Old Military Road, before the descent to Clattering Bridge.

two tribes referendum edit suggestion

The politicians continue their descent into squabbling about the UK membership of the EU ahead of the referendum in a couple of weeks. It isn't pretty and has become a useless and distorted form of debate.

The tawdry sound bites and invented facts spin on, designed by various advisors with their behavioural analysis spreadsheets. There's a countdown sequence and a few more tactical bombshells placed ready to be used in the last few days.

The whole proposition has become transaction oriented, despite the long-term effect of the result. The politicians cynically seek the single winning product feature to clinch their Remain or Leave argument on the 23rd June.

We all know that there is no right answer. That either way will open a route to more criticisms as the eventual scenario plays out.

I've already voted. I won't need to listen to any more of the idiot hokum until it's over and hopefully some of the crass so-called leaders get fired.

They probably won't though, despite breaking cover to show what they really think of their electorate.

Meanwhile, here's Frankie's take on polemics back in the Cold War. Over thirty years old, someone should re-make this for 2016.

mobile

A fairground ride like no other. An ordinary looking caravan. A treasure trove of music and digital wizardry.

Step into the caravan, a familiar place to shelter from the rain, to have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

But this is a caravan like no other. Where the kettle talks, cupboards open to reveal pop up worlds and the whole caravan is transformed into our solar system. A place where we remember who we are and where we have come from, as we shape who we want to be.

We are taught from a young age to aim high, to reach for the stars, to want more, more than our parents, more than the generations before us, to climb the social ladder. But as we break free from where we came from, what are we leaving behind?

Mobile is The Paper Birds’ second show in a trilogy about class in modern Britain. Made for audiences of up to 9 people at a time, this is an intimate 40 minute theatre show set in a caravan, based on interviews conducted in communities across the UK.

Mobile explores our sense of home, belonging, aspiration, and the realities of social mobility. Powerful true stories and dreams for the future are revealed through video projection, recorded interviews, original music and interactions with a performer.

Thursday Thirteen feat. a blackbird

1. We are still staying in the woods, in the Scottish lodge for the rest of this week.
2. It's one of those buildings that is kind of upside down, with the bedrooms downstairs and the living space upstairs
3. This works well affording a much better vantage point to spot red squirrels, rabbits and other wildlife from the balcony.
4. Local wildlife appears curious of visitors and when on nearby paths, woodland creatures will never be more than a few strides away.
5. Even the balcony gets its share of visitors. One was the blackbird shown at the top of this post.
6. Indeed, so excited was the blackbird at the prospect of getting some crumbs of shortbread, that it returned with one of its young.
7. The younger bird looked about the same size as the adult, but didn't have such a great sense of flight.
8. It took off and promptly flew into the glass of the balcony, with a gentle plink sound.
9. It was a low speed flying accident and the bird reverted to a nest-type chirping as it waited for the adult to either rescue it or feed it.
10. A few minutes later it took off again, this time getting itself caught in a space on the balcony between a corner wall and a chair. It could see through the chair, but couldn't work out how to fly/climb out of the space. Instead there as a great flurry of wings and feathers as it oscillated up and down in the space.
11. I rescued it by moving the chair and it promptly flew into the glass again - another low speed plink.
12. This time it flopped to a gap underneath the glass and I managed to persuade it to hop underneath and then to flutter down to the freedom of the grass below.
13. Undeterred, it immediately set about pecking the grass like a true professional, with no hint of its recent adventure.

Wordless Wednesday

Baaa,

lodge time

A few days back in our lodge in the woods.

One of our near neighbours is quite well known in this part of Royal Deeside. Yes, the Queen spends summertime in Balmoral which, whilst bigger than our place, shares the same local shops.

Unfortunately, there's been some drastic weather since the last time we were here. Last December the nearby village was flooded when the Dee burst its banks and it is only now getting itself back together.

All the way from Ballater along the river there's signs of damage, such as this Victorian suspension bridge across the river at Cambus O' May. Usually we'd cross here on foot, but since the destruction of last December it is closed.

Separate from the floods, the historic timber railway station buildings in Ballater suffered a major fire. The building is listed and there is much activity to put it all back together again.

It used to be the end of the passenger line back in Queen Victoria'a reign and she'd make her way from the station to Balmoral by royal coach.

Rumour has it that she opposed the extension of the passenger service past her own estate, although we did spot one of the ex-railway buildings in Braemar.