Exe Estuary Avocet Cruise from Topsham

Early morning on the Topsham Quayside. So early it was still dark when we first arrived.

I'd left home wondering whether my ski jacket would be rather excessive for the little trip along the river. It turned out that my clothing was somewhere in the middle of the range selected by others.

Yes, we were going out on an RSPB Avocet Cruise. We'd be on the same boat that takes people across to the pub in sunnier weather, but today it would be used to seek out the wildlife along the Exe.

Armed with the identification card and a pair of binoculars, we could soon start to tick off the various species. Waders, Ducks, Gulls and 'Others'.

Fortunately we had a couple of very knowledgeable RSPB folk to provide a commentary, which only paused for a short time whilst a BBC Radio interview took place. We saw birds from all the main categories.

It started with avocets - that's the bird on the RSPB logo, where it also represents conservation. Avocets were almost gone from Britain but with improved wetland management they've made a strong comeback as evidenced in the RSPB picture below.

Then there was a collection of godwits. Black-tailed, I think our commentator said. They provide a kind of identification challenge being a wader that looks completely different in winter compared with its its summer plumage.

At this time of year many of the species are using the river for overwintering and the mud provides a rich source of food with a square metre of mud housing a bird-slurpable energy equivalent of a couple of KitKat fingers (at least I think that's what the RSPB chaps said). The smaller birds need about the calorific equivalent of a four finger KitKat per day, consumed in the form of tiny creatures from the mud. No wonder they look busy.

Then, for something like a cormorant, the river is a great source of eels and fish and with their efficient hunting technique they may only spend an hour a day fishing. One I saw threw its catch into the air, like a test cricketer catching a ball, before downing it in one. Showoff? Apparently the reason cormorants are often seen with their wings outstretched is because their wing feathers are not waterproof, which assists their fast diving. It means that the birds will stretch out to dry their wings whilst digesting their food. My picture here of a young cormorant is a cheat, because I took it in Santa Barbara, but I think it still illustrates the stretched wings.

There were plenty more to see, but I'll finish with the brent geese, which were flying around in huge squadrons. Apparently the apocryphal cooking method for a brent goose is to put it in a pot with an old boot. Boil for several hours, and then take out the brent goose and throw it away, instead eating the boot which will taste better.

I suspect the brent geese came up with this recipe themselves, as a form of protection. After all, they have to fly from England to Greenland or Siberia to raise their next family and even on the mudflats around the Exe it is still easy to discern their family units staying together. Here's another RSPB impression of them flying.

For us, when back at the boatyard, it was time to follow our excellent organiser Ange back to the Globe, for a still fairly early breakfast.

time sink

I still can't believe how rude and inconsiderate the recent Windows operating system can be. This version of Windows 10 is running on the 'garage' PC which is mainly used for things related to bicycles (don't ask).

A few days ago it said it needed to perform an update. Did I want to do it now or overnight? Overnight, obviously. That way it'd be ready the next time I needed to use it.

Or so one might think. Next time I attempt to use it, it starts by telling me it still needs to 'complete' the update. This may take several more minutes. #herewegoagain

I let it run, including that 90% complete section that lasts way too long. Then, hooray, it worked again although refused to recognise my ANT+ components until I rebooted it just one more time.

Next day, I used it for about 10 minutes and then it froze with a sort of repeating buzzing sound. It was a software error. Reboot and guess what? Another (this time unsolicited) update.

box sets in the garage

The wireless is now working reliably in the garage. Normally I'd use an Airport Express to extend the coverage but this time I thought I'd try an inexpensive alternative. A plug and go TP-Link range extender, costing £25.

Remove from the box, plug into the mains close to the main router to set up the wifi connection, then, once initialised, move it to a point close to the outside wall where it can beam the signal across to the garage.

Setup time around 10 minutes, including unboxing such that I now have speedy internet in the garage, fast enough to watch Netflix whilst firing up the recently recommissioned bicycle turbo.

slap down

That recent 'new' idea about a bridge to France appeared to be more attention-grabbing from a politician trying to keep a high profile. I expect he liked the alliteration as well. "The BoJo Bridge".

It's similar to the personal branding he applied to the bikes in London. I recollect that Ken Livingstone originally announced the plan for the bikes back in 2008, as a ten year project. Boris was in the right place when the scheme went live two years later and bagged the credit.

Now he's trying to do the same with NHS funding. As one of his colleagues recently commented "Foreign secretary, your colleagues need to trust you." Sadly, as a buffoon-emulating brawler toff, he has his political eyes on the route to power.

His pre-Cabinet release of an extensive self-publicity piece in the Times just about sums up his attitude. His lies were on that Brexit bus but now he's trying to salvage a positive position, which is also completely outside of his haphazard remit.

I'm honestly surprised that the Prime Minister hasn't ejected him from the Cabinet. I know there's all the speculation that he would immediately try to overturn her position, but BoJo is playing a longer game.

He knows that the current PM position is tainted with the problem of how to deliver anything approaching a value for money Brexit. We should not forget that along with Cameron, Osborne, Gove and Farage, he is one of the chief clowns who created the current position.

And he created it not through conviction, but through pure politicising. His continuing display of 'incompetence and disloyalty' (as described by Anna Soubry) seems to still pay off.

interior scan

We've one of those Tanita scanning scales at home and I use the Boditrax when I'm at the gym. They normally give similar readings (weight, BMI, BMR, etc) and I recently discovered that the Boditrax is really a souped-up version of the Tanita.

The main thing is that they are showing a positive trend, which I reckon to be a combination of factors which I'll summarise by that controversial figure of metabolic age. To be frank, my MA number does wander around somewhat, although I expect there are instructions to measure consistently, which I've somehow managed to ignore.

I only started to look at the figure as a lark, way back when I was feeding data from my cycling back into GarminConnect.

It's all slid a bit sideways since we moved though, mainly because various gadgets have been low priority to get working again. As can also be seen from my low cycling activity levels since we originally hit the road last May.

From over 1,300 miles cycled in the first few months of 2017, down to almost no trips in the latter part of the year. Admittedly the bikes were locked up in storage until September.

And with everything else going on, I still need to sort out various bicycle components (tyres, brakes, lights) and as an ultra faffing-around gesture to create a wifi bridge that can reach to the garage so that I can collect the statistics from bike rides.

The wifi signal will also need a booster, if I want to watch Netflix from the bike turbo.

So I've been on a kind of minimum maintenance programme, although I really need to get cycling again properly. Some would question the need for statistics at all, but personally I find the numbers can act as a spur when I'd otherwise sink into a sofa.

So, time to get things fired up again. And yes, today I was sent one of those NHS quizzes about health and lifestyle. Inevitably it had quite a few suggestions for me.

But hey, anyone can try the 10 minute fitness and lifestyle test. Just click the box on the left.

this is the kit

Time for a music post.

This Is The Kit.

My favourite 'new' 2018 band so far. "Moonshine Freeze"

And "Misunderstanding" live (with a single Aston Spirit microphone)

hard sun

I've decided that Hard Sun is a set of unreleased Luther scripts from a cancelled series subsequently repurposed into a pre-dystopian thriller.

We get a pop-up version of a Luther character, played by Jim Sturgess as a sub Broadchurchian mocknee, and his tough, edgy sidekick with a complicated backstory, played by Agyness Deyn.

To make the old scripts resellable, Luther-style serial killing has been left in, but an ominous Spooks-style backdrop has been added, however fleeting.

It's great to see all the London haunts. Streets behind the Borough Market, the Shard from every angle. Bits of Kings Cross. The Thames shoreline by the OXO tower at low tide. There must be (a) a body discovery or (b) a fight scene coming up. No wonder Sturgess has that wavering LunDun accent.

I've decided that 'tropeaload' could be a new word. It's when a series overdoes the use of certain moments.

Yes, it's okay for the edgy detective to have a secret compartment in the roof of her house where they keep a crazy wall. It's not okay for another serial killing character to also have one. I've also been reminded that she is actually living in a hotel, so that attic must be a lucky coincidence.

Yes, it's okay for the raincoated male detective (hint: like Agyness shows, it should have been Burberry) to turn up on the doorstep of a woman's house at 3am. But is it right when a couple of reels later he turns up at a different woman's front door in similar circumstances?

As for the police station looking like the retro one in Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes. Right to the checkerboard ceiling. One could almost cue a Bowie song. Oh wait. They did.

My musing leads me to think that a three parter thriller was hard to sell. But then melding the detective story and adding in a supermodel, permitted it to get the go-ahead. Go Agyness!

Of course I'll carry on watching it. I've only got two episodes left to go. Maybe I am picking holes in the characterisations, or the plot, as well as waiting for a gargantuan twist, and wondering how they will manage to resolve so many unrelated themes?

Update: or not resolve them?

an uncropped one in the eye

Someone emailed me about that picture I used for the Carillion post a couple of days ago. Yes, I did crop the left hand side. Not so much to make it fit, but rather more in the interests of general taste. It's a picture of fat cat city businessmen after their lunch, too drunk to even move onto the puddings. The women have all left the area.

Events of the last few days have added further piquancy to the scene. My narrative was about outsourcing, and we now have a French example to add to the mix. The Bayeux tapestry is being loaned to the British by France. A blinder of a play by Macron. It's a French state item, which he cut through red tape to have delivered quickly. And whilst French, it was originally outsourced to Kent for construction by Europe's finest embroiderers.

Maybe it does show the demise of Harold Godwinson at the arrows of William the Conqueror. Perhaps that folk observation overcooks Anglo-Saxons as the namers of animals: (bull, pig, sheep) and the Normans as the namers of the food: (beef, pork, mutton). But Bayeux Scene 52 shows the Anglo-Saxon infantry under serious threat from the Norman cavalry.

Macron knows not to forget that thousands were killed and many more deprived of their livelihoods at and after the Battle of Hastings. After 1066, as the Smithsonian review of the Bayeux describes, the next four years witnessed a truly exceptional takeover of England’s resources by an elite from Normandy and other regions of northern France.

Or am I reading too much symbolism into all of this?

Let's go back to that colourful and this time tastefully miniaturised version of the English dining scene.

The full caption for L'après-dinée des Anglais reads:

"Six men in varying stages of intoxication surround a low, cloth-covered dinner-table (not bare as was customary for dessert), on which are a big punch-bowl, bottle, and glasses. One lies on the floor clasping a bottle and shouting, his chair overturned. Two pairs converse affectionately; an elderly man, his elbows on the table, supports his head, registering anguish. A seventh stands at a sideboard with a chamber-pot taken from a cupboard in the sideboard. (This was the practice after the ladies had left the dining-room) ... On the wall is a landscape with heavy rain as the chief feature.

The original of the print was published by Aaron Martinet and is available via the British Museum, as well as being seen on more traditional pub walls throughout the land.

streamlining domestic comms

We installed Virgin fibre broadband at the new place, which seems to reliably operate at 200Mb/s, somewhat faster than the supposedly lightning fast 34Mb/s BT infinity 2 we had previously.

It has created a chance to rebundle the rest of the household communications network.

We scrapped the idea of a Sky dish and now have Virgin for TV as well as its fast broadband. To be honest, the menu system is not quite a good, but it may be also that we've a 15 year Sky habit to break.

We also ditched the idea of a BT phone line and now use Vonage for cheap dial anywhere VOIP phone calls, delivered through standard BT DECT phones, but also including virtual extensions to our mobile phones. It works a treat and is kind of connect and forget.

Then to move the mobile phones onto new SIMs. This was away from the inexpensive O2 tariff to an even cheaper Virgin one (half the price). The new one doesn't seem to have any practical monthly limits on any of the services (voice, data, messaging etc.) The roaming is good too and the Vonage virtual extensions work away from home, in both directions as I accidentally discovered in Exeter the other day.

The whole transfer took a couple of days, and along the way the O2 retention people offered me a half price tariff if I decided to change my mind. Sorry, guys, you were too late and your monthly fees had started to drift upwards.

The other piece of the jigsaw has been to clean up the multitude of streaming subscriptions. Annoyingly, the main providers like Virgin, Apple, Amazon, BT Freeview, Sony etc will provide some, but not all, of the services through their devices.

Day to day telly works fine on the Virgin box, but I still need a separate Apple TV for all the home system (iTune) movie and TV libraries to work properly. Nowadays the Apple TV does also support most of the other subscriptions: Netflix, Amazon, iPlayer, ITVHub and tv player to name the majority. For the mostly abandoned other TVs I decided to try the Roku stick as a way to manage most things else. It's a case of 'so far, so good'. It also supports most of the above, except iTunes although PLEX support can work for the home library. It all seems to be simple to run too, although I've now our set our Logitech Harmony hand controllers to work with it (took 10 minutes), so we still have one remote control for all the main systems.

The Roku plugs into the HDMI HDCP2.2 on the back of a telly and uses a traditional (big) USB socket on the TV to draw its power. The little cable supplied has a built in wifi aerial, hence its slightly bulky appearance, although once installed behind the TV it is for all practical purposes, invisible.

So, a vastly different set of comms here, which doesn't need a dish, BT phone line or even a roof aerial. It's at least 6 times faster, and also considerably cheaper. 21st century, or what?

Next will be to simplify the voice control.

gaslight district

So here we go again. I've checked out that Montreal Cognitive Test. Y'know, the one the so-called president took as part of his fitness test. It uses a rhino and a lion to help identify dementia, but I'm less sure about a whether it can pick up on a sociopath or a narcissist.

Perhaps the test was ill chosen? Instead of going hunting it provides a mad north-north-westerly wind which obscures the view. The hunter would prefer a southerly wind to know a hawk from a handsaw.

But, then I'm not sure if there is a specific test for sociopathic or narcissistic gaslighting tactics?

Let's see now - we could make one.

A sociopath may consistently transgress social mores. [check] They may break laws [check - allegedly?] - even exploit others [check]. They are also convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing [check].

Part of the gaslighting tactic is to make recipients doubt their own perceptions. Perhaps with false facts [check] or fake news [check].

Remember poor Ingrid Bergman in that George Cukor movie? There's a whole plot line of manipulations to create self-doubt. Such that the judgemental bar gets lowered as a result of manipulation [check].

Check out a few a long list of the reality distortions here:

Oh dear.

Caption: This well-syndicated picture of healthy snacking may well becomes fake news. Enjoy it manipulation-free whilst bigly applauding the svelte and low Body Mass Index of the 6'3" tall subject. Curiously, when standing next to Barack Obama in photos, he appears the same height, yet Obama is officially 2" shorter?

short selling

I remember the old guideline for corporate (and other) logos was to use an absolute maximum of three block colours. It was partly so that the logo could transfer easily to varied media and surfaces. I get it that with modern media and emoticons there is some scope for relaxation, but I still worry when I see overly fancy graphics for the logo.

Carillion were in the ornate category. The companies they took over all had fairly plain 'no nonsense' building company type logos, but the resultant frippery used by carillion was only one character away from setting bells ringing.

I'm sure lengthy investigations will unpeel some of the horrible situation, but here's another example of some well remunerated captains of industry driving a company onto the ice.

At initial glance it seems strange that a company winning bids for huge government contracts could find itself in this position. Here's the organisation that had a significant hand in the building of the Tate extension, the Channel Tunnel, has won extensive HS2 contracts, bids to build schools, is the biggest manager of UK Ministry of Defence bases...the list goes on.

There's talk now of the extra government contract awards to Carillion after their July 2017 profit warnings. My custom chart via the FT illustrates the situation, and I've thrown in a linear regression to doubly make the point.

It makes me wonder what the Government guidelines on Management of Risk (M_o_R) are actually used for? It would be handy to know how to spot a downward trend and maybe to have some remediations. Of course, the smart hedge funds could see the situation back in July. They made Carillion the biggest UK shorted stock - itself a cause for some alarm. Blackrock (that employer of consultant George Osborne) was amongst the top shorters, in effect betting that the share price will fall so that they can make a profit.

Popular gossip was that Carillion was underbidding for some of its contracts , in other words 'buying the business'. I don't know about that, but I do know that there has been a fairly unremitting increase in category management advisory services, which should provide all around advice to purchasers of services. The advisors' magic trick is to zero in on 'savings' which effectively pushes down the rates that suppliers can charge. It is okay up to a point, but when the supplier is no longer able to function with a sensible profitability than it jeopardises the whole situation.

I don't know whether that was happening with Government procurement of Carillion services and a labyrinthine middle tier structure doesn't help to make things any clearer. That's because Carillion itself sub-contracted, via similar category management, to other lower level suppliers. Wheels within wheels.

There seems to be around £5 billion in play with the entirety of the Carillion situation, plus more than half a billion linked to pension scheme deficits. Now that the first-to-get-paid advisors like PWC have moved in, there will discussions about who will get anything from the situation and where the shortfall money will be parked.

What is already noticeable is that early positioning is drifting the deficit towards the smaller people - suppliers to Carillion, retail shareholders, people in the pension system.

Yet the big chiefs guiding all of this have done okay. Just like chief executive Richard Howson who earned £1.5m in 2016, including £591,000 in bonuses. For some that would be a lifetime's earnings. But wait - although he has already stepped down, he was due to stay on the payroll to pick up another £660,000 salary and £28,000 benefits through to October 2018. He wasn't the only one on that HS gravy train.

Does it seem strange that a business with an almost never-ending supply of UK Government contracts could find itself in this position? Maybe it was enforced low margins? Perhaps it was an over bloated middle management? Perhaps it was a lack of risk management? Maybe the whole value chain was tainted in some way? Behind the headlines there's the 20,000 UK employees affected, plus a similar number on overseas projects.

But by now Blackrock and the other hedge funds have moved on. Other heavily shorted stocks at the moment include Mitie, Marks and Spence and Ocado.

Watch out.

red dot

A couple of days ago I completed that Fire and Fury book about Trump. I've already commented that it felt like the book was going out of date faster than I could read it. The narrative finished sometime in October, so there's the last few missing months, weeks and days.

Usually I pay attention to the 'long waves', which tend to iron out the buzzy moves of a 24 hour news cycle. It's far more difficult with Trump, because of the sheer volume of interference frequencies that operate all of the time.

It was similar with this book. Noisy in its own right, it was also looking in a certain direction. Although wide-angled, it showed certain major interests, such as Jarvanka and Bannon. As an example, when there was an inference of a link to, say, Russia, or to, say, organised crime, this book would deal more with how the inference was handled rather than what the inference was actually about. I suppose the author had to draw lines in order to get something published.

But the directionality means that (for example) the Christopher Steele dossier (pp 37-39, 92-93, 102, 151, 156) and the Glenn Simpson data digging (not listed) can still seem somewhat underplayed. Maybe the ongoing Mueller investigation will have more to say about it, assuming Trump doesn't find a reason to remove him.

Trump's pseudo-monopoly power gives him so many strings to pull. It means on a matter involving his personal integrity he believes he owns all of the 'get out of jail cards'.

Presidential privilege, a fistful of lawyers, a massive genius bigger-than-big tilt button (the biggest) to press whenever he likes, even the recent resurrection of a 24 year old Espy case. He can do what he likes to avoid having to stand up to proper questioning about any of his curious past or as he calls it the 'Democrat hoax'.

Today's US Embassy in London excuse is another example. He suspects it wouldn't be a popular visit. For starters, he wouldn't be rewarded with full pomp and shiny-shiny, so he incorrectly blames the previous president for the selection of Nine Elms as siting for the new embassy, away from the prior Mayfair.


But before we've had a chance to visit the embassy construction site to pose next to the Madame Tussauds waxwork figure, he's already moved on to racially slurring a range of countries (which he now denies). And so it goes on.

What did come through clearly in the book was that the narcissistic sun-god man-child doesn't like to be confused by facts and uses a simple red dot approach to clearing out people he doesn't like. Nothing subtle, just a straight line to the target.

And that target can be anyone who could make him look secondary.