A peculiar week

We have had a rather strange week thus far. I have never  known Annette to be so engaged with politics before. Like me she is appalled at the referendum results. She feels very strongly because of the effect on our eldest daughter, Alison. She works on regulatory affairs for an agrichemicals company. On Friday she talked with their commercial director who said their EU regulation is likely to move to an EU country and the consequence would be that she would be out of a job. They regard the UK as a declining market.

This wasn’t what upset Alison the most. Apparently a Polish friend was harassed immediately after the results in one of the hate incidents which have increased.  She was appalled this could happen in what was seen as peaceful area. She set about organising a “Guildford Stays” rally which was held on Tuesday and gained about 200 attendees. There was some concern but it passed off peacefully ( as it should ). As she works from home she could rearrange her time to do this organising which was supported by a speaker from the local area. (#Guildford stays ).

For the first time I took to social media to express my feelings. I noted that Farage was challenged by MEP’s about the leavers promise that the supposed £350m saving from leaving would be spent on the NHS. This was an undertaking rapidly withdrawn and  Farage had no answer. There is a clear tendency in UK politics to always pretend  in some way defend the NHS and provide better funding- the Leavers cashed in on pro NHS attitudes but the speed with which they reneged was surprising.

We have had cousin Brenda to stay. She is George’s widow. All of circumstances of George’s death gave her ample preparation and eased the blow. We are pleased she has a son living nearby and her other son, living in Sheffield is expecting another baby. We organised our other Midlands cousins to visit. Both Dorothy at nearly 90 and Winifred at just over 80 are old ladies. We collected them from Coalville and Bedworth respectively. In truth I don’t think it was a huge success as both were rather stilted with Brenda while we were careful in our conversation. I’m afraid Dorothy is racist in her attitude ( a “kipper” par excellence ) and so the referendum subject was avoided.  Dorothy has lived all her married and widowed life in one street and has very narrow views. In contrast Winifred is very far from the normal aging spinster. She was a midwife in London for many years and is a devout believer. She was very much a “call the midwife” as portrayed in the TV series. Her life now revolves around the church and the Citizens Advice Bureau where she is a volunteer.

During the early years of the war Winifred stayed with my parents in the country to be away from the bombing of Coventry. Eventually her home was bomb damaged and her mother came to live in our village. Her father was in the army and fought in the Middle East and then Europe. I say fought although as a transport driver he wasn’t in the front line. Her father, Jim, was a remarkable man. He was easily the most silent man  I have ever known. When visiting he would say hello, busy himself with handyman jobs or read the paper then say goodbye when he left and that was the extent of his conversation. His wife, Aunt Amy, more than made up being one of the most talkative people I’ve encountered. Maybe she was starved of conversation.

I’m fairly certain in my own mind that my conception owed a lot to Winifred. My parents, particularly mother, were delighted to have this little girl staying with them. I’m sure mother thought how wonderful it would be to have her own daughter. In that sense I was a disappointment, not interested in knitting or sewing or any of the crafts mother was eager to reach. Mother never gave even the slightest hint of her preference to me and I have only gained this from other relatives. Hopefully I made up in other ways.

The political situation has unfolded as the week progressed. The Tory party succession struggle was as expected although opportunist Boris dropping out wasn’t. Clearly he recognises he has antagonised many fellow MP’s. The Labour party struggle was less predictable with the margin of the no confidence vote surprising.

The financial markets have stabilised a bit for the moment. The largest international companies shares have done better than I expected. While there has been overseas buying it would appear this is in the hope, even expectation, that the Bank of England will ensure even looser financial conditions. The more UK centred smaller companies have fallen more. The fall in the pound has  apparently also stabilised at a much lower level.

Clearly business would like a Norway style agreement; while a poor second best it would preserve access to the single market. However as free movement is part of the agreement the bigots will oppose and on present form damage us even more.

Black Day

So a narrow vote ( although it might as well be overwhelming ) to leave the EU. As I write this at mid morning on the Friday we already see two consequences as the pound plummets and Cameron resigns. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Cameron’s but he is vastly better than any likely replacement including Boris with his bumbling. I will find the gleefulness of the likes of Nigel Farage very hard to stomach.

It seems clear that the referendum was decided on immigration. I fear that the bigots carried the day. Plus I notice from the demographics of the vote how many older people are backwards looking. I have always seen a dark side to the kippers with a nasty undertone of racism. I would like to think the success of the anti immigration message is largely down to ignorance and prejudice but I think we can’t ignore the really worrying undertone of racism. Those who think that coloured faces will start to disappear will be disappointed.

The economic consequences will be only too apparent. My central prediction( remembering all the warnings about prediction ) is for a period of severe turbulence followed by some sort of plateau and a long period of relative economic decline. However I find that for the first time ever I wouldn’t be too averse to a recession to bring people to their senses. There is a significant chance this will happen.

The plunging pound will help exporters to the extent it makes their wares cheaper overseas. We will see the effect immediately at the petrol station and after a very short delay in rising prices in the shops. The dragon of inflation could arise again.

I see that the Bank of England is making 250 billion available to banks to try and mitigate the shock. While short term measures might help there is very limited long term room for support to the economy. With interest rates already very low there is little chance of sufficient reductions to ward off recession.

The irony of this is that the leavers don’t care. A further irony is that long term immigration will drop because the UK economy is no longer attractive. The final “joke” is that the touted Norwegian or Swiss models will require free labour movement anyway.

Engagement party

We were delighted to attend my cousin’s son’s engagement party. I’m told it is becoming increasingly fashionable to hold an engagement party. We never held a party for any of our children but then they all chose partners, lived with them and then thought of marriage. I don’t think they ever thought of becoming formally engaged. They jumped straight from living together to marriage.

I suppose I may as well air my long standing grievance with my son. He lived with a young lady for several years. I was slightly uncomfortable with this because I thought her parents might also be uncomfortable as they seemed slightly old fashioned in their attitudes. The first time I met her parents I tried to express my feelings. Her mother immediately reassured me by saying she knew my son would marry any time but her daughter wouldn’t have him.

This state of affairs continued for some years until the couple visited us in high excitement to show us the scans of a baby they expected. We duly cooed over these and all was well until a throw away remark by my son saying that knowing they were hoping for a child they had got married some months previously; in fact the previous year. We were astounded. It emerged they had just gone to a register office with two close friends as witnesses and married with no word to anyone else.

I should emphasise we were delighted with our new daughter-in-law. We would have liked to have given her a more traditional wedding day. In fairness she always said she was very shy and maybe it would have been difficult for her. I must admit our motives were not entirely unselfish as I felt that a family day would have been very welcome- I always maintained that weddings were as much for your family as yourself.

We did have one traditional family wedding with our elder daughter. Sadly after many years together they eventually divorced although remain on very good terms with one another. As a post graduate student of New Cross college at Oxford she was able to hold a reception there. The civil ceremony was in a nearby hotel. The college setting was wonderful for the reception and on a pleasant sunny afternoon we could enjoy the gardens. I enjoyed meeting her partner’s family. I’m happy to say we have kept in touch, albeit more distant, with her partner’s parents.

Our younger daughter’s wedding was rather different. In deference to her partner’s elderly grandparents who couldn’t travel they held the wedding in a hotel near to the grandparents home in Cumbria. Both civil ceremony and reception were in the hotel. My disappointment was that they held a second reception for their younger friends in their home city and I never got the chance to meet them. So they remain as names. Our eldest granddaughter was about 3 and enjoyed being a flower girl and having a dress which she could twirl. This latter was an essential requirement.

There was a curious corollary to my elder daughter’s wedding. One of the guests had exactly the same name as her, so was also Alison Hall. Periodically at the reception I would meet the other Alison and make some jocular remark such as I was sure that wasn’t her real name. These sallies were met with quizzical looks which at the time I attributed to my feeble humour. It was afterwards I discovered I had the wrong Alison. No wonder she was surprised.

Romance- and the word

Last weekend I spent a day listening to writers talk about romance and how they write about it. I should say immediately I am not a huge fan but I attended in my role as treasurer of Tamworth Literary Festival Group ( LitFest for short ). The all day event was the most ambitious we have staged and was at two venues, St Editha’s church ( St Georges chapel ) and the town library.

The church was the venue for the talks while a range of authors had tables in the library and sold and signed books and chatted to the public. The attendance at the talks was disappointing while the free “meet the authors” was much better attended. We had a moment of panic when no-one had turned up for one talk. Our chairperson saved the day by asking some of the authors in the library to come over. In the event it was perhaps as well the audience was small as the authors had little notion of public speaking using  just a conversational voice. I had great difficulty in hearing them. I am rather deaf but even so they spoke too softly.

Unfortunately we had a bad start when the church caretaker couldn’t get the computer projector to work. I sympathised as I have only used a projector once in a presentation- usually I used an overhead projector. The projector was borrowed and I practiced diligently beforehand. It all worked well unlike another speaker at the same event whose system failed. The irony was that seeing I was a newbie he had offered his help.

Our final author was completely unlike the others. Whereas they were of the slightly superior Mills and Boon type ( one has been invited to take on the Catherine Cookson mantle ) the final speaker had stories from the dark side of romance. He read a short story which appears as though it is a middle aged man  picking up a girl for the evening. Right at the end it is revealed they are in a suicide pact and need each others company for it.

This final speaker aroused some amusement. Among his audience was an elderly clergyman who remonstrated that the author read too quickly. The author remarked he had never been heckled by a clergyman before.

One of the features of the day for me was meeting some local folk whose names I had often heard but had never met before. I was quite astonished that one knows my cousin quite well. It has become very apparent that there are a group of organisations and people who live locally and know one another well. So there are Civic Society, History Group, Writers Group, Heritage Society and no doubt many more. Now that the town library has undergone severe cuts there are various volunteers there.

It is about time I became more lighthearted. Here is a limerick I came across on the day.

The builder was filled with dejection
At the end of the council inspection
For he’d started his mission
Without planning permission
And now he must lose his erection

Life- but not as we know it

It is now 50 years or so since the genetic basis for life was discovered. This was the now famous Watson and Crick discovery of DNA. Essentially DNA is a sort of blueprint for life coded  in 3 billion characters in such a way that it can reproduce itself. The DNA is known to eg. code for specific proteins which form the building blocks of living cells. Every cell contains a copy of the DNA of the organism.

There have long been relatively crude ways of modifying DNA. However a much more precise method is now available which rejoices in the acronym CRISPR. This is a popular way to naming the technique which offers a exact way of inserting or deleting DNA codes.

It appears to be conceptually possibly to synthesise DNA although the main use is to modify DNA to remove parts known to cause problems. Even this is sometimes controversial. It is possible for example to modify part of the male contribution to DNA in such a way that not only is the baby saved from the defect but all subsequent children of that baby are also saved.

Current projects to synthesise DNA have far less dramatic objectives. One such ( called Sc2.0 ) aims to recreate the genome of brewer’s yeast. Compared with a human genome this is relatively simple as only some 12 million coding units are involved as against the 3 billion in a human genome. The objective is to understand more fully how the yeast works and ultimately to improve it. The work is ongoing with 2018 set for its early objectives.

Rather differently  a US group claims to have made the DNA of a simple bacterium and then whittled it down to the absolute minimum necessary for the bacterium to live. However the team finds that some 32% of the code is not understood; essential to life but of unknown function.

Far more ambitious is a proposal for what is called the Human Genome-Write project ( HGW ). The idea is to develop technology to enable DNA code to be written.  This is at present a proposal seeking funding, and it will be vastly expensive. To read the human genome required some $3 billion and although subsequent advances in technology have much reduced this sum. HGW would have, certainly initially, some limited objectives. One objective is modify the pig genome so its organs are more suitable for human transplants. There is a huge shortage of organs for human transplants and pig organs are reckoned to be the best possibility for improving organ supply.

Popular science journals have made melodramatic noises about a synthetic human. This looks a million miles away even if HGW goes ahead. Bioethicists are already commenting which seems decidedly premature.

Scientific progress moves in waves and it seems that while physics is making slow progress building on insights now a century old,  biology is making rapid strides based on developments in DNA technology.

Consequences

With opinion polls suggesting a leave vote in the referendum I’m left with a sense of deep foreboding. Clearly the immediate consequences will be severe economic turbulence. I suspect some of those who so casually have trashed our future may come to have second thoughts. These will be too late.

Hopefully the recessionary shock will be short. There is a real danger that any recession could take hold and become longer lasting. With the world economy looking fragile this could be a major problem.

The immediate political consequences will be fairly dire. The SNP will demand another independence referendum, win it and detach. Cameron will resign and it looks like Boris Johnson will take over a severely split Tory party.  Whether Johnson could even keep the party together now looks rather doubtful.

Whoever does take leadership will face the obvious difficulty of trying to get into a large market. All the fairytales will be shown up and a slow decline will start. At precisely what stage leavers regrets will start is very hard to see but I suspect quite soon. This does arouse the thought that if MP’s are sufficiently willing to grasp the nettle they could actually stop and even reverse exit.

The problem is the main issue of immigration. Labour voters clearly see this as important; the Labour leadership doesn’t. It appears that it is those at the bottom of the economic pile who are most bitterly opposed to immigration. When they see how little real difference is makes to them there could be a change. But I doubt it, bigotry is hard to overcome. I have said earlier that I don’t think the British public is more than maybe 10% racist but I suspect bigotry will take at least a generation to overcome.

On a personal level what's to be done. I have to recognise a chunk of my savings has gone up in smoke and I’ll resent that bitterly. House prices may well fall which as I’m about to sign at the previous price level is not good news. I never have been a placard holding protester and I’m probably not starting now; although the temptation will be there. I was involved in a furious debate at college during the Cuban missile crisis. Somewhat later I was involved in a student controversy in Liverpool when I was a research student.

The issue was that one of the student union officers was accused of favouring his buddies when booking acts. I’m fairly certain his actions were fraudulent but there was resistance to asking for a police investigation. I was so incensed that in a most uncharacteristic way at a debate I seized the microphone and accused the antis of a bias against the police. This was at a time in the early 70’s when the police were regarded as pigs- - still are by some. Eventually it was decided that an internal board of enquiry be set up and predictably this fizzled out. He escaped that one.

This has so far been my only involvement in a protest movement. I was unhappy with our Tory MP anyway and I can’t see my support at the next election continuing. This will place me in a dilemma as the Labour party under Corbyn is clearly unfit to govern.

Starting again in Windows 10

I've gone to Windows 10. Generally I'm moderately happy; I expected problems and on the whole they have been modest. However it has trashed my blogger account. There should be a way back in but I just can't see it. Having spent hours messing around, and finding Google help is useless, I've taken the only possible way forward that I can see. I'm starting a new blog. This should have an address closely similar to the old one as www.philiphall43.blogspot.com. I'm rather fed-up about this but at present I don't see any alternative.

As regards Windows 10  the new Edge browser is good, fast and responsive. I don't have a long wait to connect and ( fingers crossed ) the Explorer drop out problem will be solved. I was concerned about the fate of my files but all seem to have upgraded OK. I do have some curiosities such as Excel files which warn that it may harm the computer if they are saved; I've shelved that issue for the moment.

Email is a slightly mixed bag. My main email account works fine but Windows 10 has trashed my gmail account. This may be because I tried to install two, one personal, one for litfest. I did the litfest one first and it chooses that automatically and doesn't allow another- and yet if I re-register I can pick a new account name. Access to Email is super easy because it lives in a live internet pane as well as the traditional route.

It is taking time to get used to the rather different way of working. I'm used to opening a program and then selecting a file but with 10 select the file and the program opens automatically.

The live panes ( not sure what the proper name is ) work OK although many are for applications or topics in which I have no interest. They were a big feature of Windows 8/8.1 which I never really got to grips with. I gather it was judged a resounding flop so I'm not on my own.

I've gone to cloud backup particularly because MS promise to sync the files there with those on the hard disc. I suspect I have much more to learn because a couple of files I inadvertently saved to the cloud under Windows 8 seem to have disappeared.

Overall a cautious positive for Windows 10.

Old joke

Patient: Doctor I feel like a pair of curtains
Doctor: Well pull yourself together