The Blogger Himself

So, this new house has a well. Which isn’t containing much water at present. It’s deep – we’re also in a drought. So, could just be that.

I’ve had a bloke around who is adjacent – irrigation systems – and he says that he doesn’t know this well but usually they go to bedrock. Which may well be so. So making it deeper might not make much difference.

It’s also true that there’s a layer of mud at the bottom of it. Which, he says, if we clear that out then we might get more water.

The sides – not that I know about such things but I’ve read it somewhere – look right. Brickwork, but with gaps. The water supposedly seeps through the gaps into the well from the surrounding earth. The thing is the walls of the well continue to look dry. So, I’m assuming that the water table is a long way down. Maybe we do need a deeper well?

So, that’s then the set of questions. If we’ve a well. But not a lot of water. What’s the next step? Get the mud cleaned out then see? Get it dug deeper? What?

As you all know I have fun doin’ this stuff here. But thanks mightily to those who decided to send some beer money as well.

There’s enough to repair one bicycle (chain flew apart on the crest of a hill, possibly me cresting the hill just that bit too much) and get another properly overhauled into usage again plus beer and vino money. Even a steak dinner as well. I will enjoy all of those things almost as much as I enjoy here. So, thank you.

(Two bikes might seem excessive but am now out in the country and those country roads are fun. Two bikes is one for proper trips and mornings off doin’ biking. The other is a much simpler beast to go off for fresh bread etc. We’re so rural that the bread shop – as is the fruit, the fish and the meat, each separate – is a van comes around once a day. And we don’t actually like his bread. But the shop 10 clicks away, now, that’s good stuff. Which is an excuse for a little trip on the shopping bike, obvs).

Many thanks, I shall enjoy having spent this almost as much as I enjoy your company here.

Home Journal of Cultural Economics Article
The moral foundations of public funding for the arts. Michael Rushton. Palgrave MacMillan
Book Review
Published: 20 August 2024

Well, that’s science as it is described these days. Inna Journal, see?

One of the references is to this:

All of which leads to an interesting conclusion. There might, just, be an arguable justification for subsidy to education in the arts: youth orchestras perhaps, drama lessons. But it would appear that there really is no justification for taxing the dustman so that the Duke can have his opera or the demagogue his drama.

The conclusion being that we now have a policy prescription. The teaching of the arts, certainly, life enriching and part of any decent education. So put that in the education system and then we can close down the entirety of the Arts Council and all the luvvies that hang from it. A good half a billion in savings and as the man said, 500 million here and 500 million there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

I don’t know whether the reference is to approve of that sentiment or argue with it but still – nice to be a building block of science, right?

Bit of work I’ve got to do.

American withdrawal from Afghanistan. My mempory is that it wsa horribly rushed because Biden Admin cocked it up. Not sure of the details – I think accleration without telling everyone?

Anyway, what I need to find is progressive, woke, lefty, hell, usual media, sayin’ it’s just fine, really great!

Basically, those covering asses for political bias reasons.

So, any ideas on who this was? How to find those pieces?

Just to let you know (swank, swank, preen) my substack is being compared with those from David Friedman, Bryan Caplan and Arnold Kling. I am honoured, thank you, thank you and this is a lovely little statue.

One correction, Somerset (although born in Devon).

A Tweet – look, yes, I know you’re all terribly excited by this – went, as the kids say, “viral”. Currently some 1.1 million have read it, I’d guess that it’ll get to 2 million and more. Whoop, whoop, eh?

It’s not wholly exciting, just something that seems to have caught a wave. OK.

So, a little research. It’s possible to make money on Twitter – they’ll give you a share of their advertising revenue. A bit of investigation shows that I’d need to be getting something like that sort of volume of readership each and every day in order to make perhaps $1,000 a month.

This isn’t one of those career paths that is going to work, is it?

It’s very, very, like a gang. There’s the capo who has his little league of gentlemen. How the gentlemen do depends upon where the capo’s placed.

Lewis at The Register used to like my stuff so he employed me. Lewis got fired and so did I – no complaints, that’s just how the gangs work. Lewis got hired at the Telegraph, I start getting work from the T. Until a capo de capi decided he didn’t like my stuff and that then stopped. Oh well.

Two people at places I’ve done work for have just swapped jobs. One doesn’t like my stuff much and has gone from a place with a budget for freelance work to one without. The other likes my stuff more and has gone from a place without that budget to the one with.

Not that this is making hay time, it’s covers the household bills – water, ‘leccie etc – sums but still, that’s nice, no? One of my capos has just got a better place so I as one of the gentlemen……

And, really, that is how freelancing works.

So, I’ve a salt water pool. OK.

Water evaporates (it was 39 oC today and windy). OK.

Salt doesn’t evaporate. So, the pool should get saltier, then I top it up and it reutrns to normal.

But I’ve just had to add 75 kg of salt (it’s around and about 75 m3 of water).

What is it that I’m missing?

I also want the idiots guide to salt water pools. Looking for pages says “shock it once a week” and “read the ph levels” and I need something that starts the level behind that. At least one level behind it. What’s this box? What’s that machine? What am I trying to do other than keep it salty? What’s the whole story? In a for idiots guide.

A heatwave is defined by three or more days of very hot temperatures, ranging from 28C in London to 25C in other parts of the country.

As we call that around here, April. OK. OK, if you insist – May.

King’s second cousin Lord Ivar Mountbatten to star in US Traitors

I was trying to think of how they were second cousins. After I’d worked out who Ivar was of course. And while descent from Viccie, it’s trough the Battenbergs that they are second cousins.

All of which is very boring and not what got me wondering. Second cousings. So, one great grandparent or more in common, yes? Hmm, perhaps one pair of great grandparents in common? Same parents, siblings, same grandparents, cousins, same g g second cousins?

Now, I know I have second cousins. Vast tribes of them in fact, a very with it and trendy poet in Canada I believe, armies roaming New Zealand, Co. Down contains some ancestral stock and on and on.

But I have absolutely no idea who these people are (other than the poet) and no knowledge of even how many there are. Second cousin is out there enough for me not to know I guess.

Perhaps they just keep the stud books better if you’re famous?

Dunno why, maybe someone fed it some oats overnight…..so, comments might be delayed etc

Antibiotic bacteria which fight E. coli and other dangerous bugs have been found in the Roman Baths at Bath.

‌Scientists from the University of Plymouth took samples of the water, sediment and bacterial growth from locations including the King’s Spring, where the waters reach around 113F (45C) and the Great Bath, where the temperatures are closer to 86F (30C).

‌Around 300 distinct types of bacteria were discovered of which 15 were active against human pathogens including E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Shigella flexneri.

Well, yes, OK. But we still need to explain why you can’t swim in the King’s Bath these days.

You could, in my lifetime. I’ve not but my parents have. We used to have the Doolphins swimming lessons in the Cross Bath, just over the road (and traditionally fed by the overflow from the King’s I think). So, why not any more?

Because in the 70s (??) a couple of folk picked up brain eating bugs from swimming in the water.

That is, we’ve got brain eating bugs and also antibiotic bugs in the same waters. Which, when you come to think of it, isn’t all that odd. If there’s something there that can be et – brain eating bugs – then why not something that lives by eating them?

Not that that’s all very scientific but as a rough guide……

I couldn’t work out why they were scraping the C List to get me on.

Ah, yes, election period, so you can’t have anyone party identified because if you do then they all have to be on.

That they got as far down as me shows how free – ahem – standard commentary is of party affiliation.

So, new to me house, out in the country (well, small country town). The whole province is maybe 100,000 people – maybe that much. The big town, provincial capital (35 km away) is 20k. Specialisation isn’t greatly a thing here. So, problem, apply base thinking and grunt labour.

One of which was a blocked sewer. Hmm, maybe tree roots have broken the pipe and grown in? Great source of phosphorous and nitrates after all. Hmm, after digging out 3 metres, no, that’s a PVC pipe and if a root got in the whole thing would be bust. Take another look. Ah, the box itself, one of the side seals isn’t sealed. So the crab grass has got in – looking for that same phos and nitrates. To the point that a foot long block of roots was blocking the exit from the box.

Being in rural, without specialisation, none of us knew what it was – including the local builders. So, me, Muggins, did the digging out and also the finding of the roots. Living urban is easier at times – the man who came around would have specialised in drains instead of being a builder of all things.

But, still, there is that male satisfaction of having solved a manly problem, right? It is satisfaction, this feeling, right?

But I think this is a not bad little piece.

ARE THEY INSANE? Yes, I Am Proud Of Having Started A Tradition.

First, they’re aware the government takes all the money plus some and eats it or something, right? Second, what is this: You can’t rob me. I’ll give you money!

Seriously?

The link is to this.

I’m in the market for a new to me car. And I’m thinking about something fun. Thinking about, not decided upon.

£400 beaters don’t work for me. Zero knowledge of cars in the sense of working on them and, also, I’m in Portugal. The registration tax is such that that simply does not work.

So, some options.

1) A left hand drive westfield or other such copy of the Lotus 7 or even something equivalent. They do exist but they’re rare. e-Bay used to be the place to see those but apparently they don’t do cars any more. So, where’s that market gone?

Simply a fun 2 seater open top. Something with a Fireblade or other bike engine has very little registration tax here. Spain might be a source as well. Something with an old VIN or plate but a newer 3.5 would also be fairly cheap to register here.

2) Portugal has vilely high registration taxes. €20k on a 3 or 4 litre 10 year old big engined car is about right. So, it’s possible that there might be a Portugal registered car or three floating around the UK. They’d be selling at the likely LHD discount because it’s in England. But if still on a P plate that’s a huge discount for me. The bigger the car the bigger that discount is.

3) There’s that story that Range Rovers cost £20k a year to insure in London. I had thought that would mean that they would therefore cost spit. But, obvs, the minimum price is not the London price, but the UK. Still, anyone know if they are real cheap?

Any other ideas?

Must be LHD. Would like something fun. Already have a commute car. So, what next?

I guess a LHD Bentley/RR/Aston etc already on P plates but in UK at LHD prices is unlikely…..

It adds a whole new meaning to bedtime reading: St Paul’s Cathedral is opening its hidden library for a once-in-a-lifetime overnight stay in honour of World Book Day.

For one night only, two guests will be able to stay in the “secret” room of the historic London landmark on 15 March. It is the first time anyone has officially slept inside the cathedral since the second world war, when a voluntary organisation protected the venue from bombing raids.

OK, there is actually a little bedroom up there. Super.

The visit, which costs £7 a night,

Block book that for the next 20 years and that’s the London pad sorted then.

So, this new to us house. Got a vast fireplace – 5ft wide mebbe, 2.5 high. Nearly the size to stick a boy in to turn the spit (which it doesn’t have, either boy or spit).

Cool – tho’ obviously that’s going to consume the firewood summat rotten.

So, stick a grate (and a fireguard) in there and we’re golden, right? I have been informed that it draws very well, which is good.

However, it has two steel plates in it. Or maybe iron, but not cast iron. One on the floor, one on the back wall. Clearly, the intention is that this gets hot from the fire, then radiates heat out.

OK, so who knows about these sorts of things?

#For example, instead of a grate that keeps the fire off the steel plate, should we instead look for something more like a barrier to horizontal movement if it? So that the fire does rest on the steel, but we also make sure that we can have a small and ntense fore through concentration? Anyone with detailed knowledge here?

Dearieme is known, in that online personality, to all of us here. And at other places around the internet – Marginal Revolution comes to mind where I’ve sometimes considered leaving a comment but found that Dearieme got there earlier, better and more pithily than I can manage.

From comments here you might know that he’s been ill recently.

Privately he’s said that this has been serious. Significantly so.

So, just one of those little things if you please. Just say “‘Allo” to Dearieme and a little wish for the best?

Despite the fact that he’s spent two decades telling me that my parents were wrong for not sending me to Ampleforth.