A Trump Failure?

 It was a week that started very much with snow outside being followed by really bad ice which I had a major battle with on Wednesday just trying very much to get as far as the local bus stop so obviously you do check on things such as the conditions in  your area but, if you're like most of us, we soon look into other things in the news.

This whole "story" is evolving so won't be exactly definitive but for the last week or so people were out in Iran protesting which isn't given that countries rule something you see much at all in fairly large numbers in large towns and cities.

They were protesting many things, the faltering state of that countries economy impact on peoples welfare and public services, the lack of freedom of expression politically as well as cultural and in terms of dress where you may be fined or beaten for breaching bans and generally the feeling the Religious and Political ruler since the revolution of 1979 that saw the Shah overthrown by a fundamentalist islamic leader who promise to remove corruption but take total control had really lost his way.

Gulf States whatever you personal beliefs might be have managed to mix a fairly strict form of Islam with some aspects of modern life and here things were going nowhere fast.

Hundreds of thousands protested, men, women who are more impacted by dress restrictions and children too, initially in a more token form before a few days ago going in literally all guns blazing resulting in over a thousand killed and a good number more with serious injuries.

World reaction split from relative silence in the Gulf States to condemnation across Europe and North America but of itself what does it achieve?

Another thing was President Trump had encouraged the protesters, which you can't argue with, but where was the support and my the middle of this week had condemned the loss of life saying "Help is on it's way" sounding more like the tag line of the second Beatles films poster than a promise of something tangible. 

To threaten sanctions to countries trading with Iran is fine, while risking further issues with China, a major trading partner of Iran what is needed more is reducing the ability of the regime in Iran to suppress and repress its own people by targeting communications, missile attacks on detection and interrogation facilities and using Stargate to enable Iran's to bypass internal media restrictions.

To just appear to backdown with a unverified promise not to execute those arrested is just inadequate in my opinion

Of Restorations and snow

Storm Goretti has struck at the dorm as I look through the window while putting my Pj's on as I write this having charged up my torch and cellphone in case of emergency as the phone goes over the internet so if the power is down everything stops.

Back to things that are still being worked upon, we're rebuilding the classical micro sd cards adding what was missing but for some material actually you don't need the cds you might have around but the HD downloads as from around the mid 1990's onwards albums were recorded in higher resolution than the regular cd format could carry.

As well, older analogue recordings were increasingly retransferred digitally to higher resolution than in the early digital era where they were issued on cd and often they are available as downloads too.

I have the record version of this which is a stunning account of John Williams's film scores and taking advantage of the classical music store Presto's January sales got the HD download used for the record.

This then new recording of all Mozart's Violin Concertos was one several sets issued in 2006 whose masters were in much higher resolution than the cd sets I bought at the time

Although issues with the Laptop such as having a faulty lcd caused some difficulties initially, we've made great progress restoring these two cards given much of the material wasn't backed up and one card had a high proportion of Mp3's that today had I of even had them, I would certainly redone over time as with better players and headphones you can hear the difference.

We're nearly done with the rock and pop cards and carefully tuned the output of the players to cut a slight "sting" in the top response and restore a bit of the low end that using my DT770 headphones on them would otherwise get.

The last year and welcome to 2026!

Twenty-Twenty Five has its issues both politically and personally so we'll look a bit at each in today's post.

Politically what were the three main parties, Conservative and Unionist, Labour and Liberal Democrat just ceased to be really relevant, showing little support in opinion polls and more critically elections, it may be the more cynical mood that's about but "Ever felt cheated" seems to sum up popular disenchantment with them.

We've switched from various incarnations of Conservative government to Labour but little seems to change, massive promises are made whatever you personal views on the ideas might be but very little gets done and significantly few feel any the better for it which after all why people voted for change not least in 2024.

And it hasn't happened.

Sometimes it seems Courts seem to set the rules rather than elected members rather than the system being held to account by the agreed rules

Thus people are taking chances on two relative outsiders, the popularist rightward Reform Party that favours lower taxes, lower spending and tight immigration control especially of illegal migrants and the Green Party that is more "open door" on immigration, favours environmental actions and taxes to as they would see it incentivize action sit feels would help deal with climate change and is broadly more public spending minded with a goodly amount of inclusion and minority actions. 

I suspect a number of us are somewhere between the two camps - we know long term spending needs holding back but worry about those most vulnerable and the impact pressures on energy and rents have on people even on what otherwise might be see as reasonable incomes - we feel the immigration system is neither efficient, fair or taking into account not just the rights of would be applicants but what they have to offer in exchange for being allowed to settle and the impact it has in the massive housing waiting lists however sympathetic we may feel toward individual cases. 

 And there ARE hard cases that truly deserve a second chance elsewhere.

Personally the year did see a challenge having damaged my left wrist and the bones just above and below it in a fall which fortunately seems to have recovered although cold mornings like today you can just feel them as I do on the upper right arm that was fractured in my teens,

Living with "The Grump" Tm has its issues - the tendency to over dramatize anything although some may well be painful or otherwise a concern connected with the stubborn refusal to look at the wider picture first "I'll do what I ___ want" approach followed by the admission as we're less capable the day before of "I think I overdid it yesterday...".

You do need to take a step back and consider things before rushing headlong into action. 

That means YOU have things to do that you wouldn't of and then they say they don't want to pressure you but when now't else is taking any of that load, being realistic you are as much as that person you're happy to help as its needed.

Turning to music, I did enjoy this years BBC Proms season with its broad range of music, mainly classical, encouraging younger people to explore different forms of music.

Major new popular albums for me included The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift plus a series of reissued by The Monkees and some limited vinyl restoration of titles from the 80's that originally I had on tape or cd.

Regarding classical, well we had a series of vinyl reissues, the DG The Original Source series that saw analogue recordings from the 70's remixed in real time from the multitrack tapes direct to vinyl bypassing using another stereo tape which previous issues didn't sound to good from.

The records turned out well with deeper bass and clearer mids sounding more modern.

Hyperion had started but with limited publicity a series of vinyl issues of highly regarded digital recordings from this century that never had a record release ever which were cheaper in more simple single sleeve packaging which sounded amazing.

The main thing was the rediscovery of Downloads, specifically 24 bit High Definition ones as a couple of cards and a player went M.I.A but I found where I had got them from so having got bigger replacement cards they were redownloaded.

But then HD files are big so you need a player that will take large capacity cards without slowing up or not showing when indexed. 

One TerraByte micro sd cards weren't a thing in the early 2010's, I mean 32gb cards were expensive enough.

This was one I bought, the equivalent of two Super Audio cds whose production has dropped to a trickle even from labels that were more committed to it such as Chandos so really in the future I can easily see more HD Downloads being bought and enjoyed played via that to the main amplifier or via the USB to coaxial connector of the Digital to Analogue convertor in the system that deals with DAB radio and regular cd.

Happy Twenty Twenty Six

It's almost here

 

Christmas is almost upon us  six days to go by my counting and we might be almost ready for Christmas aka CatMas with just a few food related items to get beyond the usual food shopping that got a bit disrupted with various issues earlier in the week.

Cards have been up as they have arrived, the trees are up as I decided to get a small table top tradition green tree with decorations as that was more fitting in with my recollections of Christmas when we used to have a tall Pine Tree in the house - and you could smell the needles - and everyone gathering it to decorate and put the lights on it.

Back then we had paper streamers up, tinsel around the doors and numerous card holders festooned across the front room and dining room.

Seeing this time of year is rather busy with me - the original worker bee - we'll be pausing the blog this week and doing something across the Christmas period ready for the New Year whatever that might bring.

Happy Christmas followers!

Moving toward that time of year

We will pause next week until after CatMas/Christmas as things will be really rather busy, not that we haven't had a complication or two along the way so far with various things but at least Mary and Joseph are out as is the tree and some cards have been written.

In many areas Trees are up and like this weekend here Santa will be making his round spreading christmas joy often aided by Girl Guilding, Scouts and organizations like the Round Table riasing funds for charity which is needed as much today at least as in the recent past.
 

That's something I definitely looking forward to. 

Getting there

 Miss Kitty has the right idea even if a few folk seemed bent on dragging the season down either with their own obsessions, self centred  approach difficulties utterly ignoring other peoples welfare or that they're sharing space that you happen to be using as they start screaming tossing stuff about or trying to do things when they know they are only capable at that moment of simpliest  of breakfasts and making a total mess of it.

Like just get something simple and add something extra if needed later  on?

 So with all that going we're trying to prepare for Christmas which for me has issues like feeling the loss of school friends at this time of year and obviously of aunts and that no longer with us that featured in the activities.

Advent calendar is up, I have a few cards and will pick up a few more boxes in a few days time so they can be written and posted not being really into e-cards apart from folk not doing email and all that even if its 2025.

I did find a few Chorister cds to put on and a disc with christmas readings too for nearer the day as I'd sooner focus on that than much of the commerciality and as ever Mr Claus will be making his way around around the second week of the month on his sleigh with helpers.

That's more my kind of Christmas.  

Budget talk and child support

 The excitement of Wednesday has naturally given way to more detailed analysis of the budget  although for me personally it's broadly speaking neutral although how goods and services may be effect is to be seen- some may go up.

The big issue in this budget was the thorny question of the Two Child Cap on Universal Credit which is a benefit payable to those in work, those looking for work and some unable to work which was introduced in the UC system at the outset by the then Liberal Democrat/Conservative Government.

The idea behind it was to avoid the situation where Dave at the Pub alleged half the residents of Blogtown Estate were having kids cos they could get more money, avoid having to work and he was fed up of his taxes paying for it.

The argument run you could have up to children's costs fully paid for but any others you'd have to find your own money for and so people wouldn't expect to have big families on the state.

 One problem with the policy was it took no account of family structures prior to making the claim such as if you already had three or more children or were expected another when you made the claim so those children would struggle (or all of them would) leading to increased child poverty which even though I'm not left leading politically I'd have to say in my experience of being a Generalist Advisor at the CAB here it certainly did.

Now it's been decided to remove it entirely.

I do have mixed feelings over this as while I agree it badly needed reform and certainly to respect family structures prior to claims and that in general people have a right to family life including starting your own, there was some anecdotal evidence of situations where a few people did have six or more  children whilst making benefit claims and in general terms we don't for population and environmental reasons wish to encourage large families which leads then to greater school provision needs and bespoke housing conversions having to done with the taxpayer paying to accommodate large families not least when others may of been waiting years for accessibility related adaptations to meet their disabled needs. 

To me there does need a cut of point administered firmly but humanely around the absolute number of children collectively we all fund in a single family unit.