Search This Blog

Monday 29 December 2014

FTSE 100 index

This morning, the main UK share index started up a little bit but seems to be drifting lower as the day progresses.  It looks likely to end little changed on the day, unless there are late surprises.

UPDATE 1712z:  The FTSE 100 ended the day marginally higher.

Sunday 28 December 2014

Another plane goes missing in S.E.Asia

Although the indications so far are that this is a tragic bad weather accident, the mind inevitably goes back to the loss of MH370 earlier in the year, of which no trace of wreckage has ever been found. AirAsia flight QZ8501 flying to Singapore with 162 passengers has not been heard of since requesting a change direction due to bad weather.

UPDATE 29.12.14 1237z:  Indications suggest it crashed into the Java Sea. Tragic. There is a search and rescue mission  in progress although hopes of finding any survivors are slim.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-30620761 .

Simple pleasures

Over the Christmas period we have seen all our family and all our grandchildren. This is a picture of our "London" grandchildren walking up the lane to the windmill that is next to our house. I am ahead of them.  Our house is to the right, just out of the shot. You can just see the hedge bordering the front garden  on the right hand of the picture. The windmill has recently been restored. It is nearly 200 years old.

Saturday 27 December 2014

Service of 9 lessons and carols from Kings

We have just watched and listened to this service. We recorded this earlier over Christmas. Since the end of WW1 in 1918, this service has been held in Kings College Chapel. It is now broadcast worldwide.

Kings College Chapel is one of the world's most famous buildings. We
have a free pass to get in. Being local, it is all too easy to take all the splendid buildings in Cambridge for granted. Since retiring, I have taken them for granted far less than when I worked in Cambridge.   My wife and I often say what a wonderful city it is. If we were on holiday here we'd enjoy it!  We really are very lucky living so close.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_College,_Cambridge  .

See http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/events/chapel-services/nine-lessons/history.html .

Christmas time

Whether you celebrate Christmas as a Christian or simply as a time in mid-winter when you can enjoy some good food and family company, I hope Dec 25th was a very happy time for you.

What happened in the Middle East over 2000 years ago this Christmas may never be properly known, but just perhaps something extraordinary did happen back then. The stories about it have passed down over the centuries. They may be inaccurate, mixed up, partly myth, or totally wrong. Somehow though I have a deep sense that in this muddled, often contradictory, set of accounts there is something timeless and important we need to respond to.

And here is the famous poem by John Betjeman that senses this. In the midst of the humdrum activities of Christmas - the presents and the food and the decorations - there is that mystery. What really happened? What is the message?

Christmas

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain.
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hooker’s Green.


The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that villagers can say
‘The Church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.


Provincial public houses blaze
And Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’


And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.


And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad,
And Christmas morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.


And is it true? and is it true?
The most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?


And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant.


No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.

— John Betjeman (1906 - 1984)

Template for blog?

I am experimenting with a more cheerful template. Please let me have any feedback on this e.g. is it clearer? Is it worse? etc. The basic content should still be as before.

British Rail

Yet again,  British Rail is in trouble. Over running engineering work has closed Kings Cross station in London and poor passengers are badly lacking information. This is not excusable. British Rail need to try harder to ease the problems for passengers.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30607689 .