Windrush debacle.

It seems very clear that the people caught up in the Windrush problem, or their parents should accept some level of blame for the issues coming home to roost this week.

You'd think the parents of the children coming to settle in the UK would at some point ensure their children were able to stay in the UK legally, rather than leaving it up to chance and whimsy...

But then the children themselves: If someone choses to live in the UK for 50 years or so, why the heck haven't they gone through the process of applying for a UK passport? That simple task would have solved all of the issues now appearing.

50 years, so several Jamaican passports would have had to be renewed in that time. maybe 5 opportunities to think "maybe it's time I actually put down roots here and got a UK passport".  Maybe 5 opportunities where they were told "you really need to get naturalised you know....".

But no, for some reason during 5 decades of residence they decided to stick with a Jamaican passport despite as they have stated having no ties to Jamaica.

The mind boggles.

And although I'm not entirely devoid of sympathy (after all being hauled away at the crack of dawn under the threat of being deported is no fun), at the back of my brain something is saying come on, accept some responsibility yourself.

Post-Winter Potholes

There is much debate at the moment about the state of Britain's Roads.

After the winter, quite a few roads have been affected by quite deep potholes. Of course it's been said that the fault is the lack of maintenence. It is in a way, but it isn't a lack of maintenance, but the wrong type of maintenance that has caused the problem.

Across the country in previous years, tarmac roads have been resurfaced using a method of spraying tar on the road surface and then a layer of chippings laid into the tar.

I've seen it up and down the country, usually afterwards there's a 20 or 20 mph speed limit until the road sweepers come through and hoover up the piles of chippings that line the road. Councils have been conned by contractors into thinking this will extend the life of the road by decades. It won't.

So there has been maintenance, but only to the surface of the road. It's cosmetic and doesn't repair the deeper fabric of the road surface.

Water is able to get into the deeper layers of tarmac and over time and a few winters frost will start to push the stones apart. Eventually you have a patch of loose stones just waiting for another frost to push them out and onto the road surface. You can see it on roads everywhere: a pothole surrounded by loose tar covered chippings. Eventually the frost recedes, the loose chippings fall back into the hole and then traffic starts to erode the edges of the pothole, adding more loose chippings to the area surrounding the hole and in the process enlarging the hole.

Eventually the surface around the hole crumbles away, producing a full-blown pothole.

So, the cosmetic resurfacing over the past few decades has come home to roost with a patchwork of deeper potholes in roads this Spring.

Filling the potholes with tarmac is only a temporary mesure because the fabric of the road surrounding the hole is weakened and eventually the patch is expelled as the area around it loosens.

The only way to fix it permanently is to dig the road up and start again. Very costly and probably more costly than doing proper meaintenance in the first place rather than the cosmetic tart-up job that's been going on. Not quick and not cheap. But done by the same people that promoted the cosmetic resurfacing as a permanent solution. Win-Win for them.

Maybe we'll be good in time for next winter....

Captain Picard would Piss on Poor People

It seems that the actor patrick Stewart who played Captain picard in Star trek and Professor Xavier in X-Men (not gender neutral) says his charatcters would have voted for Remain.

Just like he would.

Stewart, a labour supporter typifies the sort middle or upper-middle class "sticking with Labour for virtue-signalling purposes" sort of Labour supporter that I'm coming to hate more and more.

Their fame gains them a mouthpiece for Labour, but what comes out of their moths has absolutely nothing to do with, or has any chance of improving the lot of the working man or woman.

We get lots of plattitudes about social conciousness, helping the sick (usually in other countries) helping immigrants (in or from other countries) nad bugger all about helping those low-paid and exploited working class people in this country.

Zero hours contracts? Not a peep.

In-work benefits? Nope.

Nope, lots of virtue signalling though: save everyone and everything else other than working class people. Import lots of immigrants, have open borders to depress wages. Lets make more money for fat-cat managers thanks to depressed costs.

Thanks.