Tsarina

We got a phone call. For once it wasn’t yet another phisher. Actually the latest scam we’ve had is somebody claiming to be from the MOD department and saying there’s somebody registered at our household who has been in the services. If we include all family members, rather than the current household, then my Grandfather did serve. Mind you he was demobbed in 1919, so it would be a very convoluted…

I’ve mentioned wildfires before. Mainly because the numbers are increasing. Last year set a record, fire and rescue services were called out to nearly a thousand. This was more than the previous record year, 2022. So far 2026 has not broken records but there is still plenty of the year to go. As I write this there is a major wild fire in the Cairngorms. So far the Scottish government has…

A report has been produced, White Working Class Educational Outcomes. https://educationaloutcomes.org.uk/ Its findings are brutally simple, “Estelle Morris, who was education secretary under Tony Blair’s Labour government from 2001 to 2002, said none of the initiatives rolled out in the past 30 years had significantly or sustainably boosted the performance of white working-class children in…

The government has produced the ‘Farming Roadmap 2050.’ It is apparently “A long-term plan giving farmers clarity to invest, adapt and build a profitable, productive, sustainable and resilient future for English farming.” One thing that has immensely irritated people who have both read it and know anything about agriculture and the climate in the UK is that the government want us to grow more…

I assume that everybody has heard about the farmer recently who got a letter from the RSPCA saying they had a complaint about animal cruelty. It turns out somebody had been following him as he moved sheep along the road and at one point his dog had to round some of the sheep up. Somebody reported it to the RSPCA as sheep worrying. I saw another incident, the police arrived on a farm, they had…

I was chatting to somebody who is also in agriculture, and the first thing that struck me is that our lives had been a series of occasions where we just had to get the job done, without the proper equipment, staff, or time. It’s like the time I had to fetch three heifers home because it was unsafe for them if they stayed there. There were two of us available at the time. With a quad bike.…

One of the important aspects of a Poverty Truth Commission is that it is built upon the lived experience of its members. It’s not a collection of statistics, trends or predictions. It’s a no holds barred insight into what life is really like for some people. I was talking to a chap who wasn’t part of our PTC but I feel his lived experience was worth sharing. So here it is, in his words. “After…

Get on your bike and look for a job? The problem is for those looking to enter the job market at the moment, according to the BBC, entry-level jobs have sharply declined. The number of mid- and lower-skilled jobs in the economy has fallen by around 1.6 million over the past 20 years. Jacking up employers’ national insurance hasn’t helped. In fact it looks particularly economically illiterate at…

We have a problem with our political class. This has been thrown into harsh relief by the recent story about Peter Murrell, Former CEO of the Scottish National Party, and his wife Nicola Sturgeon. She is the former First Minister of Scotland and more to the point, former Leader of the Scottish National Party. Peter Murrell has admitted to embezzling £400,000 from the SNP. And according to Nicola…

Apparently Rachel Reeves is putting pressure on supermarkets to cap food prices. This is because we are pretty well guaranteed to be heading into bout of serious inflation, largely caused by the closure of the Gulf of Hormuz.I’ve seen various estimates as to how bad things will get, and a 10% increase in food prices seems reasonable. This is caused by two different factors. The first is the rapid…

I was listening to somebody talking about the importance of data and how you look after it. Now I confess that for me, Data means strings of numbers. I know that’s wrong, it’s just a mental picture I’ve somehow been stuck with. But in reality, data is information. And she gave us an example of why it is important to look after data, and the damage getting it wrong can do. Now I’m not talking…

It’s difficult to work out what level of self-sufficiency in food has been normal in the UK. The last famine in England, as a whole, was in the 1590s. This was a widespread famine across much of Europe, where due to bad summers, the wheat harvest failed for four consecutive years from 1594-1597. There was famine in 1623–1624 which is actually known as the last major peacetime famine in England.…

One thing I have noticed is that sometimes AI is being used to communicate. Sometimes it’s being used to prevent communication. But then like any tool it can be used well or badly. One time I came across AI done well was when I had to phone Companies House. As a charity trustee I had to verify my identity. This they expected you to do using your photo ID. I had no photo ID. So the webpage…

One thing that has struck me over the years is that the various charities I’ve worked with, or have just come across, work better when they can work with partners. It seems to work best when the partner has similar aims and aspirations, but this is not always true. Too similar and they can seem like competitors for what little largesse the public are happy to cast your way. On the other hand…

So today I am bringing three men to the assistance of the poor. One enthusiastically, one indirectly, and one probably against his better judgement. It was George Orwell said about Kipling, “He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.” I know, sad but true, I’m about to talk about a bunch of unwashed oiks…

I’ve always liked the quote by Lin Yutang. And at the moment it’s pertinent. Two small men are casting big shadows. You see, whilst everybody is panicking about fuel prices and the cost of petrol, they are missing the real issue. The gulf is one of the main sources of fertiliser. Effectively nitrogen fertilisers can be seen as a by-product of natural gas production. So about 30-35% of global urea…

One problem I have noticed for charities is just who refers people to you. I first came across this helping at a foodbank. If somebody was referred to the foodbank by a person or organisation they trusted, (a church, a friend, or similar) then the person seeking help was predisposed to trust us. They would be happy to engage and it was comparatively easy to discuss with them the underlying…