Tsarina

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…

Have you noticed how so many organisations seem to have no, ‘institutional memory?’ This is where somebody suggests a course of action and somebody else can say, ‘we have tried that and this is how it failed.’ (Or to be more positive, ‘we tried that and these are the benefits we got at the time.’)So it is with the supermarkets. Back in 2023 energy prices soared, the growers on fixed price…

I don’t know if you remember but back in February 2023 there was a shortage of salad vegetables for about a month. The major supermarket chains; Tesco, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons got very short of such things as tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. There had been a cold spell in southern Spain and North Africa. But in the rest of Europe supermarkets had full shelves. If you remember, the price of gas…

One problem with farming is dealing with the medical side. Need a vet, pick up the phone and they’re there. (Perhaps we’ve been lucky but that’s my experience.) Want medical treatment for yourself? Tricky. Getting to see a GP isn’t easy. I once phoned for something and was told the GP would ring me back. I asked when because it would have to be on the landline as I might not be in signal (or even…

I saw the book in Alen Gaetz’s Second Hand Books. It was a remarkably thick tome and flicking through it, the book seemed to be telling the tale of two mages in a city very much like Port Naain. Indeed it was Port Naain but the city as depicted had perhaps deviated from reality slightly at some point in the past. Then I remembered where I had seen this story before. I had been staying with a…

I’m trying to remember exactly when this tale starts. But anyway, Shena and I were sitting at leisure in the barge. I remember it as a quiet end to a quiet day. Then there was knock on the door. When I opened it a lady entered. She was slim, her clothing nondescript and she had a certain presence. Without introduction she dropped a purse of money on the table. “Tallis Steelyard?” To be honest…

The tale of Mistress Krisi Ballock seems to take an inordinate length of time to tell. The first part is entitled, ‘Slow horses and Gaviston Deccal.’ The second part is ‘A life before mushrooms.’ But back to Krisi. It wasn’t even as if she was a particularly remarkable young woman. If I were to chronicle the antics of Mistress Almas Slackwater I could fill several fair sized volumes covering the…

This story is somewhat unusual in that I merely asked an AI to write a story in the style of Tallis Steelyard. This is the result. My sole contribution are these two lines and finding a picture. Ah, you wish to hear a tale spun in the style of Tallis Steelyard, the loquacious bard of Port Naain. Very well, let me endeavour to entertain with the fine art of storytelling, full of wisdom, wit, and…

I was dining with old Gaffer Alfren, which is always both a pleasure and an education. His cook and his house keeper (I always knew the latter as Mistress Tims, which cook was always, ‘Cook’.) would eat with us and the conversation was general. But this evening old Gaffer got up and walked across to a bookshelf. He pulled down a leather bound volume and gave it to me. “I bet even you’ve never…