Mail Strike

The Royal Mail workers going on strike recently should carefully consider their future. They may well be jeapardising it with many businesses and individuals looking for alternatives to using the postal service. The mail workers have their grievances, but surely if they strike, then they are harming the British economy, as many businesses rely on the postal service for their turnover. They will surely find alternative ways of doing business if the Royal Mail is not available or is unreliable (more so than usual).

As the strikes continue, businesses will no longer want to rely on Royal Mail and so the Royal Mail will lose custom and have a smaller revenue, which in turn must lead to job cuts. The first people they should get rid of, when this happens (I believe it is inevitable, and the longer the strikes last, the more staff will have to be made redundant) should be those who were the most militant in their strike action.

The striking workers should be grateful they have a job and are not signing on at the local Job Centre. If they do not like the pay and conditions they should try living on benefits for a few weeks instead of a salary.

I have already cancelled paper statements on my current account in favour of online statements, something I previously resisted as I like to have a printed statement. But as the mail workers are just being stupid and nasty to their customers, I want to reduce, as much as possible, reliance on the Royal Mail.

So, Royal Mail workers, if you are afraid of losing your jobs and that's why you are striking, then get ready to lose your jobs as you ruin the business you work for.

Floods in England

For the past few weeks there has been terrible flooding in parts of England. This seems to have coincided with Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister of the UK, and not an easy situation for a new PM to deal with.

Here is a map of areas affected so far:

Hopefully the floods will soon come to an end, but I wonder if maybe this is a warning to the people of this country to change their ways before it is too late. The USA suffered terrible flooding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina paid a visit. These floods have not happened before in recent history, so something must be different that is causing this to happen.

Could it be that God is sending a warning to the people of the USA and UK (the descendants of ancient Israel, in part) to wake them up to their sins? Although it might remind us of Noah's Flood, a great worldwide flood like that will not happen again, but local floods may well continue.

Will the people of the USA and UK realise their sins and repent before it is too late? The Bible reveals that there will be a great tribulation at the end of this age before Christ returns to set up the Kingdom of God on earth.

For more on prophecy visit this site.

Metric is not so foreign, more English than the Imperial system

In a bit of a blow to those who want to cling on to good old British Imperial measures like pounds and ounces - it turns out it was an Englishman who invented the "foreign" metric system.

Or so claims Pat Naughtin, a metrication specialist from Australia, who carried out his research at Wadham College in Oxford, at Trinity College in Cambridge, and at the Royal Society in London.

He says John Wilkins, founder of the Royal Society, first published his ideas for a metric measure in 1668 → 120 years before the French adopted the metric system.

Wilkins' system was complete in that it was based on decimal numbers (10s, 100s, and 1000s) and its measurements were to be based on an internationally agreed 'universal measure', which would become the basis for other measures.

Our modern measuring methods now use all of Wilkins' ideas: we use prefixes to go from millimetres via metres to kilometres, we have a universally agreed definition of a metre, and a litre of water has a mass of a kilogram.

Although Wilkins did not use the word 'metre', its use became common after Tito Livio Burattini translated Wilkins 'universal measure' to its Italian equivalent, 'metro catholico' and, it seems that this was later translated, and shortened, to the French word, metre.

(From a Press Release issued by the UKMA)


Metric was invented by a good Christian bishop, rather than an atheist or someone of another religion. I have found that many well-meaning christian people have erroneously thought that imperial was better than metric and that God invented the imperial system. Yet the imperial system is almost totally pagan in its origins, whereas metric is christian.

“Bishop John Wilkins among other things:

• Was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
• Was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford.
• Married to Oliver Cromwell’s sister.
• Wrote “the first book in English on cryptography”.
• Was one of the Chief Founders of the Royal Society, the UK’s most important science academy.

Let’s hear it for rational polymathic Bishops who have no trouble reconciling a rational faith in a rational God with a rational outlook on the rational world.”

(Quoted from the Wardman Wire blog)

Further commentary can also be found at Metric Views.

Alan Johnston Is Free

Our prayers have been answered, God has been merciful to the kidnapped British journalist, Alan Johnston, who has been held captive for 114 days in Palestine. But now he has been freed.

Be thankful that he is free. This is a victory for journalists, the British people and the free world.

Trouble at the Station

Yesterday I tried to get to work as usual in the afternoon and caught a bus to the station in good time. However, when I arrived there were police and an ambulance outside the station and the station was closed. A sign on the door said it was closed due to a fatality, not a pleasant thing to happen to anyone.

So I then had to take a bus to another station to catch a train from there. I got to work 15 minutes late in the end. When I arrived outside the building I noticed a greater police presence in the street, and security guards outside the building. No doubt in response to the recent attempted terrorist attacks.

These are difficult times and we must remain vigilant and careful.

Ocado online food ordering

I recently decided to try a different online supermarket service. I regularly read Which? magazine, which recommended Ocado as being the best in its class. It is part of Waitrose and John Lewis, which Which? also rated as the best shops in the United Kingdom, John Lewis the best overall, and Waitrose the best supermarket.
I went to their website, at www.ocado.com, and registered and placed an order for various foodstuffs. Overall the site was okay to use, nothing special. Some of the prices were slightly more than those at Sainsbury's and Tesco, which I normally use (mostly Sainsbury's), but some prices were the same.
But the main advantage I could see with using Ocado, is that they have no shops. Now, think about that. Why is having no shops an advantage for selling food? Because they have stock, but it is all in warehouses, where the public are not allowed. So they keep a close eye on stock levels, and nothing gets handled or messed around with by customers in a supermarket. Better quality control. And most of the food products are either branded or Waitrose-own brand, which Which? had already rated highly.
The main problems with Sainsbury's and Tesco is not knowing if something will be in stock on the day of delivery. They send out staff to the shop floor to pick the goods a person has ordered, and sometimes things are not available and they pick substitutions instead. But with Ocado, on the website when I ordered, if an item was out of stock it stated so on the website, and there were no options or mentions of substitutions. So I am guessing that it means that when I place an order all the stuff I see as being available I will get in my order, although I should imagine it is harder to be certain of something being in stock if the order is placed too far in advance.
Today the goods were delivered, the driver came a few minutes early (with Sainsbury's and Tesco I have had late deliveries, but also early deliveries), and the driver was very helpful. He even offered to bring everything in for me rather than just handing stuff to me at the door. Both Sainsbury's and Tesco just deliver to the doorstep.
So I can see that Ocado have a different philosophy: they want to give the customer what the customer wants in the best way and without hassle. Quality seems to be the thing they focus on. For an elderly person or someone frail, they would be ideal, as the driver offering to bring things in would be very helpful for such a customer, so long as they could place an order online (maybe with the help of a relative or friend).
So I would recommend Ocado for online shopping here in the UK. I had previously checked out Waitrose, but they do not deliver to where I live (there are no stores nearby) but Ocado deliver to a wider area so it is worth trying if you want to buy food online, as well as other household goods.

More Bird Flu

Now that we really do have bird flu in the UK, this is a more serious situation than the light-hearted post I made last year.
With a sick bird in Suffolk, with a 3-km exclusion zone, a 10-km observation zone with a wide restriction zone covering 2000 square kilometres, I think it about time we look at the whole poultry industry.
For example, why do we have factory-produced food such as Bernard Matthews turkey products? More natural foods are far more healthy for us and for the birds themselves. There is way too much demand and consumption of meat and poultry in general, mostly because the farming and food industries can make huge profits from us while encouraging us to neglect our health.
I am not against eating meat and poultry in general, but when people do, they should not overdo it, nor eat poor-quality products. The more highly processed the food is and the more time it spends in a factory, the less good it can do us -- the more of its goodness has been removed.
So if we no longer tolerated such poor food and instead went for quality rather than quantity, then maybe the farmers could start to take better care of their livestock and thus reduce the risks involved in making them sick with things like bird flu.

The map below was taken from the BBC News website, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6341389.stm



At least the authorities have taken steps to reduce the possibility of the bird flu spreading.

I will be eating less poultry in next few weeks, and hopefully all poultry in the shops is not contaminated with bird flu or other diseases, but please be sure to cook your food thoroughly and avoid eating raw poultry nor leave raw poultry next to any other food.

Snow in the UK

Today we had a heavy snow storm, at least it was heavy by UK standards. With around 10 centimetres in some parts, and around 5 cm where I live, it makes a changes from the weather we normally have. Yesterday it was sunny and dry, today I got up and saw everything covered in white outside. It is cold out today, probably about 2 degrees Celsius here. But I am warm indoors, where it is about 22 degrees Celsius.
I wonder how long the snow will stay for? We had some snow a short while ago here, but that lasted a few hours only. Today it is now 16:40 and the snow is still on the ground, but it is not snowing now, so maybe it will go soon.
A really good thing about the snow is a good photo opportunity, below is a photo I took today:


At least I had already booked a day off work today, so I can "hibernate" indoors!

Long time since posting

I know it has been a long time since I last posted, but I got distracted by many other things. All of which were important, of course. But now I am back in blogtown and putting blogs online.