nice blue sky

london 1.48pm 5.6C sunny (lowest was -0.2C at about 8am) sunday 2019

the view through the paddington library window at the georgian building opposite, with its blocked out windows to avoid the window tax when i was there earlier this morning. very nice blue sky above and still like that now wehn i look out of my flat. 

my camera actually went weird at first when i was in the library, and wanted to take a picture of the view outside the window. it showed me a washed out picture of the scene. it was only later when i tried it again that it seem to correct itself. i did not do anything to the camera to correct it. just switched it off and later switched it on again.

i suppose i shall have to buy a new camera in future. but i am not really that obsessed with taking photos , so as long as it still works, it is ok with me.

today’s sunday telegraph which i got from the library mentioned that today they have to raise the price of the paper to £2.20. but there is really nothing in the papers , the sunday times included, that interested me. there are no news analysis at all in the papers nowadays jsut straight forward reporting of events. and most of it we can get online from other sources. in the past it was the news analysis and what it means, and the quality of the writing that make a newspaper stand out from its competition. 

 

 

 

 

life goes on

london 6.07pm 20.9C sunny sunday 2017

i was at the paddington library this morning and the librarian said to me that i come often ,(he has noticed, i see, though i only go there on sundays; but i suppose it makes me a regular) and asked me if i would want them to buy the daily and sunday telegraph instead of the dailymail and mail on sunday. i said i want the mail on sunday. haha. so it seems i have decided for everyone else. haha. but i am glad that i have fixed it. much prefer the daily mail to the telegraph.

I have noticed this curious fact… old people seem to like reading the daily mail. at least where the library copy is concerned. practically everyone reading the dailymail there are old folks, and they seem to read every word and slowly so they are hunched over the paper and keep it for a long time… they even linger over the adverts… sometimes the second half of the paper is just adverts but they would faithfully devour every word there. it is the only paper that elicits such a reaction. 

what is so fascinating about it i wonder, or is it just them falling asleep over the page. who knows really with old people whose eyelids are allready overshadowing and falling over their eyes anyway, so u cannot tell if they are awake or not. and that is how they are able to fool the librarian when they come round looking to wake up miscreants, as you are not supposed to sleep in the library.

i find all the newspapers rather boring now. what with them all talking about the election results and speculating… i find , (i am sure much to the horror to my old self), that i sometimes skip reading the papers entirely… you might well ask if i am feeling alright… me who used to read them faithfully …

at the least the dailymail sometimes have interesting articles… but i value it for its points that i can accumulate to exchange for money vouchers to spend in supermarkets. though that is going to change when they change it to nectar points.

john has come to stay with me for the weekend, and in our conversations, i noticed that we have stopped taping tv programs to see later. even he… that shows the small changes that have come to alter our habits which we have thought will be set in stone. now we discard them without even missing them. how quickly we adjust. i wonder what other old set ways i have discarded without even realising it. 

st saviours, pimlico

london 12.28pm 20.9C cloudy wednesday 2016

i found such a lot of old newspapers thrown away by the library in their waste paper basket, so i retrieved them and kept the broadsheets as they are so useful for wrapping rubbish in. i now use them  instead of using plastic bags. i know this library tends to throw last weeks papers away rather than keep them for a month or so. they are all from saturday 27th aug. it does seem quite too soon to be throwing them away, dont you think? perhaps they should keep them for a full week, in case some of us have missed the weekend read.

coming back from the library i saw the church i pass by is open. i dont often see the door open.

 only yesterday i was chatting to my friend who used to live in a one bed flat along this street, before he sold it to the freeholder, and bought a house in a village near brighton. his lease was less than 50yrs old. but the freehold landlord of the house offered to buy and with the money he bought this freehold cottage. so he did get a good thing out of it. it was a long time ago, when prices were much lower than nowaday.

 we were chatting of how he used to go to the churches in pimlico. he was a deacon in the church of england. retired now. i thought he was talking of this church , but it was another church in the middle of the pimlico grid. anyway he said to go in if i can get a chance, so even though he was talking of another church, when i saw this one open, i thought i will have a look inside.

it is st saviours, pimlico. after i made a circuit taking pictures, i saw on the table carrying the visitors book, a folded £5 note. someone left it there, and it is still lying there.   when i was about to go out, i saw a woman standing at the entrance, taking pictures, sweeping from left to right with her iphone. she motioned me to move to one side so i did. i was wondering why she did not just step in from the entrance . i thought she will take a quick photo but she stayed a long time by the entrance, blocking it.  i realised why, when she showed me the picture on her iphone. it was a 180degree view of the interior. a panoramic view. even in the dim lighting, it was very clear and well focused and sharp. technology sure is getting better and better. whereas my old digital camera is dodgy and out of focus. haha.

Digital StillCamera

Digital StillCamera

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i like the nicely knitted kneeling cushion covers. this church has a statue of mary with jesus, i wonder if it is roman catholic. masses are still said , the note on the noticeboard says on one of the days in the week, ‘ closed … beheading of john the baptist’.

back to normal, steel closure

london 12.07pm sunny blue sky 11.8C tuesday 2016

its nice to get back to normal with the shops and activities open as usual. and we seem to have got rid of the wet storm weather too. it is all bright and sunny and blue sky here. (1.01pm added. spoke too soon, haha. the sky is getting darker and it is raining; so much for the sunny blue sky. haha. added, 2.13pm, sunnyblue sky again. good ol english weather)

i was at the library earlier, reading the backlog of newspapers that have accumulated over the holidays. i skimmed over them as there is nothing more dated than old news.afraid i only looked at the monday , sat, and sunday papers, and even then not all the different titles. 

it also included  the last print edition of the independant too, before they go online only. i suppose someone might consider keeping it as a souvenir, or with an eye to its future collectors’ item.

how things have changed from those days when weekend papers were the highlight of the week. that would be in the 80s, and part of the 90s. i enjoyed reading the sunday times. but it hasn’t been so for a long time . these changes are replaced by news online and the internet, so it’s not all bad.

in the past u get really good analysis of the news in the sunday papers, but perhaps nowadays things are more complex so that no one person can know everything to explain what the implications can be.

for eg, i should think it is very difficult to know for certain how uk will be affected if it leaves the EU. no one knows really. we can speculate and try to extrapolate, but we dont really know for sure. whereas we can be pretty sure what will happen to uk if we stay in. more union.

if u look at it logically it is better for europe to be united as one, like the usa. but humans are not logical. the british dont like it. so far the people in the EU dont seem to mind that they are getting closer union, but maybe they have yet to feel the effects.

in fact, the poorer members can access the generous system in uk so it is great for them and the big monetary contribution from the uk means  it pays them to be in the EU. but now that they are forced to take in their quota of migrants, they might think again. they will be the ones hosting migrants, instead of the other way round. haha.

and for the rich countries like france and germany… being bombed because of the porous borders, as in france, and having their women assaulted in the case of germany might make them change their  minds too.but they are in too deep. they have no choice but to stay in. when u dont have a currency to call your own anymore, it can be a real bummer to leave the system. greece had to face that reality and so it did not/could not get out. all the countries in the EU  burnt their boats really when they adopted the euro.

even in usa there are tensions, with states going their own way, defying the federal govt. i wonder if the usa will take a change and vote in the donald. if it does, than usa will become more protectionist towards china. at present, the usa have been allowing china easy access to its markets and china not… this will change if the donald comes in. the flood of cheap chinese goods have really destroyed the local industry in usa. now there is a currency war going on, with each country trying to bring their currency down in relation to the US$ . ah well, i know things are more complicated than this and we shall have to see how it all pans out when the us elections is over , and our uk referendum is done. 

added. 8.06pm i am seeing a news program on tv about wales having to close its steel works. it is owned by tata steel, an indian company , and they are meeting in mumbai to decide to close it. this is because of cheap steel from china being dumped in europe and uk. it is the kind of problems that usa is going through too. huge swathes of the locals being thrown out of work because of cheap stuff from overseas. its no wonder the donald is so popular, as he has said he will stop that happening. added. 11.14pm, it seems the tata will put their entire uk steel business for sale. 

added 4.59pm wednesday 30.3.16. it seems the uk govt is the one to blame for stopping the EU from raising the tariff on the steel from china. that post blames the uk govt. but wait a bit, as i continue to read that article it turns out the govt is fighting against the abolishment of the lesser duty rule.

Axing the rule would allow the EU to impose higher tariff charges on steel coming into continent as a way of counteracting the aggressive production of countries such as China.

i think that is the nub, the govt is afraid that if the lesser duty rule is abolished, the EU can raise the duty on british steel going into EU, as well as chinese steel. the british govt is right to fear abolishing that rule. that rule keeps the EU from imposing higher tariffs on everything coming into the EU. and that includes british goods.

i wonder if we were to leave the EU, there is nothing to stop the EU from abolishing the lesser duty rule. and then british goods can have higher tariffs placed on them. and this might lead to a trade war with each country retaliating and imposing high duties on each other’s goods. a trade war is very dangerous for the uk, as it depands so much on being able to freely trade with others. 

there is another rule that allows the EU to impose a higher tariff, if it is proved that the steel is being subsidised by china and so is sold at below cost. and i suppose that is the rule that allowed the EU to raise the tariff by 26%.

the usa has allready and very swiftly imposed 266% duty on the imported steel into usa.

added. 9.33am thursday 2016 7.7C sunny this daily mail article gives the reasons . its a lot of other actions that impact unfavourably on it. the central reason is that low demand for steel worldwide. 

 

 

routine, and coffee cups

london 12.17pm 9.3C cloudy but bright. saturday 2016

routine is a lovely thing. i think not many people realise it. like today, i looked back at my morning and it dawned on me that i did not have to think about how to get from my place to the library, it was like i was on automatic, and so was not aware of all the decisions that i have to make. i only became aware of it when i was stopped near the library as was walking to the bus stop to catch the c10 back to my place. 

they were a middle aged man and woman, the man was asking me, but i could not understand what he was saying, until he mentioned big ben… and i was flummoxed wondering how to tell him the best way to get there. i told him to walk back to victoria station and catch a tube to westminster. now i am back, i realised i should have told him to cross the street, and catch the bus 211 or 11 and that should drop them at parliament square. but i did not think of it that time.

i come to this area practically everyday and am very familiar with the buses, and yet when i was asked i did not think to get them this bus route. i think i was so used to the routine, i never have to think of it, and so it slipped my mind when someone unexpectedly caught me unprepared and out of my routine by asking me the way.

it happened before, someone asked me how to get to westmorland terrace, and i did not know. later, i realised my bus pass there everyday, yet it never came to my mind that i know that place.

i used to think the locals a bit thick, when i asked them directions in their area, and they have not a clue. but it seems i am turning into one of them. oh dear. haha.

i was looking through the saturday papers, in the library and i realised why i find them rather boring… it is because they are full of articles talking about expensive stuff that people can buy…or places that they can visit whilst spending lots of money.  they are targetting themselves at the rich , and offering them suggestions on how to spend their money. no wonder i skim through them very rapidly.

only the daily mail gives out freebies, like a big terracotta pot if u bring the voucher to a B&Q shop. i wonder what the initials B&Q stand for? and they are offering a heat insulated cup to use , u have to collect a number of vouchers and then pay £2.50 for postage to get it. they have an article saying starbucks is offering 50p reductions if u bring  your own cup. .. this is a temporary offering (april and may only)from their usual 25p reduction that has applied for ages but they dont advertise it much. not till now, when there is all this hoo haa about their cups not being easily recycled, and end up in the slag heaps. will u bring your own cup? i always thought the attraction of these places is being able to show off the brand in front of the noses of everyone else and broadcast that u can afford it.  i mean if u use your own cup, horrors they might think u have made the coffee at home!! i wonder if there are people who bring their own coffee and pour it into a starbucks cup just to be able to wave it about when they walk .

when i read that about the insulated cup, i realised i actually have one of those, i bought long ago for £1 from a charity shop. i seldom use it, i wonder why? it would be logical to use it as it keeps the drink warm. as it is i often forget to finish the drink and it gets cold and i have to reheat it in the microwave. but i seem to be strangely resistant to using that cup… 

Digital StillCamera

i dug it out of the cupboard to take a picture of it.

Mar. 19, 2016 sunRise 6:04 AM GMT

sun set 6:12 PM GMT

12h 07m

Tomorrow will be 3m58s longer.

so does it look like today 19 march is the spring equinox day in uk? looks like it doesn’t it? i used to think march 21 is the equinox, but i have long ago realised that is not so.

i have an inkling of how the independent makes its money from its websites

update 8.31am 5.7C rain, saturday 13.2.2016.

this is what the independent have to say for going digital. it seems their website, i100, is very profitable.

i was not aware of that one. i had a look at it, and i can see why. it is full of lists , 10 best, worst list, worst logo, worst plane, all looking like cocks or arses. haha. not really a newspaper more a compilation of all the funny quirky things u can find on the internet. so that is how they intend to pay for it. they have done a fine job of it and i find myself clicking on the topics.

and that will pay for the main website, where the main news is put. and also where these click bait articles  and sponsored articles too can be placed. their idea of having articles sponsored is another money spinner i am sure.

independent newspaper going digital only

london 11.49pm 6.5C thursday 2016

the bbc3 is going online only, meaning we wont be able to see it on terrestial tv. and now i read the independent newspaper is not going to be printed, it will only be available as a online website .

amazing, how is it going to pay its way online? we hear so much allready that adverts wont be able to pay for it. so will they go subscription only? or pay per view?

it seems the paper newsprint is losing money, a lot of money. it has only about 40,000 circulation. perhaps it is heralding a future when all newsprint will cease to exist, and all news is online. i can well imagine a future like that.

it needs someone to invent a way of making money out of it… or have everyone not give away free content.

can anyone imagine a business model where u give away all the news content free? it must be madness, and yet that is what they all do… except for the Times and FT.(financial times).

when news is available free everywhere, why should anyone pay to view it?

the Times, still do it, want people to pay to view their online website news,  but i bet their website must be quite dead. i have not gone in to look at it for ages. and now even their printed paper i sometimes dont read. and this is me getting it free in the library. i cannot even give u an answer as to why i dont read it everyday.  i dont know why.  perhaps because it dont have any new items of news that the other papers dont have. all the newspapers  dont do much commentary anymore. if they did it might be a reason to read them; and even those that do, they are not very insightful, or well written. 

though the other way, of giving away a free newspaper , like the standard, making money from the adverts, may be the future too.

i ask myself what would make me buy a paper. i am afraid my answer is nothing will make me buy one. the only way that will make me buy one is if i can never get to read it free… so if the library stops stocking them, or if all the online news websites stop giving it away free, or there are no free newspapers like the standard … then maybe i might buy a paper. but i dont envisage a time when all the websites will not give away free content. or free newspapers are there for the taking. it bodes ill for the future of newspapers. ;

maybe they might have to copy the americans and tie it to supermarket money off coupons. that way people buy the paper to get savings on coupons. its strange that it has not taken off here in uk, when it is so successful in america. maybe the british just dont have that kind of mentality. cutting coupons can be so boring. it does not appeal to me at all.

 latest news 1.15pm friday 12.2.16 independent will cease printing on 26march2016 and exist only as a website. 

musings

london 11.37am sunday 2015 19.5C

i am in the library in paddington, and allready read the telegraph and the times. not a lot of interesting things there and i read them quickly.

there was a guy who was reading the sunday times before me, and when he returned the paper, i borrowed it and he saw me and on my way back to the seat, he asked me was i waiting for the sunday times and waiting for him to finish?

i said i come here to read all the papers, not just the sunday times. ( though even so i lie, i only read the telegraph and the sunday times, and ask for my library card back, ( you have to give them the card as a deposit, so they can  make sure u return the newspaper) .i just could not be bothered to ask for the independant or observer(which is the guardian on sunday). 

he said he is different from others who read the papers for a long time, he said he takes just 15mins to read it.

i agree with him that there are not that much to make us read it for a long time.

not like the old days.

but then so much of these modern days have changed. we can read all this online now and much of the writing is light weight. people maybe dont like reading the heavy analysis of news in the past. they like fluffy travel articles about countries overseas, or cities overseas.

even though the weather here in london is really very nice and it would be better to just stay in uk instead of travelling abroad. in fact there was an article in one of the papers of a guy who said just that. haha. but there is a caveat, it is not always sunny here in uk. take today for eg, to me it is very nice, but it is not sunny. it is warm enough, so i am wearing shorts and sandals now.

 so if u want the sun, u will have to go abroad. but if u are the kind of person who likes the sun, i think u will be the kind of person who wont like uk anyway.

i used to like hot weather, but i have realised it is silly. hot weather is very uncomfortable and breeds a lot of vermin like flies,mosquitos, cockroaches, rats and ants and bedbugs, that bite and sting.

i have reach a stage of my life where i find them horrible and dont want to tolerate them. so i welcome winter when they all get zapped and die. hahahaha. (oh there is a caveat too …. this only applies to households who dont have central heating, or who dont have heating at all; period. haha. if u have a heated house u will get lots of vermin breeding in your warm house. serves you right too.)

in malaysia we are used to them, so bear with them. well what can you do, you cannot eradicate them, so for your own sanity, u better get used to them…  until i come here and dont have them at all, and realise what a blissful life it is not to have them around.

old newspapers

london tuesday 11am 2015

i am at the library and catching up on all the newspapers from friday, and over the weekend, because the libraries are closed over that period. but funny how i find old news is not interesting. haha.

so much of it too, with all the newspapers having 5editions…i just could not be bothered to dig them out of the old remaindered boxes to read them… so i just read today’s times, and telegraph and that is it.

not very interesting news too. i guess the weekend is a slow one for news. or the news staff are on holiday and only a skeleton crew left to man it.

but when u consider we can all access the daily news (which is what i did over the holiday period) as and when it happens immediately online at the respective newspapers websites, it does make printed newspapers rather a quaint way to get up to the minute news nowadays.

in the past, the papers would make quite a deep analysis, of what is going on, so it was worth it to buy them and get that…but that is no more. i think they dare not have strong opinions as that would rile up their readers. also nowadays every tom,dick and harry can stick in their two cents worth… so much so that i sometimes just dont read the comments section anymore… 

on a happier note, i phoned in my electricity reading today. i take it every 3months so they can update and send me the bill. i used 80units less, than any time since i started recording my usage. about 226kwh for 3months. i think i attribute it to switching off the switch that connects to my defunct gas boiler in the bathroom. from the result, that switch being on  have used 1kwh a day. i shall wait for the invoice to get the details and post it here when i get it. 

my chromebook is fully charged now so i am going outside, where i can get a signal for my mobile phone and wait for a friend to contact me to meet up. he comes from slough to meet a friend, and ask to meetup after his business with his friend is over. i want to go to chinatown anyway to buy some more malaysian curry powder , the same one i used to make a chicken curry for him which he likes v much. 

added. 9.17pm that malaysian curry powder is now £1.45 for 250mg. gone up by 10p since i bought it last time about 9months ago.

i got this financial app in my chrome book that tells me of these things. i am rather surprised that it lasted so long.

i like curry and i did not think i have been neglecting to cook that dish. so amazing that pack lasted so long. but it just goes to show it is very economical to use curry powder instead of the sauce which the supermarkets are selling more of these days. u hardly find curry powder being sold now… it is all bottles or packs of sauce. you are just buying water used to dissolve the curry powder. and one pack is good for one dish only.

my friend liked the curry so much he ask me to show him where i bought it, and he bought one, saying he will be using curry powder from now on… he had been using curry sauce before.

while waiting for him , i was in leicester square, and saw the square is occupied by a temporary building housing the cinderella exhibition. long queue to get in.

there was a small annex housing the shop. no queue there so i went in.

 so many expensive stuff in there… amazing any child wants it, or any parent wanting to buy it. 

there was a glass slipper made of crystal, costing about £1700 . who wants to buy it i wonder? it was smaller than shoe size too and i mentioned that to the woman sales person standing next to it.

it was so expensive, they put a woman sales person right next to it, to watch over it. haha. she said it was heavy. and told me a crystal figurine of cinderella was heavy too and she allowed me to hold it. ya, very heavy. haha. it would make a good paper weight hehe.

i saw some blue  dresses , made for children, on sale.

 that make me recall a lot of the children who were at the free screening of the film  frozen which i saw a few days ago, were wearing this dress. so that was where it came from.

the kids are using it to wear to see frozen, even though frozen is not cinderella, though come to think of it, i myself kind of confused the two and felt they are similar. very clever marketting to make the two interchangeable.

come to think of it, i think those dresses were made for the film frozen and these cinderella marketting agents just took the idea and extend it to this cinderella shop. the dresses look nothing like the puff up dress that i see cinderella wear in the poster.

not many stuff for boys… wonder why? this cinderella is a very girly film.

Why I have resigned from the Telegraph | openDemocracy

Why I have resigned from the Telegraph | openDemocracy.

this is important. it is an article by peter obourne, who resigned recently as the telegraph’s chief political commentator. he has held the post for the past 5yrs. and he gives the reason why, that the telegraph has allowed the editorial content to be influenced by their advertisers. specifically in the case of HSBC.

i can see that all the newspapers must take into account their advertisers, as they are their paymasters. and it would be folly to antagonise them. that is why there is so many uncritical articles about fashion, or brands, or favourable articles about big businesses.  it is something that all newspaper readers should bear in mind when they read the articles .

and if a newspaper is critical of something, ask yourself are they big advertisers, if not that might be the reason why the paper can afford to be critical of it.

and i think we must not forget the readership too. no newspaper can afford to print articles critical of its main readership.

in the final analysis, i think there is no truly unbiased newspaper. that is why maybe a reader who want a rounded viewpoint is well advised to read a lot of other newspapers and glean his information from a wide variety of sources.

another article commenting  on the above.

its interesting that hsbc has stopped the bank account of some of their muslim customers, without any explanation. recently , i got a letter from first direct, which is owned by hsbc, asking me to send them photocopy of my passport , signed by an authority (and they gave a list of those who can sign) or my account will be closed.

i sent the document and got a reply praising me for being such a good customer.

i thought it rather strange at the time, though i accept that it might be the bank trying to establish that i am a legal person entitled to own a bank account and not some one who is bogus.

it is one of the strangest anomalies that banks dont really check who you are when u shift your account to them. they check when u first start a bank account. but if u have held an account for years, and moved banks they dont ask u to identify yourself.