David Brice

The Royal Society recently held a conference to mark 50 years of searching for extra terrestrial intelligence. One of the questions that we all ask ourselves from time to time is whether we are alone in the universe or whether life exists on other planets.

Recently, however, voices in the scientific world have been warning that it might not actually be wise to search for life on other planets. They argue that as the Universe is about 14 billion years old and the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old then if there were life on other planets they are likely to be far more advanced than we are. If that was the case and they happened to find us because of signals we have sent out then it is possible they may not be as friendly as we had hoped. Therefore, some scientists say that we should keep quiet just in case !

They raise an interesting point but I have to say that I would have thought that Earth would have received some sort of electronic signals by now if there was advanced life somewhere out there. So far, there has not been any sort of signs that life may exist elsewhere.

I happen to think, though, that us humans are unique and that life on Earth was caused by a unique accident so rare that it was a one off. In other words, I think that we are alone and it is us that will one day inhabit other worlds when our own has run out of resources.

I have to say that I have, of course, no evidence whatsoever to back up my opinions, apart from the fact that I haven’t seen any sign of any alien spaceships myself yet !

admin My Grumpy Opinions aliens, life on other planets

I walked out for a newspaper this Sunday morning and managed to stay upright despite the ice and slippery surfaces on the pavements.

What amazed me though was the fact that hardly any shops on my local high street had cleared the snow and ice from in front of their shops. The more I think about it the more I think that there should be a law to force shop owners to clear snow from the area in front of their shop. There was a mixture of snow, ice and slush which makes shopping a miserable experience and potentially dangerous too. But from the point of view of the shop owners I would have thought that they would want as many shoppers are possible visiting their shops to spend their hard earned cash there, especially in these harsh economic times when people have reduced their spending.

It does not take much effort to clear snow. In my opinion, it is good customer service to make the shopping experience as stress free as possible and if I saw cleared snow from in front of a shop I would think to myself that this shop cares about its customers. Doing something to make your business stand out from the competition is very important and it seems to me that this simple job is being overlooked.

I hear though that snow clearing from shopping areas is not as easy as it seems !  Clearing snow away but leaving the area more dangerous than it was before could land you in legal trouble. Apparantly, legal experts have said that if clearing snow caused injury to someone they could sue under “tort of nuisance”.  If you make sure the area is gritted or salted after you have cleared it you should be in the clear.  It is easier to walk in uncleared snow than on a slippery iced over cleared patch of snow so if you are clearing snow make sure you do good job of it.

Making Money from the Snow !

I was very impressed yesterday morning when a note popped through my letterbox offering a snow clearing service. Paths cleared for £4 and drives for £6 which included gritting as well ! Now that is what I call enterprising…Well done for the fast thinking !

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admin My Grumpy Opinions making money from snow, snow clearing from shopping areas

I went to see Avatar last night in 3D and I can tell you that you must go and see it !

Avatar is an amazing film but this is mainly because it is filmed in 3D and this brings to life the whole film. I think I sat through the whole film with my mouth open and totally immersed in another world. This film is all about escapism to another world at its very best. There are many times in the movie that you feel that you are there amongst the actors in the same room.

Whilst the story line is excellent and probably tells a moral story as well the main winner is the 3D technology which surely will herald the start of 3D in most films. Avatar is the perfect movie for 3D as it is filmed in CGI on a fictitious planet called Pandora. The main character is given a new body, an avatar, in which to live his life in the midst of the planets population. These creatures are amazing and they live in a huge jungle full of amazing creatures and floating mountains.

You must go and see this movie !

admin Movie Reviews Avatar movie review

Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. – A quote from Winston Churchill.

admin My Grumpy Opinions

The NHS has come in for some stick recently, especially from the USA where a big debate is raging about their healthcare system. The NHS was brought into the debate when Americans began to say that the NHS is rubbish.

I know quite a few people who work for the NHS and whilst it undoubtably has its problems, in my opinion, the NHS does a brilliant job. It employs 1.8 million people and eats up billions of pounds but it is there when you need it for most things anyway.

Of course, the NHS is not perfect, far from it. There are too many managers and not enough front line staff and treatment targets don’t tell the full story. There is also a problem with the cost of drugs for specialist treatments meaning that there is a post code lottery for some treatments.

Personally I would like to see a hybrid system whereby private healthcare is mixed with the NHS and it’s possible to opt out, but overall I think the criticism coming from the USA is unjustified.

DavidB My Grumpy Opinions the NHS

What a few days I have had ! I have visited 3 different hospitals in 4 days because I was struck down with kidney stones. I have to say, however, that I have nothing but admiration for the NHS staff I encountered and whilst sometimes I had to wait several hours without anything happening the overall service I had I can’t fault.

It all started on a Thursday morning and I was driving down the M1 motorway. I had stopped at Wooley Edge Services near Wakefield when suddenly I was hit with really bad pains around my kidneys and stomach. After 10 minutes the pain had got even worse so after taking advice from my wife, who is is in the medical profession, I agreed that she would call an ambulance. I did attempt to put on the brave manly face but deep down I knew that I couldn’t drive and I needed help. If you ever have the misfortune to have kidney stones then you will probably need medical attention quickly and you will need pain relief urgently.

Anyway, the first response paramedic arrived and hooked me up to lots of equipment and carried out some basic tests. At this point the pain was so bad that I was throwing up in the car park but I was oblivious to anything going on around me !

Five minutes later an ambulance arrived and I didn’t take much persuasion to get into the ambulance. On the way to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield I was given gas and air as pain relief but it barely took the edge off the pain. I arrived in the A & E department and there was no hanging around I was given some pain relief and after about 30 minutes I was pain free and felt ok. The doctor said I needed an x-ray so off I went for that. Later on I was told I needed an IVU (Intravenus Urogram). This I was told is where  a dye is injected into you and then x-rays are taken at various times throughout the process and it is possible to see any blockages with might be caused by a stone. This took about an hour but when the results were checked there was no sign of any problems.

Later that day I was discharged but after two more bouts of pain I admitted myself to the A & E department of Leeds General Infirmary and again I was given pain relief. LGI is a teaching hospital and I can tell you that it pays to live near to a good hospital because LGI has a CT Scanner and I was put on the list for a CT Scan. This is a futuristic looking machine that only takes about 2 minutes to scan the affected area. The results of the CT Scan showed that I had a 3mm kidney stone, so I can say that the CT Scan is far more powerful and accurate than an IVU x-ray !

I was then taken to the specialist urology department of St Jame’s Hospital in Leeds and stayed there overnight. After more pain and pain relief I managed to get rid of the stone naturally which is great because I did not fancy any surgery !

All in all it was a painful experience but I have to say that all the staff I encountered from paramedics, A & E staff, doctors, nurses and even the tea ladies were great. I can’t fault them at all. They were thoughtful, caring and they made me feel special. So, well done and thanks to the NHS.

In the UK we do have an excellent health service …. I can vouch for that as I saw 3 different hospitals in 4 days !

DavidB Personal Stuff kidney stones

I watched most of Eurovision last night. Eurovision is normally painful to watch but it somehow draws you in and I feel that I need to watch it just in case the UK entry manages to get more than one point. Every year I curse at the blatant political voting which seems to have got much worse over the last few years. Even Terry Wogan had had enough and had handed over the reigns to Graham Norton.

This year the voting rules had changed and the UK entry by Jade Ewan had been touted around Europe over the last few months, however, despite the song writing skills of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber the UK entry only managed 5th place, which for a mediocre song was a vast improvement on previous years. It looks like the rest of Europe took pity on us !

This years Eurovision winner was the Norwegian entry which wasn’t a bad song and was quite catchy but one that once you had heard it a few times will prove to be very irritating.

This years contest, however, was good from the point of view that it was a more serious contest with some reasonably good songs and not so many ridiculous costumes, although there were still some acts who had acrobats when they should have had backing singers ! They should should remember that Eurovision is a song contest not a travelling circus !

Iceland managed to afford the airfare for their entry and actually I quite liked it. They finished second.

I must admit that I did miss some of Eurovision as I ended up flicking over to ITV to watch some of Britain’s Got Talent which provided much better entertainment. Still, I suppose I will be watching again next year.

DavidB Interesting news stories Eurovision song contest

The expressions on the faces of the MP’s who were brave enough to appear on BBC Question Time on Thursday night said it all ! They all looked highly embarrassed apart from Margaret Beckett who decided she would try and defend herself. She failed miserably, however, to convince the outraged audience.

What is becoming clear is that there are two types of MP’s in this saga. Firstly, there are those MP’s who submitted expense claims for items they had purchased for their so called second homes. Many of these MP’s had sought guidance on whether they could claim and many claims were passed by the people charged with administering the scheme. Secondly, there are those MP’s who seem to have been deceitful. For example, several MP’s have claimed for alleged mortgage payments made on houses that had actually no mortgage.

Whilst the first scenario is milking the system the second scenario is the most serious and is probably fraud. It’s the MP’s that have perpetuated fraud that I think should feel the force of the law against them.

There is no doubt that our political system has been badly damaged. It’s not going to be easy for MP’s to regain trust from us, but a start would be for all those found to have committed a fraud to either resign or be sacked as MP’s and secondly for the whole expenses system to be re-written and administered properly.

What we also need to know are the details of all the MP’s who have played within the spirit of the rules. It’s easy to think that our whole political system is corrupt but so far we have only been told about those MP’s that have made outrageous claims and it may well be that the vast majority have not played the system.

DavidB Interesting news stories mp's fraud

The Daily Telegraph’s exposure of MP’s expenses makes excellent reading. The impression is that nearly every MP is claiming as much as they possibly can. Even if the rules say that they can make the claims, the question is whether making claims is within the spirit of the rules. My opinion is that MP’s should be ashamed of themselves. In times of economic recession, when ordinary people are trying to make ends meet this sort of expense claims culture is nothing short of disgraceful.

If the newspaper article is accurate then it appears that MP’s are claiming for such things as household repairs, TV’s for several homes, clothing, chocolate, security that is not needed, stays in luxury hotels, the list is endless.If these people were working for a private company these people would have been sacked.

I don’t know who set the rules for MP’s expenses but I suspect MP’s themselves had a big influence. An MP is there to serve the people. They should be honoured to be in a position to make decisions that improve all our lives. It seems, however, that MP’s see this as not the main reason that they do the job. They appear to see the job as a good little earner where they can get away with things that they know they wouldn’t get away with if they worked somewhere else.

This whole episode will only damage the image of politics even more. The whole political system may end having to change because of this and many politicians exposed as milking the system should do the honourable thing and not contest the next election.

DavidB Interesting news stories MP's expenses

I have been looking at a very interesting website called Optimum Population Trust. The website is full of very interesting facts about the UK’s and the World’s population and in particular about what they feel is an over populated planet Earth.

Lets look at the UK facts. In 2008 the population of the UK reached 61 million people. That’s a six fold increase since 1800. The projected population of the UK is expected to be over 69 million people by the year 2050. In 2007 the UK population increased by an amazing  434,700 people, and that is the equivalent of a city the size of Cardiff in just one year ! If this trend continues then the UK population will reach a staggering 100 million people by the end of the century.

The amount of land available to each inhabitant of the UK – to provide for our ecological needs and to absorb the waste products of our consumption – has shrunk to nearly a tenth of that available in 1750. The UK is slightly smaller than Oregon, a single state of the USA. We have a surface area of 24 million hectares of land and inland water to absorb the environmental impacts of all our consumption – that’s less than half a hectare (one acre) each – and this environmental space is shrinking every year.

Clearly, we need enough land and resources to sustain a population of this size but the UK doesn’t have the resources, which means that we have to take resources from other parts of the world. Very soon the UK will have an environmentally unsustainable population.

What’s causing the population explosion?

The Uk’s rise in population is caused by two main factors. Firstly, there are more births than deaths and secondly net migration (more immigrants than emigrants). As medical science advances at a rapid rate we are all going to live longer and also in 2007 there were 237,000 more people entering this country than leaving, and this is just one year as an example.

On the face of things the UK has a lot of open spaces, but it’s not spare land that is the problem it’s our  needs for additional housing, energy and power supplies, reservoirs, schools, hospitals, transport, shops, waste disposal, prisons – and all its impacts in the form of waste and emissions.

What is the government’s attitude to over population ?

Up until very recently no government has tried to tackle the problem, but a government minister did say, in 2008, that the UK population would not be allowed to rise above 70 million.

After reading about the facts of over population I am firmly of the opinion that something needs to be done to limit the number of people in the country. It needs to be done in such a way that the population decreases over a period of time. I don’t know what the solution to the problem is but it must involve limiting the number of people who come into this country in one way or another.

If you want to read more information about this very interesting subject take a look at this website Optimum Population Trust

DavidB Interesting news stories over population