David Brice

I’m all in favour of spending money to improve transport links but I think that the high speed rail link from London to Birmingham is probably not money well spent. £33bn for something that will take 21 years to fully be completed and will probably be delayed and cost twice as much as first thought does not make sense to me.

People argue that there is a strong business case in improving journey times but has the government thought about whether there are alternatives that are cheaper and better ?

Most of the UK’s major cities have major transport problems. Millions of people a day spend hours commuting into our cities on journeys that should take half the time they actually take. Imagine how much more productive we would be as a nation if we saved time travelling to work!

The government continually blocks the development of tram systems in our cities because they say there is no money available. These schemes cost a fraction of the cost of HS2. Imagine what cities could do with a budget of £10bn. If all of our major cities were given just £250m each that would mean all our cities would have tram systems. If they had more they could probably build their own underground systems !

DavidB My Grumpy Opinions high speed rail, HS2

After having tried various methods of cooking steaks I have realised that the simple method is the best.

First of all you need a good piece of steak. Sirloin, rib eye or fillet is the best and make sure that it has been hung for at least 21 days. If the steak has streaks of fat running through it like a marble effect then that’ s a good sign. Personally, I prefer fillet but it is more expensive.

The secret to cooking a good steak is to keep it simple. First of all, take the steak out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature for about 30 minutes or so. Then put some olive oil onto the steak and then add ground black pepper in fairly generous amounts. Next, add  a good sprinkling of sea salt. Do this to both sides and leave for a few minutes.

Use a good quality frying pan or skillet and add a very small amount of olive oil and put the pan on a medium heat until the pan is very hot but not so hot that blue smoke is coming off. When the pan is hot enough add the steak. Depending on how you like your steak done leave the steak to cook for about 3 minutes and then turn it over. Each side should be well done but it’s the inside of the steak that needs to be cooked to your liking.

A good way of testing the steak to see how well done it is is to use your finger to press down on the meat and you can tell how well done it is by how soft the meat feels. The softer the meat the less well cooked it is.

Finally, once the steak is cooked take it out of the pan and leave it on a warm plate for 2 or 3 minutes as this lets the juices settle back into the meat. Transfer the cooked steak onto your plate, add salad and, of course some home made chips and you will have the perfect steak meal.

One final thing I would recommend is to but some proper steak knives. It’s a nice feeling when your knife effortlessly cuts through the perfectly cooked steak !

Enjoy!!

DavidB Food & Drink how to cook the perfect steak

I don’t normally buy newspapers but on a Sunday I buy two. I’m at the newspaper shop by about 8.30am on a Sunday morning and start the day with fresh coffee and a good read about what is happening in the world and closer to home. One of those papers is the Sunday Times because I like the in-depth coverage, particularly of foreign news.

In today’s paper I noticed one small story that barely got a mention and the news article could be easily missed but I think its a significant story and its another sign that Great Britain is losing its manufacturing capability. The story was about the fact that Britain’s last remaining manufacturer of trains is probably going to close. This is because they have heard that they have lost a bid to build and maintain trains for Thameslink which would have been worth over £3 billion and guaranteed the jobs of thousands of workers at the Bombardier plant in Derby.

Britain was the country that invented the steam locomotive nearly 200 years ago. It was George Stephenson that invented the first railway line in 1825 which was the start of Britain’s Industrial Revolution. In a bizarre decision the Department of Transport has given the contract to build 1,200 train carriages to the German firm Siemens. The Derby firm employs 3,000 people in Derby, 2,000 elsewhere and another 10,000 in the supply chain.

The reason for awarding the train contract to a German company have not been given but this is a terrible decision for British workers and the country. As a nation we are gradually losing the manufacturing skills that we have and once they are lost these skills are lost forever. Does the department that makes these decisions not consider the knock on effects? When jobs are lost it affects everybody as these people lose their spending power so local shops and other industries suffer too.

Was the bid from Siemens so much better that it warranted harming the British economy and more importantly the lives of thousands of British workers? I doubt it !

DavidB My Grumpy Opinions Bombardier, Siemens, thameslink, trains

I was sad to read that the daleks are being retired from Dr Who. It seems that the daleks have been beaten far too often by the Dr and the producers of the show feel that the daleks need a well earned rest from battle!

The daleks first appeared in the Dr Who series in 1963 and I can still remember being terrified as a young boy and hiding behind the sofa when the daleks were on the series. The word “exterminate” will always make me think about the daleks.

I agree that it is about time the daleks evolved into something better. After all, how can a machine that can’t climb steps be considered a menacing threat to anyone? The daleks must have been one of the first machines sent to terrorise humanity but they have probably been eclipsed by the likes of the Terminator who can more easily climb a set of steps!

I am watching out for daleks on Ebay. One would look great in my living room. I could put it behind my sofa !

DavidB Interesting news stories dalek, Daleks retiring, dr who

There has never been a better time for business’s of all sizes to take advantage of the governments apprenticeships scheme. It is effectively free training which leads to formal qualifications. Customer service is the key to getting ahead of your competitors and with free customer service training available there is no excuse for not taking advantage of it.

A plan to “reverse the trend of rising youth employment” is to be launched by David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The £60m package will create apprenticeships in private firms and a local training company has won a contract to take advantage of the many benefits that apprenticeships offer.

RTC Training based in West Yorkshire are currently offering local employers the opportunity to recruit apprentices in Health and Social Care, Customer Service and Business Administration.

Gordon Rozario, director of RTC Training, believes that the scheme will prove extremely popular with organisations wishing to reduce staff cost and increase motivation and loyalty within their workforce.

He explained “Apprenticeships deliver real return to your bottom line by improving performance and enabling you to be more competitive. They tend to be eager, motivated, flexible and loyal to the company that invested in them. Remember, an apprentice is with you because they want to be – they have made an active choice to learn on the job and a commitment to a specific career.

Employing apprentices is more cost-effective than hiring skilled staff and leads to lower overall costs as the minimum wage for an apprentice is £2.50 per hour. There is no cost to the employer and the apprentice will not require any time off work as all assessments and training will be done in the workplace, with the exception of Health and Social Care who are required to spend one day a week at a training centre.”

Employers wishing to consider taking on apprentices should act quickly as the number of places on the current intake is limited and demand is high.

Gordon Rozario may be contacted by phone on 01924 261175 or email gordon@rtctraining.net Anyone wanting to apply for apprenticeship positions should also contact RTC Training.

Website for RTC Training

DavidB Interesting news stories apprenticeships, customer service, training

Carnegie’s 6 Keys to Success

Become genuinely interested in other people.

Smile. It is possible to smile in your writing and be positive and cheery versus bland and boring.

Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Ask questions.

Talk in terms of the other person’s interest. Find the pain, offer to help.

Make the other person feel important — and do it sincerely. Things like: “Congratulations on a win,” “sorry to hear about the loss,” and “happy to be on the team” always work well.

DavidB My Grumpy Opinions how to win freinds

I was shocked to hear that Gary Moore has died in Spain. He was apparently staying at the Kempinsky hotel in Estepona on the Costa del Sol when his girlfriend found him at 4am. Gary Moore was only 58 and he was a guitar genius in my view. Guitarists like him don’t come along very often. He was one of a rare bread of guitarists that put his life and soul into playing. You could tell by his facial expressions that he loved playing guitar. Like most great musicians he was like a craftsman who managed to get his instrument to make the most incredible sounds.  The tone of Gary Moore’s Gibson Les Paul guitar was just amazing and the envy of many guitarists. Gary was a big fan of  Marshall amps and this combination of amp and guitar suited Gary Moore perfectly.

I first came across Gary Moore when he was playing with Phil Lynot and Thin Lizzy and I have admired him ever since. He only spent four months with Thin Lizzy before embarking on a solo career that would take him back to his blues roots.

Anyone who listens to any one of his 20 solo albums can’t fail to be impressed. His music will live on and I can’t think of anyone else who can fill the gap left by his sad demise.

It is very difficult to pick the best of Gary Moore’s music but I love the song Don’t believe a Word from his rocking days, but you can pick any of his blues songs to listen to the unmistakable music of Gary Moore.

DavidB Music Gary Moore, great guitar players

Following on from my last article about heated roads the weather shows no signs of improving and our transport system has been badly affected by a modest amount of snowfall and sub zero temperatures. It should be no surprise that our road system grinds to a halt after a snowfall. Our roads are so badly congested even at the best of times that the smallest interruption to the flow of traffic causes chaos. There is no slack in the system to absorb problems like snow or an accident. Even the best laid plans would struggle to deal with the amount of snow that fell in such a short period of time.

What the government now needs to do is investigate what new technologies exist that will keep our roads free of snow and ice. The spreading of salt is too slow an operation as it can take several hours before an affected road is reached by a gritting lorry. What is needed is an instant solution and I have been reading about just a solution. A section of the A2 has been running a trial of a new system designed by Vaisala in Finland. Sensors next to the road can detect the temperature of the road surface and when it drops to zero degrees de-icer is sprayed onto the road from a dispersal system. This winter the trial has gone well apparently but large amounts of snow still need to be moved from the road by a snow plough.

There must be many systems available for keeping our main roads clear of snow and ice which don’t involve a gritting lorry. The sooner that the process starts to find these new systems the better !

DavidB My Grumpy Opinions de-iced roads, heated roads, keep roads clear of snow

I read a really amazing book recently called The Eerie Silence – Are We Alone in the Universe.

If you are interested in the search for extra terrestrial life then this book draws some very interesting conclusions and is well worth reading. The book starts off by looking at our own world to see if we can draw any evidence about whether the human race might be a one-off  species or whether we might be just one of millions of life forms that throng the universe.

The conclusions of the book are a little depressing because of the authors opinions about whether there might be life on other planets. He also gives a fascinating insight into the future of the human race.

I say depressing because the author is the head of SETI, which stands for “search for extra terrestrial intelligence” so this guy should know a thing or two about the chances of finding  alien life. His conclusion is that he thinks the human race could be alone in the universe. After reading his book he certainly offers compelling evidence that we might well be alone.

Firstly, we have been looking for evidence of alien life for about 50 years. Our technology over the last 10 years has improved greatly to the extent that we can see much further into space that we have even been able to see. So far, all this searching has found not one once piece of evidence that there may be life elesewhere.

Secondly, if you look back at the history of the human race it is a series of accidents that quite possibly could never happen again. The author of the book describes the chances of life emerging as being like a “whirlwind going through a scrap yard and putting together the best aeroplane that ever existed”. I think that is a very good analygy.

If we were to discover radio signals coming from another planet the distances involved are likely to be so great that it would take hundreds of light years to them to reach us and for us to reach them. As we can’t travel at the speed of light yet and probably never will be able to this means it would take thousands of years to travel the distances involved. This poses several problems, of course. By the time we have travelled the distance the life we are trying to reach may well have died but more importantly, we can’t live for that long either !

This is where things start to get interesting because in our quest to seek out new life forms us humans will have to change and this also ties in with the way us humans are evolving. I think that it is clear that humans will evolve artificially. What I mean is that medical science will prolong our lives by genetic engineering and by giving us man made bits of body that don’t wear out. Effectively, this means we will eventually change into machines !

Scientists think that they will be able to download the contents of a human brain onto a computer by about 2030. Already, we have man made limbs. All the body does is do what the brain wants so if you can have a computer as a brain and a man made body then you have a robot. This will lead to humans living longer and more importantly, it will mean that we can travel longer distances in space. This will happen because it is the only way that we will be able to travel the incredible distances involved in deep space travel.

By the year 2100 us humans will be completly different !

Buy the book. It’s excellent !

Related Blog Articles

Alone in the Universe

UFO’s seen over the Lake District

In four years we will find aliens say experts

More aliens exist than first thought

DavidB My Grumpy Opinions human robots, man to machine, search for alien life

There must have been deals done by the FIFA executive committee which gave the votes to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup finals. Never can there have been more of an unsuitable place to play football than in this scorching desert country that has never played in a world cup.

Playing football in June and July in Qatar will not be a pleasant experience. Average temperatures in summer reach over 40C but the temperature at midday is over 50C. Most people in Qatar leave the country in summer because it is too hot and dust and sand storms are also a common occurrence.

What is the logic of ignoring those countries that have done so much for football and choosing a country that is too hot and difficult to get to.

Part of the Qatar bid is that they will build the stadiums they need and then dismantle them after the World Cup and build them again in places that need them. So much for a lasting legacy for football in the Middle East.

DavidB My Grumpy Opinions Qatar world cup 2022