EU Spectacle
The word spectacle is carefully chosen, since this is what the current drama of which Greece is the symptom, not the cause, has become. It no longer bears any relationship to coherent democratic leadership or process of governance in a workable political and currency union. The cancellation at a moment’s notice of a summit of all EU leaders is extraordinary.
There is a problem with Greece, but it is not that difficult to solve. Indeed this blog working alone would be able to negotiate a workable solution. What is proving impossible is to find an acceptable solution, because the institutions normally established to process decision making at national and international levels are not there, or there in such abundance nobody can detect who is in charge. And to make matters worse the structure of the currency itself is unsustainable as it lacks a treasury and a finance minister answering to an elected government. A committee of finance ministers at loggerheads, elected by only one member state in each case, on conflicting mandates and to differing electoral timetables will work only in the good times and becomes dysfunctional under pressure.
So all we know at this moment is that Greece may or may not go bust tomorrow, the euro looks more like an impediment to growth than an engine of it, and the reputation of the EU as a coherent political union is severely damaged. Beneath that a big gap is developing between the north and the south of Europe, between the politicians and their electors everywhere and between those in the eurozone who want to stand firm to high principle even if it brings the whole thing down, led by the Germans, and by those who feel pragmatic reality demands compromise, led by France and Italy.
At the heart of of this crisis now engulfing the whole EU are three violated principles. You cannot have a democratic political union without an elected forum from which all authority flows. You cannot have a currency which cannot be printed. You cannot have capitalism which does not permit debtors to go bust. The first is violated because the whole EU is wrongly configured. The last two are rescinded because Germany says No.
I found it originally at the beginning of 2012 online on Orvis.com. They didn't sell it for very long. Since then I've been through two of the bags, one purchased on Orvis.com and an identical one purchased on eBay. I like the way it is open at the top with a center zip compartment. On one side there is another pocket that zips and on the other side there are two slip compartments for cell phones and sunglasses, etc. It has a lot of leather in it so it stands up straight and also expands when you stuff things into it. But I really like the mysterious animals on the outside of the bag. They seem very retro.It seems like a mystery. Someone tells you to go to the airport or the train station and find a lady carrying such a handbag. You have pictures of the handbag but you don't know what the lady looks like. Finally you locate the handbag sitting on a vacant chair. You position yourself nearby and wait. You could build up a lot of suspense this way.
Here is a passage from Dark Horse that features the elephant tapestry bag. This is also the place where Dora stores her gun:
Dora placed her elephant tapestry bag up on the table. “If you remember, that is where I bought this purse --- from the Egyptian flower lady. She sewed it by hand. She made the elephants look real. They even have eyes.” She pointed them out. “They look like the medieval tapestries you used to find on walls in castles and palaces hundreds of years ago.”
“Yes?” he pressed impatiently. Von Wessel could abscond with Winston who knew where --- perhaps dump him in the Delaware River --- while Edward was idling away his time at the table.
“Well, I was looking for a handkerchief just this morning. I could not find it, though I searched in all the purse's nooks and crannies. It has a lot of them, you know. Instead, I found this.” She handed Edward a small vial with powder in it.”
He examined it closely. “What is it?”
“Poison!” she said. “This Cairo flower lady hawked her wares by including a small sample with all her flower arrangements.”
Edward got the idea. The elephant on the front of the bag seemed to smile.
Sherlock Holmes would have appreciated Arizona. It would be like India. He would have discovered all sorts of odd snakes, creatures, etc. to feature in his stories. It would be very exotic.The contrast to a more normal place like Virginia is stark. I remember when I lived there I would put out birdseed and get no takers. No birds would bother themselves with my humble offerings. All I would attract would be a few nuisance squirrels who would pull down the bird feeder and make a mess. At most I would occasionally get a few purple grackles and a crow or two, nuisance birds.
By contrast in Arizona I get a jungle even though I am supposedly in a desert. And I don't put out food at all. If I put out food, I can't imagine what I would get.
I may have seen something like this on Tilley. They sell big bags and show men carrying them. By the way have you ever heard of Tilley at http://www.tilley.com? They are a Canadian manufacturer of clothes and hats for travel for men and women. We wear Tilley hats all the time. Several times people back East have noticed and said, "Those are Tilley hats." They are very recognizable. They have a UK/Europe store, too.
I certainly don't think that all politicians act like that. The Clintons, or Mr. and Mrs. Bozo yes. But for instance from what I heard I don't think Reagan acted like that. I don't think Woodrow Wilson acted like that either. Certainly Thomas Jefferson didn't! Nor did Winston Churchill act like that. He may have been carrying on intrigues and of course he would try to keep that hush hush but that was a higher order of things to keep secret. So it depends which politicians you are talking about.
Did you like Battle? That is on my list of places to see in England. It sounds intriguing. Imagine! The Battle of Hastings. That sounds like a long time ago, though I don't know how I would relate it to the Edward Ware Thrillers novels. Other intriguing places in Great Britain and these are just a few. How many have you visited?1)Hadrian's Wall
2)Bath
3)Newstead Abbey
4)White Cliffs of Dover
5)British Museum
6)Winchester
7)Beaulieu
8)Exbury Gardens, Kew Gardens
9)Portsmouth
10)Lyndhurst
11)Bucklers Hard
12)Edinburgh, Scotland (where the Cargills came from)
As far as repelling invaders, it depends on what you mean. You certainly fight off potential invaders. What about the Germans during WW2?
Odds and ends is also an American expression. I've heard that before, just not oddments. It must be a British expression. I don't know if I could get away with Edward using the word around an American audience. But certainly Churchill could. He talked archaisms all the time.
They say that Tilley hats should last forever, too. But ours never do, perhaps because of the Arizona sun. We have to get new ones every few years.
Churchill was always metaphorical and bombastic. Any archaism would do. He liked to talk like the Iliad as if WW2 were the Trojan War.
I am sure that my weather means that we wear it more. We wear the hats day in and day out all year long. We don't have winter stocking caps. We haven't had those since we living in Virginia. But your hat looks like a Tilley hat. I should send you pictures of our hats. You will see what I mean.Not many other people here seem to own Tilley hats particularly in Arizona. Most people here wear western hats, you know like cowboys. We tried that initially but they didn't last as long as Tilley hats.
This is absolutely fascinating. I love this sort of thing, following the Romans I mean. It was great last summer to go to Trier and see the Porta Nigra, the Roman baths, and a Roman bridge over the river. And now you show me evidence of what the Romans did that is still useful to you in your everyday life. This would be good for a moody scene in Edward Ware thrillers. Edward is brooding and walking deep in the woods. He comes upon such a path with a steep embankment. He might find a Roman coin, and then he thinks how this problem of conquerors and invasions is ancient which might spur an idea.You don't get Romans in Tucson, of course. You don't get much history at all --- just rocks and endless Gila Monsters. I am going to forward an article to you about just that subject, Romans in Tucson. Supposedly there was a hoax in the early 20th century here, I think in the 1920s.
This picture of the Roman embankment will appear today on the web page for Dark Horse in the picture gallery there that I am still constructing. I am going to insert the passage into the novel this afternoon. Of course it takes place not long after the scene about the heath that I already sent to you.You really must see the Roman baths at Bath.
Who knows what would have happened since it did not happen. But I am sure Britain would have done the following:1)Allowed Hitler to stay in Poland, Czechloslovakia, etc.
2)Allowed Hitler to come to Britain if he wanted to sign a peace accord, which would have had great symbolic significance being in London. Or maybe Neville Chamberlain would have flown back to Germany, who knows?
3)Tolerated more of a crackdown on free speech, and this is the more subtle kind of thing I am primarily talking about.
4)Possibly Britain would have joined Hitler in an invasion of certain countries "to the East". I don't know if this would have included Russia since the scholars say that Hitler only invaded Russia to make an impression on Britain. But Hitler did have the idea that the East was a threat and he ideally wanted the help of Britain in dealing with it which sounds advanced for the time period and more like what happened after WW2 where it became everybody against the Soviets.
By the way I think there were British writers who have written about what would happen if Hitler won the Battle of Dunkirk and these are not thrillers but more literary works.
I don't think anybody goes from the university into political jobs here in the US except maybe as an assistant to a senator or congressman and those are mostly law grads. It costs so much money to be a politician in the US that university grads couldn't manage it. Even congressmen tend to be people with previous records doing something else. Nobody "automatically" becomes a congressman or a senator. You have to run a savvy campaign to get elected. You see what is going on here now at the highest levels. I should emphasize the connection between politics and entertainment and spending money. Running a campaign has gotten to be part of making money for your cause or for somebody else or both. It is unbelievable how much is being sold on Amazon alone. There are paper clip holders, movies, books, calendars, bumper stickers, flags, chocolate bars, wines, magnets, socks, T-shirts, knives, pillows, hats, coloring books, perfumes, bracelets, Halloween costumes, cookie cutters, iPhone cases, planters, and magazines to name only a few items
Here is the paragraph with the Roman embankment from Dark Horse. Also you will find it in the photo gallery at http://www.edwardwarethrillers.org along with the heather in bloom. The picture gallery is under construction. I have not imported the San Diego photos yet, though I have a separate gallery for the photos from Halifax, Nova Scotia.His estate seemed to rise from the heath in the distance. He could make out the turrets and towers of the nineteenth-century neo-gothic manse. But he had to be careful. He ditched the car about half a mile away and entered the estate from the rear instead of by the carriage entrance in the front. He hiked up the small hill in the back of the property to the family cemetery. The Roman agger or embankment was built by the Romans almost two thousand years before. The path was shaded by ancient trees. Finally at the top of the rise he passed his father's marble tombstone where Sir Adolphus Ware had been interred in early 1918, one year before the Great War was over.
In order to relocate him we have to get an expert here when we see the Gila Monster. If the expert has to go looking himself, he may not find the Gila Monster and he will have to come back again and again and charge us even more money. It is impossible to keep an eye on the lizard until the expert arrives. He disappears down the embankment toward the wash, and it is impossible to follow him over all those rocks. We intend to have him relocated, but it may take forever. We called an expert yesterday and the lizard disappeared first.
I have never been interested in team sports. It has nothing to do with a news blackout. Gary is interested, though. I will forward this email to him. He can comment. I suppose by you remarks that a summer Olympics must be going on. I was not even aware of it. It is good that Great Britain is winning medals if you like that sort of thing. I like your analogy to winning wars.
Rommel can still go out in the front yard and side yard behind the walled in enclosure that wraps around the house. It is big enough for Rommel to go to the bathroom, sun himself, bark at other dogs, etc. but it isn't big enough for him to get much exercise. Once a week he goes to the Dog Ranch. I should send you photos of Rommel with all the other dogs south of here south of the interstate in Sahuarita. It is 20 miles away. But that is only once per week. He also goes out in the car with us every day and goes for occasional walks after a thunderstorm when it gets cooler. He also races around the house a lot. But it is a difficult situation. He clearly needs the one acre backyard to roam around in.In order to fix the situation we would have to put up more chain link fencing in addition to removing most of the cactus from the yard. The school owns the chain link fence behind our property. We own the chain link fences everywhere else. So we need to erect our own chain link fence along the back of the property and around the front yard, too. Then we have to put up wire mesh around the base of the fence buried to a depth of about a foot or so in the ground. The wire mesh also has to come up to a height of about two fee at the base of the chain link fence. This would have to include a driveway gate. Either that or we would have to pave the driveway first and then put up the gate. This is all very costly and time-consuming. Nor have I forgotten about the prohibitions against using most contractors around here. Lately we have been dealing with all Mexicans to do chores like this.
We are getting ready to publish Dark Horse on November 8 which is also Election Day here. I thought it was appropriate since this novel is about the election of 1940. I wrote the first draft of this novel shortly before the last election in 2012. I added a section last year after the trip. This summer I have been editing it. It is the only alternative history thriller I have written so far. But I have ideas for other ones.
This all sounds like another very good plot for another alternative history thriller. Remember, none of this actually happened in reality. And when something doesn't happen, it doesn't matter how close you THINK you were to having it become reality. That gives history "wiggle room" to include events that you could not possibly imagine that would also have occurred if these events HAD become reality. In other words, these things would not have played out as you think. No one can predict the future. No one can predict what would have happened if.As far as Halifax goes, early on we were going to give Halifax "the holy fox" a bigger role in Captive at the Berghof. After all, it was clear that he was in touch with Hitler. We were looking for "bad guys" to serve as an opposition to Churchill and Edward. But we thought that it was better to use first Baldwin and then Neville Chamberlain. In the final version Halifax just gets a mention.
Gary says the ferry situation in Calais is getting worse. Why don't the British send troops over there or somebody at least to keep order? The French never recovered from World War 1. They seem paralyzed to act by themselves. All they care about is Paris.
Yes, Halifax was quite a character. But we didn't think he was quite the right antagonist for Edward. Sir Samuel Hoare with all his wire taps was more the villain type. He seemed more threatening. Also we used the two Prime Ministers Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain. I had trouble not making it all seem too satiric. I've even exaggerated to make a point. In Hitler's Spy part 1 I have Baldwin asking Edward to present his revision of the Locarno Treaty to Hitler who at that point is moving his troops into the Rhineland. I make both Baldwin and Chamberlain seem slavish when it comes to pleasing the Fuhrer. It is hard to believe that there is all too much reality to this. This is what got me interested in writing the Edward Ware Thrillers to begin with. I discovered how much England had to do with the Third Reich. Also I discovered how Nazism was popular in England among the upper classes. I saw photos of the Duke and Duchess visiting the Berghof and shaking hands with Hitler. There is also the photo of the King doing the Nazi salute. THIS IS FASCINATING. Nothing so interesting was going on in America.
Why does it appear so idyllic from where you are? The sunshine? The weather? The blue skies? The size of the lot? Just the fact it seems so exotic compared to what is typical most other places?Lots of people at the pet store think that Rommel's coat is very shiny and is a deeper shade of black that most dogs. But then he is a pure bred Lab, not a Lab mix.
Even though I have been living here for awhile it seems way too exotic to me, too. And that's odd to live somewhere and still think it is exotic. The weather is not normal for sure in the summer time. It is way too hot for that.But it is odd how you can fool yourself into thinking that the late fall, winter, and spring weather here is normal and not exotic. Somehow you have to remind yourself that it isn't normal not to have rain and to have endless sunny skies with temperatures in the 60's and 70's. It gets to the point where you have to remind yourself when you are writing about England and the East Coast to change the weather and add more rain and snow, that sort of thing. When we drove East last year in May we were amazed that it wasn't much warmer. As soon as we turned left at Van Horn, Texas and changed from 1-10 to 1-20, we drove out of the Southwest and the weather immediately got cooler and rainier all the way to Brooklyn on June 3. We simply could not understand it. To me it now seems as if summer starts on May 1 the way it does around here. So I am half-acclimated to the weather around here and half not acclimated. I still think summer should end on September 1 the way it does in Pittsburgh, but of course in Tucson it doesn't end until November 1.
One thing I never get used to are the people around here in Arizona. We did get rid of the mover, but the general impressions you get about the people in Arizona seem to always be negative. For instance until last night I used to belong to an online neighborhood network where you ask questions of your neighbors about what they notice around the general area and where you can post notices if you are giving away something or having a yard sale, etc. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, lately there seems to be an element around this neighborhood that wants to post obnoxious remarks. Lately they have been complaining about UPS delivery. They claim that their packages delivered in front of their houses are being stolen. You may not believe this but they are posting that they think they should be able to shoot anyone they find stealing something from their mailbox, etc. One lady posted the sentiment that she thinks they should re-institute public flogging. The people in this neighborhood sound barbaric so I decided to drop out of the neighborhood network. I don't like such remarks being broadcast into my email feed. This is part of the reason I am changing my email. This was my last remark that I posted last night on the neighborhood network:Who is the person who wants to return to the days of public flogging? I think I am going to close down my account in this Neighborhood Network. I have never heard of anything so appallingly barbaric in my life. If there are people surrounding me who think like that I do not feel safe. Whoever you are, you remind me of a nameless face in a lynch mob in the ugliest days in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Have you ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition? You could be part of that, too. The witch trials? I see you there right in the first row. How about the Holocaust to come up with a more recent example? I see you in the death camps pushing the buttons on unsavory types of people. No thank you. I have read too much from this very uneducated and low Neighborhood Network that not only doesn’t have respect for free speech, they want to return to the days of barbarism. The veneer of civilization is too thin in this neighborhood. Good bye. Linda Cargill
P.S. The remark about free speech applies to an earlier disagreement I had with the neighborhood network. I don't like the Tucson police for all sorts of reasons and this neighborhood network gives free reign to the local police department to post notices on the network. I tried to drop out of getting the notices, and various members asked me why I don't like the police. They said I didn't have the right --- get a load of this! --- not to like them. That's what I mean about free speech.
Right now I am fixed on Pompeii. It is related to a novel I am writing called The Old Faithful Plot about the year 1933. How so? The business about the volcano. Yellowstone is a super volcano and Pompeii is perhaps the most famous historic eruption of a volcano.Did you know that Pompeii erupted on August 24, 79BC? That makes it 1937 years ago. This August 24 coming up in about a week. That will be the anniversary.
Yellowstone is clearly a supervolcano. It gives you an eerie feeling to be driving around in the caldera which is what most of the national park is, you know. Certainly there are a number of geysers going off at any one time. Old Faithful erupts every hour to ninety minutes. I’ve seen it twice now and have taken lots of photos. There are also mudpots if you can imagine boiling mud that plops up and down and shoots up into the air in addition to lots of sulphurous fumes. Supposedly the current superintendent of Yellowstone is on record saying when asked about the coming big eruption that the big worry of every superintendent is that Old Faithful will STOP erupting during his tenure and park revenues will plummet —- not that there will be a BIG eruption.
My grandfather majored in geology in college and went to graduate school, too. He almost got a PH.D. in the subject. But I am not a geologist despite taking a course in the subject at Bryn Mawr. I don’t have any idea when the “big one” will occur, but my novel, The Old Faithful Plot, has a lot to say about that.
Wow! I went to Pompeii when I was 15 years old with my brother, sister, mother, and father. I was in ninth grade at the time and enrolled in Latin 1 going on Latin 2. I remember bringing in the pictures that my father took and showing them to the class in September. I have never been back there since. Gary and Kenny have never been to Italy at all let alone Pompeii. We made the trip as a day excursion from Rome. It was a very long day since it is some distance away. The volcano across the Bay of Naples was quite impressive. We even ended up visiting Sorrento along the Amalfi Coast the same day and having snacks there before returning to our hotel in Rome.Did you daughter rent a car? Did she have any wild experiences with Italian drivers? My parents didn't rent a car but even the bus ran into problems with Italian drivers. One lady was even waving an empty wine bottle at the driver. He stopped the bus, paid her off, and she went about her business. I also remember in Rome that motorists drove their cars on the sidewalks at times.
I do have an idea for a novel called The Vesuvius Plot, all inspired by the Yellowstone volcano. Supposedly Pliny the Elder died mysteriously during the Vesuvius eruption in 79AD. The story is related to us by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who wrote a letter that survives about the eruption. In my novel disaffected German tribesmen defeated by Germanicus in 14AD as revenge for the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, hear about Pliny the Elder's works about Germany. He is the governor there in Trier for real. Pliny criticizes the Germans, and the tribesmen want to get revenge. They come to Rome to assassinate him, but he away. They follow him to his villa on the Amalfi Coast. They have been warned about the recent earthquake activity and take it as a sign that the gods favor what they are about to do. Sounds ominous? I could actually make an historical fantasy novel out of it, too. I could have Hitler meddling with history so that the present (1930s and 40s) will turn out differently. He identified Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, and Pliny the Younger's best friend, Tacitus, as his chief enemies. They all wrote works about Germany criticizing the Germans. He thinks they gave Germany a bad reputation throughout history. If he kills off Pliny and his friends, then Germany will get reunified sooner and will win WW1. So he sends agents back in time (time tunnels are created by volcanic eruptions) to slay them. Edward Ware finds out about it and travels through the same time tunnel to stop him. It doesn't sound like what I usually write, but during this past summer I have come up with the odd idea.
What does the Brexit have to do with a resurgence of hate crimes? Do you mean they are going after people who aren't British? Immigrants?Quaint that you have a neighborhood store that is willing to accept your parcels. Years ago I tried to get parcels delivered to the National Legal Research Group in Charlottesville, Gary's then employer, when we weren't there. But the NLRG said they couldn't handle anything extra. The thing about delivering packages to neighbors is what they used to do back in Bethel Park, PA where I grew up. The only time I have ever been able to get packages delivered to a business and then pick them up later is when I'm traveling and get packages delivered to a hotel up the road where you are going to stay several days later. Cunard believe it or not is even amenable to this sort of thing. You can send your luggage to them ahead of time as well as packages.
Did you know that you can access the live webcam for the Old Faithful Geyser on the National Park website? It might be a little difficult for you considering the time difference, but if you calculate it right --- Yellowstone is on Mountain Time which is two hours behind Eastern Time --- you might be able to catch an eruption now and then. The website is nps.gov and you click on Yellowstone and then on the webcam page. When I was writing the Old Faithful Plot I sometimes just left it live on my desktop all day long.
In your article "The UK Economy: Time to Govern" what do you mean by "the taxation base is too small to balance the government books"? Aren't there enough companies to tax? Citizens with jobs? How big is the class of people on the dole? What % of the population do they represent? Gary says that the % of people not part of the economy is growing here, too!
Did you ever think that the real reason "public services are starved for cash" is that the whole idea of socialism is flawed to begin with? You say that the economy is too small, there are fewer opportunities for new workers, the tax base is too small, etc. All these are related to the "cradle to grave" socialism that swept over England after WW2. This is supposedly what Margaret Thatcher was attacking when she was PM, wasn't it? I don't know what was abolished and what was kept. But I heard that at least at one point you could go sign up for the dole and get an apartment, money, transportation, everything for nothing.I was introduced to your public health system on the ship four years ago. The lecturer was lamenting the same thing you are about how underfunded services were. He lamented how "scarce" everything was. Gary and I just sighed. We left when the lecturer asked if there were any Americans in the audience who could explain "Obamacare" in this country and why the Supreme Court had just voted that forcing people to buy into it was a "tax". All this so-called scarcity is very artificial, you know. If all the government subsidies disappeared overnight, suddenly prices would plummet. People would have to pay out of pocket for such services. Suddenly they would become plentiful and easily available. In this country, for instance, I notice that there are still plenty of dentists. There is a dentist's office on every street corner. They compete with each other to give you the lowest possible price with all sorts of amenities in their offices such as movies and snacks, even computers for use.
During the short time we were in England even we noticed a long list of admission prices to tourist attractions. There was even a discount for the "unemployed". I've never heard of that one before! Who is paying for that? The government, of course! That is certainly an unnecessary government expense that should be cut.
You think May is not doing enough? She just comments with no action plans? It sounds like she was unprepared to become PM.
Yes, now I remember. There was a Rumpole episode called "Rumpole and the Tap End" about a bath tub and who sat at which end of the tub. But at least you understand what "faucet" means just as I understand what "tap" means. You see, we didn't pick out this faucet. It came with the house two years ago. So we didn't have any say in whether we had individual taps or mixers. I, too, prefer individual taps for hot and cold but sometimes they are hard to find especially for the bathroom. A lot of the new kitchen faucets are the same way. They are giant single hole contraptions that cost a fortune and usually get installed only when you remodel. In this house I am stuck with a single hole kitchen faucet, too, which is a mixer as well as a sprayer. I definitely prefer individual sprayers and had one installed in my old house. Only the master bathroom here has individual taps for hot and cold and looks new, too, because the vanity that goes with it is new. It looks like a Home Depot special installed by the flippers who sold us this house.Do you have Home Depot in England? Do you know what a "flipper" is in regard to housing? Do you have flippers in England who buy up old house, renovate it, and sell it to you at a profit?
Plumbers are a big problem here. That is why we are trying to put the faucet/tap in ourselves. We have found some Mexican gardeners and we have a Mexican handyman. As a matter of fact, we even had trouble with plumbers back in Charlottesville. A lot of them never showed up on time or even on the scheduled day. They didn't finish the jobs and charged you anyway. Even Gary's father used to have trouble with plumbers. I suppose that the plumbers you have in England are reliable because they belong to a guild or something.
You say she has "potential". But she has not proven herself yet obviously. She may have an instinct for what is wrong. But that doesn't mean she knows what is right or what she should do now. Has she convened "study groups"? Is that what she is doing now --- considering what to do next? Apparently she did not expect to become PM.
Great Britain did not used to be a socialist country either before World War 2. It is not as though socialism goes back to the Magna Carta. I think socialism is Germanic in its origins. The Germans are the true socialists. Socialism seems to work better in Nordic and Germanic countries for some reason, perhaps because of the lack of ethnic diversity. But it is at odds with what my friend Gertrude calls the Anglo-American system.You say the NHS belongs to the people and not the government. Obviously so. But it doesn't work nearly as well as a system put in private hands only. When it is in private hands things get cheaper not more expensive. There is a financial incentive to provide more and more services just to earn money. Costs spiral out of control ONLY when put in the hands of the government which cuts incentive and invention and creativity. When put in the hands of the government there is no need to control costs, you see. The spiraling costs are what create the artificial scarcity of health care services. That doesn't do anybody any good especially those who cannot afford much. They would be better off with a private system in private hands. You say there is some statistic about Americans who cannot afford the health care system. With spiraling costs pretty soon only millionaires will be able to afford the system. Much better in the days of general practitioners who made house calls and billed you on a monthly basis, better before the days of Medicare and Medicaid, even better before social security. These programs don't help anyone in the long run. They just backfire on the taxpayers and deliver the opposite of what they promise.
When I was a teenager and I visited London with my parents and my brother and sister, my sister hurt her arm and we called the front desk of the hotel which called a local doctor. The doctor on call explained how he was delighted to provide services for tourists in hotels on weekends. That was how he made his money. He couldn't make it during the week working for the NHS.
Even the government safety net for the truly poor might be better handled in private hands. For instance a lot of this sort of thing in this country used to be put in the hands of churches. Even immigration was put in the hands of churches and sponsor groups. Even Indians were put into private hands initially. This is what works. Remember: Britain invented capitalism, not America.
Even government mortgages caused housing to be more expensive in an artificial sort of way. Before the New Deal housing was much less expensive than it is now. Mortgages were rare and when people had them it was only like an old-fashioned car loan for about 3 years. Now housing costs continue to spiral out of sight ONLY because of mortgages and loans. If mortgages were rare costs would have to be kept in line with people’s wages.
Send the Polish plumbers over here! I will give them my address. Do they still speak Polish? Have they learned English? In other words, have they been assimilated? If not, we know a Russian speaker here to communicate with them in their West Slavic language which still bears some relationship to Russian. At least they have a Latin alphabet with some special characters. Is your plumber Polish?I haven't found a Mexican plumber yet.
Yes, I have heard of Herculaneum. I was introduced to it in college. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I started out as an archaeology major at Bryn Mawr College and then switched after a couple of years to being an English major. My freshman year I took both Baby Greek or Introductory Greek and Archaeology 101 with Brunhilda Ridgeway as a teacher. My Baby Greek teacher was Miss Mabel Lang. Miss Lang knew Chadwick and Ventris, the Brits who deciphered Linear B at Pylos in Greece. In fact, she corrected their work! Mr. Phillips, who was also a professor of mine at the time, had a dig in Etruria near Rome for which he recruited students to help him. I didn't volunteer. I am not the digging type myself. But I did learn about Pompeii/Herculaneum, etc.Also have you heard about the Getty Villa in California? The Getty Museum on the coast near Malibu? A few years back we spent six weeks in California driving around and stayed in Santa Monica right on Muscle Beach if you have ever heard of it. The Getty Villa is right next door. It is a reconstruction of the villa of Julius Caesar's father-in-law, Calpurnius Piso, the father of Caesar's last wife, Calpurnia. The villa was located in Herculaneum. It was preserved by the volcano and now is only partially excavated. I should send you photos from the museum and gardens there. You see, you don't even have to leave the USA to see Pompeii!
As far as stuff in the ancient world, the only things you really KNOW are chronologies. Most early events are based on an Egyptian time line because much of that record was found in Egyptian tombs. Then you get to the literary record starting about the time of classical Athens in 500-400 BC. Then you have the Hellenistic chronology that leads straight to the Roman one. But other than chronologies, coins, and archaeological remains you don't have much about the ancient world that is accurate and can be trusted. Just because Pliny the Younger wrote a letter about his uncle doesn't mean you can trust what he says in terms of details other than chronologies, in other words what happened when. Ancients were not known for scientific thinking or reasoning. When they write histories, they seldom have respect for facts. (Herodotus was known as the "Father of Lies". ) Pliny says that his uncle died during the eruption, but he could be reporting rumor or he could have a reason to hide something. You can't tell exactly what happened to Pliny the Elder. Ditto with Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. That is why I take wide license in my book The Cleopatra Caper about that subject. And when you get to mythological subjects you as an ancient writer were expected to invent you own. There are zillions of stories about the Trojan War and Helen. So I felt justified in making up my own in To Follow the Goddess. Ditto with End of Days and Medea's Escape about Jason and Medea.
You were in Egypt? How did that happen? When? Did you ever visit Gezira Island? I have lots of scenes on Gezira Island in Edward Ware Thrillers without being able to find much information on the subject. Also British Mid-East Headquarters was in Cairo. That was supposed to be Edward's home base.Have you taken a Nile cruise? Visited the Sphinx? The pyramids at Giza? The Cairo Museum?
I can't imagine ever visiting Cairo or Egypt. My grandmother never went there and she otherwise went all the way to India, Russia, and China. It sounds way too dangerous. If the British had stayed there it might be a safer place to visit.
In addition to being an exact replica of the Calpurnius Piso villa in Herculaneum, the Getty Villa houses one of the largest collections of Greek and especially Roman antiquities in the world. Getty was a billionaire, and he funded the place so that it has the largest museum budget in the world. Other museums have cried foul at the advantage it has. Italy is after the Getty to return items. It is private and supported totally by a foundation.It would be great if you would visit a Roman villa and take photos. Fantastic is more like it. It is not fair that you have all the originals over there. By the way did you ever get the article on Romans in Tucson that I sent you? I attached it, but I wonder if it made it. This is no joke. It was an elaborate hoax.
I looked up what you mean by Roman villas in England because I have never heard of them. There are certainly lots of them! They mostly seem to be ruins and not buildings. The advantage of the Getty Villa is that it is an actual building that gives you an idea what they actually looked like. The immensity of the house gives you an idea just how rich and well-connected somebody like Piso was. It makes you think that it must have been a plantation of sorts for economic activity such as fishing and perhaps growing grapes and not just the house of a nobleman.
I don't know what you mean by the "Neo-Con lunacy of post 9/11". I have never heard of it. But I have always thought of the Middle East as a place that isn't safe to visit. Israel is just an excuse. Really even if Israel never existed the Arab states would be warring with each other right now because of the legacy of WW1. They are fighting their way into the modern age.I am glad you saw all the pyramids and the Sphinx. The Sphinx is really interesting. I have used it repeatedly in novels. It is one of the symbols of Cheops Books in addition to the Cheops Pyramid. I feature it on my Cheops page on Facebook. But unless somebody occupies Egypt I don't know when it will ever be safe to visit the place again.
By the way when I look on Amazon.com I don't see the Hastings Option listed.
Would you believe that in the autumn election on the local front we have got some candidates with strange names. For instance, can you imagine there is a Nutt with a campaign poster out on the street? I wonder if he is a nut case? Then there is also a Closen that sounds like "Close". Last but not least we have a "Frogge" which certainly looks like "Frog". Humorous election, huh?
I would think that most of the money that the government takes in comes from business and large companies. Therefore if you foster a business environment and cut taxes, the companies will hire more people. They will make more money. Thus the government will have more money, too.This system by the way is European in its origins, and almost nobody knows it. It goes back to Ancient Rome. Where do you think Augustus got his money to build up Rome? The Nobles, yes! They pledged their loyalty to the Emperor and the Empire by building things and donating them to the people such as Marcus Agrippa building the Pantheon which was later rebuilt by Hadrian.
Yes, I found the Hastings Option under Tor Raven. I read the introductory material under Look Inside the Book. It seems interesting. I will check into it soon. I will buy it. Gary and I will both read it next. (Gary is almost done with your Left book). I need something new to feature in my blog once again.
It may sound fantasy-like, but that's Tucson for you. That's what you get for living here, I guess --- strange politics. By the way, when you have an election in Britain, does it look like America with all sorts of bumper stickers, flags, yard signs, and signs at every intersection about candidates to vote for? Or is that just the US? Here there is a tremendous amount of hoopla especially in Presidential election years. If you go on amazon.com the amount of stuff you can buy advertising either candidate is unreal. For instance, how would you like a Trump paper clip holder? A Hillary Clinton action figure?
As far as traveling with a rucksack that is what Rick Steves, the Europe Through The Back Door guy, does. He has photos on his website of traveling light using a backpack or a rucksack
I like that word "oddments". It must be British English. I have never heard anyone say that before. I should try slipping that into conversation today and see the reaction I get.