Air Source Heat Pump

Not having used the Air Source Heat Pump this summer, except for the odd day, I've been able work out its power usage. Cost, with the varying price of electricity is rather more difficult to ascertain.

Click to enlarge the chart. Orange is usage and blue is generated from the solar PV - all in kWh.

Last summer, I was using around 10 kWh on a daily basis. This summer it's been around 4 kWh, with the only difference being the use of the ASHP. So that's some 6 kWh attributable to the ASHP, but that does not allow for the fact we have solar thermal, which reduces the load on the ASHP when it's sunny.

Not allowing for the solar thermal boost, at current prices, that equates today to £2.26 a day for domestic hot water during summer - more if you don't have solar thermal. I have no idea how that compares to a gas boiler, as we don't have one.

I can't work out the winter cost, as the underfloor heating massively skewed the figures last year and I have to wait to see this year's winter trend (sans underfloor heating) before I can arrive at a figure.

10 Pin Bowling Ball

Hay took a surreptitious photo of my bonce when I was reading on the settee. She maintains I was sleeping - I was merely feigning sleep as part of a cuning plan.

You can see where the holes I had drilled into my head (following a bilateral, subdural haematoma after a bike accident, my bonce having hit the floor rather hard) have resulted in the hair turning darker. You can just make them out as four darker patches. It looks a bit like a bowling ball.

If I had holes all over my skull, perhaps I wouldn't be grey. It's possible I've stumbled on an anti-ageing secret!

I told Hay that when I kick the bucket she can use my skull as a candle holder.

Drone Disaster

On Friday I went to the Somerset Monument in Hawkesbury to take a few shots using No.1 Son's drone. However, I was a bit over-cautious, as I didn't want to fly the damned thing into the trees surrounding it and losing the drone. I any case, the MP4 file was corrupted, so I didn't manage to get any footage.

The monument commemorates one of the Somersets' kids, who was a 19th Century soldier and MP for South Glos. 

Duke of Beaufort was created by Charles II in 1682 for Henry Somerset, 3rd Marquess of Worcester, a descendant of Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, legitimised son of Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, a Lancastrian leader in the Wars of the Roses. The name Beaufort refers to a castle in Champagne, France (now Montmorency-Beaufort). It is the only current dukedom to take its name from a place outside the British Isles.

So the Dukes of Beaufort took the surname Somerset, while the Dukes of Somerset retained the surname Beaufort. Consusing, isn't it? The Dukes of Beaufort live nearby at Badminton Estate. As an aside, Fitzroy Somerset, the 9th and youngest son of the 5th Duke of Somerset, was in charge of the British forces in the Crimean War and was responsible for the debacle of the Charge of the Light Brigade. He was known as Baron Raglan following his appointment Master General of the Ordnance, Raglan being one of the castles in the Beaufort's huge estates in Wales. He also served with Wellington during the Peninsular War and at the Battle of Waterloo.

On Saturday I took No.1 Son so he could take the risk of the trees. He managed to get some good footage but, unfortunately, he flew the drone into a tree at the end and it stuck nearly half way up. You can just make it out in the photo below.

While he was climbing the tree to retrieve the drone, a bloke came out of the lodge next door and asked me to move No.1 Son's car, as it was blocking a farm gate (although there was enough room to get a bloody bus past it and I doubt one tractor a month passes through the gate). 

Bugger!I hadn't realised No.1 Son had left the drone box on the top of the car, and it fell off and all the bits fell out. The car went over the spare battery and a few other bits. He wasn't best pleased with me, but at least I hadn't navigated his drone into a tree.

Here's the footage No.1 Son got, right to where it hit the tree.

Earlier in the week I'd gone to Dyrham House, about 15 minutes away, to try and recreate the closing scene of The Remains of the Day, where the camera flies away and up from the front facade. Dyrham House is a National Trust property that was used for the exterior shots in the film (and many other films). I approached the house from the rear in Dyrham village and didn't crash it into a tree!

Here's the actual final scene from The Remains of the Day, where Mr Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) releases a pigeon, which had flown down the chimney, through a front window. The pan-back starts at 1 minute, exactly. It's very shaky - there probably wasn't stabilised drone technology in 1993.

Grand houses abound in this part of the country - Dyrham, Badminton (Dukes of Beaufort), Highgrove (Prince William), Gatcombe (Princess Anne) and Doddington (James Dyson). There are probably a few more I've forgotten. 

In the News

Saw this headline.

Not sure when this is planned to happen, but I hope it's not when a Conservative government is in charge. Like HS2, they'll cancel it when the astronauts are up there, citing cost overruns. 

Also heard that proven liar, Boris Johnson, is to join GB News as a presenter. A match made in heaven. 

He said; "Great opportunities lie ahead." Lie ahead? He lied in the past too!

Meanswhile, the government, in a display of evidence-free ideology, tells local authorities to stop trials of a 4 day working week.

Businesses that have implemented a 4 day week report a better work/life balance and no fall off in productivity. So why not al least allow trials that will provide definitive evidence one way of the other?

Valance MkIII & Beyond

A long one....

The replacement B post panel was due to arrive Monday, but the bastards at Evri sent me a message to say I wasn't in and they didn't deliver for that reason. I was in all bloody day!

Started spot welding the valance into position. There was some carving to be done on the left hand finishing strip before I could get the left hand side to fit but, given there was nothing else that had been removed, it was relatively simple. I then ran along the seams with the spot welder. Some tacks with the MiG welder were required, just to ensure the panel adhered to the inside of the finisher that runs under the left hand outer wing.

Next came the right hand side, which was an absolute mare. It necessitated the boot floor to be raised with the engine hoist in order to align it with the correct position to attach to the inner wing, and a webbing strap to pull the inner wing in so it met the boot floor. Lots of torsion has been incorporated, which shouldn't be there, although my spirit level suggests the boot floor is now level.

I shouldn't have been in such a hurry to fit the outer wing, which hindered my ability to properly line things up on the inside of the car - although I wasn't to know there were alignment problems on the inside. There was some serious misalignment between the flanges on the lower valance repair panel and the inner wing, although the alignment with the upper valance is perfect.

The inner wing was fitted by the previous owner and wasn't in the correct position, which is probably why I had issues fitting the outer wing. However, there was nothing I could do about it, so any adjustment had to be effected on the lower valance repair panel. Not ideal and left me with the repair panel flange, which should be spot welded to the inner and outer wings, standing proud and requiring tack welds with the MiG on the inside and outside, with the excess being ground off.

You can see in the above photo how much had to be ground off the valance's right hand flange. At least there was no gap, which allowed me to weld it up on the inside.

Not any noticeable difference when viewed from behind and the valance looks level all the way along, whereas the old one sagged on the right.

There's a very small, triangular gap where the upper valance meets the lower valance and the rear wing ( a 3 panel join), occasioned by the misalignment. I'll probably have to fabricate a triangular fillet for it.

Then the B post closing panel arrived by courier on Tuesday and I realised, once more, that it was a mistake to fit the wing first, as a flange on the B post panel has to go under the wing flange. Luckily, the wing wasn't welded along the bottom, so it could be pulled out a bit, but the B post panel needed some cropping where it meets the sill to give me room to manoeuvre it into position.

The brass screw was inserted so I could pull the bottom of the B post panel up, under the sill. The wing was slightly proud from the sill, so I needed a huge G clamp to encourage it into position before I proceed with plug welds around the flanges. 

The part where it joins the sill step was tricky and I had to use a mixture of MiG and stick welding to blob the metal on and build it up without blowing a hole in either the sill or the B post. There was a small square area of missing metal where I had to crop the panel to get it into position. I managed to insert a tiny fillet using the good steel from the old valance and finished it with filler. It looked a right mess, but I persevered with the blobbing and grinding, but after the filler and primer it ended up looking like this.

The door fits, so success.

The other side looks fair too, bearing in mind that the doors are only loosely fitted and the hinges aren't on. so the gaps aren't true.

I then decided to tackle with wheel arches of the new rear wing. The spot welder wouldn't go near it because of the rebate, so I dug out the spot welder adaptor for the stick welder, which attacks the problem from one side only - and it was virtually useless, as it either didn't penetrate the inner arch at all, or simply blew a hole in the outer wing wheel arch flange. I guess I could get the spot welder to fit if I get some more copper rod and make some weird shaped electrodes.

Resorted to the MiG, combined with some stick welding, filling the holes the spot adapter had conveniently blown for me, eliminating the need to drill holes. Still not happy with the result, as welding upwards is problematic because gravity dictates that the weld pool drops to the floor, leaving holes. I'll probably return to the wheel arches today and cogitate on the problem. Doubtless I'll find a solution, but it may involve a rotisserie to turn the car over to counter gravity. 

Putting a magnet the top side of the weld won't work, as the Curie temperature of steel (the temperature above which it loses any magnetic properties) is around 700 degrees C, and welding takes place at several thousand degrees.

Once the wheel arches are done, I'll be in a position to remove the tub from the chassis. That's when my problems start - I don't have the space to store them separately. I need a garage extension.....

I'll probably start work on the bonnet next, but that will have to wait until I have recouped some funds for the necessary panels, although stripping it and cutting out the rot can be done without spending anything.

The problems I've had are a consequence of having to contend with previous, inexpert work (not that I'm an expert, but I have done this type of thing before). My unfamiliarity with the GT6 and not having taken it apart myself in the first place didn't help. The golden rule is to replace in the same sequence in which you removed panels and not to try to take shortcuts. 

It would have been much easier to do this work with the tub off the chassis and on a rotisserie, but it's said that if you replace panels with the tub off the car, you'll never get it back on the chassis again as nothing lines up with the bolts, and I can see why.

As an aside, Hay's works is having their Christmas do in Ampney Crucis. I told her my works do is in the garage.

Flipping Chassis

Having decided to use my existing chassis on the GT6 and effect some adjustments to it, I flipped the galvanised, Mk2 GT6 chassis I bought earlier in the year. 

I had bought it for £350 and had it on Facebook Market for £400, fully expecting to be beaten down to £350, which meant I got my money back. As it transpired, a bloke no more than 10 miles away offered me the asking price, plus £20 for delivering it.

He was busy rebuilding a Jaguar XJS, a 1960s Sunbeam Alpine and a Mk2 GT6. Taking on an XJS is serious stuff, as they were rot boxes from the start and there aren't that many left.

Anyway, we had a brilliant exchange over Messenger, talking about tools and cars, so I decided to let him have it for £350, forgetting it had cost me £50 odd in fuel to collect it from Preston. However, a deal is a deal and he was appreciative.

DIY Sandblaster Experiment

Thought I'd have a go at making a small, DIY sandblaster from a plastic bottle and an air blow gun.

The bottle needed a large screw top, so I got some Innocent apple juice from Tesco for £4.10, which went on the shopping budget. More than I usually pay, but the plastic cap was perfect. I had previously rummaged through the neighbourhood plastic recycling, which is all put outside our house for ease of access for the recycling waggon, but there was nothing suitable (I usually have a good rummage and it's surprising what people throw away - I've liberated a lot of useful glassware and plastic from the recycling).

I also bought some 2 pack, epoxy putty from B&Q for £7.28 with which to affix the blow gun (which I already had) to the plastic screw cap. I could have used car bodyfiller, but it's not quite the right consistency and is a bit too loose.

I cut a small, finger-width channel into the long nozzle of the blow gun to create a hole through which the sand in the bottle could flow and sealed it to the plastic cap, into which I'd drilled a corresponding hole. I also screwed a couple of screws into the cap to create a key for the epoxy putty.

As you can see from the piece of metal at the top, and the exposed metal on the GT6 bonnet by the scuttle louvres, it's great at removing surface rust from bare metal. However, I tried to remove some of the car paint - and it was next to useless - it cleaned the paint, rather than removing it en masse.

Here's a short video of the result.

So, great for small, fiddly bits of metal, like manifolds or linkages, where the large sandblaster would be overkill, but pretty much useless for everything else. 

Here's a photo of the carbs and inlet manifold, which I gave a short, one minute blast. 

Great where you need fine control and it doesn't send heaps of sand into the air, although a sandblasting cabinet would improve it and enable recycling of the sand.

The concept is sound, but I need to give more consideration to the stability of the bottle of sand and its adhesion to the smooth nozzle of the blow gun, as it's heavy and falls to one side of the gun if you don't hold it upright.

I have two Lidl, hand-held sandblasters, but neither of them work - no blasting media comes out of the nozzles.

Policing

Here's an idea - contract out policing to a private organisation. Let's call it the Wagner Group, for want of a better name. Tory MPs could have shares in it.

Staff it with prison inmates, giving them intimidating, black uniforms and thus killing two birds with one stone - reducing the prison population (thereby making room for hordes of lefty lawyers) and rehabilitating inmates.

The only problem I can see is that, as a private organisation, such a force would have the right to strike, so it would be anathema to its Tory shareholders.

I see the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, wants to upbraid the police for not arresting people chanting the Arabic word Jihad during protests in London. Now Jihad literally means a meritorious struggle or effort. Unfortunately, it has become associated in the West specifically with terrorism. 

However, if you 'cancel' the word Jihad, then for the same reason you must 'cancel' the word Crusade, even if used to denote a vigorous campaign for political or social change. This is due to it, unfortunately, being associated within Islam with a murderous rampage against Muslims (and a few Jews and Christians who happened to get in the way of medieval crusaders attempting to reclaim a certain flashpoint in the Middle East for Christendom).

I wonder what the protectors of free screech will have to say? No, that wasn't a typo.

Valance II

 Thought I'd try fitting the valance yesterday, following a lot of grinding.

There's a finisher strip that goes over (or under, to be precise) the join between the outer wing, inner wing and the end of the valance to form a nice edge. I was going to remove the one on the left hand side, but it's welded on at the ends and spot welded in the middle, making it rather difficult to remove. Also, it was in remarkably good condition, so I left it in place, but ground it down a bit on the inside. 

The right hand side, requiring more in the way of replacement panels, doesn't have a finisher anyway, but I do have one to apply when I've finished putting everything in place. That said, those who have rebuilt GT6s previously recommend leaving it off completely, as it can become a rust trap. Given I've retained the left hand one, I'll have to fit the right hand, ensuring I seal it with something like the dreaded epoxy resin.

The left hand side is perfection, but the right hand side leaves a lot to be desired, primarily because the boot floor has sagged a bit due to the whole area having been taken apart. This was corrected by attaching the engine hoist to the boot floor and raising it a bit, but it's still not perfect. A couple of trolley jacks are needed.

After getting the left hand side sorted, I realised I hadn't sanded down the lips where the spot welds will go, meaning I wouldn't be able to establish a circuit - so the whole lot came off again.

Got it back together and realised I hadn't primed the lips with weld-through Primer. Bugger that, I thought.

More adjustment is required before I commit to the spot welder, although I could weld up the left hand side, which would allow some bashing on the right hand side to ensure a good fit, without a risk of destabilising the whole lot. I really need the B post pillar section for the driver side before closing everything up, but that's not arriving till tomorrow.

I also think I need a 2nd opinion from my neighbour, who rebuilt a TR6 a couple of decades ago.

Watch this space, but probably not till next weekend.

Who Shot Liberty Valance

Repair panels arrived Friday and I immediately realised I'd bought a left hand B post pillar repair section, rather than the right hand. Phoned Rimmer Brothers in Leicester and immediately corrected the error, but it will be Tuesday before the correct panel arrives.

The rear, lower valance, however, was perfect. On Saturday I used a grinder, nibbler and sabre saw to remove the old valance.

Roughly fitted the new one to see how it looked.

There are so many spot welds, and they're not easy to see, that I didn't even try to drill them out. It's going to take a lot of patient grinding to get back to the metal I need to weld the repair section to. While spot welding will work on the upper and lateral sides, the lower side will have to be plug welded, as it's impossible to get the spot welder in there.

The brilliant thing about rebuilding your own car is that you can spend as much time as needed to get something right without worrying about the cost. I can roll the car out of the garage and spot a tiny blemish and then spend all day getting rid of it, enjoying the activity.

Geneva Gimmick

Is the Geneva Convention worth the paper it's written on?

A Convention, in international relations, is defined as an agreement between states covering particular matters, especially one less formal than a treaty.

The convention imposes ethics and morals on combatants, which is all well and good, until a conflict becomes existential for one party or the other and a breach is a necessity, being the only possible way of avoiding utter destruction. In a fight, you'll do what's needed to win if you're losing, and untying the hand that's tied behind your back might make the difference between winning or destruction.

Then there's the fact large, powerful nations get away with breaches of the Convention all the time. It's impossible to enforce the consequences against the likes of the USA, for example, which has flagrantly flouted the Convention numerous times since it came into operation. Similarly, Russia has breached the Convention. It can therefore be said that it's only for the smaller countries - a bit like taxes, which the average person can't escape, but the rich can avoid due to their power and influence.

The USA, Russia, China, India, Israel and Sudan do not even recognise the ICC, which prosecutes War Crimes. One wonders why?

The bombing of Dresden in WWII is a prima facie breach of the Convention (contrary to popular belief, there was a version before the 1949 one, which the USA, UK and Germany had signed). However, some argue that Dresden was a legitimate, industrial target and civilians were not the target.

Similarly, dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima can be argued as both a breach and a mechanism for saving even more civilian lives had there been a land invasion of Japan. Interpretation can be very subjective, as in many matters of law. It has been called the Geneva Suggestion, the Geneva To Do List, the Geneva Opinion and the Geneva Recommendations.

Not only is the Convention applicable only to smaller countries, but also to the side that totally beaten into submission. 

No Crackers, Gromit

My replacement sandblaster nozzle arrive yesterday and I immediately sussed the problem with the old one - a rubber packing ring / grommet was missing, meaning the ceramic head wasn't pushed out far enough to create a proper seal when the trigger was released.

No wonder it was almost impossible to keep the pressure at where it should be. It's probably the reason why the previous owner sold it - he never noticed.

OK, so it cost me £19.99 for a complete nozzle I didn't really need, but I dare say replacement ceramic heads don't come with a rubber packing and they're sold separately, meaning I'd still have been at a loss if I'd simply ordered replacement ceramic heads.

However, it still doesn't do the job as I expected, which I think in due to the 8 bar, 15cfm compressor not being able to keep up with it (although 15cfm is recommended). Once the sandblaster tank is pressurised, I can get about 10 seconds of blasting before I have to stop and wait for the tank to get back up to pressure. To do it properly I'd need a compressor the size of the workshop.

It's fine for blasting fiddly bits where the wire wheel can't get into, but for large, flat areas, the wire wheel on a grinder is much faster and efficient. I used it on the door jambs, hinges and skin seams.

At least I've finished the passenger door and primed it. I didn't bother stripping the inside of the door, as it's sound as a bell and will be permanently covered by a trim panel anyway.

I've also ordered the last couple of remaining body panels I need - rear valance and driver side door closing pane - which should arrive today. Other repair panels are required for the bonnet, but that's at a later stage and doesn't affect the tub.

The Power in the People

I've been reading the above named book by Michael Mansfield, the famous barrister who has featured in many high profile human rights trials, and it's pertinent with the news that Greta Thunberg has been arrested.

It's primarily about how people coming together and persisting, in the face of government obstruction, can effect lasting change in the pursuit of truth, accountability, fairness and justice.

Some sentences stand out. In the first he's talking out the Stephen Lawrence murder:

"This year — 2023 — marked the 30th anniversary of the murder. The memorial was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Central London, just like previous memorials. The last memorial was supposed to be the final one. Doreen did not want to have to convene another. But the spectacle of gross misconduct by police and those in government over the recent past compelled her to take up the baton again. Once more, she brought together those in power to face the force of the people. The new Commissioner of the Met sat alongside Doreen and Stuart. The leader the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, and Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, were just across the aisle. There was a space reserved for the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who was due to read from Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. But he did not appear, nor did he appoint a colleague to take his place, nor was any message conveyed to the congregation, nor to the public. But perhaps that was the message."

And here he talks of the government's plans to leave the ECHR:

"It will come as no surprise that there has been a growing cohort of reactionary ‘people in power’. Their objective is to override the ECHR or even withdraw from it, to ignore decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights (for example on the issue of small boats carrying immigrants) and ultimately to construct an alternative British Bill of Rights, foreshadowed in June 2022. It will also come as no surprise that the purpose of these moves is not about the people at all but about control and, above all, power. Ironically, ‘human rights’ are being demeaned as part of the derogatory ‘woke’ culture by those in power, many of whom are themselves clothed in sleaze. The ‘people’ are viewed as a threat, and that takes us right back to what is at stake — truth, accountability, fairness and justice."

Essentially he says that right wing populists are afraid of the people once they see through their lies and want to curtail their right to protest against the government, under whatever pretext they can find. He goes on to say they can deal with the odd rebel, but not the many. 

He quotes the poet Shelley, who said, in support of the people in the wake of the Peterloo Massacre; "Ye are many - they are few." Laws are not immutable and there have been many bad laws.

2 State Solution and Topology

I wrote the other day about the 2 State Solution.

What we in effect have at this moment is a 3 State Solution; Israel, the West Bank under the PLO (Fatah) and Gaza under the dictatorship of Hamas (not having had elections since 2006, they are definitively a dictatorial regime).

A 2 State Solution, where a contiguous Israeli state sits alongside a contiguous Palestinian state, would resolve many of the problems - for a start, a single, contiguous Palestinian state could mean the end of Hamas as a dominant force, as the number of Palestinians supporting Fatah far outweigh the Hamas supporters and Israel finds the PLO a lot easier to deal with.

A 1 State Solution would be even better, as there are already Arab Israelis; however, they are 2nd class citizens and have to be in order to ensure that there is a homeland for the Jews where they are not democratically outnumbered. For Israelis that's a necessity born of history and experience as well as being supported in international agreements. Currently, there are more than 50 Israeli laws which discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel in all areas of life, including their rights to political participation, access to land, education, state budget resources, and criminal procedures.

However, a 2 State Solution as described above cannot be achieved without some topological jiggery-pokery and the migration of a sizeable proportion of one population or the other. Joining Gaza and the West Bank (or what's left of it) by a corridor would necessarily cut the current Israeli state in half, which is strategically untenable (yet that's what happened to Palestine). 

Therein lies the conundrum. The whole problem is caused by topology. In any case, it should be handed to mathematicians to solve, after all, the Bible says; "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Perhaps non-Euclidian space is the answer, or a Mobius Strip?

There again, they could all convert to Christianity as a compromise. Chances are one side would convert to Catholicism and the other to Protestantism and carry on fighting. However, this is in essence a political problem and not a religious one; religion is a secondary attribute. It's a bit like The Troubles where religion was heaped on a political issue. 

Ottomans are giving Hay a problem.

We have two, decorated by Hay's artist sister. She wants to move them, but isn't sure whether to replace them with Israelis or Palestinians.

Restore Trust

I'm going to join the right wing, Tufton St funded Restore Trust organisation that's designed to subvert the National Trust and whitewash the nastier aspects of our old landowning aristocracy and capitalists.

Last weekend, we were staying in the motorhome at a fishing lake near Portsmouth, where we were due to go for a school reunion on the Saturday evening. A bit of a ramshackle place, but tranquil.

I thought this sign on the fishing shop on site was a bit unsporting and not exactly concomitant with the ethos of Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer.

While there we thought we'd visit a National Trust property on Saturday and the nearest was a place called Hinton Ampner, not too far from Winchester.

It was only when we drove through the gates that we realised we'd already been there last month when visiting No.2 Son in Winchester. Obviously we're getting old and forgetting where we've been. However, it's a beautiful and comfortable house with gorgeous gardens.

The last couple of photos above is a lovely yew hedge that's been carved into a beautiful, undulating cloud formation.

Anyway, the bloody cafe was closed, so I'm going to join Restore Trust. No more of this slavery and exploitation of the masses left-wing lawyer, BBC, tofu-eating wokery - just get the bloody cafe's open! What on earth do they think people visit NT properties for, if not to be fleeced in the cafe for average, yet exorbitantly priced grub? I shall demand change.

The fact these places were built on the backs of exploited workforces is immaterial now anyway - we own the vast majority of it through the National Trust and are free to tramp all over the houses and gardens of these running dogs of capitalism and the exploitative inheritors of the Norman yoke, where our grandparents toiled for a pittance, rather than be condemned to a short life by working in the owner's desperately unsafe mine or quarry.

The 2 State Solution

More thoughts on the Israeli/Hamas debacle.

It is often said that the Palestinians and Jews (they weren't yet Israelis) had been offered a 2 state solution in 1937. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians refused, losing the chance of settling the problem. Opprobrium has been heaped on the Palestinians ever since. After all, why would they turn down such a brilliant solution?

However, Imagine a bunch of Frenchmen from Normandy had been busy migrating to England (or whatever country you belong to) for several decades, in ever increasing numbers, claiming suzerainty over England because it once belonged to Normandy a thousand years ago (you could use the Welsh as an example too, with a history going back even further in terms of ownership).

There are tensions between the native English and the interloper Norman French. The international community steps in and proposes a 2 state solution - the west of England is for the English and the east is for the Norman French (as an aside, it wasn't actually like that in 1066 and the Norman French decided to take the bloody lot in one, fell swoop).

I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that the English would accept such a 2 state solution and would tell the luminaries within the international community to piss off and do one, and rightly so. The EDL would probably see an unprecedented increase in membership too. So why the hell should the Palestinians have accepted exactly the same solution?

I can't help seeing an analogy between Israel and Palestine on the one hand, and the behaviour of the American government toward Native Americans in the 1700s and 1800s. Migrants from all over Europe descended on North America, appropriating ancient tribal lands and fomenting wars with the various native tribes. These tribes, due to the technological superiority of the European settlers, kept losing, were eventually soundly defeated and then herded into reservations. However, even the reservation lands were gradually eroded as more land was needed for settlers. The analogy is startlingly similar.

According to historical records and media reports, since its founding, the United States has systematically deprived native Americans of their rights to life and basic political, economic, and cultural rights through killings, displacements, and forced assimilation, in an attempt to physically and culturally eradicate this group. Even today, Native Americans still face a serious existential crisis.

Russia has annexed land belonging to Ukraine and they are fighting a war. Do we support Russia's annexation? 

What Israel has been engaged in, whether willingly or not, is indubitably the precise definition of colonialism - the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

However, as I have said before, we are where we are. The only route is forwards and going over past transgressions does no-one any good. They must, however, be accepted if progress is to be made. There is currently too much grief on both sides of the conflict to extend compassion to the other side.

Is a 2 State Solution the only viable alternative? Well, from a pragmatic perspective, yes. The only other alternative is a 1 State Solution with that state being Israel occupying the whole area which, however, would promulgate continued warfare for decades, if not centuries, until the entire Palestinian population were to be eliminated.

I heard an Israeli commentator say that Netanyahu, in reference to his catastrophic intelligence and security failure, stored Israel's iron swords in seawater. It didn't help the situation back in March when the far right, ultra-nationalist, Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called for a Palestinian village to be 'erased'.

Hamas seeks to undermine Zionism in its totality - for Hamas, the mere fact of Israel's existence is the occupation. However, Israel isn't going away, so it's not a politically valid view and is an unreachable, idealistic perspective. 

Hamas' strategy is to portray Israel to other actors in the Middle East as ethically indistinguishable from them in terms the number of forthcoming deaths in Gaza, despite the vast difference in visceral reaction to close quarters, physical violence by Hamas on the one hand and the mere pressing of a button from Israeli territory that rains down death from afar (or cutting off essentials to civilians) on the other hand. The former is seen as unacceptable, while we tolerate the latter with greater ease due to its impersonal nature.

Israel's conduct in Gaza and the West Bank in the past has been recognised by various international organisations as entailing gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity - Israel is not blameless, especially under its current government. What Israel proposes to do in Gaza is enormously counterproductive and ensures it falls into Hamas' trap, which may alter the view of other actors in the Middle East with which Israel has been building bridges. Hamas will actively engage in false flag attacks on its own people, who they don't give a jot for, and blame them on Israel.

If Israel wants to assume the moral high ground and not lose international support, despite its record on human rights in Gaza, it must act with massive restraint in the face of insuperable provocation. That is unlikely with the current, belligerent government which is consumed by a desire for revenge. It's an age old ploy to stay in power.

Even if you believe the Palestinian people should suffer collective punishment for the actions of Hamas, then you have to take into account the fact Gaza has one of the youngest populations on earth and that fact could stimulate a massive recruitment drive which will plague Israel and Europe for decades to come. Hamas will want to take advantage of that.

Terrorist: a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. 

Fools nail their colours to a specific mast when, due to the existential nature of the war, ethics and morals necessarily go out of the window and both sides have engaged in the very definition of terrorism. It's merely a question of the distance from which the terrorism takes place. 

The conflict is increasingly becoming mired in theatrical and performative revenge.

I saw a Twitter (X) post last week that summed up the situation: "It is not Islamophobic to detest Hamas for the murder of Israelis. It is not anti-Semitic to detest Netanyahu’s Govt for its treatment of Palestinians. It is Islamophobic or anti-Semitic to attack Muslims or Jews for the actions of Hamas or Netanyahu’s Govt."

Prince Philip's Wobble Box

We quite frequently stay at a caravan site in Broadway, in the middle of the Cotswolds. It's in the grounds of an old shunting yard with a rather nice building that's been converted into a bit of a museum of caravans.

There are two exhibits - one of the earliest, luxury caravans from the 1800s, and Prince Philip's personal caravan which he used when out on sporting events, such as competitive carriage riding. 

The following couple of photos are of the Wanderer, the world’s first purpose-built leisure touring caravan, commissioned by Dr William Gordon Stables and built in 1884/5. Dr Gordon Stables was a retired Royal Naval Surgeon who had gained some celebrity as an author of adventure stories for boys, which drew on his own experiences at sea. He was a prominent pioneer of leisure caravanning and the first Vice-President of the Caravan Club (later renamed Caravan and Motorhome Club). 

The first journey taken by Dr Gordon Stables was 1300 miles from his home in Twyford, Berkshire to Inverness in Scotland. The Doctor saw many parallels between a caravan and a boat, which is why The Wanderer is always fondly referred to as ‘she’ in the same way that a sea vessel would be. The Doctor would regularly take to the road, clad in his striking Highland dress with a variety of pets and sometimes one of his children in tow. He often penned his latest novel or an article on the journey.

Then we come to Prince Philip's wobble box, a seemingly normal, 1993 Fleetwood Garland. It was purchased second-hand in 1998 by Prince Philip. As the Caravan and Motorhome Club’s Patron since 1952, Prince Philip had regularly attended Club campsites and events, reportedly exploring members’ caravans enthusiastically and assessing them for their practicality. After taking up the sport of carriage driving in 1973, caravans offered a private space for The Duke and his team to prepare and relax during competitions.