Today, a someone, a household name in our country, offered me £10 million pounds to invest on the stock market. I was tempted with a 2% initial fee plus 20% of the profit on any decision I make.
A few folk who read ForArgyll will know who’s really written this and are doubtless grinning ‘cos they know what comes next.
My brain says NO. With a capital F. I require just 12k per annum to maintain my happy and somewhat boring lifestyle of whisky, boats, and expensive food for my dogs.
Today, a bubble wrapped package arrived from Inverclyde Hospital containing a wee jar of something which tastes of liquorice. I’ve to drink it 90 minutes before something called a CT scan which will tell my doctor (who’s consulting desk is in a VERY public corridor on Level L) how far leukaemia has affected my body.
20% of ten million pounds will not fix this problem. The only thing which will fix it is the excellence of the medical people.
But can I rely on a health service where the bloke who’s discussing my ‘condition’ is doing so from a cheap formica desk with the only claim to fame being the hand-written sign ‘Haematology Unit’ above it?
Nurses, OAP’s, and ladies visiting the adjoining gynaecology unit walk past the desk while I chat to the doctor discussing my ‘sell by’ date.
I said YES to the ten million pounds. I will make my 20% profit and there are a bunch of other people queuing to allow me to do some magic for them. Our SNP Govt should be scared of my reasons for saying yes.
Who am I?
A wee fat bloke who stays in Argyll.
I wrote some software which makes sense, NOT of the stock market, but instead maps the trading formula employed by the people who control market prices. They use computers and rely on their software rather than ‘free market’ forces.
The result has been a pretty reliable track record in predicting what’s going to happen next. When the Daily Telegraph published some of my numbers in August 2011, a few folk started to pay close attention as my error levels for the FTSE 100 shares were less than 0.005%.
When the price of GOLD fell off a cliff in September 2011, one or two other grown ups raised an eyebrow as I’d published the drop targets at the start of that month. Even APPLE’S recent fall from the tree was documented before it happened.
So, why should our Scottish Government be scared?
Simply because people like me are speaking with our doctor about life expectancy in a public corridor.
A long time ago, I wrote a book about Scottish independence but I’d never conceived of us being governed by mental midgets.
We seem to be in a situation where our Govt Ministers accept without question anything given by a civil service – regardless of whether it leads to school closures, idiotic toy ferries, a hopeless health service or a country where silly wind farm factories are considered an employment success simply because the country itself has committed to waste money on a stupid vanity project by buying the products of a factory which created pretend jobs.
It’s right up there with reasons for the financial shambles we find ourselves in.
Off Topic Time.
From a very basic engineering viewpoint, has no-one noticed the tide?
It comes in.
Then it goes out.
Imagine something radical.
Trap a decent sized bit of the rising tide behind something like a lock gate and allow it to leak through a generator as the tide goes out. Would that not generate power? You could even use the same lock gate to slow the incoming tide through a small hole in the gate and also generate power.
Not a single ridiculous windmill is required. The tide will occur as long as the moon continues its dance around our planet. The wind however DOES NOT BLOW when Scotland experiences low temperatures which kill people.
Or alternatively, I can speak to my doctor in a public corridor. People can also be stored on beds in cold corridors awaiting blankets for warmth. Which, if we, as sane people had adopted nuclear power, would not be needed as our energy would already be cheap.
Obviously, as someone with leukaemia, I should be banging the anti-nuclear drum but to do such would also want me to un-invent the wheel and ban fire. Both of which kill weekly many more people than nuclear power generation ever has.
We’re Scottish and should be looking to a positive future rather than regressing to the 19th century, a time where people were also dealt with in hospital corridors.
I’ve asked ForArgyll to keep this anonymous. A few folk (who are chums) will know my real anger at the absolute incompetence of our SNP govt. They mean well but most of ‘em cannot spell the word ‘balls’.
Once the chemo nonsense finishes its first punch, I intend to start a course of corrective therapy. After all, I only need 12k a year to maintain my very simple lifestyle and will be happy to cause trouble.
I want independence but also want managers who can manage. For as long as we’re not viewing photos of Mike Russell at Cannes Film festival or sunbathing on St Barts, I shall assume he is not a good manager as he’s not able to manage. A good manager can take time off to get pissed rather than keep working and piss off the electorate.
Unfortunately, the same applies for the rest of our SNP government. They are too busy ‘fire fighting’ and forget they need to challenge the bloke with the matches, our Scottish civil service.
Somehow, the idea of Alex Salmond on the Cresta Run…? Nah.
I’d be happy seeing him papped going through the gates at Fort Augustus on a rental boat. Which would be more sea worthy than the stupid Dunoon toys.
Note: This reader obviously has a sharp wit. In the request for anonymity, the suggestion was made that ‘the name ‘Sue Denholm’ `always makes it past most editors’.
Finger on pulse of prognosis.
Our politicians, both local and national, need to learn how to effectively manage the managers (Civil-public-servants)
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the writter could check out Dr Leonard Coldwell
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Excellent piece. I might not agree with all of the views, but I tip my hat to someone with such a delightful grasp of sarcasm.
Hope the chemo etc goes well, take care.
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I hope the treatment goes well for you and that get to enjoy your dog, whisky and boats for many years to come.
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Simon says ——
Hear,hear
Well said simon
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“We’re Scottish and should be looking to a positive future rather than regressing to the 19th century, a time where people were also dealt with in hospital corridors.”
Well said. We should be using our brains. Power stations using nuclear fission are an interim technology, but better than coal. Nuclear fusion should be the goal and forward looking countries all over the world are investing in the science and technoogy necessary to achieve this source of clean energy, which will produce little or no radioactive waste. Meanwhile, we tax our people to give money to foreign makers of windmills. Stupidity. Tidal power is more predictable, but still 19th. century.
As for the National Health. Well, it’s a nationalised industry. The only one left in the UK. Remember the steel industry? Coal mines? British Rail? British Motor Corporation? All good industries that were ‘Nationalised’ and thus ruined by the small minds of politicians in a frenzy of envy. While our doctors, nurses and other medical staff may be the best trained in the world, our NHS is certainly no longer ‘world class’. Run by unaccountable civil servants through a bloated bureaucracy, where your post code and ‘business managers’ decide who gets treated and with what, it is an unaffordable disgrace and its founders must be turning in their graves. It is not ‘free’, it costs all of us a fortune. Other European countries and many more have health services where hospital beds are all in private rooms, where patients are not dumped in ‘school dormitories’, and where the doctor has a comfortable private consulting room, not a kitchen table in a corridor. And no, if you’re not well off, you don’t have to pay or get low quality treatment.
I must stress that it is the bureaucracy that needs sorting, not the medical staff. Er… and the appalling starvation level hospital food.
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The original article writer has clearly got it absolutely right about the central position of wave and tidal power in future, but onshore and offshore wind power have to have an important place over the next two or three decades and then may reduce in importance after that.
It’s difficult to know where to begin with the confused and contradictory assertions submitted by Tony Gill. He is critical of the money being paid to foreign makers of windmills (and we did miss out on that one and should get in on the manufacture of tidal power equipment), but he seems blissfully ignorant of the nationality of the companies with whom the Westminster government is currently discussing its nuclear development programme. He also seems ignorant of the nationality of the companies who own English water, electricity, gas, steel etc and of the companies which will own up to 49% of the English health service in the foreseeable future. He is also clearly unaware of the excellent relative clinical and financial performance of the NHS in comparison with European and American health services. And he is clearly starry eyed about privatisation, but may want to check out what has happened, since privatisation, to UK fuel bills, UK railway services and English water company performance in profit distribution rather than investment in water preservation. by all means, Mr Gill, represent your views, but they would be more compelling if they were rooted in fact rather than fantasy.
p.s. EDF, which is 85 per cent owned by the French government, is the main operator of nuclear power stations in the UK, having purchased British Energy (which runs eight of the 10 UK nuclear sites) in 2008. EDF, alongside UK/multinational Centrica are the only major nuclear players left in the future programme, since the withdrawal from this particular race of German energy giants E.ON and RWE. Tony Gill might also like to improve his knowledge of the huge estimated costs of subsidising the proposed future UK nuclear development programme by considering this article:
http://tomburke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/subsidising_nuclear_26March.pdf
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Many years ago (25?) the Econmist reviewed the overall efficiency (availability x output) of the world’s reactors; the UK was near the bottom of the league, France at the top. EDF/BE are the only current UK nuclear operator and have 9.453GW of nuclear capacity of which 8.563GW is operating tonight. OK, we may well have shut the really bad plants down but over 90% efficiency? I would suggest that efficiency is down to the French; they are better production engineers than we are. But, we built these stations.
One other thing, the name of the game is carbon reduction; the UK has performed well in that respect, even though we’ve been blasting away with the opted-out coal power stations. An improvement that owes little to renewable generation but everything to nuclear.
ps GDF-Suez/Iberdrola (the former is also partly French gov owned) are also potential nuclear builders.
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I’m always very wary of people who describe other people as stupid, ot mental pygmies and all the rest.
They usually think they are very clever themselves – and they rarely are.
They are usually not clever enough to realise they know very little and they quite are incapable of understanding how limited they are.
As a result we get this sort of aggressive, negative,condescending and simplistic nonsense.
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apologies to Tony Gill for personally critical remarks, and any language he might have found offensive
no comment to Mr Hill other than to note that I did not use the specific words he ascribes to me
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Andrew, I don’t think Hill was replying to you, I think he might have been commenting on the main blog, and the reference to ‘mental midgets’ – possibly taking affront to this collective description of people who might just be SNP politicians?
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Mr Andrew Reid – That article was written by four journalist ( non scientists I believe ) who are so long term biased that you should blush that you even offered it up as evidence. If it needs a law altered to openly sort out funding for Nuclear Power then lets make that happen and long winded articles offered by Jonathon Porritt & Co. will be a thing of the past. As of the 30th of March 2012, there were 436 Reactors in operation worldwide with a further 63 under construction and many more awaiting planning. Is everybody else wrong ? ? ? Incidentally I though your attitude to Tony Gill somewhat supercilious – Tony is a friend whose views and opinions I have great respect for.
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Andrew Reid
My comments were not directed at your thoughtful and acceptable piece but at the main article.
Just a little thought I should throw in regarding some other posts. In this world we have less than thirty years of good quality uranium left to supply the nuclear power staions we already have. We (UK) don’t have any uranium except what we have stock piled and we are entirely reliant on supply from others who may or may not be our friends – particularly as we will be in a very long queue for the stuff.
Is this why two proposed nuclear power stations in England have been cancelled and Germany is decommissioning all of hers. The Germans are not often wrong
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What nonsense – The Germans have a potential earthquake risk somewhere in their geology and they panicked – and OF COURSE – they have a certain green political influence and some Liberals. The reason 2 companies pulled out of building nuclear in the UK was because the lilly livered Germans cancelled the contracts that gave those companies the long term guaranteed income to finance further long term expansion into the UK and elsewhere. I really despair when people bring up Fukushima as a nuclear disaster – Fukushima was an incredible event caused by an earthquake and the most massive tidal wave of water you could imagine – no buildings could stand up to that – look at the video – its totally frightening but nobody is ill or has died because of the Fukushima nuclear reactor. Yesterdays news – They have just built the highest tower in the world – where ? – TOKYO – an earthquake area ! ! As for the ‘Germans are not often wrong” I presume you have little knowledge of History.
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You’re being more than a bit economical with the Fukushima actualite, Malcolm – the reactors were ‘fail dangerous’ because the external emergency sytems to safely shut them down should’ve been designed to be ‘tsunami proof’ but weren’t, and there’s a large local population that had to be evacuated to escape radiation sickness – and won’t be able to go home for goodness knows how long.
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Malcolm – Er, Dave McEwan Hill didn’t mention anything about nuclear safety or Fukushima – he was pointing out that nuclear power of the only type currently economically and technically feasible is not sustainable because suitable uranium is a limited-supply fuel.
Must admit though that I did smile at the ‘Germans are not often wrong’ comment – well, no perhaps not often, but certainly on a couple of occasions in the last 100 years! Certainly nowadays their technical and economic astuteness is pretty undeniable.
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Robert – everything you say is perfectly true – if the invading water had not got into the back-up cooling pumps, then the resulting situation would have been very different – but it did. No doubt there will be other areas of that coast which will also not be rebuilt after the lessons learned from being hit by a 50 foot high wall of water moving at great speed. For 40 years Japan has had nuclear power generating up to 30% of their needs. They are in the process of again firing up several of their nuclear power stations at this time, having carried out stringent inspections and assessments. Even our own government has delayed the go ahead on our new nuclear plants for a year to see if they can learn anything from the Fukushima disaster. You also have to remember that that disaster was a mighty act of nature never experienced before in that area.
Tim – my references to Fukushima were in reply to Andrew Reids attachment at 6 above which I had read. By the way the price of uranium at the moment is down 20% – stock up now ! Joking apart – I really don’t care what produces our future electricity demands as long as we have a constant reliable supply and in fact gas, being much cheaper, should be the way to go. What I am sure of is that renewables are a total waste of our hard earned cash. I repeat last weeks findings for wind generation Monday – Friday / 8am – 8pm when electricity was most needed -
Mon 3.35% – Tues 3.95% – Wed 0.9% – Thurs 0.77% – Frid 0.76% and the owners of these windless turbines got a subsidy of £2.8 million for their meagre output over those few hours -over and above the price we payed for their electricity.
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Malcolm: just to pick you up on your comment: “that disaster was a mighty act of nature never experienced before in that area.”
While the earthquake was indeed very large, the tsunami was not the largest to have historically hit the Japanese coast. The nuclear plant was designed to resist tsunamis of less than 6m in height whereas tsunamis of almost 40m have been recorded and safety estimates for the Fukushima site suggested tsunamis of 15m could hit the site. The nuclear incident was in fact predicted and could have been avoided through a much larger sea wall and better designed back up facilities.
This all might seem very remote from the seismically quiet British Isles but we have been hit by enormous tsunamis in the past though these are very rare. The east coast of Scotland was hit by a 20m tsunami in 6100 BC. Our island is more vulnerable to tsunamis caused by sediments rapidly slumping down the continental slope, often triggered by earthquakes rather than tsunamis directly driven by the earthquake itself.
So the UK government was quite correct to look at the safety of the UK’s reactors in the light of the Japanese disaster.
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I accept everything you say – never too late to learn !
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Oldbury – one of the two most likely new nuclear plants to be built – was the site of a possible 7.5m tsunami less than 400 years ago.
Over the probable life of a nuclear plant a one-in a thousand-year event has a one in ten chance of occurring.
The odds need to be a lot better than that when planning nuclear power stations.
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Bit sceptical about APPL (Or Apple, take your pick, but not APPLE)’s “fall from the tree”. Fairly sure I would have noticed if that had actually happened. e.g.
http://www.asymco.com/2012/04/09/did-the-dividend-decision-affect-apples-share-price/
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