Tip top!

As the first snows appear on the Carneddau and across Snowdonia, the Ogwen Mountain Rescue team are looking to see even more rescues than the 120 they've carried out this year alone. The latest event was a young couple who called for help when the weather turned nasty (a little glimpse of - what's it called?  Oh, the weather forecast - might have helped) and, despite being well equipped, a little more training in map and compass work might also have helped, as they weren't where they said they where when they called for help (Carnedd Dafydd is a tad tricky to miss). 

It's easy to ridicule folk who come here and make a mess of things, of course, but there is still a worrying tendency to assume that Snowdonia doesn't have 'real' mountains.  Of course part of the blame lies with Snowdon itself, with a train running up it and a restaurant on top. It's easy to see how those unfamiliar with the area could assume that Snowdon is simply a local park, with no real dangers.  But the same can't be said for the neighbouring Carneddau. Even though they present a comparatively gentle ascent from the North, there's a reason a mountain shelter lies half way through the peaks, and many a walker has had cause to welcome the foresight of those who first constructed the place in the lee of Carnedd Fach's peak.  But it's still a wonderful place to live.

There's something in the air

As Llandudno finally - if somewhat belatedly - turns on its Xmas lights, houses around the area are starting to twinkle as outside lights make their first appearances. LEDs are very much in this year, as their extra reliability and pin-sharp brightness tends to make them an attractive choice for our often wet and windy corner in the UK. Inside, too, LEDs are arriving, but their stark colour range tends to make them less attractive that the older style of warm yellow tungsten lights.

The annual ritual of entering the loft to drag down the crated lights is often a precursor to the frustration of wondering why - when  you put a perfectly working set of lights away the year before - they mysteriously no longer work when you get them down. Is there - you could be forgiven from wondering - some Xmas lighting gremlin that delights in causing untold misery and irritation to those who simply like a nice set of lights? Probably not, but if often makes you feel better to blame some supernatural force, the weather, New Labour or next door's cat for the stubborn refusal of some sets to simply work.

Light sets are fascinating things, which have entranced Carneades since he can remember. Even stranger is the mystery of why some lights continue to work - year after year - without fail, yet others seem to yearn for self-destruction within hours of starting their job. Noma  - a US brand - are supposed to be better than many, but experience has shown that they can be both the most reliable and the least, depending on the type of light.

For those who experience the other niggle about lights - getting them all tangled - there is help at hand.  When  you put lights away, forget about gadgets 'guaranteed' to stop them tangling.  Instead, simply feed the lights into a largish box as a single line of lights - don't dump them in at one go - and let them lie as they land.  When you come to the end of the line of lights - be it a plug or the lead itself - tape that end to the side of the box.  Next year, undo that tape and the light will emerge - totally untangled - ready for testing. 

Testing, untangling and repairing light sets takes a lot of time, but the finished results can brighten both the house and the mood of anyone who sees them.  Just be careful to use extension blocks with normal 13A plugs fused to 3A and don't take the chance of sticking together light leads with tape.  There's a reason most house fires happen around Xmas. Merry lighting!

Mutter, mutter...

The news that a 15m long floating target was washed up on a Gwynedd beach the other day will probably make some residents of the Conwy Valley a little miffed at the idea that the RAF uses floating targets, rather than the houses of folk lucky enough to live beneath the main flight routes of the UK's main fast air defence training facility.  Low flying at high speed through the mountains is an essential part of any fast-jet pilot's training, yet it's sometimes hard to be totally generous of spirit when said trainees switch on reheat to climb over the mountain just as you're carefully pruning the prize roses. Having said that, it's fascinating to wonder if anyone was brave enough to go near the floating target after it had arrived on the beach.

 Meanwhile North Wales Police are encouraging people to lock car doors, windows and sunroof when leaving the vehicle, remove stereos, if possible, and sat navs including support and suction pads and to wipe away suction marks on the windscreen or dashboard, tuck in wing mirrors and put the aerial down. While most of that seems pretty straightforward, one has to wonder about the wing mirrors.   Is there something going on that we don't know about?  Perhaps a burgeoning but secret market in used mirrors?  Or perhaps it's to stop them being clouted by the inconsiderate parker in the adjacent space.  And that brings up another matter.

Why are parking bays everywhere
    too narrow
    at the wrong angle
    poorly positioned?
In the uk, we seem to think cars are only five feet wide, but that hasn't been the case for many, many years.  We also have bays which are almost inevitably at right angles.  Why not design them to they're slanted to favour direct forward drive-in?  We always reverse into spaces (you have a lot of time to park, but you don't know how quickly you might want to leave) but we'd happily drive forwards if the bays were slanted.  And can we the only ones who find the bends on the car park 'roads' are impossible to navigate easily? Asda and Mostyn Champneys both have bends which present a challenge.  Do Car Park designers ever use them, one has to wonder?

Ouch!

Next time you have to undergo hospital treatment of any kind, it's probably worth bearing in mind that rather a lot of our medical practitioners are becoming somewhat disillusioned.

It's no secret that most people expect the New Labour mob to be thrown out on their collective ears next election, and even less of a secret that most people aren't really looking forward to what might replace them, given that DC is a bland facsimile of Tony Blair and seems intent on steering his party firmly along the centreline of British politics.  In fact, only Vince Cable seems to have any cross-party respect at all.  So when we see that Doctors are not happy bunnies, we need to look further than simply the current political scene to see why.

They've been telling us - and we know - that the NHS is hiring far more managers and administrators than Doctors, and the EWTD (European working time directive) is going to cause a lot of problems in the training stages. But there's a more serious problem, and one which directly affects each one of us.

In times past, the medical fraternity were seen a little like gods;  their pronouncements were accepted as manna by the legions of the afflicted, and their status in the community was high.  This inevitably led to the creation of a group who believed their own hype, who were generally rather overbearing and arrogant, and who maintained a healthy distance from mere mortals, many of whom were almost certainly attempting to spread their communicable diseases to the Doctors. The stark separation between the different classes of Nurse, and nurses and Doctors was maintained at all costs and (this is the important bit) the medical profession had total control over both training and patient care.

What's concerning many of them at the moment is that both these aspects are being eroded;  the continual imposition of 'targets', the conversion of 'patients' to 'customers' and the increasing levels of expectation, coupled with government policies interfering more and more in training, assessment, and even medical outcomes is leaving many senior consultants feeling vulnerable, emasculated and worried that the UK's medical standards are slipping.  And there's some evidence that their concerns are based in fact. Only this last summer a Government spokesman was suggesting that youngsters with low academic qualifications could be eased into medical schools as a way of enabling the less academically endowed to become doctors.

As we've noted on here only the other day, Medicine is essentially a memory test plus the ability to know how to apply that knowledge.  And whilst it's highly commendable to think we could help the less able to become Doctors, I, personally, would prefer the person making life or death decisions on my behalf to have come top in every class they ever took.    Perhaps the wheel has turned a little too far, and we now need to give back some control to the medical professions.

Jingles all the way

As the days continue to shorten, the weather turns colder and little faces turn anxiously to the skies each evening in case Mr C is doing a test flight for the new sleigh, the mesmerising sights and sounds of Advent float into our perception, like tiny flakes of crystallised water.

It's a truly magical time, as long, clear nights and still, cold air bring that first hint of Christmas - the advertising campaign.  The time of year when the relentless campaign to divide you from your cash is mounted with a military intensity and fervour of which Churchill would have been proud. That sacred time when a seemingly endless line of entertainers (for want of a better description)  and singers conspire to release their collections of truly ancient songs, re-branded as this year's desirable album, and compete with the dead, the barely alive and the utterly unknown for a share of the shekels.  Watch out for the latest releases, which will doubtless include The Best Of X-Factor 2002 - 2009, Pop Stars Meets The Rivals and Cilla Black, The Cast of I'm a Washout Entertain and this year's Must Have offering, Michael Jackson's Dog Howls Thriller.

Christmas is that time of the year when we want to show people how much we love them, when we need to make our families and friends understand the true meaning of Christmas and the time of the year when the English language is mangled beyond recognition.  The plethora of shows that will inevitably be described as 'Truly Unique' and 'Best Ever' will compete with Brand New Re-Runs, Best Ofs and Another Chance to See offerings, designed to accentuate that inevitable downward spiral of hopelessness and misery we all secretly feel as the 25th of December inexorably approaches.

Of course, we all know what Christmas is really about. December 25 used to be the Roman festival of Saturnalia, when inebriated individuals in togas would run up and down the streets thwacking bystanders with leather thongs, a tradition which the thwackees actually enjoyed since it was supposed to boost their fertility levels, and doubtless singing 'Just a Thong at Twilight', and if you find that amusing, you're showing your age :-)) When the Romans turned Christian and gave up leather thongs, they simply tacked a new meaning onto the old holiday. The best thwacker became - yes, the number one Christmas thong...

A minority, of course, believe it to be a celebration of the birth of the Son of God, except no one knows when the aforesaid was actually born, there's some doubt among the Bishops that there was ever an actual 'virgin birth' and even among the most fervent and faithful of God-fearing families the fate of any teenage girl who arrived home one day to tell her devoted father she was pregnant but not to worry as it was the Holy Ghost, can best be left to the imagination.

But all this delightful frippery aside, the real question of how to survive the coming month can possibly be found in the real secret of Christmas.  Christmas - you see - rewards us for being children.  For a couple of days a year, we can act as though we'd never grown up, never encountered the unalloyed delights of variable rate mortgages, HMRC and Council taxes, parking tickets or speed cameras.  It's now just about the only time in the year when the entire family can actually enjoy the same sorts of things together. And although that might be a little sad in itself, it's also a little exciting.

Twinkle, twinkle...

Just returned from an interesting sojourn in Liverpool, seeing the lights and watching the rather nice Big Wheel in Chevasse Park,  Liverpool's always been a city in the news - often for the wrong reasons - but their lights and Christmas trees are superb. Seems such a shame that we don't follow their example.  The Liverpool lights are several years old but look wonderful.  Better still;  they're all on now :-))

Wheee!

December the fifth, we are told, is the new date for the fireworks in Llandudno.  They'll be set off as the end-piece of the Llandudno Christmas Parade which this year will see Santa wearing an aqualung in a sleigh pulled by eight dolphins.

Well, not really, but given the current state of the weather you could be forgiven for thinking that we're all going to be swimming towards Christmas this year. Llandudno and Conwy valley have a lot in common. Both are susceptible to flooding, although the latter only from rain and the former from storm surges and high tides.  Usually. In 1993, of course, Llandudno was flooded from a truly torrential thunderstorm, the very day when Carneades was trying to drive to a friend's house on Lys Helig Drive.

That was a very educative experience. Driving up from the West shore, the only way the road was navigable at all was to drive with one set of wheels on the pavement, whilst simultaneously attempting to dodge boulders being washed down the road towards us.  Walking round the ruined road the morning afterward, it became clear that there's a basic design flaw in the Marine Drive.

Most of the water fell on the Orme itself;  the actual cb cloud hovered over the Orme while disgorging four inches' worth that afternoon.  The water cascaded down the sides of the Orme, ripping out huge chunks of earth and rock and - on the North side - smashing through the drive wall in three places. Where it didn't manage to penetrate the wall, however, the water simply streamed down the road - using it like a giant gutter - until ending its merry slither in Llandudno. Had the Drive's builders considered the insertion of tropical-style flood drains in the drive wall, its likely that some of the flooding effects Llandudno endured, at least,could have been mitigated.

Trefriw has sustained a little flooding this past week or so, and residents are understandably peeved that the Environment Agency's defences have leaked. However, Canute notwithstanding, we're never going to be able to stop flooding. And with more people wanting to build homes on land that's designed to flood, the problem's only going to get worse.   Perhaps we need to look at a whole new approach to the problem.

Spare a penny, gov? (2)

The news that Anglesey might have to scrap its sixth forms will come as no surprise to anyone who's endured Secondary sector education in the past thirty years. This isn't the first time we've written about the concept of education that is the sixth form, but the news from Anglesey suggests it deserves another look.

On the fact if it, it seems eminently sensible for youngsters to finish their secondary education at the school in which they start it.  After all, they know the staff, they know each other, they know the buildings.  And all that might be true if it were not for the fact that there has been a quiet revolution in 16 - 18 (or KS 5, as it's so quaintly called) education during the past twenty-five years.

Regular readers, both of them (thanks, mum), may not have attended school for a little while, so may well be unfamiliar with the changes that have been wrought.  So here's a potted history (without those annoying dates):

Old style sixth form: same subjects as ordinary school, just harder. Free periods (yippee!) and the chance to become a prefect.  Went home early at the start of the Xmas holiday.  Took exams at the end of a two-year stint and - on the basis of the results - went on to University, Poly or teacher training college.

Present day sixth form: burgeoning range of subjects including exotic names such as Psychology, Sociology, Law, Nuclear engineering, Build-Your-Own collider, NVQs, BTECs, IBs, et al. Study periods but no prefects at most schools. Sometimes go home early, but not often. Take exams in bite-sized chunks, leading to a system in which some students know they've gained an 'A' grade at 'A' level in the lower sixth. On the basis of their results, everyone goes to University, because some are crying out for students and will offer places to almost anyone.

It's blindingly obvious, then, that the government has contrived to make it as hard as possible for schools to keep their sixth forms and still offer anything like a decent range of subjects. In our area, only one school - Eirias - has the numbers to even begin to offer good sixth form provision. That may sound harsh, but the reality is that without really large numbers of students, time tabling becomes a nightmare because no two students want to study the same subjects at the same time.

All of which means that 16 - 18 year olds would almost certainly be better served by the abolition of sixth forms, providing they were able to reach a decent FE college fairly easily.  Of course, it's an emotive issue when councils start warning about closing sixth forms, but in the long run that can be a very good thing for the students. And after all;  surely it's the students who matter most?

Take two of these and come back in a week

Health care is a subject close to all of our minds. In fact, it's probably fair to say it trumps climate change, politics, Policing, religion, TV, Education, Christmas and even Llandudno's fireworks in terms of importance. And it's not hard to see why. 

Think about a hospital.  None of us really likes the idea of a hospital, but probably places it one stage higher up the ladder of 'not terribly good places to spend a few days' than a dentist.  But many of us will start our lives in a hospital, spend at least some time during our lives in one and - ultimately - many will end our lives there (if you're wondering why the depressing timbre of this blog, it hasn't really stopped raining for five days...).

But however much we dislike hospitals, ultimately we need them, and it's this very ambivalence towards the medical profession in general that makes the whole concept of health care so interesting.

We depend on our GP, but most GPs don't have any idea what's wrong with the majority of patients when they present with symptoms.  Which is why some refer you to the local hospital quicker than you can say 'polyclinic' (which always sounds suspiciously like a Vet's place). Good GPs are worth their weight in Tesco vouchers, but they're not always easy to find.   So what makes a good GP?

The training for becoming a Doctor is two-fold, with the first part being essentially a memory test. People with excellent memory capacity and recall often fly through that part of the training.  But there's a second part; using the information you've learnt.  And that's where things become interesting.

Decent GPs don't rush to diagnose, they examine their patient carefully and rigorously, they listen to the history and they employ all their knowledge to arrive at the highest probability outcome. In other words, they guess, but in a highly informed way. It's how they tell a brain tumour from 'flu, or indigestion from stomach cancer. And there are those, of course, who couldn't diagnose multiple fractures in an inquisition victim.  Fortunately, they're in a small minority.

But the one characteristic of all the medical professions is their language. Medical terminology is complex, coded and arcane and stems from the origins of the profession many hundreds of years ago when it was realised that if everyone could understand what the Doctors were saying, then it wouldn't be a mystery.  Lawyers employ a similar, almost secret language for much the same reason: to cloak the practitioners of their craft in an aura of mystery and wonder.  The origins of all this lie in religion, where acolytes are required to learn the 'mysteries' and 'secrets' of their faith before being granted admission to the inner sanctum.  Shared knowledge of this sort also strengthens bonds between practitioners, which is why it's so hard to sue a lawyer.  But now things are changing. The Government's insistence on decent health care provision at the primary level is exerting unwelcome pressure on GPs and the burgeoning internet makes a lot of medical information widely available, although it's still much safer to talk to your GP.   However, we here at Carneades  Central follow two blogs with interest:

http://thejobbingdoctor.blogspot.com/

and

http://drgrumble.blogspot.com/

both of which provide excellent reading. However, the most recent Grumble blog is complaining about obfuscation and - writing about the word 'polysystems' - he remarks "People who coin new words without obvious meanings do so with a purpose. The purpose is to bamboozle and obfuscate or even confuse and conceal."  Does he, one wonders, appreciate the irony?

Roasting chestnuts round an open fire

The torrential rain over the past few days has - as usual - re-ignited the climate change debate. The media, of course, has asked the usual, if somewhat cretinous, questions about whether this heavy rain is yet another sign of climate change (at least the department in charge of moronic commentary at the Beeb has stopped calling it 'global warming') and the general message (although by no means unanimous) is that we're all going to die.  Which of course we are.  The real questions are when and from what?

It might help, of course, if those charged with working out exactly what's happening with the climate could get their stories together, and actually get some facts instead of conjecture. Today, for instance,  we hear that no fewer than twelve conservation groups have given the green light to wood burning.

Wot? But for years we've been told that burning anything is BFTE (bad for the environment).  Ah, but it seems that they've been debating over their slide rules and now - in their collective wisdom - decided that burning logs on your fire actually releases less CO2 than allowing the trees to die naturally. Wonder if the same thing applies to human bodies....

The beeb, naturally anxious to be seen at the forefront of garbage investigation, have also mounted a new show - Changing Lives: Going Green - in which a family of four, from Brynford, Holywell, faced a complete culture shock when they agreed to leave their home comforts behind and head for an extreme green, eco friendly community in mid Wales. Unsurprisingly, as they faced 10 nights in a tent deprived of their nightly fare of texting, PS3, Sky, Corrie and all the other technological delights that contrive to drive us to distraction, they weren't eager to repeat the experience and the father observed, sagely "(Climate change is)  not going to happen any time soon and I’m going to be long gone before then. I can’t make that much of a difference on my own." And the Beebs' ostensible commitment to STE (saving the...) is hardly likely to gain too many advocates, considering the environmental impact of TV cameras, lodgings, lighting, trailers and what have you.

But he makes a fair point, actually; the 'experts' (climatologists, Geophysicists, Geologists et al.) remain resolutely divided on the causes of and remedial action for climate change.  And with India and China competing economically, we might find more fresh air on the Moon in a few years.

All of which has to make you wonder. Perhaps we could cut CO2 emissions drastically by eliminating climate pundits,  That would certainly be a great place to start.

"Oos that, then? (2)

 WIKILEAKS

The issue of internet anonymity is an oft debated and frequently vexing subject in countries around the world. Of course, here in our small corner, much is made about anonymous postings to local blogs, many of which are made by the same individuals (often the blog owner, surreptitiously attempting to support his own arguments) who seem to delight in mischief making. But that's small beer when compared with the bloggers who risk life and limb on a daily basis to get the truth onto the 'net.

If you've never read it, you should look at Wikileaks. It's a multinational website dedicated to defending the freedom of journalists to comment  about the behaviour of governments and institutions without censorship. It's an important site.

Secrecy has become ingrained into our national institutions, the government leading the way, but with local councils anxiously and eagerly following in its wake. Why?  Because political parties have ideas and agendas, and they don't want too many people finding out about them, or making waves when they do. Governments and councils like secrecy;  they think it's 'good thing'.  But what they mean is they want to get their plans passed without the electorate (for whom they work, remember) getting wind of what they're planning. Nasty, but true.  And that's why we need sites like Oscar's, Jason Weyman's and John Oddy's.  Because without them we'd have even less idea of what's happening than we do.  And that can only be bad for democracy and us.

There's one really interesting thing about living on the edge of a Mountainous region, and that's the weather.  We gets lots of it. In fact, as I write this, our clear blue sunny sky is obscured temporarily by thick, continuous nimbo-stratus, being blown along by winds that sound capable of bending the odd skyscraper.  Having said that, this would clearly be an excellent time to buy shares in a Gopher wood mill.

The three months around December can be a depressing time - both emotionally and physiologically - which is one reason why our ancient forefathers started Christmas, or its predecessor, at any rate.  They assumed by having a bash on the longest night of the year it would give everyone something to look forward to; both as they headed towards the bash and as they headed away, and the nights became shorter and lighter. How the stone-age equivalent of Toys R Us fared, of course, is anyone's guess, but trade having been at the centre of human society since the species began we have to assume that Og and Mrs Og probably had to get something for the Oglings - probably a new chisel set, or a new rocking raptor.

Around this time, the media usually find someone to wheel out who protests that 'Christmas has become too commercialised' and 'We've forgotten the true meaning of Christmas' but for denizens of the Northern Hemisphere, the 'true' meaning of this time of the year has always been the same: eat well, try to stay dry and warm and think fondly of summer.  Well - try to think of a warm summer.  Not the ones we've been having.  But whatever you do, enjoy the moment.  Because you don't know what's round the corner.

The Public Lose

The news that Louise Hughes,  a councillor, removed a  padlock from the doors of  the public loos in protest at its closure probably resonates with many in the Conwy area, although we're tempted to wonder why a headline along the lines of 'Hughes in the News with the Loos' wasn't forthcoming.

Louise claimed “a red mist” descended on her when she saw council workers padlocking the toilets in her village, Llanegryn, and said: “I obtained the key and put the water back on. I didn’t put the electrics back on." She added: “There are no toilet facilities in the village. Where are people supposed to go?" Louise’s protest happened on Tuesday but when she returned, doubtless flushed with success,  new padlocks had been put on the toilets.

This issue of public toilets across the region is a thorny one.  On the one hand, they cost money to run - that's beyond dispute -and that money, as always, has to come from the Council tax-payers.  But the other side of this particular coin is the damage closed toilets do to our image.

There is a story behind this. Mostyn Champneys used to have several toilets available in the big stores.  This was useful for those who drove - first thing in the morning - a fair distance to be there when the stores opened.  Gradually, however, the toilets were closed until only one - Homebase - remained available.  Week after week, however, this toilet - including the disabled facility - would be vandalised, until eventually the store closed off public access for good.  Now, the truly dependent (excluding those with terminally debilitating Parcopresis) only have one toilet - MacDonalds - to use, which involves circumspectly entering and wearing one's best deadpan expression.

There are solutions to the problem of vandalism;  prisons have been using them for years and, in the USA, New York takes an interestingly pragmatic approach, mandating that all retail stores over a specified square footage in size must provide toilets for the public. But the bottom line (no pun intended) is that people need toilets, and if they're not provided then they'll think twice about visiting.

Makes these fascinating facts about loos pale into insignificance...

• On average a person spends three years of their life on the toilet.
• Manhole covers are deliberately heavy to prevent them being blown off by a build-up of methane gas from the sewers below.
• 855,000 phones are flushed down the toilet every year in the UK.
• Every day 72,000 acres of woodland, an area not far short of the Isle of Wight, are used to manufacture toilet paper.

Indeed

The blog yesterday about the possible new tram system certainly stirred a few comments.  And it's becoming clear that the anti camp has already made the assumption that we don't need trams, that the often dirty, pollution-spewing buses do the job well enough.  Which they do, providing you're a big fan of pneumonia and various other respiratory diseases.

Of course, it's also clear that CCBC also has its own agenda, being determined to collar any funds the regeneration strategy might produce for its own ends - which translate to making Colwyn Bay a giant office block.  That's fine, assuming Colwyn residents don't mind if their community becomes relegated to the 'administration' rung of the towns' index for Wales, or they don't mind about the increasing pollution, their childrens' health and the simple fact that the town's economy will devolve into an 'office-supply' culture, where the visitor will be treated with a quaint insouciance and everything will be oriented to supplying the 9 - 5 employee.  

Of course, the trams would be a gamble. As has been every decent town initiative for the past 100 years in the UK. But what seems clear is that the tram initiative was greeted with unalloyed delight when the public were first consulted and now the apparent wishes of the people are being ignored by CCBC's intention to transform Colwyn Bay into a large office  and their desire to grab the cash for their own agenda.  What's really happening here?

Bring back the Trams!

Those avid blog-followers who check the content of each of the linked blogs on a daily basis will know that Cllr John Oddy's blog yesterday made mention of the concerted attempt Conwy CBC is making to ignore the potential of Colwyn Bay as a tourist resort and instead hasten its demise by making the town centre one very large office block.  In their haste to accomplish this, they seem to have omitted niceties like gleaning the opinions of all the local people, researching all the options, studying the real issues or even thinking laterally.  They have, however, apparently been trying to gazump local sellers, keep everything as quiet as possible and push through their own agenda without telling folk what the full consequences would be.

The UK seaside town as an institution has been in terminal decline for many years. No one questions that, and the increasing reliance on day-trippers coupled with the appetite for activities the consumer-savvy visitors now possess means that serious consideration has to be given to attracting people into the town, if only for the day.   Fortunately, this isn't a phenomenon unique to Colwyn Bay, or indeed, Llandudno, and there are studies and examples aplenty to show how the trends can be reversed.  To write off Colwyn Bay as a tourist destination in itself is almost certainly a major error but not a crime.  However, to then covertly try to manage its decline is bordering on misrepresentation and even - some might say - fraud.

The one attraction which has restored the fortunes of ailing seaside towns more than any other is a novel transport infrastructure.  Specifically, Trams.  It's hard to explain - especially to women, strangely - but men have a fascination with technology and anything that runs on tracks.  There's good reason why children far too young to appreciate such things often get a delightful Hornby train set for their sixth birthday, which is then lovingly constructed and run by dad. Men enjoy magic, too (it's another male thing) and trains and trams have their own magic.  The sensation-less transition from road to field to track one experiences in any rail-dependent vehicle is truly astonishing and belies what we see out of the windows.  Wherever and whenever trams have been re-introduced they become major attractions in their own right and Cllr Oddy's suggestion to have a line linking Old Colwyn with Llandudno is little short of inspired.

Yes - there would need to be considerable thought given to the track route and yes - motorists might start to lose out a little bit.  But here's a thought: we don't have enough parking for the cars, buses and coaches that come, anyway, our roads are inadequate as they were originally designed for horse and cart and (possibly the clincher) we're all supposed to be going greener.  Maybe the time has come to start thinking a little more radically and making it harder for car drivers to clog the roads by forming pedestrian precincts, within which the trams would be allowed to operate. All the experiences of towns which have reintroduced track-based transport systems strongly suggest that the public will settle for fewer roads just so long as there's a reliable alternative public transport system in place. From the Claverton Energy research group. Professor Lewis Lesley writes

"Transport is an energy intensive activity, heavily dependent on oil (99.97%) and a significant emitter of carbon dioxide (30% of UK total). Exhortation and education can reduce car dependency but in the absence of draconian powers to force people to change travel modes, people freely choosing sustainable alternatives is surely the best way?  Market research and behavioural studies demonstrate that for short journeys, under 2 miles (50% UK car trips) walking and cycling are acceptable options, when there are safe and attractive routes. For longer urban journeys ( < 5 miles = 75% of UK car trips) public transport should be the alternative to car. In the UK most urban public transport is by bus (80% of trips).   Car users however are not willing to use buses. Studies by the US Transportation Research Board shows that on a like for like basis of frequency, travel speed, fares etc, buses attract 40% less car users than even old rail services.

 Getting car people to use public transport means rail services.  The speed at which new tram systems have been opened in the UK over the last 20 years, one every 4 years, means that it will take 150 years  to catch up with Germany.

 Compared to buses, trams operating along the same route, at the same maximum speed carrying the same passenger loadings will use less than 25% of the energy, which will be electricity, not oil. Indeed there are several projects where new tramways will be powered by renewable generation, therefore in energy terms totally sustainable, and almost carbon emissions free, once the embedded energy to build the trams and track have been depreciated, usually a couple of years of operation. Indeed bus operators with routes having a peak frequency of ten buses or more per hour, could already make financial savings in converting to trams. This excludes any carbon emission considerations, and if the new tram service only carried former bus passengers there would only be the energy ( and carbon) savings of trams compared to buses. The real carbon savings come from diverting urban car trips.

 New tram systems in France, have attracted 30% more patronage (all car diverted) than the bus services replaced. This is in line with the earlier US study. Car travel is energy intensive, and for short urban trips highly polluting. By suitable park and ride, as well as walk and ride, about 50% of car trips in the tram corridor will be attracted. Getting urban car trips down from 70% to 50% would save about 5% of UK carbon emissions.

That's the environmental argument.  But the novelty argument is even stronger, and the single tram route between Old Colwyn and Llandudno could only have positive benefits for Businesses, hotels and thus anyone in Conwy.

Cllr Oddy's proposals have been in front of the Regeneration committee for almost a year. Perhaps it's time they started responding to what the public want, instead of what their own agenda-writers tell them.

Getting the Boots...

Wandered into that palace of medicinal opulence called Boots to pick up some Ibruprofen yesterday and -  simply out of curiosity - decided to read the leaflet they package with the stuff.

And a fascinating browse it proved. So here, dear readers, is the full monty on what you risk if you take Ibuprofen from Boots.

After the usual dosage instructions, which tend to adopt the 'we know much better than you and you're a dope anyway' approach, they come on to the interesting bit.  'Possible side effects.'  These, the author has decided, should be divided into two categories: Serious and Less Serious. All good thus far.

The serious are as you might expect - stomach ulceration issues, the usual rash of gastro-intestinal delights, such as bloody diarrhoea, miscellaneous swellings and meningitis, all of which combine to leave you rather queasily wondering whether you'll survive long enough to die. But it's the Less serious category which provides the real fun-factor.

Under Less Serious side effects are listed such minor conditions as Heart Failure, kidney failure and death, with the warning that should any of these become severe, talk to a pharmacist.  Hmm.  On what subject, I wonder?

You can picture the scene: as you suffer a massive coronary, abetted by rapidly developing kidney failure, you somehow manage to drag yourself into the local Boots, where you collapse on the floor, and mutter "Nice weather we're having," to the pharmacist before expiring on the spot.

They then helpfully provide a detailed list of the tablets' constituents, which doubtless proves invaluable reading to anyone who's  gained a Nobel Prize in Biochemistry, or who happens to have several copies of the Pharmacopeia to hand. 

Of course, it's easy to ridicule something as daft as this;  we all know that this sort of leaflet represents the results of the fundamental shift away from blind acquiescence to the GP or Pharmacist and the increasingly litigious nature of our society. But the damage that such over-compensation and over-caution can do was well shown during the shameful MMR episode, yet our society continues on its cradle-to-grave approach to any sort of risky venture. Perhaps it's time we allowed people to make more of their own decisions, not fewer.

Bright ideas...

It's a curious beast, a holiday town. For years, the place has done a pretty good imitation of a passport office on Sundays in the few weeks following Remembrance day, but yesterday there was little sign that the visitors have deserted us.  Many of the hotels, of course, adapt to the season by running 'Turkey and Tinsel' packages, some starting in September for the truly addicted Crimbophiles, hiring in aged entertainers to croak out barely recognisable renditions of 50s xmas hits, trusting in the anaesthetic qualities of drip-fed intravenous alcohol dispensers for the lucky recipients to mask the often dire quality of the productions.

Of course, what attracts folk to our part of the world is the warm, fuzzy feeling engendered by a daintily-lit promenade, with its twinkling lights perfectly complementing the town's magnificent Christmas lights, ranged in all their stellar beauty across the main street. 

Or not, as the case may be.

It's true that erecting lights, powering them and finally dismantling them costs money, and money is in short supply for councils at the moment.  It doesn't help that the remunerative business rate income has been steadily declining for some time, in direct proportion to the increasing number of charity shops and empty premises, but it's hard to escape the sneaking suspicion that cutting back on things designed to attract folk to visit might be a tad short-sighted. And perhaps it's an even better idea to invite the shops themselves to start sticking up a few lights outside their premises. If the Victoria centre can manage it, then perhaps M & S, with its current profitability, might do it also.

Some years ago, a member of the Llandudno Heritage Trust bought the Leeds' City display, as they were renewing theirs, and he got it for relatively little.   Of course, the new displays are often LED based, with a lot of fibre optic work, but do we need a new system?  Would an older system, adapted and re-lamped, not provide an equally pleasant ambience, and be even more appropriate in a Victorian town?  Maybe it's time for whomever's responsible for our lights to visit a few second hand dealers....

Bah! Humbug...

It's good to be back, after a week tied up with a lot of other things that combined to prevent the daily output of this blog.

Catching up with the local news, it's an even worse diet of doom and gloom. A disabled Anglesey girl was refused the use of a tram in Blackpool in the rain, the MOD civil servants are all being paid bonuses for pencil sharpening above and beyond the call of duty, the A55 looks set to join Maesdu bridge in the competition for the 'Most road closures anywhere' award and Llandudno council - with uncanny foresight - says it might have to bin a large proportion of the expensive, attractive-looking explosives.

Now, even though headlines invariably make the running, especially when most of the country (and just about all the Labour party) wants to see the back of Gordon, we do need to look at the details behind some of these stories, because the truth is often somewhat different from what the agenda-driven headline writers would have us believe.

The little disabled girl can't leave her wheelchair, and the vintage trams in Blackpool are not built to carry wheelchair users who cannot leave their chairs. The company has apologised, and given the little girl a free trip.

We don't know the details of how, when and why the bonuses were paid to the civil servants, which - on the face of it - appears indefensible. But we need to wait and find out before jumping to conclusions - right or wrong.

The A55 - well, has anyone ever driven the full length of that road - or any major trunk road - without seeing roadworks? There's an almost warm, comforting feeling when the first cones appear, a sort of gentle reminder that you haven't passed through some sort of inter-galactic gateway and are still on Earth, when you start to slow down and join the seemingly endless lines of cars snaking their weary way through contraflows and endless corridors of worker-less coned tracks.

And the fireworks...well, it might have been a good idea for the council to check the same weather forecast that Carneades uses, which clearly showed torrential afternoon showers with associated blustery conditions. But they didn't, their roman candles got soggy and went limp which - in a rather interesting way - is almost an allegory for the council itself, and we were denied a splendid display.

But hey! It's not all bad. We're now rushing inexorably towards Christmas, the magnificent festive lights are blazing, the big parades already planned and the crowds pouring into Llandudno and Colwyn Bay. What's that?  Xmas lights not on until December?   A55 clogged, so no festive crowds?  Colwyn Bay being sold off for offices?

Where's that emigration stuff from New Zealand...

Lest we forget

Last night we - along with many - watched the event at the Royal Albert Hall which commemorates the lives and sacrifices made by servicemen and women. This year the ceremony seemed more pertinent than ever and - as always - it was done well. 

It's fashionable to question why we send the armed forces into danger areas and, until comparatively recently, the entire event had started to lose its adhesion within the British psyche.  But our involvement in the middle East and other trouble spots throughout the world serves to remind us that the British armed forces still rank as the most highly trained, most professional and most dedicated armed services in the world. Yes - it's their choice to join up and it's their choice to risk life and limb on a daily basis but the British army has a well-earned reputation for selflessness and heroism, although it's unlikely any of the many heroes that frequent their ranks are ever aware of anything other than the loyalty they feel to their fellow soldiers, their unit, their commanders and their country.

Maudlin sentimentality has no place in the occasion, however;  and those who serve would regard it as invasive and unwarranted.  But we should be extremely proud of our services and we should never forget that they do the jobs we need them to do, and would rather not do.  Although our armed services are not the size they once were, their integrity, courage and determination remains undiminished, and we should be aware that we have a duty to ensure the young will never forget what this is all about.

Ooooh! Aaaah...

We had noticed the odd drop of precipitation in the air, yesterday, but the period between 7 and 9 pm was mercifully clear and dry and thousands made the journey into Llandudno to see the now Conwy-renowned fireworks display.  By 7.40 it belatedly became clear, even to the hopelessly optimistic, that the bar stewards in charge of the event had decided to cancel, although for what reason eludes us. Could it have been that it was too moist during the day to set the fireworks up?  Modern fireworks are remarkably impervious to rain, and detonation is electrical and not a little man with a long glowing firelighter, leaping about and hoping that the next rocket doesn't get him.

By 7.45, all that could be seen from our vantage point, high above the prom, was the heart-string-tugging image of two young children despondently waving their sparklers about and vainly attempting to extract some vestige of delight from the abortive festival as their forlornly but tightly gripped fireworks eventually sparked, then fizzled out from sheer frustration.  Soon, cars began pulling out and winding their desolate and lonely ways home, shorn of their anticipation, bereft of their euphoria and denied their post-explosive bliss.

It would be interesting to know exactly why the event was cancelled.  Llandudno's firework display, all joking aside, is well renowned for its quality, length and quantity, and certainly a little local awareness of weather patterns would have told the organisers that there was every chance it was going to be good enough to go, instead of what appears to have been a blind adherence to met office pronouncements which, this year alone, have seen their local accuracy fall to just above 50%. 

Of course, if they re-schedule to tonight, which in their blinkered and ineffective way they almost certainly will, then we can look forward to the official fireworks as a counterpoint to David Cameron's visit.  Wonder if he's got a guy in mind?

Dangerous territory

This blog rarely ventures into the muddy waters of really serious problems, but what we all need to be aware of is this

It's a curious thing about politics. The politicians all try to make us like them, whereas, increasingly, the evidence is that they don't like us. This, however, is a dangerous move, and bears some thinking about:

New regulations set to come into force later this month will see motorists forced to cough up court costs - even if they're found not guilty or acquitted of motoring offences.
The government-inspired change to the current set-up - where drivers get costs refunded if they're innocent - is being implemented to save cash, in spite of fierce opposition from legal and motoring groups who were nominally 'consulted' before the new policy was drawn up.
According to the Ministry of Justice, the age old principle of 'the loser pays' has been costing the government too much money. As a result the new rules make it clear that in future drivers will have to foot the bill for clearing their name. According to The Taxpayers Alliance, that equates to 400,000 people, or one in four of those who challenge a ticket.

If this goes through unimpeded, one has to think about the consequences for the accused in all future legislation.  British Justice is founded on the principle of 'Innocent until proven guilty', however tarnished that particular aphorism has become.  But with the innocent having to stand the costs of prosecution, what chance the rest of us in the future if the government thinks we should be punished, anyway?

'Ello, 'ello, 'ello...

Mark Polin gave his first interview to the Daily Post the other day.  It's clear from the result that he's very skilled at PR and - given the Police process generally - has probably enjoyed a good career as a bobby.  But the Police are in a very interesting situation when it comes to their job.

Ostensibly, the Police are required to uphold the law and nothing else, and it would be wonderful if things were that simple. But they're not.

Every single individual in North Wales has a different idea of what constitutes crime and what should be enforced. If that sounds rather sweeping, however, consider this: the same person who demands the death penalty for the drunken yobs making a row in the early hours is often the same person who exceeds the speed limit each morning because they're late for work, who 'forgets' to mention those few jobs for which he was paid in cash to HMRC, who condemns the driver in front for being a moron while he, himself hasn't yet learnt how to signal on a roundabout and who would never dream of 'shopping' a friend.

Of course, we're all guilty. We all break the law at least some of the time and there's a good reason for that. We actually have too many laws in the UK and most are written in a language not that far removed from Chaucer's. But there's more. On 15th October this year, John Baron MP asked “Answers to my Parliamentary Questions show that between 1997 and 2000 each page of primary legislation received on average 14 minutes of debating time. By the end of 2006 that figure had almost halved to just seven minutes. Will the Government therefore increase the amount of time available for scrutiny of legislation or introduce less but better legislation?”.

What Baron had picked up on was that the time allocated for the discussion of legislative items had halved in ten years, and the reason was - he believes - that the government is introducing an excessive quantity of new legislation.  The government simply creates too much,  and does most of it in a reactive fashion, all too often pandering to the whims of the tabloid press. All the criminal legislation, of course, has to be learnt and then enforced by the Police, which means that they spend a massive amount of time attempting to chase up things which never used to be illegal but which now are. Mark Polin enters the CC's role at a time when it's becoming increasingly politicised, horrendously over-burdened and when the public perception of the police in general has never been quite so low.  This in addition to the fact that many of us now no longer know when we're breaking a law, there's that many of them.  We wish him well, but he has a broad church of opinions with which to deal.

Meanwhile, little Jonny's just nicked some apples.....

The rain in Spain

Llandudno was quiet today. Probably the rain, which manifested itself as delightfully sunny and clear, blue skies until we chose to step out of the truck, whereupon a dense, black, eerily-ominous culmulo-nimbus jumped out and proceeded to disgorge about a month's worth of rain in ten minutes all over us.

Not that a short sharp shower spoiled the delights of taking the car to get serviced, or tramping round M& S like some Yakutskian nomad looking for fresh grazing for the reindeer and wondering why no one has ever told the M & S senior management that moving where things are stacked every other week doesn't actually increase sales, but does make a lot of folk irritated beyond reason. But - like the Inuit - we do have a lot of phrases and words for the weather - probably because we get so much of it. In fact, our lives revolve around the weather far more than most folks', and that probably has something to do with the jet stream. That's the high speed atmospheric-conveyor system that dumps the Atlantic depressions on our doorstep with irritating regularity and converts mild autumnal afternoons into outakes from the Omen.

But we shouldn't complain.  After all, if we lived on one of the continental land masses we would have to endure days of unvarying sunshine and warm weather, or long, dry days with crisp, white snow.  Hmm.  But then - we'd be sharing the place with foreigners....

Oh come

It's that time of year again, when the media, stuck for anything important to report, start to tell us all that we're giving away Christmas, that the movement to abolish Christmas is well under way and soon we'll all be seeing the 25th December as merely the date  preceding the 26th.

Today, in yet another utterly useless marketing exercise, GMTV informed us all that 'a survey' conducted among young people showed that most didn't think it ought to be called  Christmas, a result which hinged - improbably - on the hardly world-shattering news that most didn't know the nativity story.

Of course, they didn't explain any of the important details, such as the ethnic makeup of those polled, their socio-economic backgrounds, age, gender, the precise phrasing of the questions or any of the crucial information you need to make sense of any survey. In fact, one is left with the sneaking suspicion that many of their surveys are based on little more than questions scrawled on the backs of envelopes which were passed round a crowded tube train on the way into work that morning.

But in their eagerness to entice the illiterate viewer into watching yet more advertising, they miss the point entirely; that it doesn't matter what actual name is given to the period when we swap presents, have Christmas trees and watch grandmother sink into a sherry-induiced stupor after downing the largest slice of turkey imaginable and eating enough at a single sitting to maintain  a herd of wildebeest for a month.

Many of the terms we have for events these days bear no relation to their original meanings. We don't think of the Thunder god every Thursday, for instance nor does anyone venerate a slaughtered priest or two - no one knows for sure - every February the 14th. It doesn't matter what we call the holiday, and the name 'Christmas' is as good as any. Xmas is also a good standby, and all that matters is that the turkey is cooked through.  More sherry?

Shine a light!!

A FATHER and his 21 year-old son from Suffolk yesterday decided that a quick stroll up Cwm Idwal in darkness would be a good idea. Problem is, they forgot a couple of items, including a map, rope and boots.  They did have trainers, a head torch and a hand held torch,  with the result that twelve members of Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team and an RAF helicopter crew had to risk their own lives going out in high winds in search of the pair on Cwm Idwal, Snowdonia.
The climbers, from Suffolk, were finally brought to safety at 12.30am yesterday, having set off to scramble up the peak at around 3.30pm on Saturday.
It's easy to sit back and think 'What possessed them?' and watching a programme in the 'Raging Planet' series on Bravo in which several people set out to climb mountains without first checking the weather forecast does pose the question as to whether some folk should ever be let out alone.
Climbing Cwm Idwal at night isn't wrong per se of course; the UK Special Forces have a base quite nearby and often send their troops up, fully laden with gear, at night.  Doing it in trainers, without maps and ropes is, however, probably inadvisable or, as our Ogwen rescue team friends might say - bonkers.  However, our society has - for some time - been moving towards a risk-averse culture in which every possibly contingency has to be anticipated.  For teachers and those involved with organisations such as Scouts, this places significant burdens on their time and energy, not least in completing the now infamous risk assessments.  The current litigious climate doesn't help matters, either, but eliminating risk is neither practicable nor desirable.  Kids have to make mistakes;  they have to fall out of trees, trip over, get cut, lacerated and bruised because otherwise they're simply not equipped for life. And parents have a responsibility to teach them.  Informed risk management  is how we should be preparing our children for the future, but we're failing abysmally in that lofty ambition. Perhaps we might see a day in which children sue parents and politicians for failing to prepare them properly by removing too much risk.  Wonder if the MP's own risk assessments would cover that, then?

We made it!

The second accident in a week on the A55 at the Conwy Tunnel throws into sharp relief just how much the communities surrounding Llandudno depend on the smooth, unfettered operation of that road.  Many folk routinely commute between the Conwy Valley and Llandudno, and the closure of any road - no matter how brief - can have repercussions for those trying to get to school or work.  It'll be some time before we hear the details of either accident, but one has to ask if the nine car pile up - at least - might not have had something to do with a lack of care and excess speed.

Well, Halloween has come and gone and we're all still here. The barriers between the worlds haven't fallen - or at least, not noticeably so - and the world continues to turn merrily on its axis.  Bonfire night fast approaches, then we have Christmas to look forward to.

Bonfire night can be a problem for animals, of course, and it seems mainly dogs are affected, primarily because of their acute hearing, particularly in the upper frequency ranges.  It's not the bangs that terrify them so much as the noises we can't hear. Vets will happily and willingly dispense tranquillisers for our canine companions and making them snug and cosy before it all kicks off is also a good plan.  And let's hope that the associated injuries this year continue to decrease.