A "small boat" crewed by "fighting age men" profiled against three wind turbines (echoing perhaps Blake's "dark satanic mills"). Enough to cause palpitations in the breast of Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe who patriotically posted the photo below and swore to use "every tool" at his disposal to secure the deportation of the "illegal migrants".
Except the boat turned out to be crewed by four rowers attempting to navigate from Lands End to John O'Groats for charity, who were understandably alarmed when a group of people with nothing better to do on a Thursday evening gathered on the beach and started shining torches in their faces.
Lowe, who made no apologies for "being vigilant for my constituents", nevertheless made a donation of £1,000 to the rowers' charity.
Blake's Dark Satanic Mills were factories full of children working fifteen hour days in appallingly dangerous conditions. I think Blake might have approved of wind turbines as they free us from such dangerous drudgery.
@ninalanyon That's all very well but how do we provide a "worthwhile" life for those not working?
I do not think the proportion of younger people who are infirm in the UK, is really any greater than in any other developed country; but we do seem to have a problem with defining "infirm" and its influence on whether the infirm individual can work or not. There are probably very few who genuinely could not work; but otherwise the difficulty is availability of suitable employment, and its physical accessibility including for commuting.
Carers are badly paid - most work for homes owned by mere money-traders so a sizeable chunk of the residents' fees disappears in profits.
I think we - in all "developed" countries not just the UK - need be careful not to create a double trap by assumption of many people not needing to work in future, and those who do needing merely a computer in a shared office or spare bedroom.
The nature of a lot of work will inevitably change and some forms of work might largely disappear, but despite the Sunday-supplement seers who don't do anything else, and do not understand real trades and professions anyway, by no means all work can be done by keyboard. Artificial Intelligence / Idiocy / Indolence notwithstanding.
I do not think the proportion of younger people who are infirm in the UK, is really any greater than in any other developed country;
I don't have any supporting statistics but my own observations of Norway and the UK suggest that a far larger fraction of the population in the UK, in all age ranges, is suffering from some degree of ill health than is the case in Norway.
When I struck old from my sentence I didn't mean to imply that it was the young who were especially infirm but had in mind those who would in times past have been regarded as of middle age, those in their forties and fifties.
Life expectancy in the two countries is quite similar (Norway 83.6, UK 81.6 [1]) but observation suggests that the UK has a larger proportion of people whose health and quality of life is poorer. Sadly the general fitness of the younger generations in Norway seems to be declining somewhat too; I see far more overweight young people in Norway now than I did forty years ago.
@ninalanyon Obesity seems to be a worsening problem in many countries.
It's allied I suppose to fewer people doing sufficient physical activities - generally not just gyms and Sunday football - to nutritionally poorer diets and to practices like smoking or excess drinking; but those can't be the only reasons and choices come into it, too.
Hard to define what would be a good quality life. Obviously the amount of money anyone has will affect it, as will standard of housing, type of work (or unemployment) but how many in a financially reasonable position have a low-quality life too?
@ArishMell He was expelled from Reform UK in the spring for abusing the chairman. He made a donation but did not apologise, claiming that the UK is in state of crisis.
There was a bunch of people chasing tthe boat along the shore in spite of the fact that (a) with only a few people on board, it didn't look like a refugee boat and (b) it was making no attempt to get to the shore. Some people have got too much time on their hands!
Wow, that is a very long rowing trip!! It's staggering how easily some people will believe without question a story that tickles their prejudices. Critical thinking shuts down and gullibility wins the day.
@ElwoodBlues They were in a touch of difficulty last night and looking for shelter. It seems amusing now, but an angry and biddable mob could have created an emergency.
@BritishFailedAesthetic He was involved in the rescue of Yemeni pirates . . minutes after torpedoing their boat. When you are in a dangerous environment you don't stop to consider the ethnicity of a drowning person or the political implications of bringing them to shore.
@calicuz we were educated about the amendments and we can read.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
