Tag Archives: Oxford Ring Road

Almost famous…

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…excusing a bit of  a time lag from unwinding the rubber band back to NZ over the last few days hence the silence…I was quite flattered to open up Cheeseburger on Monday to find one of my comments re the Birmoverse starring on the front page as it were. Certainly led to an interesting dialogue – people should check out the various discussions re what’s next in the Birmoverse and maybe even contribute if they have anything meaningful to say…while I’m interested in a 50s/60s sequel to the Axis of Time trilogy, I’m way more interested in a 21C prequel that explores the modern Birmoverse (less the wormhole device) – this would be a great tool (shades of self-interest!) to explore possibilities for where our version of this century might go…

Am now safely back at home (thank you very much to Singapore Airlines – truly a great way to fly!!) having enjoyed another brief stopover in Singapore which I largely slept through despite being booked into the Crowne Plaza Changi which is right by the main runway (ask me how I know that the last flight into Changi is at 0230 and the first out at 0600!!!. The beauty of Singapore though is that the light rail system can get you pretty well anywhere in an hour or so absolutely max so I still got to spend a good 4-5 hours in town hopping from one airconned enclave to the next. I very much enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Miniature Hobbies (03-380) in Marina Square – so fun fun to explore an unfamiliar top-class model shop and of course I managed to make a couple of acquisitions that I’ll probably never build: the Academy I-19 sub is very nice, more so for only $20 and comes with some very nice etch work; and the Trumpeter B-4 203mm gun is one of those big chunky ‘I was built in a tractor factory‘ bits of Soviet kit.

The Singapore Air entertainment programme for October was a bit weak – I was expecting Up, GI Joe and G-Force at least but had to make do with Transformers II which didn’t rock and I watched first movie straight after just to confirm that it wasn’t just a teeny screen issue…even though I was awake the whole Singapore-Auckland leg, all I watched was the canned TV episodes because there was nothing in the movies that appealed in the slightest…I did enjoy the first Doctor Who special from Season IV and have to wonder what is going to happen between the Doctor and Lady Christina who is just way too hot to be written out so early in the season…as I was watching Doctor Who of which I have always been a fan since it stopped scaring me witless in the late 60s, It struck me that the whole idea of the Tardis drifting aimlessly lost in space and time may have been inspired by a BBC writer who got caught up in the Oxford Ring Road space-time discontinuum (no, obviously, I’m still NOT over it yet!!)…

Just doing a final peruse of the blogs before I sign off…yes it is 0158 which just shows how screwed up my body clock is from the rubber band…anyway here’s a commentary on the Coming Anarchy about the US and China buddying up in Afghanistan – when you step back from currently-held models, it sounds sensible and when you get down to it, China has a pretty good track record for countering insurgencies as well – just not according to our book, speaking of which, David Kilcullen’s visit to Wellington on 1 Oct, from all reports, went exceptionally well and I hope to get a more detailed backbrief in a few days…

And making a good point for possibly the wrong reasons, The Strategist has mention of what is probably the best chance of success for Afghanistan ( as opposed to every other man and his dog who are trampling around the place)…good old COIN principle #1 Compromise IS Good!

One day the records will be unclassified…

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…and we might know the real story behind the cancellation of the second Great White Hope, abbreviated as TSR2…

I never thought that I might be lucky enough to ever seen a TSR2 in the flesh, let alone two in two days – it really is one of the most beautiful aircraft and it is tragic that it was scrapped so ignominiously, heralding the death knell of the British aviation industry that brought us such names as Spitfire, Lancaster, Hunter and Vulcan…

In my travels over the last two days I have been very impressed by the British motorway system (less the Oxford Ring Road which I still spit upon); visited the Imperial War Museum at Duxford and the RAF Museum at Cosford; and grown to really despise the stupid German hire car. I can heartily recommend that anyone with an interest in aviation and/or 20th Century history visit both these great facilities which I would rate as being up there with the Udvar-Hazy part of the Smithsonian in DC. Having said that and while applauding the resources being applied to preserve Britain’s aviation heritage, it’s also rather sad to see some of the gaps in the collections…some of the lesser known of the Few who took the war to Germany in those early days; Wellington, Hampden, Blenhiem, Beaufort, Whirlwind, Defiant, Whitley, Manchester, Stirling…these museums are great places for kids and not because of the range of big boys toys but also to sow the seeds of awareness of our history and those who sacrificed to preserve a way or life – it was really good to see so many children and family groups of all ages at both venues.

Lot 31, miscellaneous, unclassified

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I really needed a quiet night last night after a week of full-on CLAW engagement. I didn’t have high hopes of actually pulling it off, noting my rather parlous record this week, did actually enjoy a couple of hours post-dinner immersed in a massive leather armchair and glass of Bud (I have learned this week that the real deal bud actually comes from the Czech Republic) and worked through The Telegraph and The Independent.

Snippets…

The UK Attorney-General has to decide whether or not to order the prosecution of BAe for ‘greasing the wheels’ in its securing of numerous international arms contracts. The short-term gain; a billion £ fine for government coffers and an opportunity for UK pollies to morris dance their way around the moral high ground. The longer term pain: factory closures and job losses as BAe scrambles to pay the fine; loss of orders as other, less scrupulous competitors wing into the vacuum leading to more factory closures and job losses.

There are some unpalatable facts of life about doing business in most of the world and wheel-greasing is one of them – the moral high ground doesn’t develop much GNP…of course, the silver lining if BAe does step off centre stage is that the customers would then have a better chance of buying kit that a. works, and b. doesn’t need a PhD in Mechanics just to change the spark plugs…

The courts here have just issued their first order via Twitter. It’s a cease and desist order to an unknown offender who posts anonymously on a blog using the same username as the blog owner. Have fun enforcing that one and don’t too surprised if soon everybody starts abusing that username…there’s no Highway Patrol on the information superhighway…

There was an item on BBC4 this afternoon on the problems facing schools with yobbo students (this is in the same country that decided that yobs aren’t really a Police problem as the Police have better things to do – clearly if they can only manage 6 hours per bobby per week actually on the beat – and you should call your local council if you’re being harassed to the point of suicide, hammering your head beaten in with a hammer or having rocks hiffed through your front window every other night).

Anyway…there seemed to be some close parallels with current COIN campaigns: schools are disguising rather than confronting the problem; there is no clear or uniform strategy within any one school let alone nationally; the problem might go away if we can move it to another area; if we change the metrics (much as I hate the term and the philosophy), the problem might disappear; we don’t actually know what the problem is because we are too busy addressing the symptoms.

It kinda struck me as I did my 15th lap of the Oxford Ring Road (I spit on the Oxford Ring Road and all its descendants for a thousand years!) that the solutions might be similar as well: identify what the real issues are; identify what strategy will work in that society and environment; accept there are no easy answers or quick fixes; apply the strategy long enough for behaviours to change and become the norm. As schools deal with compressed generations of students, I thought it might be an idea to observe the various anti-yob initiatives and analyse what works and why as a possible cue for COIN concepts…after all, anyone with teenagers knows you don’t have to travel to encounter strange alien cultures…