DutchEnery

We all know that in this country fraud is king. Not King Charles III, he is doing quite well as it happens, but I am referring to the billions lost from both government coffers and private citizens’ bank accounts. It seems all too easy, in the case of benefit fraud a report has shown a million an hour(!) is lost to benefit fraud and some errors. Simply completing an on-line form will set up a chain of events that might culminate in some payments. False claims are easy. Use the name of an existing person or someone who has just died or something like that and pending the checking procedures which are usually either lax or late or are never done, money will arrive in the bank account. Obviously the bank account is genuine but not really linked to anyone in particular. I am no expert in fraud I have to add but the facts are it is a growing problem. It does say something about the mindset of the British people. Too many now are what I would call, ‘work-shy’. Where I live I believe more th

Well, so Christmas is over for another year. It has been a time of some upheaval I’d have to say. Politically as well as socially. Despite what is reported in the papers I have not seen much deprivation, I know it is around but I think it is hidden. Traffic is worse than it has ever been, possibly also because of the bus, train, plane strikes and delays. For myself I have had some ten days of a severe chest infection. Still don’t know why and how I caught it, probably someone who I passed in the street and looked me in the eye thinking, he needs cheering up! Fortunately, the NHS does still work well unless you need to go to A&E or need an ambulance. The antibiotics I have took to me like a thermonuclear device. Almost the same day, the temperature dived down to its usual level. The itchy throat took longer but the wheeze went after a day or two. So, all is well with the world but don’t ask those who experience one of those very bad winter storms in Canada and the US. Blizzards are

It is going to be a rough winter by the looks of it. Not just because of the war in Eastern Europe but there seems to be a jet-stream that drives the rainier weather southwards letting in the cold eastern winds. Even colder when I look at the shenanigans called the World Cup. The one thing England is go o d at is talking up a good game. Plenty of pundits around here who are just shouldering themselves onto the BBC Chat programs and if you listened to them we already have won the trophy. And then reality sets in, the truth is England is not really as good as they think. The game with France a case in point. I thought for a long time we were just trundling along. My 90 year old neighbour walks faster than that! Anyway, as I have always thought, in the end the real matter is fought out in the matches themselves, not on the TV channels. So, the dream will have to wait for another 4 years! As a matter of fact if we look at all the big teams who have left for home, we can see the downward s

For all those people who come to the UK, I hope it will work out well for them. Especially at this time. Cold and sometimes stormy. But if they came with the idea of free money, free housing, free this and that, I am afraid there will be a harsh awakening. Despite what they say on the Continent this country is not a free-for-all. In reality this is a country still with quite a bit of poverty, class ridden mentality and big diverse areas. Even worse, it is governed by incompetents. Too many believe to be an MP is an easy job, Just sit on plush green leather seats and shout ‘Hear, hear’ from time to time. And no worries at home because all you have to say to worried voters is ‘We are working hard, and doing everything to solve your problems’. Then go home and finish the bottle of champers. Can anyone tell me it is not so? Ever since coming over to Blighty have I needed to look after myself and my family. I never had help nor needed it. Yes, I have been lucky, learned the languages of t

It is actually a great privilege to be able to understand another culture and language. I am not talking about Wales on this occasion but what us Welsh speakers call Yr Iseldiroedd. Translated to The Lowlands. In other words The Netherlands or as I tend to say Holland. Basically Holland is only the two coastal provinces, Noord and Zuid (North and South Holland). I am from the north. But to come to the point – Reading a report about planning problems and concerning development in the Netherlands which apparently has thrown up a big problem. They have or are close to having, run out of space! Meaning where can they build the new houses, the infrastructure accompanying, the factories to provide work? Even worse, where can they now have land to grow their produce? The demand for housing is taking precious agricultural and forested bits (as much as is left still) resulting in the government scratching their heads about how now to deal with the ever increasing migration all western countrie

Woohoo, the Netflix series about our Royal family begins! Apparently according to some of the people I know, this is the end of the royal family. Is it? That’s news to me. Mind you, with the inclusion of the wonderful Meghan, it could well be. May I ask a question – Why do we bother to watch such cr*p in the first place? For a start the royal family is not so different from my own. Plenty of little arguments, such as I am the boss and you are a cleaner of tonight’s dishes. Disagreements about how everyone sees the world around. One of them is so pro-America that we all have urged him to move quickly and disappear. Yes, that is family life. And I am absolutely sure that the royal fam is no different. They have our full support, as it is leave them alone. I don’t believe we want to hear daily reports about what they had for breakfast or whether the inscrutable Meg let one off in the bath. I like that, there is nothing better. Makes you believe you have a spa whirlpool after all. Cheap! 

Another wonderful example about Woke Britain in the news today. Lady Susan Hussey has had to resign from her position as a Lady-in-Waiting. Well, she’s not waiting any longer but is gone. Talking about Virtue-signalling – what is this all about? Well, apparently she asked a ‘black British charity boss’ (terminology by BBC News) where she came from? Ms Fulani, actually a British born citizen felt ‘Interrogated’. Probably because Lady Hussey who is 83 is hard of hearing and did not understand the replies she received. Right-O, what next? Ah, now the virtue-signalling gets into overdrive, even Prince William’s spokesperson (man, woman, IT, or non-binary spokesperson) had to state ‘Unacceptable and deeply regrettable’. Gosh, we are throwing some nice grammar around aren’t we? Ms Fulani obviously had to go onto Radio 4’s Today programme to explain about her being ‘abused’. OK, first of all may I ask why in all honesty did we listen to such rubbish again ?  As most of my readers, friends,

Not being an avid reader of the Guardian Newspaper, nevertheless I do read its articles on the web from time to time. One took my immediate interest. It reported something about Technology written by Edward Helmore about Jaron Lanier. Jaron is an American comp u ter scientist known for coining the term ‘Virtual Reality’. The article reporting about using Social Media and its effects. Jaron warns about the dangers of a world over-reliant on the Internet. Something I have alluded to many times as well. Being at the mercy of these top people who run them, although not naming them. We know their names anyway. But to be clear he must have meant the likes of Messrs Musk, Gates, and Zuckerberg. Perhaps we should include this failed politician Clegg amongs them. He is Global Affairs President (Meta) . It might be a great name for what is basically a fall-guy position I think. Something he is well used to. Well, Jaron continued by saying ‘ We’re putting that fundamental quality of humaneness th

This year’s Halloween has been a rather quiet, low-case affair. No-one knocking the doors showing off hideous masks and sounding curdling screams that made your blood run cold! Now, I am not at all certain why we celebrate that as I don’t believe in such manifested portrayal of what is supposed to be evil. At least the kids like the rumpus. But it is funny that humanity has this what seems to be inborn, an inborn idea about evil. You will notice this as well in the films showing wonderful evilly aliens. Films like ‘Alien’ with Sigourney Weaver et al. Big money spinners, we sure like to be frightened. It raises a few questions in my mind, notwithstanding my religious background as a confirmed Christian following the Anglican brand of what they call Faith, I ask myself – Is there something about aliens, real or not that we equate with evil? And why would that be? First of all, I have always taken the point, as I explained in a much older post, that aliens might well exist but we will nev

We have mentioned energy a lot in previous posts. I suppose we would as it permeates all our lives. Certainly does so in the western world. I suppose the war in Ukraine does not help but that is not the only thing about energy. In this country VAT (Value Added Tax) is levied on bills. The rate at which it is levied varies but homeowners should pay 5%. Even that, when your bill is approaching £2,000 annually, it r e presents something like nearly £100 in tax. That would look better on my bank balance. I must be honest I am aware we need to pay tax but I am also aware that it is not always spent wisely! Let’s look at wind turbines. You might know I am opposed to them on land simply for two reasons, environmental problems and misuse of crop growing land or grazing land or even recreational land. The problems they cause to birds are already well-known. Besides all that, these monstrosities produce thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere through production of the metals and plasti

Does anyone, perhaps all across the world, ever think what it costs to have a government? Take the government in the UK. There are 650 MPs in the UK Parliament. Each receives a stipend (salary) of £84,144 per annum. That’s a cost to the taxpayer of £54,693,600. Yes £50+ million pounds. But that’s not all, they also receive payments for certain items like stationery, subsidised drinks amongst others. Other costs like the Standard Office Budget is some £27,470 per MP (some get more because of their extra workload, like ministers etc or are living and based in London). That is a whopping £17,855,500. And yet again that’s not all. There is the upkeep of the Westminster Palace which has cost so far billions.  To cut a long drawn out calculation and trawling the Internet I can just go with the Institute of Government which stated that during 2018/19 the cost of running both Houses of Parliament in 2018/19 was £560.4 million which was nearly 8% higher than the previous year. If that would con

Is virtue-signalling the new art-form in the UK? You might know this if I put it like this - Virtue signalling is the expression of a moral viewpoint with the intent of communicating good character. But is that right? I don’t think so, at least not completely. Like everything else, it has a good side and an equally bad side. It depends entirely what you think about the words – moral viewpoint. For instance, I am certain that those youngsters who glue themselves onto the road surface or throw tomato soup onto a valuable painting in a museum, think of their moral viewpoint as the only one that counts. But then I would say, what about my viewpoint? I can tell you right now, it is NOT the same as theirs! Then we have the debating societies in Universities across the land. I recently heard a new word I had not heard before – ‘perma-offended youth’. What does that mean? It was mentioned in an article from the Telegraph and referred to a debate that took place at the Cambridge Union. You can

It is interesting to see how the world, how people, think and act. Here we have Qatar. Another country on the Arabian peninsula. Mostly sand, a few palms and for some reason bozos of the World Football system called FIFA thought it would be a nice place to stage the World Cup. Obviously knowing these boys are totally straight as far as money is concerned, the voting was all above board and Qatar came out on top. Well, it is a sunny place in summer though! At least the bath water gets to 60 degrees Centigrade if you put the bath out on the balcony. What us in the nice above board western world never realised, is the fact Qatar is not in the western world. We in the western world think the whole planet is the western world. You notice this on the discussions on TV. Here in the UK we get very worked up about the treatment of LBGT+ people, bless their little hearts. We spend hours and hours talking about the why’s and how’s. Like that is going to change things for the better. Let’s be fair

Now I am a long-standing user of Linux having ditched Windows when it was XP. I must confess using Linux has got a damn lot easier now than it was in the Seventies and Eighties. In fact it now surpasses Windows in ease of operation and security. It is no wonder that most mainframes (very large computers with petabytes of memory) are mostly running with Linux or a variety of Unix systems. If you do not know what Unix is, it is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix from the Sixties. Do not confuse this with Unox, a Unilever company that makes a type of Dutch sausage. Although sometimes I think it is exactly that! Anyway, I have run Linux Mint (one of the varieties of Linux distributions available) because it is very much like Windows in most of its operation. Recently I read the website from ‘Makeuseof.com’, titled “Ten Reasons why Windows is Still Better than Linux”. I thought that was rather interesting but completel

Is it about time we are waking up to the fact that we, in the western world, are living way beyond our means? For a start, we cannot deny, certainly not in Britain, that we are guilty of fouling the planet with our over-consumption which produces and does increasingly so, enormous quantities of greenhouse gases. It has been known for some time that due to rising sea levels the low lying atolls and island nations of the Pacific are in danger of disappearing altogether! The rise in sea levels is entirely due to melting icecaps of the Poles and mountain glaciers. It is expected that the levels will rise by another 3-5 meters by 2100. I shall have to tell my grandchildren in due course to wear swim vests before going to bed. Well, these things are already known but as per the usual there is a lot of chat, many high-level meetings but no action. At the most very little action. The talk in the western world is still the same, we are worried about economic growth and want more! We do not re

There are three things that concern people in the UK today. I list them in order of importance. First, a TV program called ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, secondly another TV program called ‘I am a Celebrity...Get me Out of Here’ and thirdly, its lame government. Rather funny that TV programmes outrank government but if you have looked carefully you can easily see why. The first program ‘Strictly’ is a dancing exhibition supposedly carried out by No-No’s. That is to say, by people who have never danced. But as it turns out, it seems that most of the partakers are professed dancers or at least have had pretty good tuition as kids! In my opinion the show has had its day, it has become pretty predictable. The other TV show has become even more boring because of the inclusion of a disliked politician (Mr Matt Hancock). It is not that he is just a politician, he was the Health Secretary during the Covid pandemic responsible for the guidance about staying at home and no social activities and then s

Some thing that has bothered me for a long time. I have been a school governor for quite a number of years and I have always wondered about something called bullying. From my own time in Amsterdam I did experience bullying because for some reason I did not belong to a small group in the same class. As a ten year old you do not really know why that is but it seems it is about family life and how you are brought up. Meaning how you view aggression. How your parents communicate, rows in the home, have loving occasions. Such as get-togethers with the family. St Nicholas in early December was always a highlight when the whole family sat around sharing presents, drinking chocolate milk and hearing stories about how ‘Zwarte Piet’ (Black Peter) would come if you were naughty! Today, the whole shebang, and here in the UK it is not ‘Zwarte Piet’ but Santa who might not be happy if you are a naughty child, is different. But how many families are still keeping to those old traditions? It seems mo

A confession from me – I am very sorry because I might be going to upset quite a number of people. It is about this – I am supporting the eco-warriors. Not physically as I am quite a bit older than most of those who glue themselves to the road. But I have been thinking about what is really at stake. At first I thought they are a bit, you know, not right in the head, absolute loons. However, they are right, the climate is in serious trouble. It is unheard of that in mid-November some places experience 15 degrees Centigrade plus! Despite wonderful emanations of verbal garbage by loads of politicians about how they are ‘working hard to ensure we all won’t die from heat exhaustion’, the facts are that nothing is done. Except to build more and more electrical cars but without the infrastructure to charge them. Oh, and build loads of wind turbines on land splashing the cash and ensure through having to anchor these monstrosities in concrete, we also send tonnes of CO2 into the air. The facts

Oh dear, problems brewing up in Qatar? It is a bit like a cold isn't it? Well, what did the powers that be, expect? Did anyone look into their rationale for living? What I mean is that their attitude towards LBGT+ should have rung alarm bells since the lovely western world is or has now more or less moved to a more accepted view. Worse, the LBGT+ community that have tickets are considering various protests. That will go down like bomb over there. Expect jail sentences of 5 years upwards. By the way, the jails over there probably do not have running water and the evening meal of dry bread and goat blood gravy, is prepared over a camel dung fire! I am somewhat fed up with our propensity to protest. If it is not oil or gas and the climate hotting up or the plastic fouling about every sea and ocean of the planet, all these protests have very little effect except to annoy commuters or just me. Look, if you are one of the LBGT+ brigade which is fine by me, just live life like everyone