Brooklands

After a mild hangover precluded any rowing on Sunday morning, I resolved to “do something” rather than spending the day indoors.  The first thought was to head to Duxford, but some investigation revealed that they were hosting an airshow on Sunday, so had limited ticket availability.  Rather than drive a 140 mile round-trip to a venue that may have been full, visiting Brooklands seemed like a suitable alternative.

That’s a kind of depressing place.

The volunteers who staff it are all charming, but there’s a palpable aura of decay.  There’s clearly not enough money to maintain or run the large exhibits properly.  The fuselage of a VC-10 sits on props, shorn of wings, tail and undercarriage in a faded seventies version of the BA livery.  A “complete” VC-10, donated by the Omani Royal Flight, sits with flaps detached and birds nesting in the wings, while a prototype Concorde remains somewhat shiny as the centerpiece of the muesum.

One of only two surviving Wellington bombers, this example rescued from the depths of Loch Ness and painstakingly restored, lies forlorn and hidden in a cluttered hangar.

Part of me wants to recommend that you head there and generate some revenue for them, but I think sending a donation is, on balance, a less distressing alternative.

A trio of links for Monday

Elsewhere on the internet:

• Clairwil shows how rotten some of out public services have become
• Guido examines Gordon’s role in the Crew fiasco
• Madame Arcati engages in that age-old sport - tearing apart a Daily Mail “journalist”.

Enjoyy.

Snackr

ReadWriteWeb is not exaggerating - Snackr is fantastic.

If you use RSS feeds at all - download it immediately.

The £2.7billion ego

I was really quite keen that the first substantial post should not, in any way, resemble ranting. However, the latest twist in the 10p tax fiasco cannot pass without comment…

Gordon Brown is borrowing £2.7billion, which we’ll all have to repay long after he’s living on his pension, so that he can preserve his ego.

This series of small payments to much of the electorate will not do his party any good at the polls - in 18 months, nobody will recall the £10 payments dribbling into their bank accounts as they cast their vote in the general election.  As the first payment comes months after the by-election, the people of Crewe and Nantwich are not going the be swayed either.

The only constituency shallow enough to be influenced by this vulgar bribe are the Labour backbenchers who will now spare Gordon Brown the “humiliation” of a commons defeat.

Personally, I think the Prime Minister would have emerged from this whole sorry affair with a little more dignity if he’s had the nerve to admit that he made a mistake in the first place.  As it is, he’s thrown away what little credibility he had left and, in doing so, lost the ability to challenge any future Conservative policies as “unfunded”.

Hello

There’s more coming soon. I promise.