thenotsomightyom

Thanks to John Devine and BBC News Online for this headline.

It is with deep regret that the semaphore signals at Manea( Sounds like an Aztec ancient village but is actually is a rural location with it’s own station on the Ely to Peterborough line.) have been taken down.

Some might regard this as the obvious demise of a manually operated system of gears ,levers and wires which has worked effectively for a hundred years as a disaster and a reflection of the onward march of the boot of the digital era into all areas of our lives.

I , however, am not so dramatic. I know the wooden red and white signals will find a good home in an Antique shop somewhere in Britain and will most likely feature on an episode of Antiques Roadtrip, where the expert “Oohs and Aahs” about this wonderful piece of Railway History and then two doors down in another shop , finds the full set of levers which were used in the now fully digitised Signal Box. More” Oohs” and “Aahs.

” I wonder if they worked together, this will be a railway buff’s dream lot.” The Roadtrip expert looks a the camera.” Exciting!”

From a maintenance point of view, no one is going to miss painting the Semaphore Boards and maintaining the tracks levers and pulleys in order to operate them. So although their demise is sad , it’s probably for the best and they will I’m sure go down in TV. posterity.

Thanks to Tessa Wong, Asia Digital Reporter for BBC in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian’s High Court have found that two high profile men were likely abducted by the elite Special Branch of the Malayasian Police and their family have been able to sue the Malaysian Government for recompense for their loss and an answer to what happened to the men.

To this day ( they disappeared in 2016/2017) no trace of the men have been found, but the High Court Judgement means that the investigation into their whereabouts or indeed their fate will continue and that the families will get a financial settlement from the State for their loss.

It seems that the Malaysian Special Branch were a rogue bunch , who took it on themselves to decide Law and Order and decide the appropriate punishment and do whatever they thought necessary to protect the State.

Thankfully with a judicial system in place now that acknowledges and addresses this injustice, Malaysia can continue to protect it’s citizens from rogue State Police.

This article shows what can be achieved when people look for the truth and the best solutions come from the judiciary and Government working together to ensure fairness to all it’s citizens.

Thanks to BBC News Danny Fullbrook for the headline that caught my eye.

Sad to say, that along with all abandoned pets, mainly the four pawed kind (much cuter than snails). Two giant albino snails were unceremoniously thrown into a bush inside their vivarium with an overturned water bowl and some very outdated vegetables. They would have died because being from the Sub- Saharan Africa they are used to warm conditions and it’s November currently in the UK.

However, someone spotted them and thankfully they’ve been rescued and will be rehomed.

Unfortunately they are hermaphrodites and can breed like snails. So actually potentially invasive. It is illegal to release them or their hatchlings into the wild, because now we know what damage an invasive species can reek. Look at the grey squirrel (non- native)beating up the red squirrel(native).

I thought what had the poor snails done? To be discarded in the only home they’ve known into a bush and left out in the cold with no food or water. Had they spoken back, had they made a mess of their vivarium , were they just boring? Were they getting expensive to keep? Something catastrophic happened for them to be unceremoniously thrown out.

I had to check the price and availability of Giant African Land Snails. They typically sell for between £5 and £30 in the UK depending on size, age and specific species.

So a pet that is easy to acquire.

Sad to say whoever threw them away, didn’t care about the consequences and quite frankly probably wouldn’t care about anything. Well done to the rescuers.

Thanks to BBC Online News for the Headline.

You will be pleased to know that there are some fish that like the freezing cold waters of freshwater lakes in Scotland. They like them so much that they have hung around and have decided to survive and thrive despite becoming extinct thirty years ago in said Scottish lakes and having to be reintroduced to their new home from two locations in England where they have thrived since prehistoric times . Thankfully the move went well.

The Vendace left Scotland but has now come back. For a fish that likes freezing cold waters , it is odd that it gave up on Scotland. I would have thought it was colder in Scotland than in England which is of course further South.

Why did the Vendace disappear in the first place.

I checked can you eat “Vendace”?

Apparently it is popular in Finland and other Nordic Countries. A bit sprattish it can be eaten whole as the bones are fine and the fish small. The roe of vendace is also a prized delicacy. So the little fish was probably eaten and killed for food and enjoyment by the Scots.

Still they are back and enjoying life and the cold gloomy lakes and are I assume staying out of the way while being monitored by the Scientists who reintroduced them.

This headline is courtesy of the Financial Times. I’m not a subscriber , so haven’t read the full article, but this is certainly different to most news we are currently hearing about Israel .

So the Israeli Government are worried that they are losing intelligent, qualified technical people to other Countries because of emigration, they are people they don’t want to lose. So they will offer them financial incentives to stay. Perhaps it will work , perhaps it won’t.

It all depends on what technological opportunities there are to develop. I know that an Israeli Company now owns the Soda Stream Brand.

I’m a big fan of making my own fizzy drinks, particularly on hot summer days. So much better than lugging heavy plastic bottles with additive fueled drinks out of the supermarket on a trolley. However, I think there have been some electronic type developments from the original Soda Stream design, but none that float my boat. Basically it’s a gas bottle attached to a holder. You don’t need timers, GPS or indeed measuring devices. So this could be a technological rabbit hole.

Perhaps the technological people feel they can use their skills more usefully elsewhere , perhaps in bigger markets in other countries and thus they want to move on.

Perhaps it’s a moral decision , that the don’t want to use their skills in developing weapons. Perhaps their specialisation is in Medical Science , and they believe everyone should benefit from their advances. This is a distinct moral dilemma that money does not answer.

Thus , the emigration might have nothing to do with earnings or “Tax Breaks” at all. Time will tell.