The sun.

The Sun, no not the newspaper of the same name but the star we see in the sky. Around 4.5 billion years old it's about half way through it's life. That's bad news for us here on planet earth, you see in about another 5 billion years the sun will become a red giant, and that's going to expand it over us destroying all life on earth (assuming there's any left by then anyway) So in a few billion years it'll be time to start looking for new real estate somewhere else, or investing in some fireproof clothes for everybody.

Aberystwyth (mid Wales)

Here are a few pics from Aberystwyth taken a few days ago
I didn't have a lot of time there but got quite a few pics, I'll post some more soon.
Enjoy
Wayne

Some recent pics

Heres a couple of recent images including the "flying" lady.... ok shes not really flying I know but she is in mid air so it sort of counts.

Motorway nonsense.

Motorway nonsense ! I have been traveling a lot on the motorways recently, and the M4 in Wales is a disgrace, the road works in the Newport area have been going on for months (probably longer that 6 months in fact)
Large sections of the M4 are 50 mph, yet the whole reason motorways were built in the first place was to speed up traffic flow around the country especially on long distance runs.
Now call me suspicious but the sheer number of "average" speed cameras on these stretches despite the lack of any obvious work going on makes me wonder just why it's taking
A. so long to fix whatever is supposed to be wrong, and
B. just how are they going to fix it with nobody actually working on it.

James Bulger

On the 16 March 1990 two year old James Bulger was murdered by the then 10 year old Robert Thompson, and Jon Venables. Since then the former has been fairly quiet, Jon Venables on the other hand has been in the news more recently. On 21 June 2010, Venables was charged with possession and distribution of indecent images of children.
Today the papers carry a story claiming gangland bosses have put a £100.000 price on his head, whether this is true or not is irrelevant really, the fact remains that the crime and subsequent event had led to a lot of bad feeling with the general public.
I think the biggest issue with the whole thing is the protection Venables and Thompson have recieved at taxpayers expense, fair enough when they were younger, but the now adults should face justice like anybody else, not have secret identities to protect them.
So much for equality in this country, if your a child murderer you'll get "special" treatment.

Speed cameras

On the tv news this morning was the news that speed cameras (the so called safety cameras) are apparently not cutting the death toll.

Surprise surprise! there are several reasons for that. One is probably the fact that speeding motorists only actually slow down past the camera (just stand near any one and watch the brake lights come on) and travel at their normal speed everywhere else.

Secondly the cameras are placed to raise revenue rather than placed where the accidents really happen.
Take Swansea for example, the cameras are clustered around the council estates, none in the Gower despite there being several fatal crashes every year, yet where I used to live there were 4 cameras within a few hundred yards when to my certain knowledge there had only been one fatal accident in 20 years, but of course that was a council estate.
The same as theres none in the Brecon beacons national park area, again lots of accidents, so many in fact theres signs warning how many bikers were killed there, yet no cameras.

One with a cynical mind might be tempted to suggest they are placed to "catch" the most people rather than where the roads are most dangerous.

And before you start saying thats just sour grapes from being caught, you'd be wrong, the last time I was "done for speeding" was when I was 18 (nearly 40 years ago) and that was the old fashioned way with a real copper by the side of the road, and fair do I was speeding at the time.

Speed cameras do nothing for real world road safety, they also don't stop bad driving, a far bigger cause of accidents than just speed alone (our motorways are some of the safest roads around yet the fastest) all they do is burden the allready "ripped off" motorist even more.

Chevrolet and rain

Here are two photos of a "Chevy" I spotted a while back in of all places Tescos car park, I assume it was on it's way to a classic car show.

Rain, well the last few days it's been extremely wet here, pouring down in fact, so much so several local places have had flooding.
I'm pretty safe from flooding where I am, I'm raised up on a slope so any serious water will run away before it gets deep enough to get into my house, indeed if my house ever floods the people lower down will be well under water.
One courious fact despite the heavy rain for days we still have a hosepipe ban, not that many will be using them. I wonder if the ban applies to the fire brigade???