Quiet on the blogging front

I've not been doing a good job of maintaining my daily posts to the blog. For one thing my writing energies have been channelled elsewhere and in many ways there's not been a great deal that's leapt out at me to write about. However let's have a quick scan of the day's news....

I'm undecided whether I should be concerned about so many British Muslims in favour of having Shariah law in this country. I feel some background reading is in order first to understand what it's all about before taking a definite stance, although I'm generally uneasy at hearing talk of any religious movement active in the UK. During my travels last year I saw several examples of religious belief taken to (what are to me) extreme levels and I find it's something I can't relate to in the slightest. Is this really the 21st century? In spite of all our advancements so many are actively laying down years of their lives in the worship or any manner of pointless ends. If it makes them happy to believe in these things, fine, but I'll fight tooth and nail to ensure they have no bearing over my daily life and similarly I make no demands upon others.

The British Airways strike has been called off at not quite the last minute but sufficiently late that many passengers will have found themselves seriously inconvenienced for the third time in a year. Fair enough the other occasions weren't the airline's fault directly, but the handling thereof commencing with the erection of a large white marque outside Terminal 4 and quickly descending into chaos hasn't done the company and favours at all. I flew back from Australia with BA which was my first flight from them in some years. Although fine enough the standards couldn't compare with a modern Qantas airbus and the superb customer service by the Aussie national airline.

The sites of the super-casinos will be announced tomorrow. I'm rather hoping that Blackpool will come out favourite as although I have no interest in gambling the place could do with some investment and job creation and I suspect it'll have a positive effect on the region's economy as a whole. The BBC did focus on the increase in homeless in Australia following their boom in casinos but I suspect no-one would notice in the likes of Blackpool. I suppose I'm hoping that the investment will bring associated developments to the resort. A nice multiplex within fairly easy reach of here wouldn't go amiss for instance.

The scribe is born

In order to cause the maximum confusion, as part of getting the blog back up and running I've been spending some time giving it all a thorough overhaul; a new style and now even a new name with a URL to match. It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision, but that's often the source of my best work, and also my biggest mistakes. We'll see which one this transpires to be. Thus 'The Village Scribe' was created, reflecting my return to rural England.

The blog is back!

The attention all shipping blog has been in a hiatus for the past seven months while I'll been gallivanting across Europe, Asia and Australia (details of which could be followed on my travel blog). I returned to the UK on Thursday and having had a few days to get over the jet lag and caught up on seven months of news from friends, family and wider world it's about time the show got back on the road.

I arrived back in the UK amidst news of expected widespread Post Office closures. This makes my blood boil as many Post Offices are central to rural communities and it seems to be a further step that the government is either unaware or uninterested in the needs and workings of towns and villages.

One of the most glorious features of Post Offices is that they're the most local of services, residing often at the heart of village life. Despite previous closures Post Offices are still for many an easy walk down the street; a crucial factor for the sizable elderly population that exists in rural communities. If these were to go thousands if not millions would be faced with a substantial journey to the next branch, which in turn creates untold additional car journeys and yet further CO2 emissions at a time when the government is in theory looking at cutting this greenhouse gas. Closures will also rive the heart out of many small towns and villages and toll a further death nell at a time when community spirit should be being nurtured.

Particularly annoying is the fact that these closures are being announced with no effort being made to look into options for diversifying Post Offices' incomes. One particularly interesting suggestion I heard on the radio was to use the network of Post Office branches as collection hubs for the many couriered parcels that are undelivered each day. Currently these return to local courier depots, often scores of miles away and redelivery may be attempted another couple of times which on a national basis much constitute a huge number of needless road journeys and CO2 emissions. However more broadly there have got to be a number of avenues that can be tried to introduce new services to the Post Offices and boost turnover.