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Milan & Sardinia

This weblog post describes a trip Alasdair and I took to Sardinia.

Logistics

On Friday, 2026-02-20, with 16 hours notice, I was told that my flight from TRD (Trondheim) airport to OSL (Oslo) airport, scheduled at 11:55, the next day, was cancelled. I was rebooked on an earlier flight. This meant that my bus ticket from Verdal to TRD was no longer valid. On 2026-02-21, we woke at 4:00 to shovel snow, ate at 5:00. Left at 6:00. I drove Trish and myself to TRD, and then she drove home. We arrived at TRD at 7:40. I was on the 9:15 flight that landed at OSL at 10:00. I met Alasdair at 11:00 at domestic gate A20. We went to the SAS lounge for nourishment and left OSL for MXP (Milan Malpensa) airport, the largest airport near Milan, at 14:50. We arrived at MXP at 17:30. We ate the day’s last meal at 18:00. We then took a train into Milan at 19:00, arriving at 20:00. We then walked 3.6 km to our hotel. I entered my room at 21:00 after a long day. The hotel was not the highest quality, but this is what happens when one is visiting during the winter Olympic games.

On 2026-02-22, we took the metro to the smaller but closer Milan Linate (LIN) airport for a flight to Cagliari Elmas (CAG) airport. We stayed in Cagliari for two nights at L’Ambasciata Hotel de Charme = The Embassy of Charm Hotel. On 2026-02-24 we travelled by standard-guage train, train-replacement bus, and narrow-guage train to Alghero, towards the north of Sardinia, on the west coast. We stayed there for two nights at the Hotel Alma di Alghero. On 2026-02-26 we retraced some of the route, then continued on to Olbia, in the north-east of Sardinia. Here we stayed at the Cavour Hotel. On 2026-02-27, we also visited the island of La Maddalene for some hours.

The next day, 2026-02-28, we departed by plane from Olbia-Costa Smerald (OLB) airport, landing at LIN. From there we took a metro train to Milan, where we spent the night at the Vivaldi Hotel, one hack better than our first hotel in Milan. The next morning we visited more of the sites of Milan, before walking to the train station, where we took a business class rail journey to MXP. The price difference between second class and business class was minimal. We flew back to OSL. I took another flight to TRD, then a train, train-replacement bus, followed by another train, to Verdal. There I was met by our neighbour Jörg, who drove me home. Thank you, Jörg!

The Great Suitcase Swap

Alasdair bought his suitcase online, about a year ago. The picture in the description made him think it was a tranquil lime green. He was shocked when it arrived. I bought mine at a physical store in Verdal, 30 km from Cliff Cottage, in February 2026. They had only two colors, black and blue, so I chose the least offensive = blue. Both of us agree that it’s good not to have black, like 80% of suitcases. After the swap, I got one in a signal colour, while Alasdair got one that screams a little less. Both are more appropriate for our personalities.

Epic is a Swedish brand with headquarters in Göteborg = Gothenburg. Products are designed in Sweden, but manufactured in China. Phantom small size details: mass = 2.2 kg, height = 55 cm, width= 40 cm, depth = 20 cm, volume = 37 litres. These are acceptable as cabin luggage on the airlines we normally take. For some of us, it is also large enough for clothing that will last a week. Trish and I also have medium size Epic Phantom suitcases in canary yellow with mass = 3.0 kg, height = 66 cm, width = 45 cm, depth = 25 cm, volume = 67 litres. These have to be stored in the hold of an aircraft, but will carry enough clothing for two weeks. We used these on our trip to California, in November 2025.

Milan

Note: The following content about Milan combines places visited both before and after our visit to Sardinia.

From MPX we made our way into Milan itself by train, stopping at the Central Railway Station. We ate a meal at the station. From there we walked to our hotel which, according to an online map, was 3.6 km away. It was actually good to get some exercise, after spending most of the day in assorted conveyances.

Milan is often described as an Alpha city, with an emphasis on its role as a global fashion capital and a major international tourist destination. It is one of the most visited cities in Italy, ranked second after Rome, fifth in Europe and sixteenth in the world.

Outside the station there was an official Olympics store. Yes, a photo was taken of it, but is not included here.

On our way out of Milan, at LIN, we took photos of ourselves in front of the Olympic Rings. There were several locations where this could be done, including train stations and airports. On our way back, the Olympic Rings were replaced by the Paralympic Symbols, see photo below.

At LIN I found an advertisement for Hèvö, based in Martina Franca, Taranto province, Apulia/ Puglia region, the region that forms the heal of the Italian boot. The company website tells us that for over 50 years, it has specialized in outerwear. Then it contradicts itself by saying it was founded in 2010.

Of course I have all sorts of reflections about fashion, including thoughts about the outerwear shown in the above photograph. No, I could never wear white outerwear. I could never go around with just one button fastened. All of my outerwear is equipped with zippers. My winter coat and a spring and autumn jacket both have six pockets, my summer jacket has only five. They are all Swedish. My bespoke shirts come with two pockets: on workshirts they are equipped with flaps and are buttoned, on more casual shirts they are without flaps and buttons. In many photographs in this and other weblog posts, I am wearing my Swedish Haglöfs summer jacket, probably the last clothing item bought in Molde in 2008. I am also wearing chinos. On my feet are Allbird shoes. I have wide feet, and it has been difficult my entire life to find comfortable shoes. At one time I thought I had found a solution with Danish Ecco shoes, but then they changed their lasts. My current preference, Allbirds, stretch.

Some fashionists regard Milan as the centre of their universe. I did notice numerous people, predominantly female, making a display of their clothing, handbags and jewelry. I noticed one woman in particular, with flaming red hair. For some reason she had to bend over close to me, and I could see that the roots of her hair were white. Yes, even older people sometimes want to forget their age. Of course there were also fashionista men. One I observed had shoulder length white hair, worn with a rather conventional suit, without a tie.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, is Italy’s oldest active shopping arcade, featuring luxury boutiques, cafes and 19th century architecture. On our walk through it, we did not stop at any location. As the photo shows, there were just too many people. It connects two major landmarks, the Duomo (the cathedral, where construction began in 1386, and the final details were completed in 1965) and Teatro alla Scala (the opera house, originally opened in 1778).

The Cimitero Monumentale is the second largest cemetery in Milan. It is noted for the abundance of artistic tombs and monuments. Designed by the architect Carlo Maciachini (1818 – 1899), it was planned to consolidate a number of small cemeteries that used to be scattered around the city into a single location. It was opened in 1866. Since then it has been filled with a wide range of contemporary and classical Italian sculptures as well as Greek temples, elaborate obelisks, and other original works such as a scaled-down version of the Trajan’s Column.

It also contains a A columbarium/ cinerarium, for cremated remains. That first term comes from the Latin columba = dove, and originally solely referred to compartmentalized housing for doves and pigeons = dovecote.

Cagliari

With a metropolitan population of about 420 000, Cagliari was the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1324 to 1848, before Turin became the capital. Today the city is a regional cultural, educational, political and artistic centre, known for its diverse Art Nouveau architecture and monuments.

I mention Art Nouveau = Jugendstil (The German and Skandinavian term) not just because I find it attractive. Throughout the city, there were also architectural examples. Our hotel in Cagliari, featured reproductions of famous Art Nouveau works. Yet, not all of the hotel’s artwork reflect this origin. Below are some of the artworks found at the hotel.

When we arrived at our hotel, I spent time appreciating its logo. It also incorporates an Art Nouveau typeface, at the time known as Modern Style, especially popular between 1890 and 1910. These draw inspiration from flowers. The typefaces feature elegant but curvaceous letterforms.

Sassari

We left Cagliari by a train running on standard gauge tracks. It was interesting to see the Sardinian countryside and to compare it with Corsica, a year earlier. The main difference was the flatness of the terrain in Sardinia. At Osieri the train pulled into the station, and passengers were escorted onto a waiting train replacement bus. It used about an hour to transport us to Sassari.

In Sassari, we ate lunch at the Mamma Li Turchi kababeri! I refuse to look up kababeri in any dictionary. It just sounds naturally correct, and invite others to use the term. The kababeri’s name refers to a warning to mothers about Turks! It is also the name of a 1973 Italian comedy film, 85 minutes long, directed by Renato Savino (1926 – 2008), who was born in Antalya, Turkey. He often used Mauro Stefani as a pseudonym.

Photo, courtesy Goo Gull maps.

The owner of the kababeri was Turkish, married to a Sardinian woman. This was one of the most extensive conversations we had during the trip. He said that they, as a couple, had tried to live in Turkey, but his wife had become homesick. So they returned to Sardinia. Decorations inside the kababeri were almost exclusively amulets to protect against an evil eye, a supernatural belief in a curse brought about by a malevolent glare, usually inspired by envy. Before he opened the kababeri, he made and distributed these amulets to support himself.

After lunch we returned to the train station to take a narrow gauge train to Alghero. This train was the noisiest we had taken on our trip. Most of the views from the train were bucolic = related to or typical of rural life. Traditionally, the term evokes peace. However, the noise of the train prevented any feeling of serenity. Thankfully, we both used noise cancelling over-the-ear headsets.

Alghero

The name Alghero comes from mediaeval Latin Aleguerium = stagnation of algae, referring to Posidonia oceanica/ Neptune grass/ Mediterranean tapeweed, a seagrass species endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. It forms large underwater meadows that are an important part of the ecosystem. The fruit is free floating and known in Italy as the olive of the sea.

At several hotels we encountered a boiled egg distribution device that allowed eggs to line up sequentially. In the photo only one egg is using it. I think this reduces the consumption of boiled eggs in shells, and encourages people to consume the eggs to the left of the device.

The medieval origins of Alghero are obvious when visiting the old town. Various weapons of mass destruction were on display. In addition, there were also what I regard as fake pieces of ancient architecture, complete with graffiti, such as that shown below.

At the port, adjacent to the old town, there were numerous boats and even cars, such as a multicolur Fiat Panda shown below. Volkswagen initiated this trend with a 1964 Beetle advertisement, showing a vehicle with multiple colored panels. It was advertising easily interchangeable parts. In 1995, Volkswagen of Europe celebrated the launch of the Polo city car by giving it a mixed paint scheme using the four base colors: Pistachio Green, Ginster Yellow, Tornado Red, and Chagall Blue.

Olbia

The trip to Olbia involved a train journey back to Sassari. Here we once again took a bus that brought us back to the station at Osieri. We once again boarded a train that took us to Olbia. From the station we walked to our hotel.

The most significant meal we ate in Olbia was at Panda Burger. I tried to imply, in assorted family communications, that we would be eating pandas. Unfortunately, a close relative read about the place, and told everyone on our family Signal, that this restaurant offered only vegan food.

The above photo shows the Olbia Archaeological Museum, from behind. We did not visit it.

Olbia is a ferry port, with ships departing for the Italian mainland. For example, there are sailings from Olbia to Genoa with both Moby Lines (6 sailings weekly) & Grandi Navi Veloci (6 sailings weekly). These take about 13 hours. There are sailings from Olbia to Livorno with both Moby Lines (12 sailings weekly) & Grimaldi Lines (12 sailings weekly). These take about 9 hours. Finally, if Rome is one’s destination there are sailings from Olbia to Civitavecchia, located 60 kilometres west-northwest of Rome. Grandi Navi Veloci offers two sailings weekly that take 5h 30m; Grimaldi Lines has 7 weekly sailings that take 6h 30m; Tirrenia has 9 weekly sailings that take 7h 30m.

Visiting the ferry terminal, we bought a Sardinian flag to add to our collection.

La Maddalena

Here is the ferry we used to visit the Island of La Maddalena. The ferry trip from Palau to La Maddalena takes approximately 20 minutes.

Some restaurants have interesting names = Tilacino, in Italian, or thylacine, in English. I hope that they don’t include the meat of those animals on their menu. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger/ wolf, an extinct species of carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The thylacine died out in New Guinea and mainland Australia around 3 600–3 200 years ago, possibly because of the introduction of the dingo, whose earliest record dates to around the same time.

At La Maddalena, we meet pirates of both genders, close to heat pumps and television antennas, which I presume were common possessions during the Golden Age of Piracy, between the 1650s and the 1730s.

Mining

If I return to Sardinia, it would be to gain a better understand of mining on the island. Sardinia was noted from ancient to almost modern times for mining and smelting. As shown on the map below, while there were some mines to the north of Olbia, the main mining area on the island is in the south-west. Reading about it, I discovered that most of the miners and others associated with the mines were immigrants.

Mining probably started around the 6th millennium BC with the mining of obsidian at the slant of Monte Arci in the central-eastern part of the island (bright green on the map). It was one of the most important Mediterranean centres for mining and processing of this volcanic glass.

About 3 000 BC mining involved metals, where ore was probably exported from the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea, to be smelted in Sardinia. Sardinia, was one of the earliest places in Europe to smelt silver.

Mining, smelting and working of metal occured in Sarrabus (brown on the map) in the south-east of Sardinia. It is especially noted for metals and minerals compounded by oxides and iron sulphide, copper and lead.

Coal became an important product to produce in the 1930s, at Carbonia (yellow on the map). Today, there is a museum of coal mining located there.

Conclusions

In general, I enjoyed visiting Sardinia. However, Sardinia contains too much flat land. I am a hillbilly, rather than a flatlander. In a comparison of Sardinia with Corsica, Corsica wins. It has a smaller area, and a lower population density. Statistics: Corsica: area = 8 722 km2 , population in 2024 = 355 528; density = 40.76/km2. Sardinia: area = 24 100 km2, population in 2025 = 1 562 381; density = 64.83/km2. Other population densities: World = 54.7/km², Norway 15.3/km², Inderøy is just slightly above this at 19/km², but the area where we live is considerably lower, perhaps 6/km² or less; British Columbia = 6/km²; Greater Vancouver = 917/km². There is no point in putting in a value for Canada, as so much of the country is uninhabited.

If I limit myself to Italy, there are places there I have enjoyed. Genoa probably tops the list. However, there other places in Italy I would like to visit. These include Verona (with the city being a World Heritage Site), Carpacco, Udine and Tirano, all in the north, but east of Milan. At Tirano, the Rhaetian Railway operates the Bernina line. The regional Bernina Red Train and the Bernina Express both travel along the Albula and Bernina railway lines. This route was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2008.

To the west of Milan there is Ivrea, especially the Industrial City of the 20th Century World Heritage Site. It is world famous for its Olivetti factory, and the Arduino microprocessor. Yes, from there I might even take a side trip into Turin, itself.

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RadFabLab

A Red Pitaya software defined radio (SDR) with a field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA).

The reason for this weblog post is to highlight one need, among many, for special equipment during emergencies. This equipment should be distributed geographically so that it is available when and where required. One of the unfortunate consequences of climate change is the expected increase in extreme situations.

In addition to climate challenges, Europe is facing political challenges, definitely from Russia, possibly from USA, but in a less life-threatening way. In addition to any type of weapon wounding or killing people, a nuclear weapon could poison/ pollute water, or otherwise disrupt modern life.

Preserving life and comfort

For warmth, we have a wood burning stove in our house, should that be necessary. We also have a minimum level of potable = drinkable water. We have 120 litres stored. We also have supplies of dried food, warm clothing and bedding. Yes, some of this clothing is stored in the playshop, sufficently far from the house that we can reach it, should the house be on fire.

One of the main problems has to do with electricity especially for communication. Communication masts typically have three hours of battery life. All cellphones are dependent on these masts. Three hours is insufficient for a long-term ongoing emergency. Thus, one may have to rely on something other than cell phones or an internet based on fibre-optic cables.

One potential answer is radio. A major part of the training of radio amateurs, is teaching them the fundamentals of electronics so that they are capable of building and repairing their equipment. As society becomes increasingly wealthy, it is often easier to just purchase an off-the-shelf machine. Unfortunately, this may not be a solution in an emergency situation.

In 2022, two years into the last pandemic, the supply of electronic components had become chaotic. In Norway, the one retail chain that did sell them, had eliminated this entire category from their sales inventory, so that consumers increasingly needed to import components directly. This had some benefits, in that direct import is considerably cheaper. Most of the components appear to be sourced from China. Most seem to be made somewhere in Asia.

The situation is somewhat different in 2025. There are more components available, but the cost has increased. My son bought some RAM in 2025-07 for NOK 2 800. By 2025-12, the price had risen to NOK 8 000. That said, import after a catastrophic event is not a suitable response to a catastrophe. One has to develop a solution, such as an equipment building capability in advance of the catastrophic event.

Amateur radio is an important part of Norway’s preparedness under abnormal conditions. A radio lab is desirable due to:
· Lack of production of radios and electronic components in Norway
· Uncertain delivery of components from abroad
· Lack of skilled workers in Norway when it comes to assembling components into radios

The solution is to find a suitable location for a radio fabrication laboratory = RadFabLab. Previously, I have written about Industry 4.0, as well workshop activism, as well as some of the issues involved in setting up a mechatronic workshop. Despite being an obnoxious patriot for my home municipality, I am not sure that Inderøy should be the only location for such a facility, despite its central location in Norway. In fact, it may be better to have several locations.

For example, Vestland county has the attributes necessary for the establishment of RadFabLab, including a relatively large and enthusiastic mass of radio amateurs. This does not have to be in Bergen, the most populous city/ municipality in Vestlandet county. It could be located on an offshore island, such as Øygarden, possibly a village like Steinsland. RadFabLab would have to purchase a sufficient number of components from abroad, to build up a warehouse supply. It would also have to purchase basic machinery, including a Canadian built Voltera V-One for circuit board production and soldering of surface mounted technology (SMT) components.

Once established, it could provide training to people in mechatronics, so that they are able to assemble components for radios and other products that are needed, including antennas. However, in time, it might also want to work with drones and unmanned underwater vehicles. The latter is usually divided into remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), that are tethered to the surface, and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), that operate independently. I mention this because I spent several years attempting to teach people how to build ROVs.

Computer Programming

Many people have invested considerable time learning programming languages, and may want to use them. Forget learning (or even remembering) old languages such as Algol, Basic, Cobol, Fortran or possibly even Pascal. Yes, I am less dogmatic about this last language, if only because it is still one of the most popular languages, ranking 8th. The language was originally developed by Apple Computer as Clascal for the Lisa Workshop development system in 1983. As Lisa gave way to Macintosh, Apple collaborated with Niklaus Wirth (1934 – 2024), the author of Pascal, to develop an officially standardized version of Clascal. This was renamed Object Pascal. Through the mid-1980s, Object Pascal was the main programming language for early versions of the MacApp application framework. The language lost its place as the main development language on the Mac in 1991 with the release of the C++-based MacApp 3.0. Official support ended in 1996.

If one wants to learn an older language, stick to C, originally developed in 1972 and 1973, by Dennis Ritchie (1941 – 2011) at Bell Laboratories. It was originally used to implement operating systems, device drivers and protocol stacks, but its use in application software has been decreasing. Currently, this is the second most popular language, according to the TIOBE index. An object oriented variant, C++, was developed and implemented by Bjarne Stroustrup (1950 – ), a Dane, about 1983 – 1985. It ranks third in popularity on this index. TIOBE Software BV, based in Eindhoven, Netherlands regularly reconstructs this index. TIOBE stands for The Importance of Being Earnest, the title of an 1895 comedy play by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), to emphasize the organization’s sincere and professional attitude towards customers, suppliers and colleagues (their words).

Younger users may want to use more modern languages, such as Python, a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Python is dynamically type-checked and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including structured, object-oriented and functional programming. Guido van Rossum (1956 – ), a Dutch programmer, began working on Python in the late 1980s.

Other languages may be useful for other activities apart from building radios. JavaScript continues to be essential for web development. Web browsers have a dedicated JavaScript engine that executes the client code. These engines are also utilized in some servers and a variety of apps. JavaScript was created by Brendan Eich (1961 – ), an American who worked for Mozilla, in 1995. Other important tools here are Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), but initially released by the Worldwide WEB consortium (W3C) in 1993. Development is now undertaken by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) founded by representatives from Apple Inc., the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software, leading web browser vendors in 2004. Related to it are Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), initially developed in 1996 by the W3C, and currently maintained by them.

Programmable Logic Devices

A programmable logic device (PLD) is an electronic component used to build reconfigurable digital circuits. Unlike circuits made using discrete components with fixed functions, the function of a PLD is undefined at the time of manufacture. Before the PLD can be used in a circuit it must be programmed to implement the desired functions. This simplifies design processes and may even offer superior performance. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), allow flexibility in digital circuit design.

There are several books that cover FPGA programming. The one I use is by Frank Bruno and Guy Eschemann, The FPGA Programming Handbook: An Essential Guide to FPGA Design for Transforming Your Ideas into Hardware Using SystemVerilog and VHDL, 2nd Edition (2024). This approach uses a hardware description language rather than writing traditional software programs.

SystemVerilog is a language with syntax similar to the C programming language. It is case-sensitive and has a basic preprocessor, admittedly less sophisticated than that of ANSI C/C++). Its control flow keywords (if/else, for, while, case, etc.) are equivalent, and its operator precedence is compatible with C. Syntactic differences include: required bit-widths for variable declarations, demarcation of procedural blocks (Verilog uses begin/end instead of curly braces {}), and many other minor differences. Verilog requires that variables be given a definite size.

A word of warning. Do not leave system programming to Artificial Intelligence bots. Sometimes, what they develop may work, but often one will get undesirable results, that may only become evident in an emergency situation.

RadFabLab should be able to provide a physical space for activities, with level-differentiated equipment. It should cater to all/ both genders, and all ages from junior high school and up. It should be a place where ideas, knowledge and opinions are shared in a friendly and cooperative atmosphere. It should provide basic training as well as certification involving the use of specific tools and competencies. In addition, after training is complete, there should be opportunities for independent work.

Notes:

I studied applied physics at Andøya Space, under its previous names Andøya Space Centre and Andøya Rocket Range. Because of its remote location on an island in Northern Norway, all students had to fly in using the island’s military airport. At the space centre, comfortable accommodation was provided for all students attending, along with catered meals, and social activities in the evening.

I am a member of the Norwegian Radio Relay League. I own several amateur radios, including a 1971 Ten(nessee) Tec(hnology) Argonaut 505 with serial number 388, made in the Great Smokey mountains at Sevierville, Tennessee, and a more modern Red Pitaya with a FPGA unit.

Publication of this weblog post had been postponed. It was originally scheduled to be published on 2023-04-22 at 12:00.

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Sustainable Aviation

Virgin Atlantic Flight100, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, equipped with Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines, using SAF = sustainable aviation fuel on a transatlantic crossing from London Heathrow to New York JFK. Photo: Rolls Royce.

With family equally divided between North America and Europe, I am doomed to an immoral life of using commercial airplanes to interact with them in person, between continents. Of course, additional immorality comes from flying for pleasure within Europe.

This weblog post reflects on the content of The six problems aviation must fix to hit net zero, an article by Joycelyn Timperley appearing in The Observer 2021-09-05. In it, she commented: Aviation is a complicated sector to decarbonise. It has some prickly ingredients: difficult technological solutions, hidden extra climate effects, an association with personal freedoms and a disproportionately wealthy and powerful customer base.

Almost four and a half years later, this weblog post will use her subject headings, but look what has happened in the intervening years, to address these issues. The first comment is that journalist Timperley is attempting to quote people to support her arguments. I have eliminated these quotations because they are general and unoriginal.

1. The fuel problem

Flying requires a lot of energy, and fuels with high energy density. I disagree with the premise that fossil fuels are the only available option for airplanes. One answer is to insist on the use of synthetic fuels, commonly called sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). This may require engine manufacturers such as Rolls Royce, to make/ modify engines specifically designed for the fuel. Even if fossil fuels continue to be used, they should be priced to ensure that the damage they contribute to the planet can be fully mitigated. There is no reason why the equivalent quantity of CO2 and other waste gasses cannot be scrubbed from the atmosphere, to make a carbon neutral product. SAFs accounted for less than 0.1% of aviation fuel consumption in 2018, in 2023 it was still less than 0.1%.

The fuel efficiency of aircraft improves over time. There is no magic involved, just the out-phasing of older aircraft with more efficient new aircraft. For example, switching from an older Boeing 747s to a more efficient Boeing 787s or Airbus A350s, can reduce carbon emissions by up to 30%. However, this improvement will not reduce total emissions. If aviation is becoming about 3% more efficient each year, passenger demand is increasing by about 5% a year.

In 2021, the European Commission presented the Fit for 55 package: a series of proposals to make the EU’s climate, energy, land use, transport and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 % by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. The European Commission proposes obligations on fuel suppliers to provide a minimum share of SAF that increases over time. The main goal is to increase use of SAF, resulting in a reduction of overall aviation emissions. A major problem with these commission proposals, is that the numbers are not concrete, with adherence voluntary. This will result in most airlines ignoring the proposals to avoid increased costs.

SAF is technologically ready for use, but a European Union framework to increase SAF is not. Other governments, such as the UK, want at least 10% SAF in place by 2030. There seems to be no plan to increase that to anything above that level. There are currently less than 6 years to ramp up from 0.1 to 10%. Regulations in effect restrict SAFs to 50% of fuel used. The first SAF-powered transatlantic flight, Flight100, involved a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787, equipped with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. It took place 2023-11-28 between London Heathrow and New York JFK. This demonstrated that such journeys are possible.

The SAF used on Flight100 was: 88% HEFA (Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids) supplied by AirBP and 12% SAK (Synthetic Aromatic Kerosene) supplied by Virent. HEFA is made from waste fats, SAK is made from plant sugars, with the remainder of plant proteins, oil and fibres continuing into the food chain. SAK is needed in 100% SAF blends to give the fuel the required aromatics for engine function.

The real reason SAF is not used has to do with its price. Airlines as well as their customers prioritize lower costs. This means that regulators, government or international, will have to impose relevant regulations to ensure useage of SAF.

Despite many believers the most promising sustainable fuels will not be made from waste biofuels, like used cooking oils. They may be cheap and offer good life-cycle emissions, but its supply is limited. Even if all of these fuels were used exclusively for aviation, they would only provide about 2% of jet fuel use in the EU and US. In other words, it is not a solution.

Biofuels can also be made from crops such as palm, soya and corn. However, environmental groups have been arguing against these because they can compete with food production and drive deforestation – proposed EU legislation that aims to ramp up SAFs specifically excludes their use. Advanced biofuels from cellulosic plants and agricultural and forestry waste show more promise.

A final type of fuel that could be used in current aircraft is “electrofuel”, made using clean electricity and hydrogen. In theory, these could have an “almost unlimited supply”, says Rutherford, but they are currently very expensive to make.

There are also completely different kinds of aircraft on the horizon. While the size and weight of current battery technology mean electric propulsion is still a long way off for larger aircraft, electric planes are appearing on shorter routes. Yet, one of the key areas where electric aircraft need to make an impact, is with flight schools. For example, the Slovenian Pipistrel Velis Electro aircraft are in use for pilot training at Green Flight Academy in Skellefteå, Sweden. Starting in 2019, several smaller electric aircraft have appeared in this weblog: A retrofitted Beaver at YVR airport in Richmond, British Columbia;

Some companies are working on new kinds of aeroplanes designed to run on hydrogen gas, which could also be produced using clean electricity. Last year, Airbus revealed its concept for a hydrogen aircraft that it said could enter service by 2035, although it has also admitted such planes won’t be widely used until after 2050.

Chances of being solved? Clean fuels are likely to be used more and more but will make up only a few percent of fuel by 2030 and are unlikely to make a significant impact until after 2050.

2. The non-CO2 problem

Aviation accounts for about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, but its warming impact is far larger because of other gases and particulates it emits at high altitudes. These are often called non-CO2 impacts, these include nitrogen oxides and contrail clouds = line-shaped vapor trail clouds produced by aircraft engine exhaust or changes in air pressure, typically at aircraft cruising altitudes several km above the Earth’s surface. They are composed primarily of water, in the form of ice crystals. These are rarely specified in aviation climate goals, but they could triple the climate impacts of aviation compared with CO2 alone.

What’s problematic, but also promising, about these effects is that they vary substantially depending on the surrounding climatic conditions. For example, one study found that just 2% of flights contribute to 80% of contrail warming effects. Night-time flights are particularly bad, because contrails produce their warming impact mainly at night.

It’s important to note that low-carbon fuels can still produce non-CO2 impacts, although these are expected to be lower than for kerosene for most fuels.

Chances of being solved? Unlikely in the near term given low prominence. However, the EU is beginning to pay more attention to this issue.

3. The frequent flyer problem

Some argue technological solutions will be too slow to reduce emissions in the aviation sector, and measures to reduce the amount people fly are needed to limit the damage to the climate.

But flying is not an evenly spread activity. In the UK about 15% of the population take 70% of all flights, and around half of people don’t fly at all in any given year. “That’s a pattern replicated in many other counties,” says Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF).

The inequality in flying is even more stark at a global level. One study estimated that just 1% of the world’s population emits 50% of CO2 from commercial aviation, while just 2-4% of people fly internationally in a given year.

Some campaigners therefore support a “frequent flyer levy” as a fairer way to limit aviation emissions. The UK campaign A Free Ride argues everyone should have one annual flight free from the levy, then pay a rising charge for every extra flight taken that year. The UK’s first climate assembly also backed the idea of a frequent flyer levy.

The problem with such a levy is that many people in the frequent flyer category are likely to have the wealth to pay a moderate levy, or to have it paid by their employers, says Wood.

Manuel Grebenjak, a campaigner at the Stay Grounded network, says measures to limit flights overall, such as banning flights on certain routes, could help to stem rising emissions in a fairer way. “If a flight is banned from a certain city to another one, no one can fly, so it’s very just,” he says.

France has already moved to ban domestic flights on routes that can be travelled by train within two-and-a-half hours. Even just providing an alternative to flying can be effective: new high-speed rail lines have reduced aviation transport on the same routes by up to 80%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Chances of being solved? Governments,including the UK, tend to shy away from demand management approaches to limiting aviation emissions, but France and Austria are making good first steps.

4. The policy problem

All this feeds into a wider need for strong policy to tackle aviation emissions, which has largely been lacking so far. “International aviation sits outside the Paris climate agreement, because that agreement is about a country’s domestic emissions,” says Harvey. “So there was a real push to have a scheme for international aviation.”

After years of inaction, in 2016 countries at the UN aviation agency, ICAO, agreed on the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia), a global deal to “offset” the growth in aviation emissions above the average levels in 2019 and 2020. However, when flights plummeted during the pandemic, countries changed the baseline of this scheme, which means there are currently no obligations on airlines. Egeland says Corsia’s effectiveness will “ultimately depend on the quality of carbon offsets that ICAO will accept”.

ICAO is also in discussions over a long-term climate goal for aviation for 2050, but it is not clear when this will be agreed or what the target will be.

Meanwhile, policies are being increasingly discussed at the national and regional level. In particular, the EU’s proposed “Fit for 55” climate legislation includes plans to mandate targets for SAFs and to end aviation’s fuel tax exemption. “Aviation fuel is exempt from any taxes almost everywhere,” says Grebenjak. “The EU wants to end the basically free rider status of aviation, and implement a kerosene tax that’s at the same level as other fuels.”

Chances of being solved? ICAO has been notoriously slow to act on aviation emissions, and many environmental groups criticise CORSIA for being far too weak, but recent policy moves at the EU level represent a significant step change.

5. The new middle class problem

Action at the EU level is encouraging, and the UK government even has a consultation out on its strategy for net zero aviation. However, the biggest growth in flying in the coming decades is expected outside Europe and the US, especially among the growing middle classes of developing countries.

Asia and the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East are the regions expected to see the most growth in the next 20 years, and last year China overtook the US as the world’s largest air passenger market. “The rise of a travelling middle-class in China and India has seen passenger demand grow at around 10% per annum,” says Hewitt.

Rutherford adds that frequent flyers look similar wherever in the world they are, namely upper-middle-class professionals. A global frequent flyer levy could therefore be one way to curb the growth, he says.

Chinese airlines will also increasingly have to meet local rules designed for climate mitigation if they want access to international airports, says Hewitt. But the vast majority of flights in China take place within its borders, which international policies would not apply to. “States will need to take domestic action to supplement international agreements in order to achieve net zero for aviation by 2050,” says Hewitt.

It’s worth noting that China also has the world’s largest high-speed rail network by far, while some developed countries, such as the US, have yet to install a single high-speed rail line. “We have to do our own homework first before talking about China,” says Grebenjak.

Chances of being solved? It’s up to developed countries to lead the way on reducing aviation emissions, which will then give more leeway to put pressure on developing countries.

6. The supersonic problem

Even amid growing efforts to reconcile aviation with a net zero world, some companies are pushing to develop aircraft that are even more polluting.

Earlier this year, United Airlines announced plans to buy 15 supersonic aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with the aim to begin using them by 2029. Rolls-Royce and the US air force also have deals with Boom.

As well as the noise issues with supersonics, these super-fast flights could consume five to seven times as much fuel for each passenger as subsonic aircrafts. There’s also a concern that supersonics, which will be operating high in the stratosphere, will have a disproportionate impact through non-CO2 emissions, says Rutherford. Developing emissions-intensive supersonic planes could also end up being a distraction from zero emission technologies such as hydrogen planes, he adds.

Rutherford says the best way to prevent climate damage from supersonic aircraft may be to require them to meet the same environmental standards as other airplanes. “That would, in essence, act like a ban,” he says. “They just can’t meet those standards.”

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Ruskin vs Morris

It has gone 150 years since John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) and William Morris (1834 – 1896), the two most influential figures of the Arts and Crafts Movement, clashed. To understand these two people, it is useful to look at their predecessor, Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881), who – unfortunately – distorted Ruskin’s radical political approach to something more authoritarian. Morris was more critical of Carlyle, which allows him to appear more modern than Ruskin.

Both Ruskin and Morris shared a belief in the superiority of medieval crafts. This has implications for everyone living in a digital age, where a retreat to medievalism is an impossible task. We are dependent on using our laptops and hand-held devices to look up medieval topics on Wikipedia. It is difficult for us to see ourselves as immoral when every nation’s political structure is dominated by lying, grabbing politicians. It is difficult to create any form of art, without using artificial intelligence as an intermediary. Indeed, in the twenty-first century, it is difficult to find anyone capable of creating great art. People content themselves with the temporal, the mechanical, the pretty, all far removed from genuine beauty.

In The Nature of Gothic, the second chapter in the second volume of Ruskin’s three volume, The Stones of Venice (1851), a work described by Morris as ‘one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of the century’, sought not merely to inspire beautiful buildings, paintings, and crafts, but to transform what Ruskin saw as the inhuman conditions of labour endured by Victorian workers.

Morris produced an 1892 reprint of The Nature of Gothic at his Kelmscott Press. The challenge with the Kelmscott Press, and other similar companies, was that they could only produce works for the affluent minority. They used excessive quantities of hand labour, that were beyond the reach of members of the working class. Thus, the works of the Arts and Crafts movement in terms of wallpapers, textiles, ceramics, furniture, metalwork and glass, were far beyond the reach of the poor. The poor needed the industrial revolution, with mass production and designers eager to produce quality objects for everyone.

Neither Ruskin nor Morris were interested in industrialism. In reflecting on them, I doubt that they were capable of understanding the limitations of craftspersonship, as a challenge to modern industrial practices. Their elitism ensured that handmade products were so expensive that they could never reach the mainstream market.

This limitation was even more evident in of one of the craft experiments with which Ruskin was associated. The Langdale Linen Industry, a revival of Lake District spinning and weaving led by Ruskin devotees, Marian Twelves (ca. 1843 – 1929) and Albert Fleming (? – ?), only ever found a market amongst wealthier buyers. The Linen Industry was loosely connected to Ruskin’s major utopian venture, the Guild of St George, begun in 1871 and conceived as a means to fundamentally challenge the steam-powered dragons of Victorian modernity.

Ruskin hoped that the Guild would attract many adherents or ‘Companions’ and create a series of agricultural and artisanal communities devoted to hand labour, fine products, and the socially transformative effects of non-mechanised land work. Despite Ruskin believing that this work would encourage environmentally sustainable practices, this was not the result. Young idealist agricultural companions found that their efforts were a nightmare of drudgery and neglect. Reasons put forward for these failures include Ruskin’s failing mental health, his inability to organize practical work. Sometimes his failed relationship with Rose La Touche (1848 – 1875) are used to explain it. In the 20th and 21st centuries, emphasis has shifted to Ruskin’s authoritarianism, which compelled practitioners to obey unscrupulous and unsympathetic local agents.

Morris described a fictional utopia in News From Nowhere (serialized 1890, reprinted as a Kelmscott book in 1892). Yes, the book is a contradiction because nowhere is it explained how an authoritarian society can transform itself into a egalitarian society with contented citizens living in harmony in beautiful landscapes, producing beautiful goods and an abundance of necessities. Of course Morris believes this is possible because of his commitment to socialism. Yet, as a writer of fiction, the setting is entirely fictional. He offers no mechanism delineating how a society can transform itself.

If the early twenty-first century offers any guidance, it is that the billionaires, and their multi-millionaire followers, will attempt to extract more from society that it is capable of providing. Today, they pay almost no tax, loan their excessive wealth to governments who cannot function without tax incomes, and receive interest payments for their efforts. The working poor, continue to have a marginal existence, with excessive workloads, paying next to nothing. So, more than one hundred and thirty years after the publication of News from Nowhere, there is no magic formula unlocking a transformational secret.

Except, there are two authors who do offer a vision of the future worth examining. The initial diagram, above, was developed by economist Kate Raworth (1970 – ) in her 2012 Oxfam paper A Safe and Just Space for Humanity. It was further elaborated upon in her 2017 book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. Raworth wants the foundations of economic science, and in particular its emphasis on unfettered growth, to be reconsidered, so that planetary resources can perpetually serve human needs, including quality of life. Instead of economic growth, economics has a duty to ensured that everyone on earth has access to their basic needs, such as adequate food and education. There is also a need to protect future generations by protecting the ecosystem.

As an augment to Raworth’s position, Ingrid Robeyns’ (1972 – ) Limitarianism: The case against extreme wealth (2024), argues that extreme wealth undermines democracy, is incompatible with the earth’s ecological predicament, is almost always undeserved, and harms the interests of everyone including the super-rich. Robeyns proposes that wealth should be capped. While the exact limit is open to discussion, she has proposed €10 M, yet has suggested that €1 or €2 M is probably a more appropriate level. This comes in addition to a poverty threshold.

I can hear the complaints now. How is Christian von Koenigsegg (1972 – ) going to survive if Koenigsegg Automotive AB can’t sell world-class sports cars to the super-wealthy? Perhaps he will have to take a new direction. After all, Koenigsegg got the idea to build his own car after watching the Norwegian stop-motion animated movie The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix in his youth. In Norwegian Flåklypa replaces Pinchcliffe. At 22 years old, Koenigsegg gathered SEK 60M from investors and founded Koenigsegg Automotive in 1994. He could learn to become an animator.

A partial explanation for my interest in Ruskin has to do with Ruskin, British Columbia.

Several places are named after William Morris, including the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, London, and the Morris Room at the Oxford Union. Additionally, the William Morris Society, has its office and museum located at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, where Morris lived from 1879 until his death.

Several places are also named after John Ruskin, including: Ruskin, Florida; Ruskin, Georgia; Ruskin, Minnesota; Ruskin, Nebraska; and, Ruskin, British Columbia. Additionally, there are educational institutions like Ruskin College in Oxford and Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, as well as landmarks such as the Ruskin Museum in Coniston, England.

In British Columbia, Ruskin is a rural community, in Maple Ridge municipality, about 55 km east of Vancouver on the north shore of the Fraser River, adjacent to the Stave River. It was named around 1900 after John Ruskin. Fifty-four members of the Canadian Co-operative Society, formed a sawmill there in 1895 and named it Ruskin Mills. They set up a school, general store, a black smith’s shop, a shoemaker’s shop, a dairy and a vegetable farm.

To operate the sawmill, logs had to be pulled by horses or oxen to Stave River and then floated down to the mill. That was, until 1898, when, due to a rainless summer, the Stave River dried up and logs could not be moved to the mill. Lacking money and facing potential bankruptcy the Society surrendered its assets to E.H. Heaps & Co. who had supplied the machinery for the mill on credit.

I mention this because Trish, my wife, is a great grand daughter of E.H. Heaps (1851 – 1931). Heaps turned the small Ruskin mill into a more modern operation. They started expanding and upgrading the mill. Horse or oxen logging was replaced with steam and railway logging. Heaps built a logging rail line that grew northwest until it reached Dewdney Trunk Road and down a short distance along the east side of Kanaka Creek. This was not the only railway owned by the Heaps family. They also owned one on Narrows Inlet, formerly Narrows Arm, a fjord branching east from Sechelt Inlet.

Across the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) rail track, on the shore of the Fraser River, was Heaps office building that also accommodated a general store and post office as well living quarters for senior staff (read: Heaps family members).

The Heaps mill at Ruskin burned down in the winter of 1904/1905 and was rebuilt, only to burn down again in 1910. Plans to rebuild the mill failed when no money could be raised by the company. There were plans and promises for a new and even larger mill but Heaps’s Ruskin logging and lumber operations went in receivership after the building boom in Vancouver crashed in 1913.

The E.H. Heaps and Co Store and Hotel in Ruskin was built in 1902 that also contained mill offices and a restaurant. It was destroyed by fire in the late 1920s.
Heap’s mill complex in 1912 from the west showing lumber piles and railway access. In the foreground, a roundhouse/ turntable is under construction.

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Before I Die 3

This is the third iteration of Before I Die. The first one was published on 2009-06-14. The second one appeared 3070 days later on 2017-11-09. They are both found in the same post. Now, a third was published yet another 3070 days later on 2026-02-06. It occupies a different post. The span of time, 6140 days, between the first and the third is not quite seventeen years. The fourth version should appear 2034-07-04.

Being 77, I may only have between 5 and 20 years to achieve lifetime goals. I have already begun to get frail and forgetful. Thus my first goal is the same as it was in 2009, to remain content with what I have, and not to seek novelty for its own sake.

Back in 2009 I said I could live with the car I had, then yearned to be unfaithful to her.  At this moment in time I no longer own a car, but am content to use Trish’s Buzz. Later this year I will have to undertake an eye test to see if I am still fit to drive. A more comprehensive medical comes when I turn 80.

Literature

My favourite authors remain, in order: Arthur Ransome (1884 – 1967); Peter Dawlish = James Lennox Kerr (1899 – 1963); Archie Binns (1899 – 1971). All produced books for children. Perhaps I should add, in alphabetical order, other contenders, that wrote books for adults: Donald Barthelme (1931–1989); Victor Canning (1911 – 1986); Erskine Childers (1870 – 1922); Douglas Copeland (1961 – ); Ivan Doig (1939 – 2015); Lawrence Durell (1912 – 1990); Stanley Evans (1931 -); Tony Hillerman (1925 – 2008); Colin Macinnis (1914 – 1976); Haruki Murikami (1949 – ); Annie Proulx (1935 – ); Jean Rhys (1890 – 1979); John Steinbeck (1902 – 1968); Jules Verne (1828 – 1905) and David Young (1958 – ). Not all of these are writers that I have read recently, but they are all found in our library. Previously, I also mentioned scientific writers: William Beebe (1877 – 1962); Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964); Ralph Buchsbaum (1907 – 2002). Here again, I should add some broadly non-fiction authors: Derek Hayes (1947 – ) with his historical atlases and books about British Columbia, Obi Kaufmann (1973 – ) with environmental books about California; Terje Tvedt (1951 – ), with books about water, including the Nile.

Later, in 2026, I am looking forward to acquiring Derek Hayes’ Coastal Connections: A History of British Columbia Ferries and Passenger Ships.

I also mentioned authors of religious books, but will not repeat those here.

Music & Video

Most of the music I listen to these days has its origins with YouTube. Some of it is ancient, such as Hawkwind, a space rock and proto-punk band with its Silver Machine (1972) with dancer Stacia Blake (c1952 – ) making a lasting contribution, along with Lemmy Kilminster (1945 – 2015), notably arrested in 1975-05 at the Canadian border in Windsor, Ontario, on drug possession charges. Then there is Jan Hammer (1948 – ), the Czech-American musician and composer, with his Miami Vice Theme (1984), popular in the Americas, or Crockett’s Theme (1984), more popular in Europe. At one time, the musical group I listened most to, was from Iasi, Romania = Iron Cross band with hard rock and heavy metal covers. Band Members consisted of Andrei Cerbu, Andreea Munteanu, Matei Gasner and George Pintilii.

Tony M2 has had a number of channels on YouTube. It seems that these channels get banned from time to time, and he has to start something new. The latest is called Planet ASA. Of course, I also appreciate Tony Basil (1943 – ) and Hey, Mickey. It originated with a song first recorded in 1979 by the English pop group Racey, titled Kitty.

While I have mentioned it in other posts, I still fondly remember Approaching Nirvana, and the first track I listened to: 2nd Flight (2011). I also appreciate music by Savfk = who creates royalty free music, including Instructions for Living a Life (2021). For additional information about my musical preferences see this post.

If I have to choose a modern musical genre, it is EDM = electronic dance music, and other variants of synthesizer music. Here, I often listen to the music of Stephen McLeod, from Glasgow.

Plants

Currently, I am attempting to restrict my gardening to Lego Botanicals. A Japanese Maple Tree has been purchased for me.

In addition I am attempting to acquire a hornbeam = Carpinus betulus. The most northerly native example of it is approximately 50 km south of us in Levanger. However, there may be cultivated examples further north. Hornbeams yield a very hard timber, giving rise to the name ironwood. The wood can be used to make products where a very tough, hard wood is required.

Travel

No, I will never be as well travelled as my mother, Jennie.

Some of my travel goals involve the Baltic. I would like to visit: Latvia and Lithuania at some point, and Königsberg (also known as Kaliningrad) if it is ever free from Russia. There are two islands in the Baltic I want to visit: Öland (belonging to Sweden) and Rügen (belonging to Germany).

In terms of the Mediterranean, my priorities are Sardinia (already booked at the end of February 2026). In addition I would like to visit the wilderness areas of Albania.

In the summer I would also like to visit more of Ireland (especially County Donegal and the area around Strangford Lough) Scotland (many places) and Canada (Quebec is still on my list, along with Churchill, Manitoba and some other places).

If I was not boycotting the United States, there are many fine areas to visit, including:  Grand Canyon, the Everglades, Florida Keys, Carlsbad Caverns, Yellowstone Park, Four-corners, Maui. I also have biological origins in Schenectady, in upstate New York.

In terms of Ukraine, once the war ends, I would like to visit Odesa = Одеса, which is a sister city with Vancouver. Further east, I would like to visit Kharkiv = Харків to meet members of the 225th Separate Assault Regiment = 225 Окремий штурмовий полк. In addition there is the longest trolleybus route in the world, the Crimean Trolleybus Line, which stretches 86 kilometers from Simferopol = Сімферополь to Yalta = Ялта. This route, built in 1959, offers scenic views as it travels through the Crimean mountains and along the Black Sea coast.

Languages

I have decided that I do not need to learn major languages. I am fluent in English and Norwegian. I can read Danish and can understand Swedish. When it comes to Duolingo, I use it for Scottish Gaelic – mostly. This is the language spoken in the Highlands and the Hebrides. With a trip to Milan and Sardinia planned for the end of February, I am currently using Duolingo to learn some Italian.

In addition, I am learning another Scottish language Norn, or more accurately Nynorn = New Norn, a modern variant. Norn was previously used on the Shetlands and on the Orkneys, as well as mainland Scottish locations near Caithness. It is a Norwegian variant.

In terms of my ethnicity, other languages that I should consider learning include Sardinian and Mohawk. Other languages that hold appeal are Finnish and Ukrainian.

Workshop

My workshop is in the process of being transformed into a playshop. My priority is to improve my mechatronic skills: computer aided design, basic metalworking, programming, microelectronics. As I wrote previously, “my secret goal is to combine craftsmanship, video, embedded electronics and 3D production to create an educational environment that promotes a better understanding of sustainability.” I have the same goal today, but with more time and money to achieve it.

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Cookies

An edible cookie Photo: Vyshnavi Bisani, 2020-08-18 (Unsplash).

“What is a cookie?” was a surprising question, because the person asking it makes most of the cookies I eat. Because of that I realized almost immediately, that the question referred to cookies commonly found on computers. I also realized that this could be an interesting topic for a weblog post. Why? because in my opinion, people do not take enough time to understand the implications of what they are doing when they are engaging the Internet with their computers.

When a web browser, such as Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Edge or Mozilla’s Firefox connects with a website, that site typically transfers a data packet to the web browser. That packet is referred to as a cookie, sometimes with HTTP = Hypertext Transfer Protocol, as an adjective. This protocol is the foundation for data communication on the World Wide Web, an information system that enables content sharing over the Internet by users who are not computer specialists. Hypertext documents typically include hyperlinks to other resources that the user can easily access, for example by a mouse click or by tapping a screen. Cookies provide a unique identifier, and information about the visitor to the website. The information may include: website visits; activities performed, including pages viewed, links clicked, items added to a shopping cart; preferences such as language and currency as well as login information, including username and password.

Cookies allows websites to recognize specific computers and retrieve stored information about that computer’s user.

Here’s a simplified breakdown of the process:

  1. When visiting a website, a browser sends a request to the website’s server for the page you want to view.
  2. The website’s server includes a Set-Cookie header in its response, which instructs the browser to store the cookie.
  3. The HTTP cookie is saved in a dedicated cookie file on the browser’s computer.
  4. When a site is revisited, the browser sends the cookie back to the server in its Cookie header.
  5. The server retrieves the information stored in the HTTP cookie and uses it to personalize the browsing experience.

People like me, don’t want random websites to store information about them. They especially don’t want hackers and criminals (potential or real) to have that information. There are websites where I have an account, where I am willing for information to be stored when I undertake a transaction. The last time I did this was when I logged onto Entur, a site that allows the purchase of Norwegian train tickets.

Cookies can be irritating. EU regulations require every website to obtain user permission before installing tracking cookies. I have the I don’t care about cookies app installed on my Firefox browser. This extension automatically repeatedly gives permission, removes cookie warnings from almost all websites and saves thousands of unnecessary clicks! Normally, it blocks/ hides cookie related pop-ups, automatically accept the cookie policy. It does not delete cookies.

Corporations typically and perpetually emphasize the benefits of cookies for users. These are minimal, but can in limited ways can personalize browsing experience to emphasize individual preferences and interests, remember login information, shopping cart contents and other preferences. Most of the benefits accrue to website owners and can be regarded as user hinders. Information about user behavior most often results in an attempt to oversell, disguised as improving website design and content. They also use cookies to reduce their costs. By storing information locally on users’ computers, cookies reduce the load on web servers. Thus, users are paying for increases in speed and efficiency.

Some of the worst characteristics of cookies has to do with users intrusion. They track online behavior across multiple websites, potentially creating a detailed profile of browsing habits. They store personal information, raising concerns about data security misuse.

There are different types of cookies: 1) Persistent cookies are stored on your computer for a predetermined period, and are unaffected by the closing of a browser. However, they do have an expiration date, which determines how long they remain on a computer. This ranges from days to years. They are typically used for authentication and tracking; 2) session cookies are temporary. They are deleted when the browser is closed. These ensure that the website remembers actions when a person navigates from page to page. They are also used to remembering the items added to a shopping cart. 3) First-party cookies are set by the website being visited. ing directly. These cookies are generally considered safe, they offer a) an enhanced browsing experience, enabling shopping cart, user account, and personalized content features. They can also set user preferences for language, location or a specific theme. These cookies remember choices. 4) Third-party cookies are set by domains other than the website you’re visiting. They should be avoided. Some browsers, including Safari and Firefox, block them by default. This is one reason I use Firefox as my standard web browser. 5) Supercookies = Zombie cookies, are persistent tracking cookies stored outside of a browser’s usual cookie storage location. They can be difficult to remove and often reappear even after they have been deleted. This is because they’re often stored in multiple locations. Supercookies raise significant privacy concerns.

Web browser’s settings can be used to control cookies. Most browsers offer these options: 1) Block all cookies: This setting prevents all websites from storing cookies on a computer. This is often a too severe option. 2) Block third-party cookies: This is usually a better choice, preventing tracking cookies from being stored, while still allowing first-party cookies. 3) Delete cookies: This option can a) Deletes all cookies, b) Delete cookies from specific websites or c) Delete specific types of cookies. It can also be used to delete cookies automatically when a browser is closed.

Most browsers provide a cookie manager, allowing a person to view and manage the cookies stored on a computer. Details about each cookie are provided, including its name, domain, expiration date and the data it contains. Cookies typically encrypt login credentials, which only the originating website can decode.

Here’s how to find the cookie settings in some popular browsers: Chrome: Settings > Privacy and security > Cookies and other site data; Firefox: Settings > Privacy & Security > Cookies and Site Data; Edge: Settings > Cookies and site permissions > Manage and delete cookies and site data; Safari: Safari > Preferences > Privacy.

In countries where privacy is at risk, it can be useful to install an alternative browser, such as Brave, Librewolf or Tor. These are free and open-source web browsers. Brave is based on the Chromium web browser. Librewolf and Tor are both based on Firefox. All three browsers offer the most privacy protection compared to other browsers.

Chromium is not the same as Chrome. It is a free and open-source web browser project, primarily developed and maintained by Google. It is a widely-used codebase, providing the vast majority of code for Google Chrome and many other browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, and Opera. The code is also used by several app frameworks.

Reviews of Brave praised the browser’s speed, privacy aspects and built-in ad blocking, as well as potential reduced battery usage. A 2021 research study analyzing the data reported by browsers to their back-end servers by Douglas J. Leith of the University of Dublin reported that Brave had the highest level of privacy. Brave is the only mainstream browser to pass the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cover Your Tracks test.

Tor is a free overlay network = a logical network built on on top of a physical) network, that enables anonymous communication. Built on free and open-source software with seven thousand + volunteer-operated relays worldwide. Users typically have their Internet traffic randomly routed through the network. This makes it difficult to trace a user’s Internet activity, by preventing any point on the Internet, (except a user’s device) from being able to view both where traffic originated from and where it is ultimately going. This effectively exacerbates network surveillance. These are available for Windows, Linux, Apple and Android devices.

Cookie management summary: Install I Don’t Care about Cookies; block third-party cookies; Deleting cookies periodically to protect privacy by removing tracking data. Use private browsing mode to prevent a browser from storing cookies, history, and other browsing data. Avoid virtual private networks (VPNs). encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through a server in a different location, making it harder for websites to track your activity and identify your location.

While readers have to be free to make their own decisions. Mozilla Firefox is my standard web browser. In addition, I have Google Chromium, should Firefox fail. I also have Brave, if increased scrutiny is required. These browsers are all available for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems. So that I have them on my hand-held device, laptop computer and floortop computer (This new 37 litre machine, replaced my 0.5 litre desktop computer in late 2025). Most of the time, I only use Firefox, on my laptop as well as my floortop machine. I very seldom use a web browser with my hand-held device. That is because, use of a web browser encourages use of a keyboard, which functions best when a person can touch type. Touch typing is the one skill that I learned in my early teenage years, that has been most useful, and well worth the investment in time to learn. Yes, for almost forty years I have heard that touch typing will soon be out of date. I doubt it will be obsolete before the end of my life.

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Challenger Deep

Challenger Deep (CD) is the deepest known point in the Earth’s seabed hydrosphere. It is located in the Marianna Trench, in the Federated States of Micronesia. The depression is named after the British Royal Navy survey ships HMS Challenger (1858 – 1980), the fifth of eight ships with that name, whose expedition of 1872–1876 first located the Deep, and HMS Challenger II (1932 – 1954), whose expedition of 1950–1952 established its record-setting depth, 10 935 m below the surface. Its coordinates are at 11°22′ N 142°35′ E.

CD is a slot-shaped valley in the floor of Mariana Trench, with depths exceeding 10 850 meters. It consists of three basins, each 6 to 10 km long and 2 km wide. They are separated by mounds between the basins 200 to 300 m higher. The three basins extend about 48 km west to east if measured at the 10 650 m isobath.

The first descent by any vehicle was conducted by the United States Navy using the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960-01-23 crewed by Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard (1922 – 2008) and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh (1931 – 2023). The Trieste is currently preserved as an exhibit in the National Museum of the United States Navy in Washington, D.C. It was decommissioned in 1966 after its deep-sea explorations.

The only bathyscaphe I have seen in person is the Trieste II, a vessel designed modified by the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California and built at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, located on Mare Island, a peninsula part of the city of Vallejo, on San Pablo Bay in San Francisco Bay, California. It incorporated the original Terni, Italian-built sphere used in Trieste. This sphere was suspended from a new, more seaworthy and streamlined float, operating on the same principles. It was completed in 1964, then placed on board USNS Francis X. McGraw (T-AK241) and shipped, via the Panama Canal, to Boston.

Trieste II conducted dives in the vicinity of the loss site of USS Thresher (SSN-593), lost on 1963-04-10, during deep-diving tests about 350 km east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, killing everyone on board. This lead to the implementation of a rigorous submarine safety program = SUBSAFE. Wreckage from the Thresher was found.

Between 1965-09 and 1966-05, Trieste II underwent extensive modification and conversion at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. A third reconfiguration followed resulting in the installation of a new pressure sphere, designed for operation to 6,100 m depth. She was then used as a test vehicle for the deep submergence. This resulted in the design and construction of other deep-diving submersibles which could be used in rescuing crews and recovering objects from submarines in distress below levels reachable by conventional methods.

The Trieste II was listed as equipment in the Navy inventory until 1969-09-01, when it was placed in service, with the hull number X-1. She was reclassified as a deep submergence vehicle (DSV) on 1971-06-01. The Trieste class DSV were replaced by the Alvin class DSV: more capable, more maneuverable and less fragile. After that the Trieste II was preserved as a museum ship at the Naval Undersea Museum, Keyport, Washington.

Pressure Drop

The most extensive sonar mapping of CD was undertaken by the DSSV (deep submersible support vessel) Pressure Drop, a 68.3-metre former US Navy ship. Refitted to accommodate 47 people – including 19 crew and 12 technical specialists. In previous lives it was USNS Indomitable (T-AGOS-7), a United States Navy Stalwart-class ocean surveillance ship in service from 1985 to 2002. From 2003 until 2014, she was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the oceanographic research ship NOAAS McArthur II (R 330). It was then sold to Victor Vescovo’s (1966 – ) company Caladan Oceanic.

Vescovo graduated with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University, followed by a M.S. in Defense and Arms Control Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Inkfish purchased the DSSV Pressure Drop in 2022 and the crewed Deep Submersible Vehicle (DSV) Limiting Factor and was part of a package for marine research purposes. Inkfish was founded by Gabe Newell (1962 – ), a video-game developer who co-founded Valve and the digital distribution service Steam. Inkfish is a global philanthropic organization focused on marine research and innovation, known for its advanced research vessels and commitment to developing new technologies for scientific exploration. Limiting Factor has been renamed Bakunawa. The name refers to the Philippine moon dragon or moon-eating dragon, a serpent that looks like a Dragon, in Philippine mythology. It was given the designation Triton 36000/2 by its manufacturer Triton Submarines, located in Sebastian, Florida, USA.

A Norwegian Kongsberg SIMRAD EM124 multibeam echosounder system, was used to show the bottom of Challenger Deep comprised three ‘pools’ – Western, Central and Eastern.

In 2012, James Cameron became the first person to solo dive that point. Piccard, Walsh and Cameron remained the only people to reach the Challenger Deep until 2019, when regular dives in DSV Limiting Factor began. To date, 19 of the 22 successful descents have been made in the DSV Limiting Factor. No other craft has made a repeat descent. To date, there have been 27 people who have descended to the CD, the last on 2022-07-12.

My interest in deep dives began by reading about William Beebe (1877-1962). Beebe was an American naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer and writer. He conducted numerous expeditions for the New York Zoological Society, such as the Arcturus mission (a six-month-long research expedition in 1925 from New York to the Sargasso Sea, Cocos Island and the Galápagos Islands). He undertook deep dives in the Bathysphere, a spherical deep-sea submersible lowered into the ocean on a cable. It was used to conduct a series of dives off Nonsuch, Bermuda from 1930 to 1934. The Bathysphere was designed in 1928 and 1929 by the American engineer Otis Barton (1899 – 1992), to be used by Beebe to study undersea wildlife. Beebe and Barton conducted dives in the Bathysphere together, marking the first time that a marine biologist observed deep-sea animals in their native environment. Many of the descents made by Beebe and Barton in the Bathysphere were described by Beebe in his book, Half-Mile Down (1934). I frequently borrowed this book from New Westminster Public Library. Currently, I have an e-book edition of this book.

The bathysphere had a number of limitations. Thus, the next step was to produce a vehicle that offered independent movement. The first undertaking were made by Jacques Piccard’s, father Auguste (1884 – 1962).

Context: The father was a physicist and professor of meteorology, who first experimented with balloons. In 1931 he and Paul Kipfer (1885 – 1975) used a balloon launched in Augsburg, Germany to reach a height of 15 781 m to measure cosmic radiation. In 1932 Piccard and Belgian Max Cosyns (1906 – 1998) reached 16 940 m, starting off from Dübendorf, Switzerland. The older Piccard completed 27 balloon expeditions, ultimately reaching a height of 23 000 m. The balloon used was the FNRS 1, named after Belgian Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, the funding organization for the venture.

After World War II Auguste Piccard, used his experience to explore the ocean depths. In 1937 he designed the FNRS 2, built in Belgium between 1946 and 1948. It was damaged during 1948 trials in the Cape Verde Islands. It was then substantially rebuilt and greatly improved. The vessel was renamed FNRS 3 and carried out a series of descents including one to 4 000 m into the Atlantic off Dakar, Senegal, in 1954.

An improved bathyscaphe, the Trieste, was designed by Auguste Piccard and built by the Italian shipyards Acciaierie Terni and Cantieri Riuniti dell’Adriatico. It was launched in 1953, and dived to 3 150 metres that year. In 1958, the Trieste was acquired by the United States Navy, taken to California, and equipped with a new cabin designed to enable it to reach the seabed of the great oceanic trenches.

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Rush

A German postcard of Yale, British Columbia from 1910, with a dredger in the foreground.

In the course of this post’s first five minutes of existence, it had been given four titles, not all of which were written down immediately. The first, Finding Australia, was based on an opinion post by Julianne Schultz, While Trump is moving fast and breaking things, Americans wanting to escape should come to Australia.

I realized that this was analogous to the situation my maternal grandparents found themselves in, living in Gateshead, in northern England, at a time when there wasn’t even northern soul to comfort them. Their then youngest daughter, Margaret, had died of tuberculosis in 1908, and my grandmother, born Jane Briggs (1880 – 1972) was determined to leave England. They escaped to the wild west of British Columbia, first Steveston then Kelowna. Both my aunt Mollie (1906 – 2010) and my mother, Jennie (1916 – 2021) had tuberculosis, and both were sterilized, which is the main reason why I was adopted and became a McLellan.

This situation encouraged me to reflect on other forms of escape more generally and the attraction of gold rushes, specifically. So the second title was, Finding your gold rush. It was then modified to Finding your personal gold rush, before it ended up as Rush.

Long after I had started writing this post I discovered that Jane’s husband, my maternal grandfather, Harry Andison (1878 – 1947), had lived in Yale, British Columbia. It was at the southern boundary of the Fraser Canyon gold rush (1858 – 1927). Before I knew this fact, I had regularly stopped at Yale when opportunity presented itself. It was the one location on the upper Fraser River = north of Hope, population 6 686 in 2021, a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers, that had appealed as a place to live. It was serene, and seemed to have a more moderate temperature than Lytton, Lillooet or even Quesnel.

Lynne Brown (ca. 1952 – ), in Whoever Gives Us Bread: The Story of Italians in British Columbia (2013), notes: The title of “the largest town west of Chicago and north of San Francisco” moved in rapid succession from Yale to Lillooet, and then to Barkerville. Yes, these former boom-towns became bust-towns. Less polite comments include epithets such as: the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia and a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah of vice, violence and lawlessness.

The disadvantage of a lake, and other varieties of stagnant water, is that they attract mosquitos, while swiftly flowing rivers do not. Mosquito bites always caused a severe reaction in me, so I have always chosen places to live that are relatively free of mosquitos. This is why I live close to salt water, and definitely not near a lake! For those interested, Iceland is the only European country without mosquitos.

I remember driving my mother, Jennie (1916 – 2021), from New Westminster to Kamloops, on some unremembered date. We stopped for coffee at Ashcroft on the Thompson River. She confided in me, that this was where she had always wanted to live. The population of Kelowna in 1920, a couple of years after her family moved there, was about 1 500. The population of Ashcroft in 2011 was 1 628. This helped me understand its appeal. I think the reason she never moved either to Ashcroft or to Kelowna, as a widow, was that she felt the need to live close to a near relative = my sister, Mychael, her choice of name, but adopted and named Morva Alison, born Maureen MacCormack. They lived less than 800 meters from each other, for almost 30 years, excluding the 19 years she lived with my parents as a child.

Rush has a lot of different meanings, so it gives a lot of scope for individual attention. A dictionary can help people examine how the word is used. Yes, it can be a noun or an adjective. Of course it can also be a verb, with and without an object. Many of the definitions refer to a sudden escape to something, or a release of emotion.

The wild west of the Pacific Northwest, of which British Columbia is a part, is exemplified in two complementory works. The first, chronologically is Edmund Naughton’s (1926 – 2013) western novel, McCabe (1959). After more than 50 years, I found an e-book version of the book on 2025-12-17, hidden behind an inaccurate title, Strike from the Sky, but with Naughton listed as the author rather than Alexander McKee (1918 – 1992). I had originally learned that Odhams Press had published Naughton’s McCabe with McKee’s Strike from the Sky and James Mitchell’s (1926 – 2002) Steady Boys Steady (1960). There was even a used copy available from Yare Books in Great Yarmouth, England for £21.77 plus £33.13 in postage = £54.84 equivalent to NOK 746.88 = USD 75.

Edmund Naughton

Until now, my familiarity with McCabe is related to the second work, Robert Altman’s (1925 – 2006) film McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), my favourite western film. Altman is generally appreciated for his western revisionism. Yes, one is entitled to ask just how much of this approach is derived from Naughton’s work? Brad Bigelow (1967 – ), a self described champion of neglected books, contends that McCabe follows the classic western formula, at least superficially: stranger comes to town, settles in, the town adjusts to him. Then circumstances change and the former stranger is forced to decide whether to run or stand his ground. It is reminiscent of Fred Zinnemann’s (1907 – 1997) High Noon (1952).

With the publication of McCabe seven years after the film High Noon (1952), it is appropriate to ask if Naughton is looking back or forward? Is he anticipating western and other film trends that came in the next 10-15 years, or looking back at older films and, to a lesser extent, novels. Naughton’s protagonist, John McCabe, is an anti-hero like John Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s (1923 – 1999 ) Catch 22 (1961).

In Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents, a 2002 documentary based in part on a lengthy 1952 letter from screenwriter Carl Foreman (1914 – 1984) to film critic Bosley Crowther (1905–1981). It appears that Foreman’s role in the creation and production of High Noon has been unfairly downplayed. The film originated from a four-page plot outline Foreman wrote that turned out to be very similar to The Tin Star (1947) a short story written by John W. Cunningham (1915 – 2002). Foreman purchased the film rights to Cunningham’s story and wrote the screenplay. Unfortunately, the documentary vilifies High Noon‘s director, Stanley Kramer (1913 – 2001), rather than providing insights into the creative process used in producing High Noon.

Westerns, novels or films, demand a deeper understanding of violence. I lack this, but gained some basic understandings in order to appreciate McCabe’s dead-eye shot, the adaptation of his Colt revolver to fire without a trigger. Unfortunately, my mind refuses to live in the past. It goes forward to the Rust (2021) film project at Bonanza Creek, New Mexico, which resulted in the death of Halyna Anatoliivna Hutchins, née Androsovych (1979 – 2021), a Ukrainian cinematographer. I see parallels. McCabe has killed one man, and in his mind this can be attributed to an accident. McCabe lived his earlier life mostly as a traveling gambler. He reminds himself that he was chased off a riverboat as a greenhorn amateur. At times he lacks the ethical values of the time. Unlike the other Euro-Americans, he tries to be fair to everyone, including Chinese and Indians (yes, the First Nation people rather than people from the Asian subcontinent) in the little mining town of Presbyterian Church where he decides to set up a saloon and, later, a whorehouse. I am uncertain if McCabe’s vocabulary allowed him to use other, potentially more polite, terms for such an establishment: House of assignation, brothel, bordello and bawdy house, may not have been available to him.

In English, there is an expression: calling a spade a spade. The idiom originates in the classical Greek of Plutarch’s (46 – 119) Apophthegmata Laconica (c 100), and was introduced into the English language in 1542 in Nicolas Udall’s (1504 – 1556) translation, incorporating some of the work of Erasmus (1466 – 1536) including the replacement of Plutarch’s images of “trough” and “fig” with the more familiar garden tool.

I had wondered if spade originated with a card suite. Their symbolic representations, colours, French names and English names are: ♣ often black, sometimes green, blue or pink = trèfles = clubs; ♦ often red, but sometimes orange, yellow or blue = carreaux = diamonds; ♥ most often red, but sometimes yellow = cœurs = hearts; ♠ most often black, sometimes green or blue = piques = spades. I was wrong.

McCabe is set in the Puget Sound area of Washington State in 1908. My grandfather arrived in British Columbia in 1910. As a cattle buyer, he was armed. Was he part of the wild west? I have no definitive answer, but tend towards a yes. When I think of westerns, I only have vague ideas of place and time. How far west is the west? Where does the west stop? What is further west than the west? Sometimes I think of the time period 1870 – 1900. However, one of my first exposures to Westerns involved the Roy Rogers show, which is set in the 1950s. I know this because Pat Brady drives what looks like a military jeep. I have written about Roy Rogers before. My other reference point for westerns is Have Gun – Will Travel, a radio and television series from 1957 through 1963, with Richard Boone (1917 – 1981) as Paladin, a gentleman gunfighter for hire. The name originates from the name of a group of twelve knights in Charlemagne’s (748 – 814) court. However, paladin has come to refer to any chivalrous hero.

I would like to update some information about Dale Evans (1912–2001). An 8 minute YouTube video discusses 5 men she allegedly disliked/hated, for various reasons, although the common thread seems to be masculine intoxication. It is claimed that she carried wounds that never healed. The allegation is that the men she disliked most were: Roy Rogers (1911 – 1998), John Wayne = Marion Robert Morrison (1907 – 1979), Clark Gable (1901–1960), Gene Autrey (1907–1998) and Bob Hope (1903–2003). That said, the truthiness of YouTube videos can always be discussed.

McCabe is far ahead of his time in his attitude towards women — or at least towards Mrs. Miller, who arrives and takes over the job of running McCabe’s second business. Though the two are partners in business and, fairly regularly, in bed, McCabe understands that he cannot take their relationship for granted.

McCabe was sensitive about being noticed in her room. He took care, though, to be discreet, and to attend to business. There were nights when he didn’t want to visit. Those were the nights when he knew she would be smoking, naked on the bed, with the wicks down in the kerosene lamps. If he came, she would look at him with eyes like violet stones in cold water — as if he were to blame for the man she had sold herself to that evening.

McCabe also exhibits a degree of emotional intelligence that’s still pretty rare in most male characters. He struggles with Mrs. Miller’s dispassionate approach to their nights together. Though frustrated that she quickly sees that he is close to illiterate and far less trustworthy with figures, he wishes they could share more than just a physical intimacy: “All my life I been walking around with a block of ice inside me, Constance, and I don’t hardly get the sawdust brushed off before you got me back in the icehouse.”

Naughton’s view of good and evil is a far cry from High Noon, too. McCabe is a gambler, a schemer, a coward and, when pressed, a killer. Rev. Elliott, who has erected the church that gives Presbyterian Church its name, is bitter, bigoted and anti-social: he would prefer that the rest of the town disappeared. When gunmen arrive to face off with McCabe, they are like Trump, transactional. They are present as representatives (some would say stooges) of a distant corporation, carrying out a simple business transaction: Snake River Mining Company can’t afford you: can’t afford a man it can’t buy out. Know that? Never tolerate that. Can afford Sheehan, damned fop they sent to you last week: margin of corruption it allows for in its budget. Company calculated the cost of Presbyterian Church; who collects doesn’t matter. More corrupt people are, easier they can be controlled; company can always send them to jail when they get to be a nuisance.

… At any rate, McCabe, they can’t afford you around. Bad example. Pile all these mountains on you, if they have to; so people thereabouts will believe it, if they deny you ever existed.

Naughton may have been the only writer of westerns to have learned more from George Orwell (1903 – 1950) than Zane Grey (1872 – 1939) — although Brad Bigwell tells us that one English reviewer cited a different influence, dismissing the book as the “Latest example of the neo-Freudian [from the work of Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)] intellectual death-wishful Westerns.” Suffice it to say that McCabe merits more than just footnote status in reference to a much better known movie. It’s original, innovative, and as gripping as any thriller. As that one reviewer put it, “You don’t have to like westerns to like this one.”

Notes

Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo (100 bpm and above).

Perhaps the best known northern soul track is Tainted Love, composed by Ed Cobb (1938 – 1999), originally recorded by Gloria Jones (1945 – ) in 1964. It attained worldwide fame after being reworked by British synth-pop duo Soft Cell with vocalist Marc Almond (1957 – ) and instrumentalist David Ball (1959 – ) for their album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981). The main synth used in Soft Cell’s Tainted Love was the Korg Maxi-Korg 800DV, along with a Synclavier for additional sounds. The bassline was played on a Korg SB-100 Synthe-Bass.

Then there is Mod = modernist = someone who listens to modern jazz. It started as a London based 1950s working class subculture with a focus on music and fashion. In terms of transport, mode rode motor scooters, usually Lambrettas or Vespas. To understand mods, I recommend the London trilogy novels by Colin MacInnis (1914 – 1976): City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959) and Mr Love & Justice (1960). The first book uses spade in a different context than that previously mentioned, because it is about the adventures of Johnny Fortune, a recently arrived Nigerian immigrant, and the emergent black culture in London in the late 1950s. The middle book in particular, is about mods, specifically. In addition there is Richard Weight (1970 – ) Mod: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement (2013). MOD = Ministry of Defense, which may be the reason why the British roundel is used as a symbol for the subculture version of mod.

In my world, modern jazz is exemplified by Herbie Hancock (1940 – ), Chic Corea (1941 – 2021) and Norwegian Nils Petter Mohr (1960 – ). Then there are the old timers: Scott Joplan (1868 – 1917), Bix Beiderbecke (1903 – 1931), Billy Holiday (1915 – 1959), Ella Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996), Dizzy Gillespie (1917 – 1993), Art Blakey (1919 – 1990), Dave Brubeck (1920 – 2012), Sarah Vaughan (1924 – 1990), John Coltrane (1926 – 1967) and Miles Davis (1926 – 1991). Maybe Isaak Hayes (1942 – 2008) should also be included somewhere. I would also like to mention that for many years when my family stayed at a cabin at Blind Bay on Shuswap Lake, the only music I was willing to listen to was Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin (1898 – 1957).

Rockers were the alternative subculture to the mods. To understand them, one must realize the position motorcycling held during the post-world war II period. Initially, it held a prestigious position and was positively associated with wealth and glamour. However, starting in the 1950s, the working class were able to buy inexpensive cars, so motorcycles became transport for the poor. These motorcycles were transformed into cafe racers, which were used to intimidate others (mods!) and project masculinity. In terms of clothing they wore leather motorcycle jackets, no or a classic open-face helmet, aviator goggles and white silk scarves. Also popular were T-shirts, leather caps, jeans and engineer or motorcycle boots. These boots were laceless so they would not interfere with motorcycle drive belts, with well insulated shafts and almost full lower leg protection in case of an accident. Yes, I went through a phase myself where I wore engineer boots. Today, almost all of my footwear are Allbirds.

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Teenage Engineering OP-XY alternatives

This photo comes as click bait for an Apollo Hanzo video. No, the woman does not appear in the video.

At a visual aesthetic level, I am attracted to many Teenage Engineering products, including the OP-XY, described by one fanchild as: sleek, smart and sophisticated, the most complete, portable sequencer ever built. Yes, if my life depended on it, I probably could afford the NOK 25 000 = US$ 2 500 price tag, but I won’t. Why? Because my GAS = Gear Acquisition Syndrome for musical equipment, is running close to empty.

I allowed myself to watch/ listen to the same Apollo Hanzo video shown in the above photo. The video was published 2024-11-20. The woman does not appear in the video, she is simply click bait. I am surprised by the wide-eyed appearance of the woman, the upper-case adjective ONLY followed by an outrageous price, as well as the use of phenomenal and !, possibly referring to the synth. Lots of synths can do the same thing as an OP-XY, that cost only a fraction of the price, or are available without charge = free, if one is willing to use a software synth.

I had originally written about this Swedish company in a post five years ago. The OP-XY is an updated version of the OP-1. I have checked the Norwegian market, using Finn for used equipment and Evenstad for new products. On 2025-10-19, I found a used OP-XY for sale for NOK 19 000. On 2025-11-30, I was unable to find a used one, but the price of a new one was NOK 23 690. However, a substantially inferior OP-Z can be purchased used for NOK 3 500, and a slightly inferior OP-1 for NOK 15 000.

Another choice is to begin with a Tracktion Engine, an open-source audio engine, that offers standard capabilities like recording, editing and mixing. The hardware platform is based on the Raspberry PI, a popular single-board computer design. On top of this construction, one builds a LMN-3 DAW = Digital Audio Workstation. Together these become a DIY alternative to the Teenage Engineering OP-1, since it’s designed to be an all-in-one portable solution for music making. The price will be closer to 10% of the OP-1.

When it comes to synths, the easiest choice for most musicians is just to use Apple equipment, such as a M4 Mac Mini, and equip it with a software synth. However, Apple lost me as a customer in the previous millennium, when their Performa 5200 failed to work adequately. Microsoft and Windows have also failed to capture me as a client. People may be surprised, but since the late 1980s to almost 2000, Apple wasn’t in contention. It was the Atari 520 ST, a competitor to the Amiga. The reason was simple. It came equipped with a Musical Instrument Digital Interface = MIDI port. As 2025 turns into 2026, digital audio workstations (DAWs) can deliver hundreds of audio tracks, versatile effect plug-ins, and incredibly flexible editing tools for free. Today, the main challenge is the price of random access memory (RAM). I am using an Asus AiO (All-in-One) machine as a DAW.

I already have a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6, that provides 6 channels = 4 analog in/out, 2 digital in/out, 2 headphone out and MIDI in/out. In terms of a microphone, I have Rode NT1, which should be adequate for vocals. All of this equipment is being moved slowly down to the playshop.

Roland Corporation, founded in 1972 by Ikutaro Kakehashi (1930 – 2017) in Osaka, Japan, has been a pioneer in the electronic music industry. The company is renowned for its innovative synthesizers and electronic instruments that have shaped various music genres. Roland synthesizers are known for their innovative sound design capabilities and versatility. In 1972 it released the TR-77, TR-33, and TR-55 drum machines. This was followed in 1973 with the SH-1000, Japan’s first compact synthesizer.

Of course, I already have a synth, a Behringer MS-1 = Roland SH-101 clone, which I have written about in a previous post. The SH-101 was an analog synthesizer manufactured between 1982 and 1986. It was a commercial failure during the time of its manufacture, but later became a staple of electronic music in the 1990s, particularly for house music. Since I have not mastered it, I have no need for any other synth. However, to allow multiple people to work with synths, here is my short list of synth purchases, all Behringer products. Prices at Evenstad Music in Norway on 2026-01-09 are given. Divide by 10 for American dollar prices. In declining price order = but in intended purchase order, these are: a TD-3 bass line synthesizer Modded Out (NOK 1 940) = clone of the Roland TB‑303 Bassline from 1981; a Wasp = clone of Electronic Dream Plant (EDP) from 1978 (NOK 1 718); a RD-6 drum machine = clone of the Roland TR-606 Drumatix from 1981 (NOK 1 448). The RD-6 and TD-3 provide electronic drum and bass sidemen, allowing for a one-man band.

If one is addicted to Teenage Engineering there are nine Pocket Operators. In general these cost about NOK 1 000 each. Together, that is still a lot of money. These are: PO-12 Rhythm – a basic drum machine with 16 sounds and 16 effects; PO-14 Sub – a bass synthesizer with 15 sounds that also includes a micro drum machine with 16 parts; PO-16 Factory – a melodic lead synthesizer with 15 lead sounds and (like the PO-14) a micro drum machine with 16 sounds; PO-20 Arcade – a Chiptune groovebox, with 16 drum and melodic parts based on sounds from old arcade machines. It has a chord mode, with 16 different chords able to be chained together like patterns; PO-24 Office – a groovebox inspired by vintage office equipment. It combines both real samples of office hardware and original synthesizer engines. It has a solo function, which mutes all other parts for the duration of a 16 step pattern. It also includes a step multiplier which acts like a stutter effect, repeating the note; PO-28 Robot – a lead synthesizer based on 8-bit sounds. It features 15 different lead synthesizer engines and a 16-part micro drum machine. It can be played live by using the buttons as a keyboard but also features a sequencer. The Robot has a glide function that can add portamento between notes or function as vibrato; PO-32 Tonic – a drum machine based on the MicroTonic VST plugin made in collaboration with Magnus Lidström (? – ). It has control over each part’s pitch and morph (blend between two sounds); PO-33 K.O! – a sampler, where samples can be recorded through line in or microphone and sorted into one of eight melodic tracks or one of eight drum tracks. Melodic tracks are capable of playing chromatically while drum tracks are played as hits; PO-35 Speak – a speech synthesizer, with 16 tracks, of which #1 – #15 use the speech synthesis engine and #16 uses a monophonic 16 part version of the PO-32’s sound engine. Sounds are used in the PO-35 by recording through the microphone or line-in. The PO-35 has a total of 120 seconds of recording memory: Eight seconds per slot. There are eight voices to choose from for the speech engine: Natural, Autotune, Retro, Noise, Robot, Fifth, Vocoder and Synth.

An updated version of the PO-33 is the EP-133 K.O II sampler offers: 9 projects each with 80 000 notes; projects contain 4 groups each with 99 patterns; patterns have 12 tracks for samples and MIDI; song mode for chaining scenes into 99 positions; resampling for patterns and sounds; variable pattern length per group (1 to 99 bars); 16 mono / 12 stereo voice polyphony; use groups to mix and match patterns on the fly; record 12 fader assignments simultaneously; sequence in free time or quantized with swing•flexible and dynamic midi functionality. Any pad can be assigned to a MIDI channel; loop mode from OB-4 with length and slide; 12 pressure and velocity sensitive pads; hands-free sampling key combination; instantaneous time correction and erase; slice samples live or automatically; note-triggered sidechain for groove control•stereo / mono sampling at 46.875 kHz / 16-bit: punch-in fx 2.0 (pressure sensitive); instant commit to quickly construct beats; 32-bit float signal chain, 24-bit ADC / DAC, and more.

Another approach is to buy a ASM = Ashun Sound Machine Hydrasynth. This costs about NOK 17 000, for a version with a keyboard or a sequencer. I would prefer not to spend so much money. Thus, an alternative is to opt for a Behringer Deepmind 12, which would cost under NOK 10 000. Before the pandemic, these machines cost about half their current price.

A fourth approach, and one with increasing appeal, is to buy used Behringer equipment that fits into Euroracks. These racks can also be bought used, or made in the household playshop.

Late in November I discovered by accident that there was a black friday sale going on at the online bookstore I most frequently use. Among the items purchased was a book by Oli Freke, Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital (and Back) (2020). This provides an overview of almost all commercially available synths mainly from about 1970 to 1995. It even mentions pre-modern equipment, such as the 1759 Clavecin électrique, which automatically rang church bells. Some later equipment up to 1998 is also mentioned.

Note: this post was written as a reaction to the woman appearing in a Apollo Hanzo video thumbnail. Yes, thumbnail is the official YouTube term!

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Cyprical Actions

Sometimes titles do not accurately reflect a topic being discussed. Initially, I thought this post would just be about air-fryers. However, this post evolved, and has more to do with some aspects of the infrastructure of our house = Fjellheim (unique official name in Inderøy municipality, from a time before numbers and street names were used) = mountain home (translation) = Vangshylla 82 (current official street name and number, followed on the next line with our postal code 7670, then Inderøy. Outside of Norway, we add Norway on yet another line) = Cliff Cottage (our unofficial English language name for the house).

We are not the only creatures living at Cliff Cottage. We have squirrels (currently 3), titmice, magpies and several other species of birds. Below is a photo of an underground entrance belonging to another resident, most likely a badger, although we have not seen it for several years. New entrances are found periodically.

Many people, especially those who know me, will be surprised that I possess culinary skills. These are activated about once a week, often on a Wednesday, when I take responsibility for making dinner. On 2025-12-03, at 13:00, I took responsibility for making fish & chips, one of my standard meals. I was going to use an air-fryer for the first time.

What seems normal, even logical, in a kitchen does not always feel that way for me. I made notes for the future. Including, that next time I should have the two buckets stop cooking at the same time. Thus, I thought I should probably include more detailed instructions putting all of the steps in sequence. Thus, I told myself to insert the buckets before heating. I followed this up by writing, that I should outsert those buckets after the meal is cooked, but before the next step, serving the dinner. I thought outsert was a better word than remove.

For me, the use of re is problematic. In letters, it seems to preface the letter body, and seems to mean: in the matter of or concerning. I am told it originates from Latin. It seems redundant. Another usage of the term, appears to be again, as in reheat. It has been in the English language since 1727. Thus, if one is going to place something into position, I am content to use the term insert. If the opposite is being considered, then outsert seems the logical choice.

Redundant is not another use of re. It comes from the Latin redundāns, present participle of redundō (to overflow, redound), from red- (again, back) + undō (to surge, flood), from unda (a wave).

I appreciate words being balanced. For example, using the same verb but with different prefixes or suffixes. In the above example, other choices could have been to plug in/ in plug/ inplug the buckets before heating, and to plug out/ out plug/ outplug them after the meal is cooked.

After eating this meal, I decided that I should follow this internal pondering with a weblog post. The next challenge came almost immediately. Half of me wanted to write the post title as: Reciprocal Actions. Except, when I said that first word aloud, it turned out to be reciprical. Another percentage of me felt that there should be no re. Thus, I decided to write it ciprical, rather than ciprocal. Cyprocal refers to a syrup that contains cyproheptadine, which is an antihistamine used to block the action of histamine in the body. It is commonly used to control allergies and stimulate appetite.

Yes, I have spelling challenges, which is why I appreciate text processors making wavy red lines under words they regard as misspelled. Their built-in spelling checkers, even provide sugestions for spelling wurds corectly, if one follows them. However, I am also a person who believes that sugestion is the operative wurd in the above sentence. If I don’t feel like spelling wurds corectly, I won’t follow the sugestion. This may explain why I encounter more wavy red lines than most people.

There are great linguists among us, who can provide some enlightenment. Bugs Bunny is one of them. The Tasmanian Devil is fast on the trail of Marvin the Martian. Bugs pulls Marvin aside by the scruff of his neck. The dialogue is as follows: What’s up, Doc? You’s gotta unlax. … It’s only a cartoon. A furry bunny hand reaches outside of the TV and punches pause stopping the Tasmanian Devil in his tracks, allowing Bugs and Marvin to converse.

I try to follow the advice of Bugs. Should lax = engage in some activity, and unlax = rest. No, Bugs has it wrong. In Latin, laxus = lax means loose, wide, spacious or relaxed. It can also refer to something that is not tight or firm. So to engage in something should actually be to unlax, while to rest should be to lax. So even the experts can get things wrong. Rather than saying that I am going to demolish, unbuild or unmake something. I use the word pair construct and destruct. The first from Latin cōnstrūctus, from cōnstruō (“to heap together”), from com- (“together”) + struō (“I heap up, pile”). Destruction is from the Old French destrucion, from the Latin dēstructiō, dēstructiōnem.

Air-fryers

Yes, I took the above photo of symbols are on our Philips air-fryer, with my hands and pink phone case clearly visible. The symbols are as follows: On the left, there is an on-off switch, with increase and decrease controls for temperature. On the right, there is a temporary start-stop switch, with increase and decrease controls for time. At the top are ingredient symbols, allowing for an automatic temperature and time setting. The ingredients from left to right are: frozen fries, fresh fries, chops and steaks, chicken, fish, vegetables, cakes, reheat. In the middle row one sees the values for basket 1 (left): shake, temperature, time; On/ off status to have both baskets finish at the same time; values for basket 2 (right): temperature, time and shake; To the left, in the centre, and to the right, bucket symbols refers to the basket(s) being controlled: 1, 1 & 2 or 2. To the left of the 1 & 2 bucket control, there is a button to control having both buckets finish at the same time. To the right of the 1 & 2 bucket control, there is a button to pause the cooking process mid-way to allow the bucket contents to be turned or shaken.

Some Cyprical Actions involve Circuits

Introductory comment: Bureaucracy in Norway can be frustrating, but it differs from that in other countries. For example, while a building permit is needed to construct a house, there are no permits needed to make most modifications. For example, some years ago now, I decided to extend a walkway on the upper floor of our house, so that if people needed to escape the kitchen, say from a fire, they could climb through the windows ending up on the walkway about 70 cm (28″) below. Before the walkway was built the distance was about 3m (10 feet). I did not apply for any permit to do this work, but at some point someone from the municipality noticed the change, and updated the official house plans to incorporate this change.

Plumbers and electricians are allowed to undertake changes without any municipal paperwork. Every 20 years, we have our electrical circuits inspected. If there are code violations, then we have to use a licensed electrician to correct those. During the last inspection, it was noted that some rooms contained a mixture of grounded and ungrounded sockets. This was in clear violation of newer regulations. All of the sockets in a room have to be one or the other, but not both. I quickly changed most of the sockets myself, then contacted our electricity provider to change the one remaining ungrounded socket in each room to grounded, five in total. All of these contacts have worked without any problems for the past fifteen years.

All of the boxes associated with electrical circuits in our house are marked with a device type – circuit number – device number. Device type codes are A = appliance; J = junction box; P = power outlet; S = switch. The circuit number is from 01 to 14. For each device type, on each circuit, the boxes are numbered starting at 1, for the one closest to the circuit breaker box. There are no regulations enforcing this coding. This is just an activity I like to do.

All of the power outlets inside and outside the house are now grounded. Unofficially, these are a type F socket, patented in Germany in 1929, gaining international use in 1951. Officially, they are referred to internationally as a CEE 7/3 socket, associated with a matching Schuko = Schutzkontakt, Protective contact CEE 7/4 plug. CEE is an abbreviation of Commission for Conformity Testing of Electrical Equipment. It is undertaken by the Commission de l’Électrotechnique Internationale = the International Electrotechnical Commission. These sockets can accept devices with up to 16 A of power. Ungrounded sockets are restricted to 2.5 A. These are referred to as type C (on the diagram below) but often have a more squished (a rounded rectangle rather than circular) appearance.

Most Norwegian houses have their electrical power cables dimensioned to use up to 63 A at a nominal 240 V. The actual voltage in Norway, like the rest of Europe, is 230 V with a frequency of 50 Hz. That involves three x 16mm2 cables into the house, coloured brown, black and grey to the circuit breaker box. After that, single phase wiring is brown (line) and blue (neutral). Grounding is yellow and green.

North Americans will see some similarity with their circuit breaker boxes, but European boxes are offset 90°. American colours are black, red, and blue are used for phases in 120/208V systems; brown, orange and yellow for 277/480V systems. They also use white or grey for neutral lines,

While we have 3-phase circuitry into the house, our circuits are not grounded with external wiring. This is referred to as an IT network layout, and is very common in Norway, but uncommon in the rest of Europe. I have asked our electrical provider when a fully grounded system will be installed, and was told, not before 2050. That means that we have to provide our own grounding, which I have done! It involves providing grounding circuitry from the circuit breaker box, with a cable that leads to a 2.5 meter long stake, located in wet soil. From inside the circuit breaker box everything is grounded.

Political digression: One has to remember that before oil was discovered in the North Sea, Norway was one of the poorest countries in Europe. Everything had to be done as cheaply as possible, and that meant installing three electrical cables instead of four. This cheapness also meant that our roads were narrower than in most other countries. This means that Norwegians have to drive more defensively than many others. The benefit is that Norway ranks 6th best in the world in terms of motor-vehicle related deaths at 2.14/ 100 000 people/ year. Countries that are better are: 1 Monaco (0), 2 Hong Kong (1.3), 3 Maldives (1.6), 4 Japan (2.1) tied with Singapore (2.1). Other values are: 32 Canada (5.3), 111 USA (14.2). The global average is 15.

In the circuit breaker box, the first device encountered is a 63 A power = amperage overload limiter, followed by a voltage overload limiter. The second one is most often used to prevent damage from lightning. Beyond these devices, we have 14 circuits, providing us with up to 15 kW of power. Three of these are 3-phase circuits, while the remainder are single-phase. The largest of these 3-phase circuits provides up to 32 A of charging for our electric vehicle. The other two provide 20 A of power for general heating in the attic ( for a currently uninstalled heat exchanger), and for use in the playshop = workshop (previous use) = garage (original use). The remainder of the circuits are 1-phase (pronounced single phase) with anywhere from 15 to 20 A, each. At one time we had a mix of 10 A and 16 A 1-phase circuits, but all of the 10 A ones were replaced.

In Norway, we are encouraged to disconnect the electrical power supply to devices with heating elements. No, not the induction stove top or oven, that are both fused with circuit breakers. These are on two separate circuits: A-01-01 provides single phase, 20 A of power to the stove top, while A-06-01 provides single phase 06 – 15 A, slow fuse = circuit breaker reaction, respectively.

The rest of the kitchen uses circuit 12 – single phase, 16 A, fast reaction. This includes the lighting. The main light is controlled by S-12-01, in addition to two counter top lighting units that are controlled with other switches S-12-02 and S-12-03. Then there are six sets of power outlets. Four of them have two plugs: S-12-01, S-12-02, S-12-03 and S-12-06. The remaining two have four plugs: S-12-04 and S-12-05. Other places in the house have outlets with six plugs.

Air (Vacuum) and Water

These are not the only items marked in this way. The central vacuum has two plugs, marked V-01 (downstairs, closest to the vacuum unit) and V-02 (upstairs, or the main floor).

Then there is the water supply. I believe Norway is unique in the world, mandating pipe in pipe connections. An inner pipe provides the water, while an outer pipe ensures that if there is a leak, that the water will flow to a place where it will not cause damage. Our cold water pipes are marked C followed by a circuit number, while the hot water pipes are marked H, again followed by a circuit number.

I have considered marking the waste water with a W, followed by a number, but this has not been implemented – yet.

Ethernet

We also have Ethernet wiring throughout the house. We have a 48 port switch with a Power-over-Ethernet (POE) system to pass electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling to ports. All of the Ethernet ports have PoE apart from the port to the play shop, which is connected with fibre-optic cable, because of the potential for lightning damage. Currently, 19 Ethernet ports are in use, of which six are access points (AP) for wireless communications. Four of these are in the house, two on each floor. There is also another AP in the play shop, and a final AP in the carport, which serves most of the outside area. Most of the other ports service a pair of connectors. However, the port that leads to the play shop is attached to a switch with 24 ports. The switch on my desk has five ports.

Our doorbell is aIso connected to the Ethernet, so we can see what is happening at the door, by connecting our devices (phones, computers) using the APs.

A Realink doorbell (black) and chime (white) using the POE Ethernet system for power and communication. The chime is activated through an AP.

In addition, there are three additional places in the house that need to have Ethernet cables installed. Once that work is finished each port will be numbered, starting with E.

From Workshop to Playshop

Slowly, my facade is cracking. At 77, I am no longer in my prime. Thus, I decided that it was time to stop working in my retirement construction job, and to take on lighter tasks. The workshop, that supported this construction work, has had most of its specialist woodworking tools removed. They have been given to a young (63) neighbour. Hopefully, he will let me use them in an emergency. Otherwise they are his to do what he wants with them. I had also purchased a CNC = computer numerical control machine. It was never used, so Alasdair had taken it over.

I now have a playshop, that will support my hobbies. These involve: airbrush painting, electronics and synthesizers. However, the playshop is a topic for a future weblog post.