Still flying - for now

Red Arrows flew past yesterday. Very basic fly past , not perhaps as people were expecting from the Herald story, but see them they did.

They were impressive as always at the Dawlish air day, and of course we are fortunate to see so much of them when they stay over at Exeter Airport, so it was a particular concern to hear that their future is not assured subject to the government's defence review.

One hopes that the case for retaining the team is pretty strong. The Hawk jets are the principal RAF advanced jet trainer, so they might be considered to form a pinnacle of the training process. And of course their roles in creating aspiration amongst the young and maintaining a sense of patriotic pride in the not so young are significant if not easily quantified.

But we live in austere times. Plus , the cost of Trident , our membership subscription for being America's 'junior partner' may be shifted onto an already stretched defence budget. So perhaps the Arrows will be seen as an expendable frippery.

It may be that the threat is a posturing part of the underlying interdepartmental argument over responsibility for Trident. We shall see. Even as a non militaristic person , I feel we would be the poorer without them.

Off the ground, but not yet flying.

After many false starts and with a history longer than I care to admit, here is my first self published effort. I'm not certain why it's finally happening at this point and even less sure of why it's taken so long, though procrastination and excessive analysis are rolling over the horizon.


Barack Obama deserves some credit. An inspirational figure who hopefully will not be too far deflected by realpolitic , and who certainly does not deserve the opprobrium and abuse hurled by the intellectually short changed stooges of the 'divine right to rule' parties, his Dreams From My Father has more than any previous gripping read pushed me to just get on with it.


We should all grow up with dreams and with no sense of limitation on what we might achieve or might be able to influence. I can't say why I didn't grow up with dreams as such which were achievable and of value. I had ambitions which I don't have now, and which I would not expect to have if I had my childhood again. In many ways they are symbolic of old norms which represent the antithesis of values I now hold. The dreams I might have as a child now were then things that other people did. And possibly, even when I have been confident of my ability to follow through an idea or plan, there has been some fatalistic vestige of those negatives that may have contributed to lack of completion. Yet I certainly would not have considered myself disadvantaged. Nor would it be fair to blame anyone else.


Regardless of whether anyone else reads this , it will be fascinating to be able to remind myself of my evolving thought processes from this point on.