The long-time promised severance of radio and TV transmissions from UK’s National Broadcaster (BBC) has been followed by a similar withdrawal of transmissions by ALL their competitive commercial TV stations.

No doubt the latter will not advise their sponsors that they can reduce their respective monetary contributions, as some 3 to 4 million (Western EU from Sweden down to Gibraltar) viewers or maybe purchasers are no more! Such folk being not solely British-born spend some or all of their lives on the European Continent.

Do you not agree that the sea gull situation is quite serious? I do not believe a day does not go by without my clearing up “bombings” either on our apartment balconies and/or windows. This year for the first time since 2007 we have a nest, and related “Youngster Droppings” on the terrace, plus very aggressive attacks from either Mum or Dad gull. Very intimidating!

A short poem...

Having battened down the hatches and over indulged on sumptuous food during Christmas I was definitely in need of exercise and fresh air. Luckily the wind and rain disappeared and Boxing Day arrived in glorious sunshine.  By eleven o’clock I was taking advantage of the beautiful weather and enjoying the majestic vistas offered from the top of the Pentyr.
I’d climbed easily enough up the hillside to the summit and was soon standing in a thin layer of snow looking west down the valley to the mirror splendour of Llangors Lake, and upwards to the snow line stretching across towards Brecon.

Katie Melua told the world that there were 9 million bicycles in Beijing. Interesting enough information, I suppose, but not really earth shattering particularly when compared to Amsterdam,  a city with a population of one twentieth of the Chinese capital, and yet still managing to accommodate 900,000 bikes.
Amsterdammers love their hometown and love their bikes.  This is very obvious to all visitors. This Dutch love affair does however take some getting used to.    In order to preserve life and limb, visitors have rapidly to adjust to the finer points of mass transportation in and around the city centre.

I’m off cars. I mean really off cars! After 12 trips to Faro Airport over the summer, with the associated trials and tribulations of the driving on the N125, I had reached the end of my tether.  I had seen enough of the “white shirted Roundabout Rozers” to last a lifetime. How they can justify bringing Lagoa to a thirty minute crawl every day is beyond me. Then, on my last homeward journey, I holed out just before the Almancil bypass. 

The last couple of years have been coloured by regular comments and articles on all news channels and newspapers about the economic problems facing the world.  What this commentary has boiled down to is principally the need to reduce particular countries annual deficits and thereby reduce the ever increasing overall amount of debt countries have been and are accumulating.

August. The "silly season", and just when you thought that it could not get much sillier, it did. A fracking awful month for shale gas exploration and a summer of discontent for Milipede the Younger. 

Gibraltar rocks and the UK sends a very large gunboat. Bongo drums beat for Nigel Farridge. Charity begins at home - at least for the Chief Executives of some of them. Attempts are made to derail HS2, it`s game, sett and match for poor old Brock and as Paul Revere once famously did not say "The British are not coming".

It's taken me three weeks to completely adjust to the "Ohreallies," the "Oversized", and of course the "Awesomes" that inhabit this brilliantly unique segment of the planet. Then last week the basic building blocks of Californian society, flower power and freedom of expression, were put on full display.

On Wednesday afternoon the US Supreme Court, before recessing for the summer vacation, handed down two judgements of critical importance to the citizens of San Fran.