And so to bed..

Some more of my favourite quotes, as posted on Facebook to end the day, now with added pictures.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Lemony Snicket:

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Bamigboye Olurotimi:

If where we are now and whatever we are going through does not motivate us to leave this world better than the way we met it, we are in this world for wrong reasons.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Carl Sagan:

For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads, ‘We came in peace for all Mankind.’ As the United States was dropping seven and a half megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Danny Castillones Sillada:

The graveyard is not the final resting place of our dear departed but an ephemeral repository of their remains. The real graveyard, however, is somewhere deep in our heart, where we can always visit them at any time of the day, talk about some unforgettable summers, or cry in solitude as if they were always there for us to stay.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from A.A. Milne:

“How does one become a butterfly?' Pooh asked pensively.

'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar,' Piglet replied.

'You mean to die?' asked Pooh.

'Yes and no,' he answered. 'What looks like you will die, but what's really you will live on.”

They Paved Paradise

They Paved Paradise

"Isn't it time us TAX PAYING people had a say in all of this and how about the controlling powers that be in charge of st ouens and st brelades also took heed from what the real people of this island. Open up the islands beauty spots for all to enjoy and get yer heads outa the dark ages jersey" (Facebook)

My correspondent Adam Gardiner commented on the irony of this post about the mobile homes which congregate in St Ouen’s Bay:

‘Open up the islands beauty spots for all to enjoy’. In the context of allowing mobile homes to congregating at Le Port in St. Ouen’s Bay we produce exact the opposite...an eyesore.

In the words of folk songstress Joni Mitchell:

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

And he’s quite right, although this is nothing new. As Julie Buckley, writing in the Independent notes, this is a well-known phenomenon:

It’s called the Butler Model (named after Professor Richard W Butler): a tourist destination is “discovered”, grows exponentially and reaches peak success. For most places, though, it’s all downhill from there – beaches are overcrowded, queues are long and badly behaved tourists ruin the atmosphere that their predecessors came for. 

That goes right back to the 1980s when Richard Butler published his seminal paper.

Butler, R.W. (1980). The concept of a tourist area cycle of evolution: implications for management of resources. Canadian Geographer, 24, pp. 5-12.

In this he started a discussion about tourism carrying capacity and sustainability. He saw that tourism attractions are fragile and need to be carefully managed so that they are not allowed to exceed their capacity limits.

As he wrote:

“"Visitors will come to an area in small numbers initially, restricted by lack of access, facilities, and local knowledge. As facilities are provided and awareness grows, visitor numbers will increase. With marketing, information dissemination, and further facility provision, the area’s popularity will grow rapidly.”

He also noted that there were limits – “identified in terms of environmental factors (e.g. land scarcity, water quality, air quality), of physical plant (e.g. transportation, accommodation, other services), or of social factors (e.g. crowding, resentment by the local population)”

It is the crowding aspect and a realisation that it must be dealt with which is now taxing the Constable of St Peter. In this case, he observes that an area may become a “tourism slum”.

But it should be noted, as the JEP report outlines, that he is hoping a “Softly Softly” approach will work best:

The Constable of St Peter, Richard Vibert, says while he does not want to entirely ban people from the area on the coastal strip, the parish wants to find a solution that allows Islanders to enjoy the bay and also protects the environment.

‘There can be 60 vehicles in the area at the weekend and that is creating a safety problem, as it is becoming too crowded,’ he said. ‘The majority of people are acting responsibly but there is a minority who are giving us issues. There are families with mobile homes who go down there to sleep over and they are being disturbed by people drinking and playing loud music in the night.

Because so many people are now using the area, he added, they were spreading into neighbouring duneland which was not only a Site of Special Interest but also in the Coastal National Park. Campfires were being lit, which could endanger rare plants and wildlife, while the dunes were also being used as a toilet by some people.

So much for paradise...

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

References
https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2018/08/04/st-ouens-bay-camp-is-too-big-says-constable/

My Political Heroes: Clement Attlee

My Political Heroes: Clement Attlee

Of all the Prime Ministers whom I most admire, one is a Tory (before the party was reformed as the Conservative Party), and one is Liberal, and one is Labour. The Tory is Sir Robert Peel, the Liberal is David Lloyd-George, and the Labour Prime Minister is Clement Attlee.

So I have, I suppose, a cross section across the political spectrum, but all three, in their own ways, helped the common people. Of those, the most influential has to be Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister who presided over the government which laid the foundations of the welfare state.

I have been reading “Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee” by John Bew, which was a winner of the Orwell Prize.

It confirms and increases my admiration for a man whom I have always regarded as a political hero of mine. Knowing more about him makes me admire him even more.

One thing that Rachel Reeves notes in an article is that:

“Clement Attlee was a romantic before he was a politician. He spent his years at public school immersed in Tennyson and Browning. At University College, Oxford, he admits to being distracted from his studies by 'poetry and history', becoming especially enchanted by the Pre-Raphaelites. He showed little interest in political or social issues; his default allegiance was Tory but he was too shy to get involved in the debates at the Union.”

In his book “The Social Worker”, 1920, Attlee tells the story of a small boy he met in the street. 'We walked along together', Attlee recounts. 'Where are you off to?' says he. 'I'm going home to tea', said I. 'Oh, I'm going home to see if there is any tea', was his reply.

'It is as well to keep clearly in mind', Attlee observed, 'if you are one of those whom meal-times come with almost monotonous regularity, that to others there is the question always present: Where is tomorrow's dinner to come from?'.

It was this romantic aspect of Attlee – which he called “sentiment”, and what we may perhaps call “fellow feeling” – which he thought was at least as important as statistics, which was where he diverged from some of the drier, more intellectual socialists such as the Fabian Society. This was perhaps something he had in common with J.B. Priestley, another socialist who did not fit the mould.

And nowhere is this more apparent that in this poem by Attlee called “Limehouse”.

Limehouse

In Limehouse, in Limehouse, before the break of day,
I hear the feet of many men who go upon their way,
Who wander through the City,
The grey and cruel City,
Through streets that have no pity
The streets where men decay.

In Limehouse, in Limehouse, by night as well as day,
I hear the feet of children who go to work or play,
Of children born of sorrow,
The workers of tomorrow
How shall they work tomorrow
Who get no bread today?.

In Limehouse, in Limehouse, today and every day
I see the weary mothers who sweat their souls away:
Poor, tired mothers, trying
To hush the feeble crying
Of little babies dying
For want of bread today.

In Limehouse, in Limehouse, I’m dreaming of the day
When evil time shall perish and be driven clean away,
When father, child and mother
Shall live and love each other,
And brother help his brother
In happy work and play.

Motivational Speech of the Wrong Kind

I was appalled to read on Facebook in one of the local politics groups, the above text:

"Farming is in crisis if we can't get people to come and work on he farms. But don't worry. Senator Gorst says the Kenyans want to come with their long history of drunken violence and fighting with machetes and this article states that they can also get people to come from Rwanda with their long history of genocide. All without work permits. What could possibly go wrong"

This is by Mark Baker, the "motivational speaker" who recently had a piece in the JEP. I include the screenshot as proof of the posting.

He was I think rightly taken to task by Rachel:

"What? To characterise 2 nations of 60 million as drunken machete wielders or participants in genocide is disgusting, inappropriate, and plainly wrong. Characterise the Germans or Serbs the same?

How about slurring all Jersey people as Nazi collaborators and child abusers"




His defense:

"I don't use hate speech I just speak the truth. Last I heard it wasnt a crime. I'm entitled to raise issues and question things that I believe will and can hurt our island. And to be quite honest it's a good job someone does because it's not something our government has a habit of doing. It's so sad that some people are prepared to go to such lengths in the absence of being able to hold an intelligent debate about such important issues that will ultimately affect each and every one of us. ..... Even those in denial"

That such a crass generalisation about the people in Kenya and Rwanda should be taken as truth is simply not good enough.

If he is going to brand all Kenyans as drunks with homicidal tendencies and machetes, let's have some evidence.

If he's going to brand all  Rwandans as genocidal maniacs (and doesn't he know that many  Rwandans are people who originally fled in the Rwandan genocixde and not those doing killing?), let's have some proof?

This kind of generalisation is of the juvenile level of the Gem and Magnet, two magazines for boys which were very popular but dealt in stereotypes. Writing in his piece "Boy's Weeklies", Orwell comments that:

Naturally the politics of the Gem and Magnet are Conservative, but in a completely pre-1914 style, with no Fascist tinge. In reality their basic political assumptions are two: nothing ever changes, and foreigners are funny. In the Gem of 1939 Frenchmen are still Froggies and Italians are still Dagoes. Mossoo, the French master at Greyfriars, is the usual comic-paper Frog, with pointed beard, pegtop trousers, etc. Inky, the Indian boy, though a rajah, and therefore possessing snob-appeal, is also the comic babu of the Punch tradition.

The assumption all along is not only that foreigners are comics who are put there for us to laugh at, but that they can be classified in much the same way as insects. That is why in all boys' papers, not only the Gem and Magnet, a Chinese is invariably portrayed with a pigtail. It is the thing you recognize him by, like the Frenchman's beard or the Italian's barrel-organ.

In papers of this kind it occasionally happens that when the setting of a story is in a foreign country some attempt is made to describe the natives as individual human beings, but as a rule it is assumed that foreigners of any one race are all alike and will conform more or less exactly to the following patterns:

Frenchman: Excitable. Wears beard, gesticulates wildly.
Spaniard, Mexican, etc.: Sinister, treacherous.
Arab, Afghan, etc.: Sinister, treacherous.
Chinese: Sinister, treacherous. Wears pigtail.
Italian: Excitable. Grinds barrel-organ or carries stiletto.
Swede, Dane, etc.: Kind-hearted, stupid.
Negro: Comic, very faithful.

When Orwell brands this kind of thinking that "as a rule it is assumed that foreigners of any one race are all alike", he has more or less also summed up Mark Baker's generalisations, except that they are not done for comic effect, while his import demonstrates only what in my opinion is a nasty and unpleasant kind of bigotry. Mr Baker's version of Orwell's summary of the Boys Weeklies would be:

Kenyan: drunken machete wielder, violent
Rwandan: genocidal maniac

Do we really want this kind of "motivational speech"?

Boris and the Burqa

Part of the problem with Boris Johnson is, and has always been, his style of presentation. It’s as if he forgets he is an MP or former foreign Secretary, and thinks he is still a contestant on “Have I Got News for You”.

And his aim is very blunt, like firing off a cannon, hoping to strike a target, rather than the more careful shot of a telescopic rifle, which would enable him to hit his target with precision.

His target is the burqa, which as we all know, has been used as an instrument of oppression against women in a number of States, not least under the evil regime of the Taliban in Afganistan. And his criticism – it makes women “look like letter boxes”. It would be funny if it wasn’t so atrocious.

One of the most intelligent responses came from Baroness Sayeeda Warsi:

“Johnson’s words have once again validated the view of those that ‘other’ Muslims. They send out a message that Muslim women are fair game. “What starts as useful targets for ‘colourful political language’ and the odd bit of toxic campaigning ends up in attacks on our streets.“Muslim women should not be a useful political battleground for Old Etonians.”

Ironically, the point of his piece which was you shouldn't ban the burka, the niqab or the hijab!

What is worse is not just that the burka, and the hijab, have been used as instruments of oppression, it is that a whole education of women teaches them to accept that wearing it and being submissive before men, and that it inflames men’s desires.

So while it is fine to say “"I believe women should be able to choose how they dress.", that is a luxury which can only be said in a liberal western democracy.

As Mona Eltahawy notes:

“If a woman had a right to wear a miniskirt, surely I had the right to choose my headscarf. My choice was a sign of independence of mind. Surely, to choose to wear what I wanted was an assertion of my feminism. I was a feminist, wasn't I?

But I was to learn that choosing to wear the hijab is much easier than choosing to take it off. And that lesson was an important reminder of how truly "free" choice is.”

Rafia Zakaria, reviewing, “The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran” by Masih Alinejad notes the limits of that freedom in modern Iran:

A plump cleric shakes a fist at her and yells, “Cover your hair, or I’ll punch you out of here,” when he sees a tiny bit of hair escaping from her hijab. We should all know what happens next. Alinejad, ever the reactionary, yells back: “All this fuss about two strands of hair. You should be ashamed of yourself.” The ensuing altercation has to be broken up by others. “I’m going to teach you a lesson,” the cleric says as he walks away.

And she calls for defiance, where defiance can be a dangerous thing:

It is while abroad that she founds the Facebook page “My Stealthy Freedom,” which encourages women to photograph themselves without their hijabs. The page, soon followed by hundreds of thousands of women, ignites a protest against compulsory headscarves.

Rafia coments that:

“The Wind in My Hair” exposes just how vexing it is to disentangle the veil from the context in which it is worn and thus to wage a transnational fight either for its permissibility or its elimination. 

Let us not forget that December 2017, Iranian state media labeled UN ambassador Karen Pierce’s appearance ‘inappropriate’ while women’s rights activists celebrate pictures without compulsory hijab. As the Indepenent notes:

Ms Pierce is seen arriving for a meeting with foreign minister Javid Zarif with a scarf around her shoulders rather than over her head.

Mr Zarif greets the other members of the British party with a handshake, but instead of reaching for Ms Pierce’s hand instead points towards the ceiling with both hands, a gesture state news reported as the diplomat telling the visiting dignitary to pull the scarf up over her hair.

Mahsi Alinejad commented that:

“I was bombarded with comments from ordinary people who was shocked that how humiliating that a high representative of Iran [was] acting like the morality police. One of the women wrote to me that Zarif’s humiliating gesture is familiar to millions of Iranian women who are told every day to improve their [appearance], sometimes with fake smiles, sometimes using violence,”

And the Independent notes that:

“The hjiab has been compulsory in Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Women face significant cultural and legal discrimination in the country.”

But in the aftermath of the furore of Boris Johnson, muddling the waters so much, who will take up their fight?

Nemesis

The poem today looks at disasters through the prism of the Greek gods and Greek mythology, but not to consider the natural disasters as the actions of the gods, but to see reflected in the actions of the gods, how they dealt with hubris, an arrogance that sees the progress of mankind as ever onwards and upwards, and a neglect of the natural world, pillaging it for minerals, polluting it, and acting as the catalyst for climate change, while often in denial.

Nemesis

Earthquakes: the planet groans in pain

Houses fall, people scream in fear

Mankind humbled, not to be so vain

Poseidon reaching out so near

Wildfires: the planet burns in rage

Buildings burn, people flee the flame

Mankind humbled, not so wise and sage

Hephaestus hammer strikes its aim

Drought: the planet bare of rain

Crops fail, people struggle to survive

Mankind humbled: not so great a reign

Demeter’s sorrows come alive

Those who despise the gods, tempt fate

Nemesis is coming, and the hour is late

This is Jersey - 1979 - Part 4

From 1979 comes this holiday guide - "This is Jersey". This is a flat brochure which is larger that the later glossy designs, and it doesn't have nearly as many pages - 16 double sided in all, including front and back covers.

It does provide a very interesting snapshot of the tourism scene in 1979, just as it was more or less at its peak, just before Bergerac launched, and before the package tour market and cheap holiday destinations abroad made Jersey's prices suddenly more expensive and the bottom fell out of the market.

Tourism is today rebuilding a new approach geared to the lifestyle of the modern tourist. It still has plenty to offer, but the old style of tourism probably won't sell today. But here's a chance to capture that flavour.




The guide mentions:

ZOOLOGICAL PARK, Augres - Specializing in animals threatened with extinction in the wild state.

The zoo guide of the time shows cheetah and snow leopards . They look very similar. The photo shows a cheetah.

Being unsure, I cheated! I posted the photo on Facebook, and quite amazingly, I was not only told that it was definitely a cheetah but noted the Zoo connection: "Cheetah. Nothing like a snow leopard! Looks like Jersey zoo some years back."

My research uncovered these notes:

"There were two adjacent cheetah pens adjacent to the road. Their original female was called 'Paula' and was handtame. She may have been kept elsewhere in the zoo originally. I think they later got a male from (probably) Whipsnade but there was no breeding."

"A new and improved exhibit for the bears and the new otters and coatis meant that the cheetahs had to move. The zoo also saw the threat to the species had reduced. They were moved onto another zoo before work on the exhibit started in 1996."

"Conditions for the snow leopard were no longer suitable at Jersey, as the cats required more area and more resources than the trust had to spare. The pair were moved onto another zoo which met the requirements in 1996."

The guide mentions:

GERMAN MILITARY UNDERGROUND HOSPITAL, St. Peter's Valley. Tunnelled out of solid rock by Russian slave labour during the 1940-45 occupation of the Island. Excellent wartime museum.

I

In July 1946, the States of Jersey opened the tunnels to the public. In 1961, the Royal Court ruled that the subterranean complex belonged to the private owners of the land above it, and Ho8 fell under private ownership. The complex was restored, with a collection of Occupation memorabilia and a museum and memorial to the occupation being set up. In 2001, a permanent exhibit called "Captive Island" was unveiled in the tunnel complex, detailing everyday life for civilians in Jersey before, during and after the occupation of Jersey.

Extensive work was done to the visitor area by 1999, where Jersey attractions list:

The German Underground Hospital and adjacent Sanctuary Visitor Centre and Restaurant are at Meadowbank, Les Charrieres Malorey, St Lawrence, JE3 1FU and are open daily from mid-March until early-November from 9:30 am (with last admission at 4:15 pm) and from mid-November to mid-December on Thursday and Sunday afternoons.

Today, Ho8 is generally referred to as the "Jersey War Tunnels".

And so to bed...

A collection of my Facebook "and so to bed" quotes which I sign off each night on, largely on the subject of summer and August.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Moonshine Noire: 

It was one of those sweltering summer days in which the air itself seems to decline as a haze suffocates the outside world. It is painfully bright whether you are looking up at that ball of burning hydrogen or down at its vivid reflection on sheer pavement. 

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Christina Rossetti:

In the parching August wind,
Cornfields bow the head,
Sheltered in round valley depths,
On low hills outspread. 

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from John Noble Wilford: 

Mars tugs at the human imagination like no other planet. With a force mightier than gravity, it attracts the eye to the shimmering red presence in the clear night sky. 

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Arinn Dembo:

The whole district lay panting in the heat, the burning sky clapped tight overhead like the lid of a tandoor oven. Lean goats stumbled down the narrow alleyways, udders hanging slack and dry beneath them; beggars cried for water in every village... A single stream crept along the valley floor, shrunken and muddy, and women stood ankle deep in its shallows, beating their laundry against rocks that rippled and danced in the sun. 

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Cecil Day-Lewis: 

In June we picked the clover,
And sea-shells in July:
There was no silence at the door,
No word from the sky.

A hand came out of August
And flicked his life away:
We had not time to bargain, mope,
Moralize, or pray.

Radio Reviews: Master of the Mint and Festival

Radio Review

Drama: Master of the Mint

By David Ashton. The creator of the Victorian detective series, McLevy, returns with a new hero in the unlikely guise of the 17th century scientific genius, Isaac Newton. After 30 years as a Cambridge academic, Newton takes up a new post at the Royal Mint in the Tower of London. Soon he's diving into notorious drinking dens and interrogating prisoners in jail in pursuit of a counterfeiting gang. But can he catch the ringleaders before their criminal plans trigger a huge financial crash that threatens to topple the Government.

After nearly 30 years of academic life at Cambridge, Newton became Warden of the Royal Mint. He was soon in charge of the colossal task of re-casting all of England's currency - almost seven million pounds - and took a hands-on approach to the interrogation of suspected counterfeiters held in Newgate prison.

This was an extremely enjoyable romp through part of Newtons’s fight against the counterfeiters. There’s a large degree of poetic licence – his speech is peppered with allusions to his work in physics, and it fails to mention his tussle with William Challoner.

That was the story told in the book of the week “Newton And The Counterfeiter”, Thomas Levenson's biography of Isaac Newton and his rivalry with one of 17th-century London's most accomplished and daring criminals, William Chaloner.

Chaloner claimed to be able to know about counterfeiting and be able to prevent it iof taken on the Royal Mint. Newton saw through this ruse to get to the heart of the Mint and Chaloner ended up in prison, facing the gallows, writing letters begging Newton for mercy.

While Ashton’s Newton is quite the heroic criminal investigator, Levenson gets closer to the real Newton, always cantankerous, ready to pick fights, and not exactly pleasant company, and age had not mellowed him. This was the Newton who all but erased Thomas Hooke from the history of the Royal Society for an unintended slight.

As historian John Craig wrote in an article for the Royal Society’s Notes and Records: “Newton was disinclined to mercy, except for the receipt of information of value, on the ground that these dogs always returned to their vomit.”

Ashton tells his tale well, even if his Newton is rather too much of an engaging almost heroic figure!

But neither Levenson or Ashton seem to make much of Newton's greatest invention as Master of the Mint.

And that was the fight against clipping. As Robert Lamb explains:

By the late 1600s, England's financial system was in full-blown crisis mode. The country's currency consisted entirely of silver coins, and that silver was often worth more than the value stamped on it. So what did people do? Why, they melted down the coins or "clipped" silver from the edges to sell to France.

By Newton's time, clipping had done a number on the nation's currency. The average bag of English coins was just a hodgepodge of damaged and unrecognizable silver chunks. 

Newton's great but simple invention - which we still have today - are the ridges on the edges of coils, what are called "milled edges", and they prevented clipping coins because any damage to a coil would be instantly seen.

Drama: Festival 
by Sarah Wooley

A comedy drama about festivals and the start of a legendary literary romance.

In 1962, novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard took on the job of running the Cheltenham Literary Festival. It was to be a baptism of fire.

This was a light but very amusing story, well told, with lots of humour as Jane lurches from one crisis to another and her plans look as if they are falling apart, not unlike her marriage – she has taken on the festival (for a small honorarium) largely to avoid facing marital breakdown. As with the Newton story, this is also based on historical fact.

Some plays grab you from the first, while others are a struggle. It’s hard to define that magic ingredient, but in this case it is good acting, and good storytelling. Will she succeed? Will there be fireworks at the end? There will, in more ways than one, and Wooley does a good job of introducing us both to the literary world, and to the problems inherent in organising any event. And is Kingsley Amis going to turn up?

In the end, Howard had an affair with Amis (which begins at this Festival in the play), ended divorcing her husband, and then marrying Amis, but it was in the end a failed marriage too. Listening to the play, you wonder if there is so much flirtatiousness at literary festivals!

Is the Jersey festival of words as chaotic behind the scenes? And are there secret romances and assignations? Having listened to this play, I am inclined to wonder!

The Emergence of Party Politics in Guernsey

The Emergence of Party Politics in Guernsey 

The Chief Minister’s Party – Not all are Invited!

A recent news story blew the gaffe on how a “Chief Minister’s Party” exists, at least implicitly within the States of Guernsey. As the Guernsey press reported:

“A CALL has been made for Policy & Resources president Gavin St Pier to consider his position after an email revealed a favoured bloc has emerged in the States. In it, Deputy St Pier invited just 20 of the 40 members to meet to discuss this month’s agenda and ‘perhaps plan a little ahead’. ‘The next States’ meeting has much on the agenda and plenty of opportunities for mischief to be made!’ wrote Deputy St Pier. The message came to light after Peter Ferbrache, who was not included, then received it in error.”

Incidentally, it demonstrates on of the fundamental propositions by Karl Popper that most secret conspiracies fail – in this case, trying to keep something secret was blown apart by an email sent in error. The old adage “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead” made by Benjamin Franklin stills hold good.

And as Popper said: “it is one of the striking things about social life that nothing ever comes off as intended. Things always turn out a little bit differently. We hardly ever produce in social life precisely the effect that we wish to produce, and we usually get things that we do not want into the bargain.”

In this case, the effect was to “plan a little ahead” by select favourites, and the unintended consequence is that any attempt to do so will be regard with suspicion as one power block trying to gain control over the States.

Carl Meerveld, one of the founders of the Islanders Association, said “I expect a chief minister to be a person who is bringing people together and trying to break down walls and barriers between members and encourage more cohesive working.’”

The Islander’s Association

Deputy Meerveld is one of the founders of Guernsey's first political group (in March 2018) which is c called the 'Islanders Association'. Its founders, Deputies Ferbrache, Meerveld and Mooney established the association early in March with the hope of "achieving the change that Guernsey needs".

And it states:” Our key objective will be to fundamentally improve the way in which the States of Guernsey functions, with our initial objective being to campaign for the adoption of islandwide voting at the public referendum scheduled to be held on 10th October this year.”

In June, their Facebook page noted:

“A former Chairman and Lord Mayor of the City of Westminster, known for securing improvements to one of London’s most highly serviced but still financially efficient districts, has joined the Executive Committee of the Islanders Association. Harvey Marshall was Chairman and Lord Mayor of Westminster in 2001-2 and served that Council until 2013, when he retired and moved back to Guernsey with his wife, Hazel, who is currently a Lt-Bailiff of the Royal Court.”

He said: “I joined the Islanders Association because I see it as offering the best chance of securing effective action and financial efficiency in the government of Guernsey. I bring not only a business background but also 23 years’ experience of moulding and managing governmental policies on a similar scale for the benefit of the local community and economy. I would encourage anyone who wants to see sensibly focused government and the prudent application of community resources to join the Association and get Guernsey’s government working again,

In April two more Deputies joined. Deputy John Gollop has now joined them, after Deputy Barry Paint also recently announced he had too

Deputy Gollop said: "I am supporting The Islanders Association because I believe that it represents a real opportunity to significantly improve the focus and effectiveness of the States, to increase co-operation between deputies and the public and hopefully attract members of all ages."

It also had another Deputy come on board in June:

“The Islanders Association is proud to announce that Deputy Marc Leadbeater has joined the Association to help develop and promote its efforts to fundamentally improve the functions and effectiveness of our Government.”

And he said:

“The Association has been structured to work within Guernsey’s unique form of consensus government. I particularly appreciate that, while guided by members views, each Deputy will be able to vote with their conscience, as they do now. Giving them the freedom to do what they think is best for the electorate without a ‘party whip’ enforcing the group will, preserving one of the best elements of our existing system.”

And in July, they noted that:

“Anne Ewing, a Leading Independent Director & Corporate Governance Professional Joins the Executive Committee of the Islanders Association”

Guernsey Whig Party

Meanwhile, in April 2018, the Guernsey Press noted:

St Sampson’s parishioner John Semenowicz set up the Guernsey Whig Party in response to recent developments in the island’s political landscape. ‘Along with many other people in Guernsey I am reasonably happy with the non-party political system, after all that is what makes Guernsey so special and we do not need to follow everything that the UK does,’ he said.

He said: “If party politics is going to gain favour locally, there should be one that represents the middle ground of politics and challenges the trend of people being pulled towards either their left or right respective fundamentalist poles. For hundreds of years Whigs developed the British constitution by fighting for equal rights for minorities, and promoting democracy and human rights.”

Charter 2018

In February 2018, there was a new group formed.

The members of the Charter 2018 group of deputies are Mary Lowe, Joe Mooney, Barry Paint, Rob Prow, Andrea Dudley-Owen, Paul Le Pelley, Neil Inder, Jan Kuttelwascher, Marc Leadbeater, Carl Meerveld and Peter Ferbrache.

Guernsey Press said:

“Revealed yesterday, it is an affiliation of 11 members who have backed a charter which sets out the political principles which will guide them for the rest of this term.”

The instigator of the group idea was Deputy Inder, who said that its members had often spoken privately.

Deputy Carl Meerveld said: ‘It’s quite clear that we are very concerned with the left-leaning over-environmentally-friendly position of the States. It’s an affiliation, not an association or an organisation. It’s a group of people who are concerned about the emphasis on social engineering aspects of things that have been brought to the States so far [this term].”

Liam Scholey commented that:

“The group is keen to avoid being branded a party, although it is interesting to note that it is an organised group of elected individuals acting together to promote shared values and policies in a manner more efficient than is possible as individuals. Much like a party.”

“The shared values of the not-party are “fiscal conservatism”, a small state, support of local businesses, low taxation, direct democracy, support of “the family in our modern Guernsey” and the preservation of the Bailiwick’s tradition and culture.”

However, Marc Leadbeater, Carl Meerveld and Peter Ferbrache are now signed up with “Islanders Association” which is far more clearly a party.

And in conclusion

It seems clear that there are both nascent party affiliations emerging in Guernsey as well as a more right-wing formal party, and that the referendum this year may solidify and sharpen the parties or party groups.

From both the antipathy of Charter 2018 and the closely linked emerging “Islanders Association”, and the so called “favouritism” shown by Gavin St Pier (who was almost certainly trying to plan ahead against the oppositional groups), a divide is becoming clearer between left leaning – with State intervention – and right-leaning – with reduced State Intervention.

There seems to be no equivalent of a Reform Party which is also interesting.  Gavin St Pier's cohort seems to be more of a centrist interventionist style, and not that right wing, so the reaction so far has been against that with the  Islanders Association, which is certainly well-structured and bears an uncanny resemblance in some ways to the politics of the "Jersey Small Society" of 2010-2011, although that was closer to the Charter 2018 in being a loose affiliation.

That society, like the Islander's Association, wanted to role back the public sector and reduce taxation. As Peter Body remarked:

In August 2010, Business Brief Editor Peter Body had some trenchant remarks to make about their proposals. He commented that:

"I thought - at last - here's a group of intelligent people who are really going to make a significant contribution to solving some of the island's intractable problems, and get away from this constant battle between spending and saving. My euphoria lasted about eight minutes. It didn't take long to conclude that the Small Society is actually just a front for taxpayers whose only solution to our problems is to cut spending. I should have realised from the list of members, which includes many of the usual suspects, that this isn't so much a Small Society as a Small Minded Society."

https://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2013/11/jersey-small-society-tiny-footnote-in.html

It is notable that the lack of different categories of politician, and the division of Guernsey into large multi-member constituencies may make firmer soil for growing a party than Jersey.  In that respect it is closer to Council elections in England where a "slate" of candidates for a party can be proposed. If the Referendum throws up an Island wide "constituency" - and is passed by the States - that tendency will be even more pronounced.

In Jersey, the three bulwarks against party formation are (1) small constituences based around the Parish (2) the Constables built around a Parish system  (3) the Senators (Island wide but with a rural bias). That is why Sam Mezec only scraped in as Senator, why Reform made only one challenge to a Constable's election, and why they mainly targeted urban districts and failed in more rural ones when they did contest them.

References
https://islanders.gg/
https://guernseypress.com/news/2018/02/19/deputies-sign-up-to-new-charter-that-will-guide-their-thinking/

The Truth About the Parish System

I correspond regularly with a number of people, and one of these, Adam Gardiner, has penned a reply to Sam Mezec's comments about the Parish system.

I think that what is important in making criticisms such as Sam does is, first and foremost, to get the facts right. Unfortunately we live in an age where people are inclined to rattle off stuff without doing their homework - I will be posting later this week on the real risks of radon as opposed to the more scaremongering stories doing the rounds.

Part of the problem is that a half-truth can often be accepted as the whole truth, but a half-truth can give a very misleading impression. Here are some facts against the misinformation given by Sam.

The Truth About the Parish System
by Adam Gardiner

https://sammezec.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-parish-system-what-democracy.html

Unfortunately Sam Mezec in his recent blog has got a number of things totally wrong. Quotes from his argument which need correcting:

1.”The States recently debated P.89/2013 which was brought forward by the Comité des Connétables to change the law to reduce polling hours in elections for Procureur de Bien Public from 8am-8pm to 12pm-8pm.”

Not true. The decision to reduce the hours was made by the States in 2003. In the meantime the article has fallen away due to a new amendments...not repealed you will note, but fallen away, so no actual change in the law. The reason then, as it is now, being that such elections are rare and even then the poll minuscule. 

Although I might agree that in reducing polling times ignore the usual and accepted democratic principles, elections for ‘parish officials’ requires just as much resource as it does for a general election. It needs to be remembered too that you can prepoll and postal vote for officials in the same way as you can for political positions. https://www.jerseylaw.je/laws/revised/Pages/16.600.aspx

2. “The day before, the Constables brought an amendment to move a proposed referendum from being held on a Saturday to being on a Wednesday instead. Something which was done purely because holding a public vote is a nuisance for the Parishes, irrespective of the obvious fact that a Saturday would be more convenient for the vast majority of the voting population to vote on.”

Again not true. It was not a ‘nuisance’ to the Parish. It simply boiled down to two things (i) polling officials (voluntary) across the island stated that it would be an inconvenience to THEM and therefore less likely to volunteer, and (ii) the usual polling stations also had to bring in officials on what is otherwise their day off - and they too were reluctant. 

Put simply, Saturday polling is impractical. I might add that there is no evidence that polling on a Saturday would produce a higher turnout..it’s simply an assumption.

3. “In 2014, just after the previous election, the Constables brought a proposition to increase the number of people that are required to sign a letter forcing a Parish Assembly on a proposition, from 4 to 10, despite there having not been a single example of Parish Assemblies being called vexatiously.”

Sam is referring to a requete. While the point is taken, any proposition that forces an assembly on the support of just 4 signatories vexatious or otherwise, is itself not particularly democratic. It leads also to the notion that political candidates may also become eligible on 4 signatures. Chaos would reign if that were to happen. 

If a issue is that important and is widely supported a requirement for 10 signatories seems very reasonable to me and brings it into line with other requirements we already accept. (Reform are fine ones to talk about signatories anyway!)

4. “Turn out at Parish Assemblies is very low. At the St Helier Rates Assembly last year, aside from members of the municipality, there were 5 members of the public in attendance. I couldn't tell you how many were there this year, but I bet it was pretty poor too, seeing as the meeting was organised to be held at the same time England were playing in the World Cup Quarter Final (I was watching the match, not at the Town Hall). Would it have been too difficult to just have it on another night? There really is no excuse for this.”

Shows you where SM’s priorities lie! Nonetheless, when the Rates meeting was scheduled there was no means of telling whether England would make it to the Quarter Finals, or whether it would be an afternoon or evening fixture if they did.

The Rate Assembly is in any event a fixed date in most Parish calendars. How unthoughtful of FIFA not to consult with the Parish of St. Helier!

5. “Roads Committees. These committees are the closest things we have to local councils. Their members are elected at a Parish Assembly every 3 years. There is no information whatsoever online about when these elections will next take place. Some Parishes don't even have the names of the people who serve on them on the Parishes website. 

Wrong. All parish Assembles are advertised in the JEP Gazette (and on the parish website) outlining also the purpose of the Assembly. By the same law that requires a notice in the Gazette a Parish must give minimum notice of 11 clear days. Sam also fails to acknowledge that while elected for 3 years in the interim members may resign or die and thus an election is called and a new ‘acertement’ enacted. Elections can be contested too as happened in St Brelade where Eddie Cuthbert lost his seat! 

Just one more point, a quick glance at all parish websites reveals that Roads Committee members are noted on all but one - St. Ouen. "Some parishes" in Sam's statement - if he had bothered to check- should simply be "one parish". Why not simply ask the Constable why that should be?

6. “On 12th September there are due to be elections for Procureurs de Bien Public in each Parish. The nominations are imminent and there is almost nothing at all on vote.je or the Parishes websites about this role and how to become a candidate. At the time of writing, only 5 Parishes have confirmed when the nomination meeting will take place (which they are doing with just a few days notice). 

Wrong again, and comment above in [5] still apply. And why not on vote.je? Nominations are made on the night - as they are in a general election. It is also the case that they are parish elections not general elections for which vote.je was set up for. Should it also carry all the parish elections? A good point and something SM should take up with Jeremy Macon before making such comments.

7. “I happen to think it's important to have a healthy democratic municipal government system and I want to see it thrive in Jersey. This doesn't make me an enemy of the Parish system, although that is certainly how they will try to tar me for having the sheer nerve to hold them to account.” 

Yep, that's (a) your job and (b) SM chose to go into politics and needs to understand that not all agree with him, and (c) debate and consensus is the way to achieve change and is called democracy - whereas peddling misinformation on a website is not!

A Buddhist Parable: The Man Born Blind

It's too hot to blog much, so here are is a Buddhist parable to ponder. It is interesting in that it is is almost the reverse of Plato's cave. Instead of everyone only seeing shadows except for someone enlightened, the focus is on one man who cannot see, and what it tells us.


The Man Born Blind

There was a man born blind, and he said: "I do not believe in the world of light and appearance. There are no colours, bright or somber. There is no sun, no moon, no stars. No one has witnessed these things."

His friends remonstrated with him, but he clung to his opinion: "What you say that you see," he objected, "are illusions. If colours existed I should be able to touch them. They have no substance and are not real. Everything real has weight, but I feel no weight where you see colours."

A physician was called to see the blind man. He mixed four simples, and when he applied them to the cataract of the blind man the grey film melted, and his eyes could see. The Tathagatha is the physician, the cataract is the illusion . . . and the four simples are the four noble truths.


The Four Noble Truths

"I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That's all I teach", declared the Buddha 2500 years ago.

The Four Noble Truths contain the essence of the Buddha's teachings. It was these four principles that the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree.

• The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
• The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
• The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
• The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)

The Buddha is often compared to a physician. In the first two Noble Truths he diagnosed the problem (suffering) and identified its cause. The third Noble Truth is the realisation that there is a cure.

The fourth Noble Truth, in which the Buddha set out the Eightfold Path, is the prescription, the way to achieve a release from suffering.

References
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/fournobletruths_1.shtml
http://oaks.nvg.org/pastbud.html

Morning has broken

As the climate becomes less and less hospitable to us, as the drought continues - it is like opening an over door in daytime, here is a poem which is an inversion of a well-known hymn, in a time where there is, for us, little dew fall fresh every morning, and no wet gardens.

Morning has broken

Morning has broken, like the last morning
Comes now the hot sun, before the first bird
Come now the heat-wave, hornets are singing
Death to the bees now, that is their word

No more the rainfall, hell more than heaven
Thirsty the dry soil, yellow the grass
Flowers are dying, in every garden
Brown is the grassland, where our feet pass

Here is more sunlight, once more the morning
Too hot for working, too hot for play
Time of exhaustion, now every morning
Long is the heat wave, enduring each day

Morning has broken, like the last morning
Famine is threatening, no rain is heard
Pray for the rainfall, heed now the warning
Harsh is the climate, that’s the last word.

This is Jersey - 1979 - Part 3

From 1979 comes this holiday guide - "This is Jersey". This is a flat brochure which is larger that the later glossy designs, and it doesn't have nearly as many pages - 16 double sided in all, including front and back covers.

It does provide a very interesting snapshot of the tourism scene in 1979, just as it was more or less at its peak, just before Bergerac launched, and before the package tour market and cheap holiday destinations abroad made Jersey's prices suddenly more expensive and the bottom fell out of the market.

Tourism is today rebuilding a new approach geared to the lifestyle of the modern tourist. It still has plenty to offer, but the old style of tourism probably won't sell today. But here's a chance to capture that flavour.

In 1979, June Gurdon took a tour of Fort Regent with Director Peter Smith talking about the history of the fort, the development of the Fort as a sport and entertainment centre.

Back then you could wander round the rose gardens, look at the old cannons, the aviary, and see the old rifle ranges which had been turned into fountains. There was a children's playground, the squash courts, table tennis rooms and archery and rifle ranges in the Gloucester Hall.

And there was also skating, the piazza with shops, aquarium, museum and stage, an art gallery with an exhibition on and holding the States Collection in 1979, the swimming pool - and a link was being built from the swimming pool to the piazza and the escalators from the car park

How much is left now? Very little remains, and the famous Jersey Aquarium mentioned here has also gone.

Go Skate was very popular back in the late 1970s. It was a kind of roller skating but with skates more like ice skates but with lots of small wheels underneath.

These are called "Inline skates", or roller blades, and were introduced in the late 1970s and for a while were the most popular type of skate. They have four or five narrower wheels all in a line, causing them to function more like ice skates in maneuverability.

The skates also require the wearer to keep their ankles straight, which can cause beginners to take longer to feel comfortable on them. Roller blades are still a favorite choice of people who skate for exercise or transportation, and roller hockey has also become a sport in its own right.

Other attractions in 1979: activities advertised include: the swimming pools, the avaries and gardens, live entertainments such as the Wild West Show, Titania's Palace, the Dolls Museum, the Postal Museum, the Henry VIII costume exhibition, shopping facilities, the Museum of World Sea Shells, a giant chess and draughts board, a Go-Skate skating rink, an aquarium, a funfair, Bonaparte's restaurant and disco club, an indoor ski slope, sports facilities, and bars and restaurants.

A Mystery Window: The Annunciation at Grouville

The Annunciation Window at Grouville Church is one of the strangest I have ever seen.It is not conventional in any sense. The Virgin Mary is neither dressed in white, or wearing blue, and her face and hair style - short! - must surely be contemporaneous with the period the window was created, in the mid-Victorian period.

Red is more associated with Mary Magdalene (because of the false history of her as a reformed prostitute). It is colour used for depicting passion.

But in Russian icons, for example, the Virgin Mary more commonly wore red but usually a whole ensemble of red with blue beneath. On other occasions, she was portrayed in white to represent her innocence.

It is however atypical for Western art. I've looked at hundreds of images of Mary in stained glass and have yet to find anything close to this strange colour scheme for her clothes.

The green sleeves are also distinctly odd. Green as the color of grass and nature can be an indication of spring, growth and rebirth, life over death, and can symbolise faith, immortality, and contemplation.

The lily Gabriel holds symbolizes purity and is conventional, but is rather larger than is normally the case. Both the faces of Mary and Angel Gabriel seem more sketched from life than traditional iconography.

Unfortunately there is no information on record (or name) of the maker or designer of this stained glass, only the date it was placed there.

The Fleur de Lis is an age-old symbol for lily, a sign of the resurrection. The whiteness and purity of the lily is said to represent Mary, mother of Jesus. The three petals also represent the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

By way of contrast, here is Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini, 1849-50, which while naturalistic is very much more conventional in that Mary has long hair.

And here is a much more traditional Annunciation in a stained glass window from Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey (Catalonia, Spain) - Mary in blue.

And here's a modern variant, again Mary is in blue.

Another mystery is the tree and the stars in the bottom of the window. What does that symbolise?

And more symbols can be found at the right bottom:

Scallop shells are a symbol of triune baptism, but while Trinitarian, what is the meaning of the other threesome symbols? Those peculiar red symbols in particular are very strange. What are the strange fish?

Mary's Hair

The hairstyle of Mary is unusual. Most Victorian women wore their hair very long, or (if upper class) in what was known as the "up-do", hair piled high on the head. However, there are some instances of shorter hair:

Here is a short version of the "up-do" style.

Another with shorter hair

And a painting of the young Victoria.

Drone Warfare: Why Jersey needs the new EU Legislation

A rising problem

“POLICE investigations are under way after there were ‘two near misses’ involving drones and aircraft coming into land at the Airport” JEP, 31/07/2018

Drones are becoming a serious threat to aircraft. In March this year, the Daily Telegraph reported that near misses between drones and planes have more than tripled in two years:

"Some 92 incidents were recorded in 2017, according to analysis of UK Airprox Board (UKAB) data. This is compared with 71 during the previous 12 months and 29 in 2015. "

Former RAF and British Airways pilot Steve Landells, flight safety specialist at pilots' union Balpa, described the figures as "very worrying". He believes the true extent of the problem could be even more severe as pilots struggle to see drones from cockpits. “It's really hard to see something that small. here's a possibility there are a lot more near misses that aren't being seen. This could just be the tip of the iceberg."

Mr Landells explained that pilots are particularly concerned about near misses which occur when they are preparing to land: "It's a critical stage of the flight and you really don't need to be distracted. If you see a drone flying past your cockpit it's a real shock to the system. Anything that distracts you from getting the aircraft down on the ground is a safety hazard."

The Telegraph notes that twenty-eight near misses in the past year were classified as having the most serious risk of a collision. These included incidents near the London airports of Heathrow, Gatwick and London City, as well as Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol. 

At least one collision so far

There has been at least one collision. This was reported at heathrow in April 2016 after a British Airways pilot said his plane, which was coming into land at Heathrow Terminal 5, had been hit by a drone. It landed safely. 

CNet News reported that:

"The drone reportedly hit BA flight 727, an Airbus 320, from the front. "Our aircraft landed safely, was fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight," a British Airways spokeswoman told me. "Safety and security are always our first priority and we will give the police every assistance with their investigation"

Potential Hazards

And the Telegraph notes:

"A study part-funded by the Department for Transport found that a drone weighing 2kg could critically damage a plane windscreen in the event of a mid-air collision. "

"Some tests have suggested that drone collisions could be more damaging than "bird strikes", which happen when birds collide with an aeroplane and damage its engine. This happened most famously in 2009 when a plane landed safely on the Hudson River in New York after striking a flock of Canada geese which took out both its engines. "

A near miss 

Cnet News reported in April 2018

"A drone came extremely close to an Airbus 319 that was taking off from Heathrow Airport on Jan. 7. So much so that the board gave the incident its highest-risk rating. The report says the Airbus was at 4,800 ft. when "a medium-sized, white drone passed directly overhead, with an estimated separation of 20 ft.” The board says the pilot had no time to take any corrective action. "

What can be done?

So what can be done? The BBC reports that: 

The US recently introduced a compulsory registration scheme so any drone recovered from an accident can be traced back to its owner.

In addition, officials could make it mandatory for drones to run geo-fencing software - that would prevent them flying in restricted areas.

Kennedy Law notes that:

“Around the world, it is estimated that about 1.5 million drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – excluding those used for military purposes – are already airborne with that number expected to triple by 2020.”

“The risks posed by drones range from the loss of the UAV itself and any equipment it is carrying, to damage to property and bodily injury, as well as breach of privacy and the potential for catastrophic loss if it strays into controlled airspace and hits a plane or a helicopter.”

Barnaby Winckler, partner in Kennedy Law, says that:

“Insurers would like to see them compulsorily registered and flight logs maintained. Even relatively small and inexpensive drones should increasingly be able to send back data that in principle can be stored and that would assist in understanding the causes of any incident involving the relevant system.”

The EU Aviation Safety Regulations and New Laws

Meanwhile, the Register reports that this year:

“The EU Aviation Safety Agency has formally opined that drone hobbyists should be banned from carrying out beyond visual-line-of-sight flights.”

“If the opinion is adopted, virtually all medium-sized hobby and prosumer drones will be caught by the new EU rules, effectively turning their pilots into criminals – unless they register their craft with regulators and pass mandatory tests.”

“Operators of drones with a mass of more than 250g will have to pass various competency tests and register with the State – something the British government has already announced will take place in the UK. “

And for Jersey??

It would be useful to know if Jersey is going to follow the EU and UK’s lead and start preparing its own legislation. Given the recent incidents, that would be timely indeed.

Appendix:
The following incidents, noted in the UK during 2015 and 2016, give an idea of the scale and type of incident involved.

27 August 2015 - A DO328 aircraft flew within 50ft of a drone while approaching Manchester Airport at 2,800ft

13 September 2015 - A drone flew over the top of a B737 aircraft while at 4,000ft, missing it by about 5m, shortly after it left Stansted

13 September 2015 - A silver drone with a "balloon-like" centre missed an E170 aircraft by about 20m, while the plane was approaching London City Airport over the Thames

22 September 2015 - A "quadcopter-type drone" missed the right-hand side of a B777 plane by about 25m while at 2,000ft after it left Heathrow Airport

30 September 2015 - A small drone helicopter passed within 30ft of the cockpit of an A319 plane while on the approach to Heathrow

28 November 2015 - The pilot of an A321 plane narrowly missed a drone hovering at 100ft above a runway at Gatwick Airport

17 April 2016 - A British Airways plane approaching Heathrow is believed to have hit a drone while in midair

References https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2018/07/31/police-look-into-drone-near-misses-at-airport/
https://www.cnet.com/news/drone-near-miss-with-160-passenger-plane-given-highest-risk-rating/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/19/drone-near-misses-triple-two-years/
https://www.cnet.com/news/drone-crashes-into-landing-plane-passenger-heathrow-airport/
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36067591
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/26/easa_drone_regs_opinion/