14. January 2012
Horrendous news. A very modern Italian cruise ship struck rocks somewhere near Sicily and keeled over very quickly killing half a dozen or so people and to date 70 others are unaccounted for. The captain has been arrested but to date we have no more news on that. It will certainly put off a number of people I know who enjoy mini cruises around the Mediterranean. It does seem to be an inexcusable error when the cruise ship was following a well known course.
Good news. It was my darling little granddaughter Lara’s 7th.birthday yesterday and shame on me. I forgot to ring her. I had every intention of doing so. but somehow events overtook me and it is already too late today so I have to do before church tomorrow.
The Dragon. people are up to their normal tricks. I sent them a. ‘High Importance‘ e-Mail with a Request for a Delivery Receipt. This was on Friday and it included a very useful, highly comprehensive, dialogue of the problems from which I had suffered that which I thought would be very helpful to in trying to get to the source of the problem. What happens? I get back notification that my e-mail has been deleted without being read. This is the second time that an important e-mail has been treated that way by Dragons server. The last time they swore that it should not have happened and I had to go through a whole rigmarole of sending it again which is what I have to do again on Monday. I suppose they think that sort of defensive approach is enough for complainants to get tired of the whole business and just give up. But not me!.
The weekend papers were full of global financial Armageddon. 14 of the Eurozone countries had their credit rating reduced by Standards and For, the International Credit Agency. Even France had its rating reduced from triple AAA to the AAB. This is an indication that the international bond market anticipates problems with some of these Eurozone countries. Servicing their debts. What does this mean to the man in the street? I am no economist but as I understand it, in effect, the de-rated Eurozone countries have to pay a higher rate of interest to borrow money on the bond market to service their debt. This of course increases their indebtedness u It’s rather like these loan sharks ,in this country ,who lend money to people in trouble with a high level of debt and at such punitive rates that it spirals out of control and gets to the point where bankruptcy is almost there only alternative. France, of course, is furious that its credit rating should have been reduced from AAA and demands to know why their old enemy, the UK has not also had its credit rating reduced. The UK’s. level of indebtedness and its relation to GDP being very similar to that of France. The irony is that the, AAA rated countries are there to support those Eurozone countries which might get into trouble, so France could find itself, for example, helping out Greece, where it clearly is not very far from needing help itself. How long , Oh Lord, how long.? Until the Eurozone. .inevitably crumbles. In the meantime I have no doubt that they money market speculators are having a ball I gather from one of my readers that she has difficulty in opening .docx documents which I use at the end of my blogs entries to show you videos jokes etc and as a result they are missing out. I will find out, within a day or so, a way of overcoming this problem.l Incidentally, I’m getting desperately short of videos, pictures, jokes etc to catch on to the end of my entries as a little diversion. That will be obvious from today’s offering, click here and see yourself. Although there is an element of personal interest in it, then that I have been surprised at the large number of people now spend their lives wandering the streets ,travelling on buses. and underground, clutching a bottle of water as if their life depends upon it. Maybe they will not be so keen after reading this.