tehmina.org

In my effort to campaign for better public transport links between south and north Wiltshire I have not as yet looked in great detail at actual services provided by rail, their cost, convenience and duration (bus to come). I feel it is important to express the problems with current service in this way as for too long those in authority (Wiltshire County Council, First Great Western and Department for Transport) have assumed the service cuts are a very localised issue for Melksham and therefore felt more justified in ignoring it. Well it isn’t. With Wiltshire CC winning its bid to become the only local authority in the county and the majority of county services being based in Trowbridge and increasingly Chippenham, it is more important than ever for transport links between south and north to be improved. (more…)

Heaven knows (literally) how the Chinese government will administer this one!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/

Quite by chance, I happened upon this string of comments about the meaning of Tehmina on an (old?) blog called Tam’s Diaries. There were suggestions of all descriptions from people called Tehmina across the world. Some suggestions were: ‘true witness’, ’shred’ or ’scintilla’, ‘healthy’ or ‘insurance’ in Arabic, ‘honest’ in Hebrew, ‘precious of heart’ and originating from south India, and then there was my suggestion which I believe, to my best knowledge, to be true, that it is from old Persian (Pahlavi) or older, and means ’strong woman’.

I think among these descriptions, any ought to do?

Last year, during the FA World Cup, I bought a sandwich which came with its own thought for the day. Today I find myself buying the same sandwich made by Daily Bread: shaved cheddar and pickle. It still comes with its daily motto which today is:

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us airline tickets

Mel Brooks

Quite so.

Apparently Britain is missing 6,500 million pennies. That’s £65 million. This, while the Royal Mint are designing a new penny to be introduced in the coming year. The portcullis does not represent ‘modern Britain’ any more [like it did in 1971?]. I wonder what we’ll get instead? A white shell-suit? A pimped-up car? A Sky dish? No, what about a big M for McDonalds?

I can account for at least 650 which are sitting in my house.

I have recently returned from the USA. While I was there I wanted to find out how many miles I had travelled. I duly went to Google Maps and found out: approximately 3,500 miles between Salisbury (home) and New Jersey (first port of call). What I didn’t expect were the precise directions:

12. Slight left at Portsmouth - Le Havre (111 miles)
13. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean (3,462 miles)
14. Turn left at Long Wharf…

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Ed Vaizey, Conservative MP for Wantage managed to secure a parliamentary debate on First Great Western’s questionable service. While many MPs who have been petitioned by their constituents were not present at the debate, at least this is a start. Whether there will be a finish I do not know.

My MP, Robert Key (Conservative) for Salisbury, has been very responsive to my emails about the problems with the service cuts introduced by FGW last December, and in the latest correspondence he assured me he had already signed two of the Commons motions raising the issue of FGW’s bad service and will be writing to the Minister responsible for service level agreements on behalf of his contituents regarding the problem.

Yesterday in Parliament, FGW’s performance was raised in Prime Minister’s Questions (Wednesday 24 January 2007), Dr Doug Naysmith, MP for Bristol North West (Labour), tabled a question to Prime Minister Tony Blair regarding the poor performance of First Group’s buses and trains. He described them: ‘disastrous commuter trains and unreliable and expensive buses.’

The Prime Minister’s reply was unsurprisingly bland and non-commital. Read the Hansard transcript.

It gives me great pleasure to report that Kernowman is back to save our dear Cornwall from the blight caused by those who use it as their holiday pad and status symbol and other frustrations that hinder the Cornish.

I urge you to make sure that if you encounter Kernowman you offer him a cup of tea and a nice sit-down.

This is a map of the countries I have visited, apparently 5% of the world’s countries.

create your own visited countries map

This week’s Global Museum highlights a story about a new museum that has opened in Nagoya, Japan in memory of Shoichi Yokoi, a former soldier in the Japanese army who returned to Japan in 1972 having spent over 26 years in the jungles of Guam without realising World War II had ended. (more…)