The Drive to Crook Peak.

 A Saturday morning drive to a beautiful spot on top of the Mendips with unparalleled 360° views over Somerset, North Somerset, Wales, Devon, Wiltshire ... you get the picture, and this is just the drive there.

Carbohydrates ... or not.

I don't think carbs are the issue. I think it's specifically bread-related carbs. I can't be arsed to go into detail, but by dint of a little laziness and maybe lowliness (depression), I have consumed two loaves in a fortnight, and I seem to be `puffier', not larger or heavier, just a bit bloaty and not quite in sync with myself.

So, yesterday morning after the pool, and many other things, I sorted out brown rice and quinoa for a week (rather than buying packets), flavoured at the secondary absorption phase with a stir through mix of herbs and spices, then quick-chilled to create the perfect deli-fridge for the working man. Add to that, cooked fresh meats, salads or raw veg and a handful of mixed nuts a day, and I rather suspect that things will be settled by the end of the week.

I tried full keto, but it kept tripping me up. So, I've gone back to balanced flexitarian but cut bread back to an absolute minimum, and we'll see how we go.

How come so many open vacancies?

The problem with getting people into employment has reared its head recently. It isn't just Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset … the Southwest, it’s UK wide and it's endemic. I have a friend who is willing to pay £22k for a full-time person, who he will train to be a Barista. He has been looking for six months.

There are a number of problems it seems. Youngsters don't want to work hard and or don't know what to do, and think the future is uncertain, so, what's the point? That may sound like a generalisation, however, speak to some young people and gauge their responses, it's quite alarming how disincentivised they are while being equally entitled, the contradiction is mind-bending.

Underlying employment locally is the agency ethos, I have made mention of this before. Employers have outsourced responsibility for employees to agencies. So, you end up with an employer paying an agency £15 per hour. The agency, in turn, pays the employee £9.5o an hour (for instance). The employee has no certainty or security of tenure. The employer has no responsibility for the employee -just the responsibility for paying a monthly invoice. The agency can bench employees the employer no longer requires. The employer no longer has any of the hassle of HR, pension admin, payroll etc. Employees (agency staff, on the agencies books alone) jump from contract to contract to move for as little as 5-pence per hour.

The only people making money in this scenario are the agencies, who are providing `bodies', not skills, not assets, not human resources (though if you think about bodies as human resources then I guess the agencies have actually reduced people to things, to be traded).

If employers locally, and nationally woke up from their fugue state, having been painted the picture of a hassle-free workplace, where responsibility for all that ugly tedious expensive employee admin was magically taken away and dealt by a third-party,  and instead "jogged" the agencies on, split the difference in cost to the agency, between the prospective employee, and the incumbent responsibilities for those employees; then in all likely hood, wages would rise for the employee and one would broadly assume permanent, secure, relatively well-paid roles with training and development and a future, would produce loyalty.

But what do I know? I just look in and see the same set of circumstances everywhere, and hear the same gripes from both sides, but apparently, never the twain shall meet as long as the agencies are also agents of fear for employers, who also allegedly have the magic beans that cure the problem, for both parties. Flexibility for employees (read short notice, you are changing jobs on Monday). Hassle-free employment (see lines above … avoided responsibility).

I tend to think of the agencies as the workplace mafia. Disagree: Go and read a Manpower job advert all the way to the end. Then just read some copy and paste job descriptions across agencies on job boards, and you won't be able to make an informed choice, because the words are the same, the salaries are the same, they are just white noise. There are two contradictory issues in the situation: One: there appears to be too much choice among things of equal value (very little value ). Two: There is so little differentiation you can't make an informed choice. People react to this in exactly the same way as they do when presented with bland voices amongst consumer goods .... they walk away.

The core issue isn't jobs. it's agencies, and I could write as many words again about the recruitment personnel and practices as I have about the labour market, but frankly, just read some modern job adverts … the penny will drop soon enough.

Lauren Southern: Why The Media LIE About Ukraine

Agree ... but, it still doesn't justify the full-scale invasion by Vladimir Putin's forces (not the Russian people), or the scorched earth policy being pursued by Vladimir Putin's forces. Levelling a country's cities and displacing millions is just weaponising refugees to overwhelm western Europe's capacity to provide for them all, and is by dint of that action; using refugees as proxies to weaken western Europe financially and socially, because sure as god made green grass, eventually Ukrainian refugees on-mass in other European countries will be seen in the same light as, Kosovans, Ethiopians, Sudanese, Croats, Somalis, Rwandans, Syrians, Afghans, take your pick from three or four decades of conflicts. 

It's all cool when it's fresh but as soon as they start to require the resources of the nation that takes them in, then the people at the and in the places where they are resettled will start to push back exclaiming "what about my benefits, my housing needs, my children's schooling, my doctor's surgery?" and from there, people transition from being people to being a race and we all know what happens next.

Agreed eventually after a couple of generations things settle, but a couple of generations is a long time for elements of and within a society to be abrading each other, wilfully agitated by the elements on the far-left and the far-right that Lauren Southern speaks of.

The Drive to Kilve.

Something on a lighter note, no BMW drivers feeling were hurt in the making of this video, they don't do feelings they just do shit driving and being arseholes behind the wheel.