O2 and Tutankhamen

London's Millennium Dome might have been an expensive white elephant
at the turn of the millennium but now C21 is well underway, it has
all the appearance of being a great success. Commercially there are
loads of the usual chain type restaurants and shops but the whole of
this very large tented space is thronged with people young and old alike.
The ice rink attracts as presumably did recent pop concerts eg by the Spice Girls.

The Tutankhamen exhibition was a sellout yesterday, not a ticket to be had until next
year now,not even for ready money. The exhibit which made the greatest
impression on me was not his golden sarcophagus but his staff depicting
an African slave held with his spine arched backwards to form the staff's
handle. The piccie above does not do real justice to the exhibit. The
impact was a truly shocking reminder of man's inhumanity to man
over the millennia and a salutary reminder of the path civilisation (and religion)
have to tread to eradicate such unchristian abuses.

Christmas

That the Christmas holy season extends beyond 25th December into the New Year with
the feast of the Epiphany on 6th January marking the end of the
celebrations, seems a reasonable ex post facto explanation for my
blogging about predictions for the new year before mentioning Christmas.

Evening Mass with carols beforehand, including one entitled I think,
"Something wonderful is happening tonight", derived from an old Eric Clapton song,
in a Church so packed that for some there was no room even in the porch,
began to bring home the true message that the rise and rise of British shopping experiences often camouflages. Family at home reflects partially at least
the Holy Family and the Nativity scenes as does the great tradition of Chistmas present giving.

One such present from my oldest daughter was a couple of tickets to
the Tutankhamun exhibition at London's O2 erstwhile Millennium Dome
later today. I was lucky enough as a student to visit Tutankhamun's tomb
at Thebes Egypt in the '60s with a good friend so am looking forward
to the revisit at North Greenwich later.

Predictions for 2008

Making resolutions for the New Year never appeals but reading the runes
and trying to fathom what may happen does fascinate.

I can do little better than to replicate below, my post from the SC site:

Not sure how well the predictions for 2007 panned
out - there was almost but not quite a UK general election.
The collapse of the FTSE100 didn't occur
and things in the UK carried on much as they had
in 2006. Will 2008 be a Groundhog year or...

My own predictions for 2008 are

The media: The FT will continue to thrive
but the Express will go to the wall as will one
of the London Freebies. ITV will try to move
a little back up market.

Economics: The end of successive years of economic
growth in the UK and a run on the £.

LSE: FTSE down 20%

UK Politics: With the 3 main Westminster political
parties having opted for youthful (-ish in the Labour Party's case)
leaders a key to quality will be
those which best utilise their elder statesmen/women's
experience as well. Cameron with Major behind the
scenes should pull ahead.

Religion: Reflecting the secular politicians,
a new younger looking
Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster will be appointed.

World Politics: Countries being even more parochial than in
2007 with Russians aiming to regain superpower status by increasing
gas/oil economic pressures on Europe and some
former ex-USSR states. Meanwhile much of Africa
starves save where Chinese for their own again parochial
reasons invest. Frankly if I was starving I'd
be more concerned about eating the food
than about the motives of the food providers

Sport: Chinese olympics will be a staged success but
with more diminution of Olympic spirit. Paula
Radcliffe will at last win an olympic marathon gold.

Wild card: Era of cheap flights draws to a close.

To any and all who read this, have a very Happy and Holy
Christmas 2007 and much good fortune in 2008.

Insurance Claims and Financial Institutions Fobbing Off

24 years and 10 months ago we along with most people in England who were then buying their homes, were convinced that borrowing the house purchase monies
in tandem with an insurance savings policy that matured at the same time as
the mortgage term ended, was the best and cheapest way to start climbing
the UK's notoriously expensive housing ladder. The main attractions
of the endowment insurance policy on offer at that time, were the insurer's
written estimates of the huge surplus that would be left for us to spend
at the end of the 25 year term. after paying off the home loan.

This attraction was held out essentially right the way through the first
23 years of paying into the insurance endowment.
Towards the end of year 23 however we received a "red letter" from the insurance
company. Red is very negative in insurance savings terms, as it warns that
the savers, far from looking forward to some surplus cash at the end
of the 25 years of savings, were going to have to dig deep into their
pockets to fund a shortfall on the home mortgage loan repayment.

However with all our home insurance papers, was some small print about
being able with the benefit of another insurance co's support,
to bring claims about
services and products purchased that did not live up to the promises made
about them. My answer in June 2007 was to request that that small print
benefit be used by the services and products insurance company
to claim redress from the endowment insurers for their red letter.

Despite my day job as a solicitor, it took from June to
December 2007 to persuade the services and products insurance company
to refer my claim on to their legal counsel for an opinion.
At least in agreeing to do so yesterday they also agreed to do
so at their own expense so I will refrain from naming and shaming
at this time.

Their legal counsel may advise that we do not have a legal case
which would be both a surprise and a setback.
However even if so the point would remain that had I not had the clout
of legal training and expertise myself, I would have given up trying
to seek redress months ago and my concerns would never have
have received a proper answer.

EC Hypocrisy - Human Rights and African Strife

The Guardian along with the wide spectrum of UK
media reports:

...Human rights groups also staged protests in the Portuguese
capital against the presence of Robert Mugabe,
the Zimbabwean leader accused of rigging elections
and suppressing opposition groups.

Gordon Brown is boycotting the two-day summit because
of Mugabe's attendance, provoking widespread criticism
from other African leaders, and a rebuke from the
president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso.

I'm no fan of Labour or Gordon Brown but on this
boycott they are surely right.

Initially I welcomed the UK's membership
of the then Common Market now EU and also
supported our adopting the Euro. Debate
both on Sharecrazy and with friends including
an FO civil servant has caused me since to be
agin the UK adopting the Euro currency.

The antics of the EC bureaucrats eg spending fortunes
and adding hugely to Carbon footprints of shifting
offices from Belgium to France every 5 minutes for
purely parochial reasons has made me less enthusiastic
about the EC. Mostly the ShareCrazies who have
sought to ridicule the EC Human Rights laws I have
disgreed with and still largely do.

However if the EC's laws on human rights are to
carry any moral weight then the EC should be
really alert to avoid giving succour to government
leaders outside the EU who beat, starve, imprison
or murder their populations into submission.

One can argue that nearly all countries' governments
trangress some human rights in some way eg USA
Guantanamo Bay incarcaration camp but leaders whose
transgressions cover the whole population are in
an altogether different league and should be
shunned.

The EC by officially welcoming Robert Mugabe,
the Zimbabwean leader to their meeting is acting
hypocritically and the
EC concept though great as an ideal,
now loses my support in practice as a consequence.

Time Evel Knievel

Our youngest was 18 years old last week. The time between her
birth and attaining adulthood has flown.

Evel Knievel of dare devil motor cycle fame died last week.
Seeing TV piccies of him in his earlier years is also a reminder
of how quickly time and biology catches up with us all.

There was a quote attributed to Evel about the greatness of the God
who gave him life, the ability to lead it to the full and then
took him back at the right time. I cannot find the exact quote
but see from his obits that Evel Knievel was one of those
people like St Paul on the road to Damascus,
who appear to have experienced a sudden enlightenment,
so searing as to cause him to change his whole outlook
on life. For others I think that that change still occurs but
almost imperceptibly so that by the time God takes
us back we too are enlightened.