Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to an old rock guitarist, composer and lyricist called Mark Knopfler

Mark Knopfler lead guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for the rock band 'Dire Straits', in which he played for 22 years from 1977 to its disbanding in 1995, is 64 years old today.

Things you possibly didn't know about Mark : he :

* was born in Glasgow, Scotland to an English mother and a Hungarian Jewish father, an architect whose communist sympathies had forced him to flee his native Hungary.

* settled in his Mother's home town of Blyth in the North-East of England when he was around 7 years old and at 11 went to 'Gosforth Grammar School.

* was was inspired by his Uncle Kingsley's harmonica and boogie-woogie piano playing and formed and joined anonymous schoolboy bands in the 1960's and at the age 16, made a local tv appearance as half of a 'harmony duo' along with a friend from school called Sue.

* displayed a flair for English and in 1967, studied journalism for a year at Harlow Technical College, got a job in Leeds as a junior reporter on the 'Yorkshire Evening Post' then studied for a degree in English at the University of Leeds.

* worked as a part-time lecturer at Loughton College and played music with mates in a band called the 'Café Racers' before moving to London and joining a band called 'Brewers Droop' which made an album called 'The Booze Brothers'.

* played on an old acoustic guitar with a badly warped neck strung with extra-light strings to make it playable which he found impossible to play unless he finger-picked it and later said : "That was where I found my 'voice' on guitar."

* made the first demos with 'Dire Straits' in 1977 including 'Sultans of Swing' which, when  released, became a chart hit in Europe, the USA and Canada and finally Britain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pa9x9fZBtY
Lyrics at bottom of posting.

* released 'Making Movies' in 1980, which contained his very 'personal' compostions 'Tunnel of Love' and 'Romeo and Juliet'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64vvX6-d_JY
Lyrics at bottom of posting.

* released 'Brothers in Arms'in 1985 and played in 1988 for the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium and saw it go on to sell 30 million copies worldwide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rt5tnpqFpM
Lyrics at bottom of posting.

* made the first video. with 'Money for Nothing', to be played on MTV in Britain, the first C.D. to sell a million copies, made a world tour in 1985–86 with 230 shows and great success and wrote the music scores for the films 'Local Hero', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maW-BTJ2LE 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Z3d2VjAWM&list=PL257C587B5500F5CE and 'Wag the Dog' and sold over 120 million albums with 'Dire Straits'

*  in 1984, wrote the his scores for the films 'Cal' and 'Comfort and Joy', produced Bob Dylan's 'Infidels' album, as well as 'Knife' by Aztec Camera and wrote the song 'Private Dancer' for Tina Turner's comeback album of the same name.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4QnalIHlVc

* joined the charity ensemble 'Ferry Aid' on 'Let It Be' in the wake of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and saw it reach No.1 on the UK singles chart in 1987 and  wrote the music score for the film 'The Princess Bride'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDSC_Nz3KhE

* released the follow-up to 'Brothers in Arms' in 1991, 'On Every Street', which with a mixed critical reaction, followed by a gruelling world tour which drove the band into the ground and ultimately led to its final dissolution in 1995 and him to launch his career as a solo artist.

* has recorded guitar for Ted Christopher's Dunblane massacre tribute cover of 'Knocking on Heaven's Door',
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KQzQVREMbU played in charity concerts,been continuously busy and last year released his seventh solo album, 'Privateering', featuring 20 new songs.

* was ranked 27 on the 'Rolling Stone' magazine's list of '100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.'

Mark, Britain's old men salute you and say "thanks for choosing a career in music rather than lecturing."

Britain is still, sadly, a country with old anachronistic Member of the European Parliament called Godfrey Bloom

Godfrey Bloom, who is the 63 year old democratically elected Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and  Humber representing the small right wing UK Independence Party, has attitudes which would have been more typical in Victorian Britain. He was filmed at a meeting in Wordsley in July and the release of his speech by the Guardian has engulfed this old man in a storm of controversy.
He said, in relation to British aid to Third World countries : 
"How we can possibly be giving a billion pounds a month when we're in this sort of debt to Bongo Bongo land is completely beyond me. To buy Ray-Ban sunglasses, apartments in Paris, Ferraris and all the rest of it that goes with most of the foreign aid. F18s for Pakistan. We need a new squadron of F18s. Who's got the squadrons? Pakistan, where we send the money."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23608106
 
 In the furore which followed he :
 
* defended his remarks saying people in Yorkshire would not think the term 'bongo bongo land' was racist because there is no such country.
 
* when asked what he would do if he was reprimanded, told BBC Radio 4's 'Today Programme': "I'd say "Righto, sorry, sorry everybody" and "If I've offended anybody in bongo bongo land I shall write to the ambassador at the Court of St James's and apologise to him personally." * denied the phrase carried any suggestion of racism and stood by his comments, saying: "What’s wrong with that? I’m not a wishy-washy Tory. I don’t do political correctness... The fact that the Guardian is reporting this will probably double my vote in the north of England."

A former economist, he was elected as an MEP in 2004 and has been making headlines ever since with his views on women, climate change and Germans.
He put his foot in it when, he :
 
* soon after he was appointed to the European Parliament's 'Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality',  declared that "no self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age" and  added that he wanted to deal with women's issues because: "I just don't think they clean behind the fridge enough."

* on climate change he once remarked: "As far as I am concerned man-made global warming is nothing more than a hypothesis that hasn't got any basis in fact."

* admitted visiting brothels and argued that instead of being exploited, most prostitutes "do it because they want to".

* in 2010, was ejected from a Brussels debate after using the Nazi slogan : "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" to insult German Social Democrat, Martin Schulz (right).

UKIP leader Nigel Farage ordered him to apologise and banned him from using the phrase 'Bongo Bongo land' again

UKIP chairman Steve Crowther (left) said: "We are asking Godfrey not to use this phrase again as it might be considered disparaging by members from other countries.However, foreign aid is an extremely important debate that needs wider discussion."

Rushanara Ali, a Labour Development spokesman, said: "If Nigel Farage is serious about getting rid of racism and intolerance in his party, he should take action against politicians who think it’s acceptable to speak of people in developing countries in that way."

A spokesman for the anti-racism, 'Hope Not Hate' campaign, said his remarks were reminiscent of the "Tory party of 1985", when Alan Clark, former MP for Kensington and Chelsea, provoked outrage by referring to Africa as ‘Bongo Bongo land’ in an official meeting.

 
Laura Pidcock (left), from campaign group 'Show Racism the Red Card', said: "What I can tell you is that in the classrooms that I visit as an anti-racism education worker, these crude stereotypes that see Britain as a civilised place and overseas as tribal is an extremely homogenising sentiment and I think it's incredibly damaging.
Actually he needs to understand that it is highly offensive and what he meant by it isn't important - it's the outcome that's important."

Godfrey Bloom, an old, outdated 'fruit of democracy' in Britain in 2013.

Britain is still a county for and says "Happy Birthday" to an old professor of mathematical physics called Roger Penrose

.

Roger, who is a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and is clearly a very, very clever old academic is 82 years old today.

What you possibly didn't know about Roger, that he :

* was born in Colchester, Essex, has a  brother who is also a mathematician and another who is a chess grandmaster, left school and went University College London and graduated with.... yes, a first class degree in mathematics.

* at the age of 27 in 1958, earned his doctorate at Cambridge University with a thesis on 'tensor methods in algebraic geometry' and devised and popularised the 'Penrose Triangle' in the 1950s, describing it as "impossibility in its purest form" and exchanged material with the artist M.C. Escher whose earlier depictions of impossible objects partly inspired it and in turn Roger's work inspired his 'Wateferfall' (right) and 'Ascending and Descending' (at the bottom of the page).

* in 1965, at Cambridge, showed that 'singularities' such as black holes, could be formed from the gravitational collapse of immense, dying stars and had his work extended by Stephen Hawking in the shape of the 'Penrose - Hawking singularity theorems'.

*  in 1989 in 'The Emperor's New Mind' argued that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness.

* in 1991 in the film, 'A Brief History of Time' said : "I think I would say that the universe has a purpose, it's not somehow just there by chance ... some people, I think, take the view that the universe is just there and it runs along – it's a bit like it just sort of computes, and we happen somehow by accident to find ourselves in this thing, but I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe.  I think that there is something much deeper about it."

* in 1998 featured in the documentary, 'Is God a Number ?'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxeMpdsHkn8

* in 2004 after years of productive theorising released 'The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe' and the following year led the 'Philosophy of Science Convention' at the University of California, Santa Barbara where actor, John Cleese, who had studied 'A' Level Maths, Physics and Chemistry at school, was in the audience.

* makes the case for three kinds of existence : normal physical, mental and the mathematical world and argues for three mysteries :
- how is it that the physical world accords with mathematics to such a fantastic degree ?
- how is it when you have physical structures of the right kind like human brains, mentality has a deep relation to certain physical structures ?
- the mystery of our access to the world of mathematics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Q6SWcTA9w

Britain was no longer a country for and says "Farewell" to an old Admiral and Falkland's War veteran called Sandy Woodward

Admiral John Woodward, known as 'Sandy', has died aged 81. Best remembered as the tactical leader of the naval expeditionary force which, against all the military odds, recaptured the Falkland Islands from the Argentinian invaders back in 1982, he was very much a man from the last century and a Britain with a long military reach which no longer exists.

What you possibly didn't know about Sandy was that he :

* was born in Penzance, Cornwall, where his father worked in a bank and entered the Navy on a scholarship to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in Devon, at the age of 13 as an 'officer cadet' in 1946 and after leaving and uncertain which career path to follow, found himself at HMS Dolphin, the submarine training establishment.

* as Lieutenant Commander, passed the notorious 'Perisher test' for would-be submarine captains and when asked : "which boat he would now like to command ?", named, in a story which went around the fleet, named "HMS Dreadnought", Britain's first nuclear submarine.

* commanded two diesel-electric submarines and became teacher of the Perisher course before taking command of the nuclear 'HMS Warspite' then after command of the 'Sheffield' and in 1981, was appointed 'Rear Admiral and Flag Officer of the First Flotilla'.

* was at sea in the North Atlantic in 1982, exercising his Flotilla of destroyers and frigates, when the Argentinian military junta invaded the British Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic and after catching Margaret Thatcher's Government, unawares provoked her to announce that an amphibious operation to recapture the Islands would be mounted.

* had 'tactical frontline command' of the naval Task Force led by Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse and consisting of his flagship, the old carrier 'HMS Hermes', supported by another carrier, 'Invincible' and destroyers and frigates – a total of 27 warships plus transports.

* once in the Falklands, had the role to provide air, surface and anti-submarine support for the landing of a counter-invasion force of 6,000 soldiers and marines but felt that he should have had control of the three British nuclear boats sent to shadow the Argentinian Navy and signalled his frustration by ordering, 'without authority', HMS Conqueror to attack the Argentinian cruiser, General Belgrano and was 'countermanded' by British Military Headquarters.

* gained his wish after members of the High Command sought and gained the Prime Minister's permission for a submarine attack on the cruiser with the attendant loss of 300 lives, controversially just as the USA, Peru and other parties were trying to mediate and the ship had been outside the Maritime Exclusion Zone and sailing away from the Falklands.

* during the War, kept as far east as possible, to give him essential local air superiority while the soldiers and marines defeated the Argentinian forces on land and reoccupied the Islands.

* was 'knighted'after the Falklands War, became Nato Commander of Submarines in the Eastern Atlantic and a full admiral in 1989 but despite his unique status as leader of the most successful British naval expedition since the Second World War, never reached the topmost posts of C-in-C fleet, First Sea Lord or Chief of Defence Staff.

* in 2012 deplored the reduction of investment in the Navy that had left it without an aircraft carrier, believing that he and his colleagues should have made more of how the Falklands were recovered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPieBCyFJWI

*  in his book 'One Hundred Days', described his Falklands experiences in a candid account of the pressures of high command in wartime and the impact on the individual commander.

* on Aug 5, 2013 was paid this tribute on BBC tv by Robert Fox, Defence Editor of the London Evening Standard : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g43U2ar4Qrw

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to an old welsh singer-songwriter called Andy Fairweather Low

What you possibly didn't know about Andy who is 65 years old today is that he :

*  was born in Ystrad Mynach, Wales.

* found fame as a founder member of 'Amen Corner' in the late 1960s and will be remembered by me and my fellow baby boomers for :
'Bend me shape me' in 1968
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM-y1a1oeCo
'High in the Sky' in 1969
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjzrzdpLZE

* when the band split in two in 1970, formed , 'Fair Weather' and had a hit with 'Natural Sinner' in 1970 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeE97_1FX1k before he left to pursue a solo career and had a Christmas hit with 'Wide Eyed and Legless' in 1975 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5FG3Ty3jD4

* in the late 1970s and 80s he worked for numerous artists, as a session musician and in 1978, sang backing vocals on the album 'Who Are You' from The Who and talked about this aspect of his work with Rick Wakeman in 2009 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066JTEwLgrY

* since the early 1990s acted as a sideman in Eric Clapton's backing band, as well as session work, notably Clapton's 'Unplugged' concerts : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24A2eesrUA and by 2005 had toured extensively with 'Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings.'

Old men of Britain say : " Thanks Andy, for the voice and memories engendered of the time when, they, like you, were young men."

 

Britain is no country and still a country for old men like Baron Howell of Guildford, given their voice in the House of Lords

What is the link between this ceremonial crown worn by baronets in the House of Lords and fracking ?

First fracking and then the lord.
Apparently, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involving the pumping of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into the rock to unlock energy has revolutionized the oil and gas industry, particularly in Canada and the USA, where previously uneconomical deposits have become viable. It is, however, still relatively new to Europe and the concerns about it have become heated largely because the continent’s dense population means drilling is almost always near a community. As a result, France and Bulgaria have banned it though both countries sit on some of the largest shale-gas deposits in Europe and Germany has put off a decision on the technology until after elections in September amid mounting opposition, including concerns from beer producers who are worried about the water supply.

Britain has gone the other way and is pushing shale-gas development hard with George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying : "Shale gas has the potential to transform our future energy supply and bring significant economic benefits. It could increase our energy security, support thousands of jobs and generate substantial tax revenue for the nation.”

Into the debate has come George's father-in-law, 79 year old unelected member of the Upper House in the lawmaking process, Lord Howell at a time when it has intensified with a report from the British Geological Survey which has doubled the estimate of shale gas contained in Northern England to 37.6 trillion cubic metres and If just 10% of that could be extracted, it would be enough to supply the country’s natural gas needs for 40 years based on current consumption.

Last Tuesday, Lord Howell drew gasps of astonishment in the House of Lords on Tuesday when, during Lords questions, he asked:
"Would [the minister] accept that it could be a mistake to think of and discuss fracking in terms of the whole of the United Kingdom in one go? I mean there obviously are, in beautiful natural areas, worries about not just the drilling and the fracking, which I think are exaggerated, but about the trucks, and the delivery, and the roads, and the disturbance."

The good Lord, who lives in Southern England, then said :
"But there are large and uninhabited and desolate areas. Certainly in part of the North-East where there's plenty of room for fracking, well away from anybody's residence where we could conduct without any kind of threat to the rural environment."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ITNxwRy7Y

This prompted Lord Beecham, a Labour peer who is also a councillor in Newcastle, to say :
"Neville Chamberlain spoke of pre-war Czechoslovakia as 'a faraway country of which we know nothing'. Lord Howell clearly has a similar view on the north-east and his comments once again highlight the Tories' problem with the north."

It also inspired the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to tweet:
"North-east England very beautiful, rugged, welcoming, inspiring, historic, advancing, not 'desolate' as was said in House of Lords today."

Friends of the Earth's energy campaigner Tony Bosworth said :
" Lord Howell's suggestion that fracking should be concentrated in the 'desolate' north-east is jaw-dropping, but the government's ill-conceived fracking plans aren't something that can be quietly brushed under the carpet 'up north' – as the villages resisting the drillers in the Tory heartlands of England's south show."

So what qualified this out-of touch old lord who would have been more at home in the 19th century to receive a seat in the House of Lords ?

He :

* was the son of Colonel Arthur Howard Eckford Howell  and his wife, Beryl Stuart Bowater, the daughter of Sir Frank Henry Bowater, 1st Baronet.

* . was educated at Eton College, then King's College, Cambridge, graduated in 1959 with a Master of Arts then worked for the government in the Treasury, followed by journalism before becoming a Conservative member of Parliament for the safe seat of Guildford in Surrey, in the South of England in 1966.

* served as a minister in Edward Heath's Government in the 1970's and Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s Howell,
retired as a Member of Parliament at the 1997 general election and was elevated to the House of Lords (below) as Baron Howell of Guildford, of Penton Mewsey, in the County of Hampshire in the South of England.

So Britain is still a country where anachronistic old men from privileged backgrounds are given a platform in a legislative chamber to pontificate about matters of which they, apparently, know nothing.

Britain is no country for more and more old men who continue to die unexpectedly before their time

Tucked away in national newspapers last week, making no waves and no headlines was the news that : 

Thousands of old man and women have died unexpectedly during the past year, driving a rise in overall death rates which is baffling public health chiefs.

It was based on a Government report which began :

We have observed higher than expected provisional counts of deaths for the year 2012; especially in persons aged over 80. 

It went on to say that :

*  'female mortality over 85 increased in these published tables by 5% in 2012, while male mortality over 85 increased by 3%'.

* 'the pattern of deaths so far in 2013 had indicated, if anything, a further deterioration in mortality compared with that observed over the corresponding period in 2012.'  

* 'cumulated deaths per week are averaging around 10,500 which is around six hundred more than would be expected'.

Speaking to the 'Health Service Journal', Professor of Human Geography, University of Sheffield, Danny Dorling said 

“Elevated mortality amongst the elderly is often about people dying two or five years earlier than would be expected given recent rates. It is possible that cuts or freezes to services have a particular bad effect on this group - even cuts and freezes that might appear very minor - because the group is so vulnerable."

He went on to outline possible causes for this increase in the number of deaths of old man and women arising from the fact that they are the ones who :

* suffer from increased anxiety as a result of knowing they might have to move home or even have no home in a time of crisis in the funding of a large number of care homes for old people.

* get left a little longer in overstretched Accident and Emergency Services in hospitals.

*  are most neglected when the carer visiting them has only 15 minutes when they used to have 30.

My post  on Monday, 13 May 2013 :


Britain is no country for old men who need help with dressing and eating
http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/britain-is-no-country-for-old-men-who.html

Britain is no country for old men living in the less than idyllic English countryside

An article in the 'Guardian' today was entitled :
English country life holds serious challenges for older people
Charity finds biggest obstacles are lack of public transport, high prices, dearth of shops and poor access to social care

It reveals that a new 'Age UK' poll and its report, 'Later Life In Rural England', finds that nearly 1 in 4 old men and women aged 60 who live in the countryside, say that doing so presents them with difficulties their old counterparts in the towns and cities don't face, which are the result of the :

* cuts to local bus services.
* lack of nearby shops and services.
* high cost of heating and living.
* lack of access to health and social care.
* difficulties getting broadband.


For many old men and women life is not a rural idyll and :

*  the number aged over 65 with social care needs is projected to increase by 70% over the next 16 years.

* the number of cases of depression, stroke, falls and dementia is also projected to grow between 50% and 60%, compared with up to 42% in urban areas.

* 1.5 million old people in rural areas are reliant on oil to heat their homes which frequently costs more than electricity and gas and can only be bought in large quantities, resulting  in sizeable upfront costs.


Age UK is calling for the prevention of loneliness to be made a priority, which has been shown to be as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Michelle Mitchell, the Charity Director General, said :
"Life in rural England is very tough for many people. Too many are stranded at home, lonely and isolated, struggling to the shops, Post Office and even hospital, because of a lack of local bus services.

The high cost of heating because so many rural homes are badly insulated and are off the mains gas grid as well as the challenge of getting adequate social care all add up to make life in the countryside difficult for many and far from the stereotype of a rural paradise.

With rural communities ageing rapidly, it’s more critical than ever that the Government and local authorities make sure that the older people who live there, many of them frail and vulnerable, have access to the services and facilities they need to live as independent and fulfilling lives as possible."

The Prince's Countryside Fund, which supports people who live and work in rural areas, is backing the Report. Director Victoria Harris said:
"We know that rural isolation and lack of services are a real problem across the UK with post offices, village shops and pubs closing at an alarming rate. These closures tend to hit groups such as the elderly particularly hard and combined with the decline of local transport it is a major issue. This report highlights some of the major concerns facing the UK countryside today and we welcome any opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of protecting our rural communities."

Britain is no longer a country for and says "Goodbye" and old men, "Thanks" to an old Professor of Geriatric Medicine called John Brocklehurst

John,who has died at the age of 89, was the leading geriatrician of his generation and old men and women in Britain have reason to be grateful for the key contributions he made to their clinical care and to the way their medical services should be organised.

What you possibly didn't know about John, that he :

* was born in Liverpool, where his father was electrical engineer and grew up with his parents Baptist beliefs, was educated at Glasgow High School and Ayr Academy (right) and graduated from Glasgow University as a medical doctor at the age of 26 in 1950.


* after working in junior hospital posts and a two-year spell as senior medical officer on the troopship 'Medway', inspired by his religion he joined the Grenfell Mission in Labrador, Canada, as medical officer in 1955, returned to Britain in 1957 and became a consultant geriatrician in various hospitals for nearly a decade, managing to fit research around his punishing clinical work load.

* was appointed a Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester at the age of 46 in 1970, where his department acquired an international reputation, enhanced by the 'Unit for Biological Ageing Research' which he created.

* not only played a key role in establishing old-age medicine as a thriving academic discipline but did not distance him from the practical needs of patients and added to the understanding and management of urinary and faecal incontinence, a topic of supreme importance to many thousands of old people and the subject of his first book in 1951.

* brought scientific gerontology to bear on the understanding of the diseases of old age and his commitment to bringing together science and daily practice resulted in his monumental 'Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology' in 1973, pre-eminent in its field and now in its seventh edition.

* showed how biological ageing modifies the symptoms of disease and an old man or woman with, for example, a chest infection leading to not only a cough and shortness of breath but also confusion, incontinence or falls, a realisation which meant that in an old person there might be a readily remedial cause for what might have seemed an irreversible change.

* made significant contributions to the understanding of stroke, falls, and nutrition and therapeutics in old age and his research into day hospitals and geriatric rehabilitation units as user-friendly settings for the investigation and treatment of some frail old people has a particular resonance today in the light of revelations of inappropriate and often negligent care.

* was President of the British Geriatrics Society from 1984-86 and, following his retirement, took a leading role in the Royal College of Physicians Research Unit from 1989-98.

* travelled widely, was an excellent mandolin player and a talented artist whose portraits were particularly striking.

* attended the Manchester Medical Society meeting of past Presidents in 2003 seated bottom row second in from the right.

His friend Raymond Tallis wrote of him :

'John was a modest, courteous man with a quiet sense of humour. The last time I met him, a few days before his death, he talked in particular about his time in Labrador. Although he had lost the religious underpinning of the vocation that took him there, he retained the commitment to making the world a better place as a humanist.'

What better epitaph might an old man have ?

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to an old doctor of astrophysics called Brian May aka as a guitarist who played in a band called Queen

Brian musician, singer, songwriter and astrophysicist who achieved international fame as the guitarist of 'Queen' is 66 years old today.

What you possibly didn't know about Brian, that he :

* was an only child, grew up in Hampton in London, his father was a draughtsman at the Ministry of Aviation and at school he formed his first band called 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.

* left school and studied mathematics and physics at Imperial College London graduated and when he was 21, formed the band 'Smile' which contained drummer Roger Taylor.

* at the age of 24, with Roger, joined Freddie Mercury and John Deacon to form 'Queen' went on to write, among other songs, 'We Will Rock You'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iikKzQwgBJc and 'I Want It All'.

* after the 'Live Aid' concert in summer 1985, was phoned along with his band mates by Freddie who proposed writing a song together and the result was 'One Vision', with Brian on music, Roger on lyrics and Freddie as producer and arranger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_1IMZmJe-U

* has stated in interviews that he suffered from severe depression in the late 1980s and early 90s, even to the point of contemplating suicide, for reasons related to  his troubled first marriage, perceived failure as a husband and father, his father's  death and Freddie Mercury's illness and death in 1991 which he chose to deal by working hard, first by finishing his solo album, 'Back to the Light' and then touring worldwide to promote it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJuOxeMNqik

* has worked extensively with stage actress and singer Kerry Ellis after he cast her in the musical 'We Will Rock You'.
With Kerry Ellis in Hyde Park in 2010 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGG_qQ_2Jw

* earned a doctorate in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007 and is currently the Chancellor of 'Liverpool John Moores University' after being awarded an honorary fellowship for his contribution to astronomy and services to the public understanding of science and with duties of presiding over graduation ceremonies and representing the University on special occasions. 

* appeared on the 700th edition of the tv programme,'The Sky at Night', hosted by Patrick Moore and on which the Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, said: "I don't know any scientist who looks as much as like Isaac Newton as you do" to which Brian said : "that could be my after dinner comment, thank you very much".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB55tp7rE64

* in 2009, published a book entitled 'A Village Lost and Found: Scenes in Our Village', a collection of stereoscopic photographs taken by the Victorian photographer T. R. Williams and sold with a stereoscope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMzcU6CIh8U

* formed a group called 'Save Me' to promote decent treatment for animals with a particular emphasis on preventing hunting of foxes and the culling of badgers and said in an interview in 2010 that he "would rather be remembered for his animal rights work, than for his music or science" and this year joined fellow French guitar player Jean-Pierre Danel for a charity launched for the benefit of animal rights in France.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weaHRi63NXM

* was ranked at number 39 on the 'Rolling Stone' Magazine's list of the '100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time' and will be immortalised by playing in 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIp5QC8Reso

Britain is no country for hot old men in a heatwave

Britain is hot at the moment. The jet stream is well to the north of its usual summer path and has allowed high pressure to build and the heat increase under cloudless skies. 30 million people, about  half the people in Britain, are now in The Meteorological Office 'Heatwave level 3' warning in Southern England, warning social and health care workers to focus on the very young, the very old and those with chronic diseases.
Today’s high temperature marks the fifth day in a row that the thermometer reading has exceeded 30C, representing the longest heatwave for seven years.

Professor Ben Armstrong, an epidemiological statistician at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:
“Our previous studies have shown that as temperatures rise above a certain threshold, the risk of death increases. Using the same model, we estimate that the current heatwave has caused the premature deaths of 650 people. The excess is likely to have been overwhelmingly among the elderly, especially those over 75, some of which may have been among people who would have died just a few weeks later if there had been no heatwave.”

As forecasters predicted little respite until at least the end of next week, this number is likely to double.

Old men and women die in the heat in Britain because they  :
*  don't drink enough to keep their bodies hydrated.
* close up the widows to protect themselves from burglars.
* with air conditioning,  get cold and then turn up the thermostat to get warm.

 By the same token, Britain is a country where old men die in unnecessary numbers in winter cold :
 My post from :

Thursday, 17 January 2013

    Britain is a country where fewer old men than usual will die from the cold this winter because of a charity called Age UK and 'Spread the Warmth'

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/britain-is-rich-country-and-one-where.html