Tag archives for 2017 - Page 2
Snap Election – Some Analysis GE2017
London skyline, with Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower) in the background. (Photo: James Kemp) Yesterday's unexpected announcement of a snap election for 8 June is an interesting development for the UK government. It makes complete sense when you view things with a Conservative party lens. The Conservatives are massively ahead in the polls. The Labour party clearly aren't united enough for an election (especially as it is three years early). It deals with the jibes that the Prime Minister has no electoral mandate (whether you believe those claims or not). Caveats on Polls Opinion polls have significant margins of error. I've blogged about this previously several times. Mid term polls are especially prone to large errors. Voters blatantly misdirect pollsters, or simply change their minds on the day. Either way the apparent 25 point Conservative lead over the Labour part doesn't…
Hell No! I won’t go! – World Poetry Day 2017 [Poetry]
English: The RedBalloon office - an example of an open plan 'Bullpen'-style office. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) World poetry day was yesterday, and it prompted me to write some poetry on the train home. This first draft is provisionally titled "Hell no! I won't go!". The inspiration for this poetry is a proposed series of office moves to bring our teams into fewer buildings. Many colleagues have been grumbling about moving office. This is intended to be a comic take on it and bears no relation to any real reason people may have cited. All this is purely imaginary, and I hope it brings a wry smile. Hell No! I won't go! The bosses have decided. We will be better together, in a new office. The new office is where everyone will be. Enjoying their coffee, except for me, I commute…
Disneyland Paris Experience at Half Term Feb 2017
This week's blog post is slight late because I spent the first five days of this week at Disneyland Paris. It was a tiring holiday, but my kids seriously enjoyed Disneyland Paris, so it was worth doing. We've had a fab time, although Disneyland Paris was a bit busier than I'd expected at February half-term. Some of this was because a lot of the bigger rides were closed for refurbishment over the winter. So more people were trying to get on the rides that were still open. Star Wars at Disneyland Paris I think the highlight of the week was probably Alexander doing the Jedi Academy. Disneyland Paris is getting a Star Wars themed makeover, two of the big rides are being re-vamped to bring them up to date with the Star Wars franchise (Star Tours and Space Mountain). There are…
Resolutions – Review of 2016’s Resolutions & Setting 2017’s
I seem to have started a tradition of posting my new year resolutions, so I'm going to continue this with my 2017 resolutions. But before you get the 2017 resolutions I think we should look at how well I've done on the 2016 resolutions. 2016 Resolutions There were three of these posted on 1 Jan 2016. Read 40 books, at least half on paper Write Lose weight 2016 Reading According to my Goodreads tracker I've read 47 books this year. I think that I might have missed one or two off, but it's certainly more than the original 40. Also I counted 26 that I read in hard copy. This was slightly easier because I've not been carrying my Kindle around with me. A lot of the reading has been at home or on holiday. Resolution exceeded! Writing I said I…