The Portland Vase

      The Portland Vase, quite possibly the rarest and most important piece of Roman Cameo Glass in the world. Thought to be from the period at the end of the Republic and is currently owned by the British Museum.

Can We Afford The Future

          The modern lifestyle and "living beyond your means" is an old adage, though many people do just that with spending up to the hilt and are quite happy to "put it on the card" and run up a series of loans, with banks all too happy to exploit this weakness.
      Most people in Britain face the major problem of paying high rents or increasingly expensive mortgages, coupled with Council Tax payments which seem to be rapidly increasing to almost the level of a secondary rental payment. Not forgetting all the old additional payments of Gas, Water, Electricity, etc.
      Set the Coronavirus to a close, if the country isn't facing bankruptcy by then, will HS2 be allowed to continue beyond the initial stages and deeper into the black-hole of cost. There are a few other similar areas of expense which may need postponement or more likely, total and final abandonment. 
      Speaking of HS2 and the transport network in general, there are already many areas of road and rail crying out for improvement and upgrade. Not forgetting the overriding and long awaited process of taking all petrol and diesel engines off the roads and replacing them with the electric powered engine, with a technology still in it's infancy. How close are we really to producing a sustainable electric vehicle with a long battery life and good range at a consumer friendly price and second hand value, rather than merely some throw-away luxury item? 
      What about the subject of housing and the demand for new building? In this day and futuristic age, your modern house comes off the back of a wagon and can be ensembled in a day. The main problem is the land on which the house is built, not always in such a plentiful supply. And the modern house has come a long way in just a few short years, in electricals, plumbing, insulation and of course costs. Not forgetting the existing housing stock, mostly in need of insulation and upgrading.
      The NHS often said to be the envy of the world and we all like to think we deserve and should be given the best medical treatment if and when we need treatment. But there are a multitude of expenses in such an operation, we always seem to be pumping a few million, billion in here and there, never seems to make any difference. 
      The armed forces, Britain has always had a long tradition of an independent military combined services, but with ships which can't always be at sea, aircraft which must remain in the hanger and mixed levels of recruitment, to put it mildly, everything is kept to a tight budget.
      On the subject of the free television licence for the 4 million over 75's which equates to an annual sum of £750 million and is a hard pill to swallow for the BBC. So you can no doubt realise there is very little prospect of there ever being a free television licence for the rest of us. 
      There is the matter of the Welfare State and running it is a very expensive business, where as funding it is quite another, it is supposed to provide an acceptable living standard for the elderly, the disabled and the unemployed, which currently equates to approx. £200 billion.
      When you start talking and thinking in millions and billions, it becomes all too easy to become dismissive of physical costs and the norm soon becomes trillions.
      The Government plan to limit spending upon the infrastructure and leave such matters to the private sector, leaves Britain exposed to foreign companies, who in return demand high payments for their services and to pay zero corporation tax.

All At Sea

      The close of World War Two, saw 158 German U-Boats surrendered to the Allied Forces. Of this number, ten were deemed seaworthy and allocated to the UK US and USSR Navies and one to the French Navy. Four were given to Norway, who scrapped a further three which had surrendered in Norwegian ports, a further two were sunk by the US Navy, the remaining total, some 116 vessels were sunk by the Royal Navy, to the North West of Ireland in an operation known as "Deadlight."
       The original plans for captured war materials was that they should be divided up between the three major allied powers, in the case of the U-Boats, this was decided to be too much of an expense, at the time to move the vessels from the UK so they were sunk rather than dispersed or scrapped. There was also a question of manpower, needed in matters of scrappage, as many ports were already laden with such war damaged ships. A further matter considered by the UK and US was their not wanting the USSR to gain too much naval hardware.
      As it turned out, the scuttling of so many craft proved a difficult and time consuming task, with 36 boats ending their days as gunnery targets for The Royal Navy.