About Richard Hall
I don't use facebook -and I never will, its links to people I have never met and know nothing about is both weird and disturbing. Nor do I use a smartphone that knows more about me than I do. Frankly I think people who do are bonkers. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave. He thought it would take a totalitarian dictatorship to make people publish everything about themselves, but apparently millions are prepared to reveal the details of their banal lives on a web site over which they have no control, and to use a phone with an operating system controlled by an organisation that seems committed to the goal;
'To know everything about everyone'
And the organisation behind said 'phone seems a lot closer to achieving that goal than the original users of that mission statement. And if you think the ones named after a popular fruit are any better you are deluding yourself.
Alicia, my long suffering wife, says I'm an anti-social git. But then she's the sort fluffy bunny who does use fb and a phone that knows her favourite brand of underwear so that she can play silly games on it. Seems like a poor bargain to me, but obviously I am just odd. Meantime I plead guilty to recognising my own unimportance, so I am not going to publish details of this unimportance on a web site I don't control.
But I have owned this domain name for many years, so anyone who wants to and can manage to use the aforementioned search engine can get in touch. But before you do please reflect on this. If you used to know me in a previous phase of our lives but we haven't spoken for many years there is probably a good reason for this.
My email address remains 'myfirstname@thisdomain'.
At the present time my working days are taken up with my micro business Red Kite Electrical.
Most of my leisure time I spend sailing.
Recent developments
2014- Our attempt to build a new house actually large enough to live within storing half our possessions continues. The site is now more or less clear. And we have been to Bavaria to visit the house manufacturers. Awesome. It puts the amateurishness of British industry in general, and construction in particular into sharp relief. So it has taken a bit longer to publish, but here is the by hand demolition of a clapped out bungalow in a small Dorset town.
Alicia is still enjoying being a big noise at Condor Ferries and is based at their head office in Poole. Much as I would like to devote my life to pottering about in my new toy;
and my not so new toy;
it is not going to happen just at the moment.
On the grounds that a) when Alicia finally comes to her senses and throws me out I am unlikely to make much selling my body b) retirement at 49 is probably not a particularly clever long term idea, Red Kite Electrical is to rise phoenix like in our new location. Well that was the idea anyway...
Indeed the experience of the last 18 months trading in Dorsetshire, is that everything is about very different from areas of the country where the economy really functions. Frankly the experience has left me rather bitter and frustrated, and I written a few musings on trying to work in Dorset. The upshot of which is that resources permitting I will be returning to the the 'ding later in the year, hopefully resuming trading properly in the autumn, once the new house is completed.
Do you pay the stupidity tax?
Many aspects of the modern world simply baffle me (see above for example). There are many others. Why, for example, did Barack Obama go to all the trouble and expense of being elected, and re-elected as President of the United States? He doesn't appear to know, so why should the rest of us? Please do let me know if you have any theories. I am sure he could make just as much money and be having a far more pleasant life as a Professor at some Ivy League institution.
But brought front and centre of what I am pleased to call my mind by the recent decision to double the price of a ticket is the eighteen year old UK National Lottery has always been beyond my comprehension. I mean why? Various orthodox left wing commentary will tell you that it is an act of desperation, but there are plenty of others available. Frankly that is a load of pseudo intellectual tosh.
This is not a complaint about long odds gambling. As a Newbury boy and sometime follower of National Hunt racing that would be hypocritical. If you like that sort of thing, step into your local bookmaker and place your £1 (soon to be £2) on an accumulator. Bet on the 2nd favourite in each race. After 8 wins, stake re-invested, at a conservative 5 to 1 you would have won over £1.5 million.
To de-construct it a little further even a match 3 win is a 54 to 1 shot . This returns £10. WTF! A single win on the accumulator at 5 to 1 means £6 back. I have won many bets at between 5 and 15 to 1 at Newbury, Ascot, and Kempton. I have never won at 50 to 1, but if I ever did I would get £51 back. The lottery is is simply a fraudulent bet. If you play it you are paying a tax on your own stupidity.
Richard Hall
January 2014
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