"Shambolic Government" - Well, I Never!

The Government's air quality policies have been branded "shambolic" after a third successful court action by Client Earth. See this article from Edie. Sadly this is not the only part of Government that is shambolic. Brexit may be described as something more cock-eyed than a pig's ear. The Health Department is presiding over a disaster in the NHS. Prisons are at crisis point. Education is not far behind. One could go on.....................

Hatching, Matching and Dispatching William Sharp

One piece of advice professional genies all give us amateurs is to make sure we "kill off" our ancestors. Often, finding a death record adds little information and can be the most difficult BMD record to obtain. My wife's 2xgreat grandfather William Sharp proved to be just such a case.

As is often the case, my first sight of him was on the birth certificate of one of his children - Kate's great grandmother Ellen Omiah Sharp. (Hooray for unusual names - they make ancestor hunting so much easier!). So there he was, a corporal in the Royal Engineers and married to Honor Nicholls. That made matching a simple job - 21 April 1866 at the register office in Stoke Damerel. An unusually precise age was given - nearly 331/2 - so a likely birth year of 1832. Father - William Sharp, deceased, a master shoemaker at Edinburgh. Great to have that extra information!

So, now to see if we can hatch him, probably in Edinburgh. Onto the Scotland's People web site and a search for a William Sharp with a father also named William baptised in Edinburgh, say, between 1831 and 1835. Hmmm. Two possibilities show up, one in the city of Edinburgh and the other in St Cuthberts. Well, I guess one takes a punt and invests 6 credits to look at the first record. Damn - a son born to William formerly a mason and now a spirit dealer - doesn't sound like the right William.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained - invest another 6 credits in the second possibility. Much better - "William Sharp, Shoemaker, No 72 Hooper Park End and Agnes Leishman his spouse had a son born on the 26th day of October last" - and baptised on 6th December 1832. Not definitive but looks very likely.

Can he be found in the censuses? 1841 in St Cuthberts with Agnes and several siblings looks good. 1851 in St Cuthberts, a lodger working as a type founder looks a possibility. Can't find him anywhere in 1861 - annoying. 1871 - no problem - with the family in Gillingham, a corporal in the Royal Engineers. 1881 - still in Gillingham with the family, now a draughtsman.

1891 - can't find him again, using a fairly narrow birth date range. Try looking for his youngest child. Aha! He's shaved 5 or so years off his age, and married again 'cos Honor has died. He's still in Gillingham so I could have used that as a search tool, possibly. On to 1901 - can't find him again. Try using "draughtsman" as a keyword. Oh, there's a widower retired draughtsman call William Sharp living in the household of  Annie Beal in Fulwood, Lancashire. Now one of his daughters was Anne - and, yes, she married a Joseph Beal. I think we have our man, again.

How about 1911? No sign again, not even with cunning keywording. Where's Annie? Now in Pewsey. Perhaps William went south again with the family and has since died. Yup, there's a William Sharp, an army pensioner, recorded as dying in Pewsey in 1907 at the age of 74. I think we've despatched him. Annoying about that 1861 census, tho'.

Live Near The Gym - Get Thin

This is a crazy bit of research. There seems to be a correlation between living near the gym and your waist size and body fat. People with at least 6 physical activity facilities within 1km of their home have 0.8% less body fat and a waist 1.2cm smaller then the average. Conversely, living near fast food outlets increases waist size by 0.2cm. Can you believe that someone actually undertook this research?

Save the big cats - pull down fences

The law of unintended consequences manifests itself in many different ways. I recently came across this article in New Scientist which describes how fencing much of the Kalahari in Botswana to "protect" cattle from foot and mouth and other supposed wildlife-borne diseases has resulted in the complete ceasing of some mass animal migrations, massive die-offs, and in one case, the quagga, extinction. And why my headline about big cats? Obvious, really - they predate the migrating ungulates so a fall in the availability of the latter badly impacts the former (who, of course, always grab the "endangered" headlines).

Hopefully you will be able to see the article but please accept my apologies if you find that it is behind a pay-wall. Perhaps a few startling numbers will help. "Die-offs along fence lines in the order of 300,000 wildebeest carcasses, 10,000 hartebeest and 60,000 zebra from a handful of incidental surveys carried out [have been reported]". "The Kalahari wildebeest, once said to rival the millions in the Serengeti, were reduced to an aerial count of 260 animals in 1987".

Ironically, it now appears that foot and mouth is endemic in the livestock population and wildlife doe not provide a reservoir of the disease. Also, in 2015, tourism in Botswana - much of it centered around its wildlife - accounted for 16% of the county's GDP while the livestock industry provided just 2.5%. One problem is that rich cattle owners make up a disproportionate number of high-level decision makers.

A few fewer fences are required!

A Different Approach to Climate Change Action

This article on the BBC Sport web site made me wonder if there is a different approach to galvanising climate change action. Many of the warnings about climate change concentrate on economic impacts, generalised extreme weather events and property risks. How about warning people that their leisure interests are also at risk? Football in the UK is almost a religion. What if football fans were told that more games will be lost, or costs will escalate as mitigation measures are taken? This approach could be expanded into almost every sphere of our lives. Look at what is really important to people and then lay out the impact thereon. Worth a thought?

Warming Being Underestimated?

Some analysis of climate models undertaken last year indicates that it is quite possible that we are underestimating the rate of forcing which would mean that 4degC warming is a distinct possibility. This work was based on looking at the models that best fit real-world data and then using them to project forward. I won't go into detail - it's worth taking some time to read the original paper - but there's certainly no room for complacency.

Brexit and my MP: Part 26

Another missive from my MP - actually mainly a forwarded letter from Lord Callanan, Minister of State at DExEU. Anne Milton writes "I hope you find the Minister's comments useful". Well, to be frank Anne, no I don't. There was absolutely nothing in his letter that I did not already know and this really gets up my nose. Do these people genuinely think that when someone is interested enough to contact their MP about important issues they are going to be satisfied by patronising pap like this? It is small wonder that politicians attract such low esteem when every communication reads or feels as though they are attempting to slide around the subject without saying anything meaningful at all.

Rant over - the evidence is below: