Of late the news in Britain has focused on the market town of Wootton Basset, just a few miles down the road from I live, which has the burden of being the nearest habitation to Lyneham Airbase. That's where our fallen soldiers are returning to home shores from foreign entanglements like Afghanistan. So with the recent jingoism to whip up public support for the campaign the town is regularly featured as lining up to watch funeral corteges crawling past. The place has become synonymous with observing respect for servicemen dying in the line of duty (whether they like it or not, and I gather not all townsfolk are overly happy with the news coverage).

Now it's become a hot potato. So complete has the identification with this solemn spectacle become that a radical moslem group wants to make a protest march through the town against the war in Afghanistan, to the fury of the establishment. Two things might be said. Firstly, what did the establishment expect? Not everyone in Britain wants a war in Afghanistan, for various reasons, and the constant reference to Wootton Basset was bound to attract a response sooner or later.

Secondly, this moslem group represents a bunch of people who live, work, and claim dole money in this country, enjoy it's relatively benign culture and prosperity, yet still despise what the nation stands for. For them, it's a chance to grin mischieviously as they parade through a town sanctified by what amounts to British media propaganda and display their own messages of hatred and disrespect. The moslem community in Britain is quick to distance itself from such hotheaded behaviour, with good reason, but are they quick to influence this group and put down an ugly demonstration before the authorities are forced to do so publicly?

The Nevada Triangle

Last night I started watching a tv program about a phenomenon known as the Nevada Triangle. It's an area of the Sierra Nevada mountains and stretching from Reno to Las Vegas. There have been an enormous number of aeroplane crashes in the area. Hundreds of them, and due to the difficult terrain, many of those crash sites remain undiscovered.

As the program discussed the huge number of lost aeroplanes and speculated about the close proximity of Area 51, the legendary military base so steeped in UFO folklore, I sighed and thought I was going to get the usual conspiracy theories. I was mistaken. The talking heads dismissed military or alien intervention.

The program then focused on the fate of Steve Fosset, the very same aerial adventurer who went for records with Richard Branson, and who disappeared in the Triangle in 2007, sparking one of the biggest search and rescue missions in American history, and one that ultimately failed to find him. Why did he crash? My thoughts went back to when I flew in New Zealand back in 1995. Southeast of Ardmore, the airfield I was flying from, is a volcano, albeit one that's no longer that active anymore and forms part of a nature reserve.

On one particular day I was with some family members in a Cessna 172, cruising around the bay north of the Thames Estuary between the Coromandel Peninsula and that wooded mountain. As I headed north adjacent to the mountain, I became aware the aeroplane was descending. Okay, I was still above three thousand feet and in no immediate danger, but it was an uncomfortable sensation knowing that despite full power and a climb attitude, the aeroplane wasn't gaining height.

Once past the mountain we were okay again. The problem was that we were in the lee of that mountain, and had flown through descending air. That was a lesson about mountain flying I haven't forgotten. So when this tv documentary started asking why Steve Fosset had crashed, I immediately thought of airflow over terrain. Mountains and wind are a dodgy combination.

I was right. The conclusion of the experts was that Steve Fosset had encountered difficult airflow and had been forced down like so many others in the Nevada Triangle. Even expert pilots fall victim to this invisible hazard. So do some of the inexperienced ones to a greater or lesser degree. I just happened to fly out of it in one piece.

The Lurve God

Apparently the actor Warren Beatty claims to have had sex with 12,775 women apart from quickies, stolen kisses, and other minor encounters with the opposite sex. Wow. I'm impressed. That's something like 319 women a year (plus a dwarf). I also notice they don't stick around. I wonder if Mr Beatty, for all his professed sexual conquests, is nothing more than a very lonely man. If so, he has only himself to blame.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Sooner or later the law will demand a general election this year. All sides are sniping at the other and proclaiming they have all the answers. Well, I've heard it all before, and it goes with the democratic territory that we get the hard sell when it matters.

What fascinated me however was a recent interview with Gordon Brown. He claimed he was a fighter. That he'd always fought for what he got. That's all well and good Gordon, but if you're such a fighter, why are you resisting the chance to win a general election? Again? Truth is, you don't want that fight at all.

Snowfall of the Week?

A special thank you to whoever laid all that road salt on the pavement adjacent to the Old College car park. Nice to see that health and safety on the sidewalks happens in as little time as two weeks in this country.

Mind you, it seems it might be a little ineffective. As I write this, the weather report warns of heavy snow across the region. I was a child when Swindon last got heavy snow. Are we going to be buried in snow drifts this winter? On my way to the library I noticed one or two flakes, but so far the expected inundation hasn't arrived. The credibility of the weather people rests on this afternoon! We shall see.