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Vic Rolfe

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Everything posted by Vic Rolfe

  1. Meimei was my dearly loved 14 year-old Siberian Husky in the Philippines. She passed-away peacefully the other day. I can't complain at that as she was well-loved and well looked after by my two youngest daughters. She enjoyed life. She was a real surviver and she lived to a ripe old age. My only regret is that due to these ridiculous and largely useless travel bans, I was not able to be with her even once during the last 15 months of her life. 'Just one more of the billions of Covid-19 fall-out stories from around the world... I rescued Meimei from a pet shop when she was about 18 months old. She'd already spent about six months, as far as I can work out, in a filthy little cage in the shop window. From the moment I picked her up, she loved her Big Daddy like, well, (words fail me...) Well like only Meimei could! I was there for her when she was younger and I spent as much time as I could with her in her older years. I only wish I could have seen her in her last year of life. My kids told me that Meimei was waiting for me to come home. Covid bull... Well... Maybe she understands now. I am going to miss you Meimei. And I will always love you... Your Big Daddy forever!! Here's Meimei in her younger days, not too long after I got her - having a good look over the wall at some goats in a field there!!
  2. Saying goodbye (for now) to a truly wonderful father!
  3. As far as I am concerned, the pandemic is now over... It's now "an endemic". So let's get used to it and start cutting down on some of the crap?

    1. Vic Rolfe

      Vic Rolfe

      Even the Philippines have finally got the message now...!! 😊

  4. until
    Engaged as a Purchases Representative onboard a cable ship on cable installation operations. Unavailable for any further projects before the end of December, 2021.
  5. until
    Working as an onboard Purchaser's Representative and unavailable for any other new projects before the second half of August, 2021.
  6. Vic Rolfe

    A message to Meimei

    Just for the record, here is a copy of my youngest daughter's epitaph for Meimei: And here was my reply. It's basically a Message to Meimei, wherever she is now! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
  7. Beer brewing has been going well. But some work would be better...

  8. Available to travel from Bristol, UK, late PM for any Cable or Offshore Wind Client Rep. work - OIM, DPO or similar - and/or general project assistance, if required.
  9. Undergoing ENG-1 and UK Offshore Medical examinations.
  10. until
    In Norwich, UK, throughout, for GWO-BST, BOSIET and MIST training courses.
  11. I have finally had enough of the Financial Times and have now cancelled my subscription. When asked for my feedback, this is what I gave them: I could have added that in the good old days, the ft was a highly respected "paper of record." Nowadays, I have better things to spend my money on.
  12. 'Finally Getting off CS NIWA and heading for the UK - hopefully!! (Five months into a six week project?!!)
  13. And more power to Lord Sumption !! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8281007/Former-Supreme-Court-judge-LORD-SUMPTION-gives-withering-critique-Governments-lockdown.html https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/03/lord-sumption-speaks-against-hysteria-driven-government-policy-.html
  14. More power to Anders Tegnell !! All makt åt Anders Tegnell !! !! My letter to the ft. Needless to say, they didn't publish this. So, haha, I decided to publish it myself: Just in case you should decide to publish my letter, please do feel free to edit as necessary - as long as you maintain the essence of my point. Thank you - and keep up the generally high quality reporting and opinion pieces that I have been accustomed to with the ft over the last 45 years! Best regards, Vic Rolfe (Currently onboard a ship in the UAE after a full two months of quarantine - and I still can't get off!)
  15. Here's someone talking some sense, for once, in this crisis: You don't need to take my word for it. This is from a former Supreme Court Judge in the UK: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8281007/Former-Supreme-Court-judge-LORD-SUMPTION-gives-withering-critique-Governments-lockdown.html For the record, I do not consider Lord Sumption's comments extreme in the least. I would place his views firmly in the middle ground when it comes to the great lock-down debate. I agree with every single word that Lord Sumption wrote. I would like to go even further and bring in the following points: Firstly, I believe that Lord Sumption was far to kind to Niel Ferguson and his team, with his comments regarding the Imperial College pre-print that caused the UK Government to do an overnight U-turn. The media in general seem to think that it was a scientific paper when presented to the UK Government? It was not a scientific paper at that time because it had not been peer-reviewed at that time. It was nothing more than a pre-print from one team of scientists. (As far as I am aware, that is all it is to this day? If I am wrong, please do leave a comment and enlighten me...) Lord Sumption touches on the national economic dimension of the UK lock-down. But I would take the discussion further - specifically with regards to how this will affect the final death toll. I would also like to bring in the international dimension to the debate - in terms of both health and economics. We seem to have forgotten that this is a world-wide pandemic and it needs world-wide coordinated actions - not selfish national ones that will bring hundreds of millions of people around the world back into poverty and starvation. Finally: when governments around the world shot their own and each others economies in the foot, did they even stop to consider the added threat that we now have to international peace and stability?
  16. Well worth a read International Center For Journalists (ICFJ) - report from a webinar with Anders Tegnell: https://www.icfj.org/news/swedens-top-epidemiologist-challenges-conventional-wisdom-covid-19 And well-worth watching Johan Giesecke's LockdownTV video conference interview for The Post, at Unherd.com: https://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/?=thepostindexfrmemail
  17. A while back, antibody testing was all going to be a big thing. Boris, before he got totally lead astray by his advisors, reckoned at one point that it was going to be a "game-changer..." Now, all of that has disappeared from the daily propaganda because extensive anti-body testing throughout a representative sample of the UK population is liable to prove that the UK Government didn't do their homework. They put too much faith in a single, grossly flawed model - and then they made a complete and utter mess of things. And don't tell me that we don't have a reliable antibody test for SARS-Cov-2, available in sufficient quantities yet: Roche’s COVID-19 antibody test receives FDA Emergency Use Authorization and is available in markets accepting the CE mark I also note with deep regret that the lead author of the paper that touted the grossly flawed model in which the UK Government placed far too much trust, Prof. Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, has since resigned from his position as a Government advisor. And this; after having been caught undermining the very lock-down that he, more than anyone else, was instrumental in engineering for the whole country. The UK Government would get more respect from me if they were to just come clean and say: Hey Guys... We are really sorry about this... It's a new virus. There are wildly differing models out there and no one has had enough time to do full and exhaustive research. We should have taken all of the available research and the wildly different models into account, in formulating our plans to get the country through the pandemic. We should have weighed-up all of the available models and assessed them on their various strengths, methodologies, merits, demerits and stated weaknesses and insufficient data. We should then have made a reasoned judgement based on ALL of the available information. But no. We allowed ourselves to be panicked by Prof. Neil Ferguson and his one single, ridiculously flawed model. We said that we were looking at all of the available models and research. But, actually, that was a bare-faced lie because they didn't fit in with the course of action that we had already committed ourselves to. Sorry, we made a complete hash of it! We did our best but we got it wrong. So let's now put an end to this pathetic charade and all get back to work before we completely destroy what's left of our economy? Now, that would get my vote!! Here we go: (This just about say's it all...) https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-know-everything-and-nothing-about-covid
  18. Anders Tegnell - my hero!! (And I want one of those T-shirts!!) From Prospect Magazine, May 01, 2020: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/will-swedens-herd-immunity-experiment-pay-off The title of the article is a little misleading, since Anders himself has said that Sweden is not running an experiment - and allowing the building-up of a widespread immunity to the SARS-Cov-2 virus among the Swedish population was never a part of the the plan... (Sorry, I just can't bring myself to use that "H" word, when referring to widespread immunity to a particular virus, in a population of people. Call it "crowd immunity," if you must. We are not cow's, thank you!?)
  19. The cover photo shows the Perfect Strangers Band, with Bhebot on lead guitar at the Amazonia Bar in Ermita, Manila - some time in August, 2005 Here's the lyrics to the Led Zeppelin song, the title of which I stole for my blog! Ramble On - from Led Zep II Led Zeppelin - Ramble On Lyrics Courtesy of azlyrics.com
  20. From the Spectator - 4th May, 2020: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-tames-its-r-number-without-lockdown (My emphasis...) And they, (the UK Government,) still don't seem to get it? The only question now, in my mind, is why has the UK, despite all of its efforts with a full-on lock-down for weeks on end, had a much higher death rate than Sweden, where they never did go into lock-down? (Social distancing and several other measures, yes - but not a full-on lock-down by any stretch of the imagination...) Possibly, Sweden's much lower population density might have something to do with it? And a better funded and equipped health service? A fitter population? Cleaner air? (I read somewhere that the effects of air pollution and obesity appear to be showing a coincidental, (IE not yet proven to be causal,) relationship there...) Anyway, we won't know, until both Sweden and the UK have carried-out some extensive antibody testing throughout representative samples of their populations. If - and it's a big if - but if, as I strongly suspect, it turns out that the infection rates between the two countries are broadly similar, then both the UK Government and the team led by Prof. Neil Ferguson at Imperial College will have an awful lot of explaining to do. Could it be that the UK Government's crazy experiment in locking down the country has actually caused more deaths? As I have said throughout this fiasco... high levels of stress, (like losing your job or going bankrupt, for instance,) is not at all good for your immune system.
  21. 'Just as well I am not in Thailand right now - after four months on a dry ship... I see that they have now extended their alcohol ban - (or "booze ban" as the Bangkok Post calls it, in line with the government party line) - until the end of May... "Booze ban"? So, what...? One is allowed to have a glass off fine wine, is one? Or is alcohol in any shape or form hence forth to be known by the derogatory term for cheep beer?

  22. Well... Four weeks into a two week quarantine in the UAE - and they still won't let us out of here. Well done, lads...

  23. Cover image: NOW AND THEN: The Seaman’s Union on Ruperra Street, Newport - used with the very kind permission of the South Wales Argus Before you shoot me, please note the quotation marks! So who did say that? During a recent email rant with a friend of mine, over not being able to get off a ship in the UAE, having already spent four weeks in quarantine - and despite the fact that Emirates are providing a limited number of repatriation flights to the UK - I mentioned to him that nothing had changed since the 1966 seaman's strike. We are still treated like the "scum of the earth..." I remember, when I first started sailing at the tender young age of 16 years old, in 1974, being told by one 'hairy-arsed seaman,' that Harold Wilson was the one who had said: "Seamen are the scum of the earth." My friend is at lot better than me, at British history of the 20th century. He informed me that he was not so sure about being able to attribute such a statement to Harold Wilson? I then done a quick Google search, and, to be honest, I couldn't find any reference to Harold Wilson ever having made such an outrageous remark. What I did find, was this: From Jim Dyer of Newport, in the South Wales Argus, in an article dated 27th September 2016 and titled: NOW AND THEN: The Seaman’s Union on Ruperra Street, Newport: https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/14753223.now-and-then-the-seamans-union-on-ruperra-street-newport/ So, OK, it wasn't Harold Wilson then, after all... But, as we always say, at sea: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!"
  24. I see that Thailand have extended the ban on international passenger flight arrivals, (with the usual minor exceptions,) until the end of May. Oh... And British Airways are about to cut 12,000 jobs. Which totally pales into insignificance, of course, behind the World Food Program's analysis: WFP Chief warns of hunger pandemic as COVID-19 spreads And that's on top of the existing 135 million who are already in that position. Bringing the grand total to over a quarter of a billion... I would just rephrase that bit about "due to Coronavirus..." (It wasn't the virus that caused total economic melt-down. It was the collective insanity of the majority of governments around the world, in doing their best to turn a developing worldwide crisis into a complete and utter worldwide catastrophe... They buried their heads in the sand for weeks on end, until it was already far too late. And then, of course, they went into full-on panic mode and totally over-reacted to the whole thing....)
  25. Look after your immune system! Healthy diet Plenty of exercise And less stress Healthy diets and less stress will be easier to achieve all round if we don't completely destroy our economy? The human immune system is a pretty amazing thing - but you do need to look after it. A basically healthy person can get away with a few vitamin tablets to substitute for a less than ideal diet. And you can also get away with some halfhearted exercise - at least, as far as your immune system is concerned. But what your immune system doesn't need is stress. So let's all get back to work before we end up turning a crisis into a complete disaster? Here's some interesting reading on what 'they' know so far - and, more importantly, what they don't know. It's quite a long article so, if you don't have time to read the whole thing, I would highly recommend scrolling down towards the end, where there is some very interesting stuff on testing, anti-bodies and immune responses, in connection with SARS-Cov-2. https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/20/everything-we-know-about-coronavirus-immunity-and-antibodies-and-plenty-we-still-dont/ Needless to say, I wouldn't have posted the link if I didn't happen to agree with the article - especially with reference to the bit where it says: Anyway, I am open to alternative points of view. That is why I have enabled "Guest Posting" on my site. So do feel free to give me a piece of your mind, if you think that I am talking out of my "puet." (It's a tagalog word!) 'No need to register with the site to post a comment. You just need to wait for me to approve the comment before it becomes visible on the site. (This is purely a spam/hacking defense mechanism and I will not delete comments just because I don't happen to agree with them. You just have to be nice, how you say it!!) 🙂
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