This is my final goodbye and “thank you” to the many loyal visitors to this blog. There is a time and place, a beginning and an end to most things. The system has dictated that I can upload no more items. I am blocked. And my age and energy tell me that the time is right to stop.

Thank you!

A leak of data from Swiss bank Credit Suisse has shown that it provided services for many years to known criminals and fraudsters involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes. It’s the latest huge scandal to hit the Swiss bank, say investigative Guardian reporters. The leak points to widespread failures of due diligence by Credit Suisse, despite repeated promises over decades to weed out dubious clients and illicit funds. The huge trove of banking data was leaked by an anonymous whistleblower to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. (Kalyeena Makortoff and David Pegg, (The Guardian 26 Feb 2022).

My comment: It seems only weeks since a similar scandal involved HSBC bank, since when the matter has disappeared from the news. Major criminal activity cannot be reduced until governments really clamp down on corrupt banks, which ought to be relatively straightforward, but doesn’t seem to be. One wonders (naively) why?.

Aerospace engineers and brain surgeons are not necessarily brighter than the general population, a new study has found. Researchers examined data from 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons who completed 12 cognitive tasks. They found that only neurosurgeons showed a significant difference, with quicker problem-solving speed but slower memory recall compared with the general population.

Comment: Don’t know about you but I would be very happy with the cognitive ability of any of these people, whichever skill they have chosen. I’m glad they are alive, well and working. There are more than enough dim people out there.

“Wealth is like seawater; the more we drink, the thirstier we become: and the same is true of fame”. (Arthur Schopenhauer, quoted in The Atlantic

As we’re watching the horror of this war and refugee crisis unfolding in Ukraine the UK Government is picking this moment to dismantle the refugee protection system in the UK.

This post-Brexit overhaul of the asylum system – if passed in its current form – will punish people who ask for our help. It will disbelieve, detain and criminalise refugees. That goes for Ukrainians and anyone else fleeing war and persecution.

The Anti-Refugee Bill returns to the House of Commmons shortly and MPs will be voting on whether to pass this Bill. We should be doing everything we can to help Ukrainian refugees. That includes scrapping the Anti-Refugee Bill.
(CEO, Refugee Action).

My comment: Totally agree. Meanwhile, the rest of us should send money.