End of an Era

Last night the news was announced of the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last of a generation of Cold War leaders, who along with the likes of Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher did more to protect world peace than anyone since 1945.

For those of us that grew up during the Cold War and the concept of MAD (which still exists today) it was very real, I was not born during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but absolutely remember the missiles at Greenham Common airbase in the UK and the regular stand offs that used to occur between East and West.

There is that famous speech from Regan saying "Mr Gorbachev tear down the wall" which is essentially what he did, when the collapse of Eastern Europe started there was no repeat of previous interventions such as Czechoslovakia or Hungary, the wall came down. He recognised change was needed.

As a child I remember going to East Berlin and standing on the viewing platform at Checkpoint Charlie, with Soviet tanks on one side and US ones on other, we were told not to take photos, we of course all did, one day I must find them. Then crossing into East Berlin where it was mandatory to hand over 40 Deutsche Marks to get 40 Ost Marks, you couldn't actually find anything to spend them on and whilst it was illegal we used to give them away in the square outside the East German parliament building or smuggle them back out to the west.

He will be one of my over riding memories of the Cold War along with TV series like "Threads", the animation "When the Wind Blows", the hilarious UK information campaign entitled "Protect and Survive", at the time we were living maybe 5 miles from a primary target. There was of course the iconic Vulcan Bomber, although by that point the UK's nuclear deterrent was the responsibility of the Royal Navy as it is today. Ironically this Cold War icon is probably most remembered for its role in Operation Black Buck from the Falklands War.

This era was such a big part of my life growing up and I've got so many memories of what went on and how the world changed over this period I could probably write for hours about it.

Say what you like about Thatcher and Regan between the three of them they started the journey on making the world a safer place. Yes I disagree with his politics, but he recognised change was needed and tried, Russian history will I'm sure be unkind to him. Sadly we are back in world of pre-1985 before him came to power at the moment. Steve Rosenberg's interview with him from a year or so ago where he ended up playing the piano and having a sing along with him says a lot about the man. RIP Mikail Gorbachev you changed the world. You don't have to agree with someone to respect him.

 

Water

There has been a lot of talk about this over this summer, the worst drought that anyone can remember or the worst since this date, depending on what country you are in.

The UK one of 1976 sticks in my memory, I was 7 and very much remember standpipes in the road, using bath water to flush the toilet, for whatever reason the summer 2003 doesn't resonate as much with me as the 1976 one, maybe because I was married with two small children by then I had other things to worry about.

Anyway where is the leading you might ask well the question of why has the UK suffered so badly, there are lots of factors, but one that comes to mind is that you have to invest in your infrastructure. Since 1976 the UK population has grown by over 11 million, that to put it in perspective is roughly the same size of the population of the whole of Andalucia in Spain, where I currently live. 

Something is definitely broken in the UK, water in Spain is a public/private partnership at the municipality level, of which there are 785 in Andalucia, but is essentially devolved to the 17 regions, one of which is Andalucia, given regions and municipalities are directly elected lack of water or sewage flowing into the sea is very visible by your electorate. Last winter where we live sewage pipes got destroyed by the winter storms meaning sewage could have flowed into the sea. The Andalucia govt stepped in and fixed them. The UK is a bit of a joke here as to how can anywhere where it rains so much be short of water?

It also doesn't rain on the Costa del Sol for 6 months over the summer, but we can still fill pools, wash cars, water gardens etc. so they have the water supply part right as well, now to be balanced this is not the same everywhere in Spain, but my direct experience says where we are they have it right with ours known as La Concepcion Reservoir. Here we are after a seriously hot summer (it was 31C on Easter Sunday and we've had more fires and 40C+ days than ever) and it'll be hot for many weeks to come and the reservoir is at 73% capacity still. The reservoir was built in the early 1970s and was controversial but the vision of it can now not be denied as it supplies the 450,000 people on the Costa.

This photo was earlier this week of La Conception, they even publish a webpage about how full it is https://www.embalses.net/pantano-847-la-concepcion.html so no hiding.

 

Where to start?

I've been thinking (read trying) to write, start, whatever phrase you wish to use on one of these for many many years, in fact over the years many people have said I should. Well I'm finally giving it a go, some of it will be controversial for sure.

In the meantime I've posted my Strava widgets on the right hand side of the page, the only sports I really do are cycling and skiing and both of those record on Strava.

I've started add links to other blogs / webpages on the same sidebar as well.

A bit of history, born and raised in the UK, working for big corporates and traveled the world, hence the domain name, notimezone.net, as one of my corporate bios once said I professed no time zone as I traveled cray amounts of miles on planes. Not uncommon for me to fly over 1/3rd million miles in a year which is over 13 times around the world, over 100 take off and landings (good they matched) and that did include some round the world trips. As a result I'm lifetime Gold on the likes of BA and Virgin, plus lots of hotel chains.

Moved from an OEM to an iGaming provider in 2017, then in 2019 was offered a chance to go work for an iGaming provider based out of Spain. That gets me into the whole Brexit fiasco and sitting on the outside looking in at the state of the UK. What it has told me is I should have taken opportunities like this earlier in my life and moved whilst the kids were still at home, as it stands it is my wife and I, plus the dog living just outside Marbella.

So now we get to enjoy the benefits of being an EU resident, with better weather and a chance to explore and travel somewhere, plus we have to learn Spanish wine.