Barton news

There have been teams digging up the lane in Barton for superfast broadband over the past two to three years.   We have waited for connection over a similar timescale.   Earlier in the year, we actually had our connection pot installed on the road verge, after we had been missed out.   In May, we had progress when the Gigaclear fibre line was connected to the house.   On 26 May, the line was run from our connection pot on the lane, through the wall by the road, along a shallow trench in the lawn, through the house wall to a box on the sitting room wall.   Unfortunately, however, there was a blockage found 50 m down the road, so we were unable to find out how superfast our broadband might be.   Up to now, we have survived on BT’s maximum of 8 Mbs, with buffering a regular feature. A team came on 10 June to sort the block and splice the fibre.   The story was that the block required the road being closed and dug up, as not only was the block at 50 m, the...

So, what has been happening with the number of reported Covid-19 cases in North Somerset since the last blog on this subject?  In local and national press, the news has been the closure of Weston General Hospital to new patients and the A&E department on 25 May, supposedly associated with a spike in numbers of cases of Covid-19 (See - https://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/council-to-delay-reopening-services-after-south-west-r-rate-reaches-uk-high-1-6683792).  Matt Hancock also commented on the spike and the lockdown in Weston-super-Mare.   Continuing to use the number of daily cases reported on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ for North Somerset, there is an interesting pattern emerging.  From the 16 April 2020 when I started noting the numbers up to 24 May, there has been a continuous increase in the number of cases averaging just under seven cases a day (6.8).  It is a remarkably straight line, possibly indicating that whatever actions were being ta...

Have you noticed the heavy advertising for travel and tourism?   It seems to be in every medium. just as lockdown is easing.   Have you ever thought: Why do we expect to travel the globe and be tourists everywhere?   What is this sense of entitlement?   What does travel do to climate, to local communities, wildlife etc.?   What should we be doing? Fairly recently, I heard the following: “Everybody has the right to travel to wherever they wish”.   Pre-coronavirus, that was probably a very widely held opinion.   However, at the very simplest level, this is patently now not the case.   I am not able to visit my grandchildren in Scotland.   If we were to follow our inclination to go where we like, when we like, in fairly short order we would likely be subject to state intervention and sanctions – and in my opinion, under current coronavirus conditions, rightly too, including Mr Cummings.   So, how does this sit with our apparently insatiab...