Mark Carroll's Journal

British election

Sat, 09 May 2026 10:59:16 GMT

The election happened. Feeling rushed, I took less care than usual in researching my options but there were readily available links online to manifestos and suchlike. As a sufficient discriminator, I focused on parties' positions on the subset of issues where I care more and where I expected more divergence.

Britain is good at offering abundantly many polling stations open for long hours, I have never seen much of a queue. It was R.'s and their eldest first time voting here so I tried to be informative but not overly so. I was surprised how long our regional ballot paper was in person, my not having thought through how it had to fit well over a dozen parties plus a couple of independents. It all seemed to go easily and smoothly even though our polling station serves three … districts? each of which needs two ballot boxes for each of that district's kinds of ballot. It is nice to be in a country that can count elections in hours rather than days.

In every election, my tendency is to weigh my options; over the years, I have voted for a good range of parties. The main exception might be that I don't believe I've ever voted Republican in the US. Twenty years ago I might have at least given them thought but, especially in this modern era, Republicans will have to find some principles, honesty and compassion before I can ever even consider them again. In recent years, the Conservatives in Britain have also moved enough rightward to be beyond the pale for me. I don't think I've moved much leftward in my old age, I think the parties moved under me: Labour remains much more Blair's than Kinnock's, and Badenoch's running scared of Reform. (Some Reform members think the National Socialists made some good points.) I'm slightly awkward because I'm more progressive socially than along other policy axes so it's always a tradeoff: in this case, drawing a few almost-red lines on issues narrowed the options nicely.

The results leave me quite comfortable with remaining in Scotland: Reform did the worst up here. Locally, and in general, the SNP did well. I am not their biggest fan but there are certainly worse and, not winning a majority in Parliament, perhaps they can focus more on governing than referenda. The SNP has this habit of campaigning on many issues then deeming every vote to be a mandate for Scottish independence.

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Artemis II's crew module returned

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 16:50:48 GMT

It is a considerable relief to have the crew of Artemis II safely back on Earth. I wonder in what state the heat shield is now. We stayed up late (for us) last night, streaming Coachella until nearer the reentry time, so we slept in somewhat this morning. It will be great if we manage a successful moon landing and return, for which even more things must go well.

The talk of a moonbase is exciting though this decade seems courageous, I would have thought anything remotely worthy of the name to be a whole order of magnitude tougher still. I wonder how eager future administrations will be to keep pushing the effort. Nonetheless, I should be very happy were we to continue actively working toward such a goal.

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De la Terre à la Lune

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 09:41:13 GMT

I am a fan of manned spaceflight. If we are confined to this planet only, especially if we remain such poor stewards and with such capacity for destruction, then we will be limited and eventually gone, leaving nothing behind but artifacts.

I was concerned for Artemis II, fearing that something like Apollo 8 was a jump too far too fast after a long fallow period, and that showhorses had too greatly replaced sober experts in program management. It was with considerable relief that I watched the astronauts achieve orbit and I am glad that their time in orbit has provided the confidence for their present journey onward to the moon, incidentally arriving at around the dates of first contact for Star Trek and Babylon 5.

I do not know if my children will get to see us establish a longer-term presence on the moon, perhaps even among asteroids, but I can dream. In the meantime, at least I can reasonably hope for the astronauts' safe return.

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Glaswegian matters and beyond

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:28:30 GMT

At the weekend, I happened to be further up the Clyde at the right time to see the bow of a new Naval frigate being transported up the river to the shipyard where the warships are assembled. I didn't know what kind of ship it was for at first, I learned that later online.

Glasgow has a great city center, rather walkable and with the subway for longer hops. Next to Central Station is a fancy building some decades older than the converted Victorian mill that I live in. At least, there was, until a vape store somehow caught fire. Now there are cordoned-off streets, the smell of smoke, and a considerable number of sad, shocked people and even more rather inconvenienced ones.

I have no love for vape stores in the first place, I tend to avoid patronizing establishments that expand their range to vapes. Given vapes' propensity to catch fire in waste processing centers, etc., goodness knows who thought it a good idea to allow a vape shop to locate next to a critical transit hub in a historic landmark whose construction substantially predates fire safety codes. Perhaps we shall find out, with luck when I am not feeling grumpy and vengeful.

My commute may be quite unaffected: when I pass close to the area of the fire, I'm in a subway tunnel on my way to Queen Street, the other main railway station; I hope that tomorrow's train to Edinburgh isn't overly crowded by passengers displaced from Central which won't be open yet.

I refueled our car this evening, I figured that gas prices aren't dropping anytime soon. In probably 2003 I tried holding off filling the car with gas, back when I drove an old Ford Crown Victoria (with around a seventy litre fuel tank), but eventually I had to give in and pay the higher prices. At least, with mostly just driving around the city in our hybrid in the near term, today's gas should last us for a good while.

Update: My morning train's quite full but I arrive comfortably early enough to have snagged a seat easily. A pox on the selfish passengers who use their coat and bag to occupy two seats while others are still boarding.

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News from the Middle East

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:31:10 GMT

Having learned of exchanges of fire in the Middle East, I can't help but worry for the innocent people in the region. Further, I found myself quickly jumping to: what's the off-ramp for Iran? Whenever attacked, it responds. These exchanges typically fizzle out but if Trump welcomes distraction from Epstein then goodness knows how far this will go before he lauds himself for some paper victory.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that if Oriental is a rather Western-centric term for a region then Middle East is no less so.

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Vive la Résistance

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 17:58:39 GMT

I always seem to be living outside the US at times when being present could perhaps allow me to do the most good as a white English-speaking not-MAGA US citizen. It has been tremendously encouraging to learn what good people are doing there and disappointing how little coverage it gets in the news here. The history generator's settings keep tending alarmingly toward interesting times as the administration finds new ways to harm people.

Here's hoping that the Democrats retain something of a spine over reforming ICE. It was interesting to read some suggestion that, even before all this, the Federal law enforcement community had often seen ICE more as cosplayers than competent.

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A nap then a walk

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 16:11:42 GMT

My sleep has not been great. Today, I awoke before 5am then was distracted by a tedious work issue with Discord and crypto wallets and suchlike. Unusually for me, I went back to sleep later in the morning, on our drawing room sofa. Our dog L. pawed at me sometimes, R. wonders if because worried by snoring, but I fell back to sleep each time.

What awoke me properly was what seemed to be a good few hundred Sikhs, we have quite a centrally located flat and their nagar keertan, with walking and music, passed by outside. I had not realized that Vaisakhi has come so I got up to see what was going on.

While I slept, R. had made lunch. After that, we took L. walking on Glasgow Green where there were even a few people sunbathing. We have been enjoying quite the unexpected consistent bout of sunny weather. Sometimes there is a cold wind too but today we were spared.

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Some lucky astronomy

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 17:48:11 GMT

It was rather cloudy here for today's partial solar eclipse but, fortunately, the relevant important moon-finding fellow in the Middle East apparently sighted the crescent in time so the new month starts and we get to celebrate Eid al-Fitr tomorrow, also I don't need to call the school on Monday to explain an absence. As summer time (daylight savings) starts this weekend, we were looking at breaking our fast at 7pm tonight but 8pm tomorrow. Now, tomorrow we get to eat instead.

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Miscellany

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:10:11 GMT

( Listening to old music )

( Playing more with AI/LLMs. )

( Money is tight. )

It occurred to me to try to remember all fifty states of the US. I thought I would do better, I could recall only forty-seven, my daughter did better and faster. I shan't disclose which I forgot in case a reader wants to try. It was annoying to note those I did forget: a reader here lives in one and I was open to moving to it a few years ago, and I used to work with a couple of people who hail from another.

It was interesting to hear of the flight chaos caused by London Heathrow's power loss, so many flights diverted and passengers ending up all over Western and Central Europe. That must have caused all sorts of problems and taken the airlines quite some effort to recover from.

We had a pet food delivery from Amazon (insert hisses and boos to taste) shortly after half-past seven on a Sunday morning which impressed neither me nor R. At a glance, I failed to find a summary on their website of when they think is reasonable to make residential deliveries but at least we now know that it may happen again.

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A windy workday

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 17:49:55 GMT

Today was a very windy day. Schools and stores closed. Fortunately, we didn't have to go out, except for taking L. the dog outside every so often. A lorry blew over on the nearby busy bridge. I wondered if the wind would bring power lines down but we still have electricity.

In work, I wrestled with Node.js and TypeScript and finally saw some success that enables better progress henceforth. Neither is my forte but with luck I learned enough to be faster next time.

Update: The following morning, we had hail then sleet.

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The UK's political and economic decline

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 19:14:38 GMT

A few years ago, I wrote here that the Brexit vote may have partly been a fearful escape from absorption into an incipient European superstate, a memory of how people voted for the EEC yet ended up with the Maastricht Treaty. In recent days, it has been interesting to read analysis of how the question of Europe has fractured the Conservatives for much of my adult lifetime. It feels related that andrewducker draws our attention to an article that opines how, over recent decades, the UK failed to invest in industry, green or not, then blamed the economic consequences on outsiders.

Boris Johnson, like Donald Trump, feels very much a symptom of divisive populism. The more level-headed Conservatives are largely now gone, certainly from the front benches, mostly rather further still and some time ago. It is difficult not to draw a parallel with the evolution of the Republicans in the US over a similar period as the GOP now alienates all but the psychopaths and sycophants. In neither country does a better-founded successor, a conservative party with intellectual credibility and a foot in reality, seem to be waiting in the wings.

The hollowing out of our governance reminds me of watching a car crash in slow motion. Past administrations long ago also made serious mistakes but they had the excuse of having rather less information than we now wield. There is no excuse for the harm to so many people yet it is so difficult to change course.

At least there is some light relief: Sky News' person-on-the-street coverage pops up a "New Prime Minister" banner together with their interviewee's occupation and name, e.g., singer, single mother, whatever. It appears to be announcing a surprising variety of new prime ministers.

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Disappointing political parties

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:26:37 GMT

This morning, I wondered if the UK Conservative leadership are deceptive or^* ignorant; I concluded that, despite Hanlon's Razor, they probably share the current US Republicans' tendency toward the former. Having often felt somewhat to the right of many of my friends, I surprise myself in also feeling even somewhat left of Labour these days. My father opined that people move rightward as they grow older. If they do, the parties seem to be outpacing me.

Decades ago, I had the sense that, politicians may get it wrong but at least they were often at least trying to find their way to good policy. Recent decades have made it increasingly difficult to extend such benefit of the doubt. Well, I'll credit much of the US Democratic Party with that I believe they genuinely want impoverished minorities not to suffer then die, but that feels a low bar.

Maybe I just need a bit more sleep, I awoke somewhat prematurely this morning. Things may seem rosier then …

^*One may suspect and.

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Further downhill in leadership

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 08:40:35 GMT

When George W. Bush first campaigned for the presidency, I was surprised that he was considered electable but, sure enough, he was proved to be so. Perhaps a larger surprise was that he, also Liz Cheney, would later look relatively good, after Donald Trump came along.

A related story has unfolded in Britain. One could see how Jeremy Corbyn was elected to lead his party, consider whom he ran against. That flash of populism should have warned me that perhaps Boris Johnson might look electable, against his competition. And, indeed, we had the same succession of surprises: Johnson was actually elected, assembled a gaggle of the similarly worthless, now the prospect of Liz Truss might actually make us miss him.

For all the upset over Margaret Thatcher's legacy, far too little of it has seen reversal: Tony Blair seemed to buy into a fair bit of it, now Liz Truss seems to be doing her best Thatcher impersonation.

When I was maybe twenty years old or so, I'd sometimes get my hair cut by an older Danish man who would tell me how Britain had gone downhill in the many years since he had moved there. I would like to not be feeling the same. Perhaps we will indeed get to live north of the border and see how much of a consolation that is. In that regard, at least Scotland recently managed to deliver a small victory for women.

I would be counting down to the next General Election except for not being much more impressed by the Opposition. Perhaps something good will yet emerge from somewhere. I suppose I should see how Ed Davey thinks the current water infrastructure issues ought to be addressed, not that his party has traction where I live. Then again, at one time, David Cameron looked fresh-faced, full of inspiration and energy, and look what happened there.

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Surprised by a barrister

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 09:39:20 GMT

I happened to have news on television and caught a bit of an interview with a bewigged barrister. I had imagined that they would be well-educated masters at expressing themselves but, without paying much attention, I noticed them speaking of less barristers and that something should move as fastly. They also wanted to practice crime, presumably against the English language. Perhaps I awoke on the mean side of the bed this morning but I wonder how much else I would have noticed had I paid more attention. I might have charitably allowed them being flustered by the television camera had they not qualified in a career that rather entails being put on unpleasant spots sometimes. It serves their clients poorly if how they say things distracts from the intended content.

Admittedly, the news is much about their dreadful pay so perhaps we should be glad of any bothering to remain a barrister at all.

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A strange lack of English

Mon, 30 May 2022 15:21:41 GMT

There are many fluently multilingual people in the world, I have met and worked with plenty myself. One thing that still surprises me is the apparent difficulty of well-resourced organizations in managing to hire any of them.

( I experience all manner of unnatural English from major corporations' professional communicators. )

( I don't know why they can't hire better. )

Maybe I am supposed to be more inclusive in some sense, I'd have just thought that people whose English wasn't at all natural wouldn't be getting the major jobs, that they would lose out to the many who, while maybe not being English, at least speak a version of the language comfortably, even if their own accent shows through. Maybe not.

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Politics in the Philippines

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 07:16:48 GMT

New to me is campaign season here in the Philippines. I had already seen video of outdoor exercise classes and such that were somehow tied to political campaigns. Now I get more time to explore for myself, two aspects strike me, especially in more rural areas. One is the vapidness of the many posters: they feature some candidate, or group thereof, smiling or looking enthused or patriotic or whatever, with a name, a slogan, often some color retouching, and little else. The other is the music: songs play in public that are somehow associated with campaigns, even played from vehicles that drive along the road. I suppose that there is also rather more contentful engagement from or among candidates, admittedly I have made little effort to seek such in local cable news. For day-to-day life, what I do see from the campaigns, I do not learn much from.

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Daylight hours

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 13:19:55 GMT

I do not welcome the arrival of daylight saving time. Actually seeing some daylight helps human brains to wake up in the morning, and I get up early enough to shower, eat, commute, etc. in time to park at work at around 8h. Now I get to do that early stumbling about when it's wholly dark outside and year-round daylight savings would make that even worse for winter. A darker evening is good if it helps me to become sleepier earlier. I hope not to have to shift my arrival at work into even more darkness as campus repopulates in the apparent aftermath of the pandemic that isn't actually over, we'll see how the queue of vehicles at the security perimeter develops in length.

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The end of the mask mandate at work

Sat, 12 Mar 2022 00:11:58 GMT

From next week, those in my workplace will no longer be required to mask and, indeed, I suspect that many won't. The workforce is largely vaccinated, maybe half received a booster. ( I fear long-term effects from contracting SARS-CoV-2. )

While we were all masking, my approach was to remain comfortable in eating with people outdoors ( and I suspect that the risks, now higher, largely arise indoors. )

Perhaps it can suffice for me to wear an FFP2 during meetings and to try to sit far from others, off at the side or back of the room rather than around the table, or similar. ( Air purifiers may help. )

The gym's another concern, people may become more contagious in working out hard. I should like to continue using it, perhaps I shall escalate to both FFP2 and safety goggles, I haven't worn the latter at work before.

In short, I do not know what to do, nor do I have good numbers, perhaps nobody does. I wonder what tradeoffs make sense.

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Possibly irrelevant gravitas

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 13:21:19 GMT

An unfortunate aspect of politics is that things that ought not matter, actually can. I am reminded, for instance, of Margaret Thatcher thinking it worth getting vocal coaching. More proximately, I was disappointed to find that Kamala Harris talking about Russia's actions regarding Ukraine reminded me of Liz Truss talking about cheese imports. Of course, they both went to Munich, though I've not also caught video of the latter's warnings on Russia. It's not an issue with the words themselves, I don't know what it is, but I do think it would have landed with more impact if delivered by, say, Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren, maybe also Madeleine Albright though my memory's hazier on her manner. I wonder if it's not just me feeling this trying to sound serious, and if acting classes could make all the difference, given how performative politics is. At least she probably still did better than Ed Miliband would have.

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Hopes and fears for vaccination

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 09:53:44 GMT

NPR recently told a disappointing story about how a fourth mRNA vaccine shot brings quickly diminishing returns, a pundit suggesting that it is not plausible for us to receive shots with sufficient frequency and targeting to have much certainty in evading the SARS-CoV-2 du jour. Accepting that, perhaps one may as well enjoy throwing caution to the wind while the protection from one's booster is at its height, rather than making sacrifices that one would not consent to sustain over the long term.

However, the work on ferritin nanoparticle vaccines gives me hope for better protection against a wide range of variants, I am not ready to give up. Over the years, I have heard of many promising technologies that seemed to come to naught but perhaps I can hope for a return to the Before Times if I accept our new reality for but a year or two yet, I just wish I knew the odds. I am patient but not infinitely so, I should like to dine casually in a restaurant once again. It seems ever more difficult to see what is coming around the corner.

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Inefficacy of cloth masks

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 17:30:12 GMT

I remain ongoingly irritated by the news coverage of cloth masks versus surgical masks or N95s. It reminds me of the red meat / white meat research that tends to be vague about pork or, if mentioning it, doesn't distinguish between cured or not, etc. Anyhow, sure, I would expect that many cloth masks suck. I'm using cloth masks made from densely woven fabric that sandwich many square inches of edge-to-edge HEPA-rated filter and with a wire for the bridge of my nose. How do those compare? Given the popular reporting's vagueness, I have no idea, but I am struck by how loosely some surgical masks fit. Though, for events like grocery shopping, I wear an FFP2 underneath it anyway.

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Luckier than I had realized

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 02:38:29 GMT

I heard a local college student mentioning how they were glad of semester ending because they were obligated to attend class to earn credit but the classes do not require masking or distancing. It made me realize better how lucky I am to even be wrestling with the question of having to stay more isolated and protected for even longer, that my circumstances allow me the luxury of choosing. With the delta then the omicron variants each lengthening our dark tunnel, at least I am afforded the opportunity to remain relatively sheltered from the pestilence.

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Left behind by progressive messaging

Sat, 27 Nov 2021 23:14:16 GMT

One thing that often annoys me is organizations arguing for good things but appearing to go incredibly far in how they do it. Perhaps I am becoming a blindly entrenched part of the problem but I commonly start thinking, that would be good progress, and end up thinking, I don't want to touch you wild-eyed people even with a bargepole.

Unions sometimes say things that go too far for me. ( Employees should not be wholly immune from consequences. Using 'Defund the Police' as a slogan is another example. )

The latest example that reminds me of all this comes from the Cornish Greens. Stuff like, No-one gets into a rubber dinghy to cross the English Channel in November unless they are truly desperate … By closing down safe routes to asylum, Patel and her government have played into the hands of the criminal gangs who exploit people's desperation to reach a place of safety.

( Government immigration policy does need to be kinder. )

However, ( the refugees did not have to flee mainland Europe. )

The Green Party's brazenly excluding the middle makes me wonder if that kind of rhetoric wins more sympathizers than it has readers dismissing them as loons. There is a compelling story on how those who need to be afforded asylum should be treated far better and that Greece and Italy should have their burden shared, we also still have a long way to go on how the US treats refugees despite the change in administration, but that story is persuasive only if it seems to be true. ( Whatever they were thinking, ) the Greens' press release would not have changed my mind, it just seems to play into right-wing talking points.

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A late, depressing discovery

Sat, 21 Aug 2021 23:32:17 GMT

I knew that the US had trained and armed insurgents against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Perhaps I was the last to get the memo but it was only today that I discovered that madrassas teaching radical Islam to those such as the founders of the Taliban were backed by the US, among others. In the late eighties, USAID even had school textbooks produced that glorify violence against nonbelievers, which the Taliban have since reprinted. Sometimes US-led foreign policy goes well and the Cold War was a very different time but, on the whole, one can see where some of the present tendency toward isolationism may come from. We see desperate Afghans on the evening news but attention will shift after a while.

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Remaining cautious in the pandemic

Tue, 03 Aug 2021 03:11:18 GMT

Initially I was enthusiastic when Scotland dropped the quarantine requirement for vaccinated visitors from the US but, on reflection, booking travel feels like too great a risk. In initially coming here, it was me moving away from the family and living alone, if I arrived infected then I would not pass it on to them. Now we have the delta variant, contagious and dangerous, with cases rising, I cannot be bringing it into their household. Having received my Pfizer vaccine some months ago, I don't know how effective it was originally nor if that may have declined since. After multiple flights in current circumstances, it feels plausible that I could still become contagious after the journey. Given past form, I also don't trust Her Majesty's Government not to reintroduce quarantine requirements, and for my airline to be unsympathetic to my then rethinking travel.

Maybe once the positive case rates look better, or after further vaccinations or whatever, I will be able to visit family members again. Perhaps even this year, especially if shorter-notice airfares are reasonable. For now, it feels responsible to continue my relative isolation. No longer do I have an officemate when I do work on campus: given current trends, they had us adjust our schedules to not be on site on the same day.

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