Railways and coal mines 2

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It is of course important that the new branch lines to be built will be finacially viable, and to encourage investment in both the lines and the engines, that a clear plan is presented.
The research  that was done before the lines were closed was seriosly flawed, many of the lines were in fact viable, or could easily have been made so.
The stations even in the smaller towns must be brought alive. Space must be provided for free parking, at least for the passengers. The ticket offices could be run in the same way as sub-post offices work, that is the person who sells the tickets runs another business the rest of the time, or a library could be installed at the station and the tickets sold by the librarian. Government departments will be required to have offices for the public in small towns, to allow people to have information or resolve problems with pensions, benefits, tax, etc. These services could all use the same space each one present at a different time of the week. The receptionist could perhaps also sell railway tickets. Where possible there should be a cafe. If this is run as a traditional English cafe, the revolutionary government will provide incentives, such as very low rent ant rates. The steam Engines will be an attraction for touristes, and it is important to present English culture to them, not least because having sampled English sausages, bacon,  cheese, scones, pork pies, Cornish pasties and so on, I’m sure it will encourage exports of these items.

Railways and coal mines.

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It is clearly neccessary to revitalise the English economy. The revolutionary will take direct action by re-creating an industry totally owned by the state, or you could say, owned by the people who have to pay the government debt. Much is said about about global warming, but the key issue is to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and especially oil, as it is already in short supply, and the price will rise until people buy less. There is a fuel in ample supply, both world wide and in England. Britain has 400 years of known reserves. Coal. It would seem obvoius to use coal to replace gas and oil, especially oil. The problem is that it contains a little more carbon than oil. Trains use much less fuel than road transport. So if at least some of the branch lines axed by Beeching were replaced, and run with new, efficient, coal fired  (steam)-engines, and carried freight and people, the total carbon output would be reduced.
The engines will be manufactured by private English companies if possible. This should lay down a good future for manufacturing in England. Universities will be orderd to help in the research, they get government grants and it won’t hurt for them to do something directly useful. Coal is competitively priced compared to oil now, and I’m sure it will become more competitive in the future. Steam engines were always cheaper to build than diesel, and so I’m sure there will be an international market in the future for steam locomotives if they can be made competitative. There is plenty of oportunity for private enterprise to open new coal mines as required. The building of the new railway lines is a major project and will be undertaken directly by a government agency in some cases, mainly where the new line can be seen as a community sevice. This will allow for some of the labour to be provided by the, half-time working for people on the dole, scheme, and by immigrants who’s present status doesn’t allow them to work. Also by people on rehabilitation schemes, and disabled workers. Basically anyone who is being funded by the Government, and who are able to work, can work on this project.

Getting out of recession

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Much has been said about Keynsian economics recently. Keynes is the economist who proposed government spending on capital projects with borrowed money to boost economic activity. There is an important point point the Brown government missed, and that is, borrow to spend “on capital projects”. The coalition seems to be cutting back on spending shrinking the economy and still borrowing. Banks cannot be described as a capital project. Railways and coal mines can. I will explain in the next post.

Supermarkets to be made to sell in small quantities.

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It is clear that too many people have weight problems and that supermarkets are resposible for some of this problem. There are problems with the food they sell, and with the packaging, and with their attempts to encourage their customers to buy more.
One of the causes of weight gain is eating too much. One of the causes of eating too much is buying too much. So it seems highly reasonable to say to supermarkets that  they must encourage their customers to buy in the type of quantities they would have bought before supermarkets existed. The revolutionary government will ban all offers on food that offer a lower price for buying more, and all mulipacks. Butter and substitutes, will be sold in 250g packs, all butter substitutes will be subject to VAT. Cheese will be sold at a counter, and cut to the customers request. Bacon similarly by the slice. All vegetables and fruits will be sold loose, so that the customer can buy exactly the amount the wish. Crisps will be sold in 25g packets only, and of course the price per pack is the price, whether you buy one or 10. The same will apply to pringles or doritos. Dried fruit will be sold loose or in small packs. Soft drinks of all kinds will be sold in bottles of no more than 1 litre, and carry a returnable deposit.
Alcohilic drinks will be sold at a separate counter, like cigarettes are, and must be paid for by cash or debit card, seperately from other items.

The diet appears to work.

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I have personally been trying the diet I have recommended, or at least as near as practically possible. We have allocated for the 2 of us, per week, 200g of bacon, 100g of butter, 500g of cheese, 200g of lard or oil, 8 litres of milk, 500g of sugar, 10 eggs, 7 euros worth of meat, a tin of fish, fresh mackerel, a meal of fresh fish, liver or 6 sausages, unlimited homemade cereal bread, a bagette, dried fruit, oats, 2 bowls of corflakes, 2 bowls of unsweatened muesli, a bottle of orange juice, a 7 cups of cocoa, and 7 cups of coffee, unlimited vegetables, and flour, but only one large fruit, say a nectarine or banana, per day, plus a punnet of strawberies or rasberries per week, 2 whiskys. We didn’t eat all of the allowance, and only the butter, required careful managing.

Result, lost about half a kilo per week, now 80.5 kilos, so we’ll see.

Childrens benefits, school meals

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The revolutionary government will end child tax credits because they are complicated, costly, and give money to the fairly well off who can fill in forms.

Child benefit will be simplified to £20 per week per child. For children of school age payment will be made to the mother (usually) at the post office in cash, she will require a certifacate of attendance from the school from time to time. For children below school age she will need to take the children with her to the post office. The benefit will be taxable for higher rate taxpayers. Schools will provide meals based on traditional English food made as far as possible from local fresh ingredients. This meal will include a pudding.The price will be subsidised and be about £1 a day. This will create a significant number of jobs in school canteens, and local food production. All children will be offered one-third of a pint of milk in a glass bottle per day free. Water will be proveded with meals. There will be no vending machines in school, or any kind of sale of sweetened drinks or snack bars of any kind.

Silver shillings

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I announced on the 8th of August that the revolutionary government would give a supplement to manual workers in the form of shillings like the old victorian shillings made of sterling silver. The rule for the exchange value of these shillings into normal pounds is that the value never goes down but each time the real value of silver increases enough to put the value of the shilling up by 50 pence the Bank of England will announce an increase.

Silver has risen from £17.90 to  £19.20 today, or you could say it now takes over £19 to buy something that cost less than £ 18, just 16 days ago. This makes the shilling £5.36
Not sufficient for the bank to anounce any increase, the value is still £5. It could be a year or more before there it reaches £5.50 and triggers an increase. I bet you wish you had some shillings though.  Get a manual job, and vote for the revolutionary government and you will.

A diet for a normal weight, what you must eat.

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Vegitables are freely available on this diet, as on many other diets. Fruit is not. This is because the main causes of weight gain are eating too much carbohydrate and sugars, simple overeating, and eating manufactured foods with concealed ingredients and chemicals. Sugar itself isn’t the worst kind of sugar, fructose (fruit sugar) is more fattening than sugar, fruit juice is worse, sweetened fruit juce is worse still, and corn syrup, dextro type compounds added by manufactureres are worse still. So absolutely no 5 a day.
You must eat some vegitables, including some root vegitables especially carrots, but also suede, parsnip etc., you must include some leafy green vegitables such as lettuce, purple sprouting brocoli, spinach, but also leeks, peas, radish, runner beans, broad beans, whatever is in season. Rhubarb is classed as a vegitable. Potatoes are an excellent form of carbohydrate, You can have jacket potatos, mashed, roast, chips, if you have the fat left from your allowance. Duck fat makes excellent roast potatoes. You can make gravy of course, using dripping for example. You must eat somwhere near you allowace of meat, and fat.
You can substitute off ration protein foods for the bacon, ham, and sausages, such as rabbit, shell-fish etc. Some of your fat can be in the form of oil such as vergin olive oil, but remember, oils are best not heated, for frying you should use animal fat, its less likely to to form free radicals, which carry a cancer risk. You must eat something containing calcium such as cheese or milk, or lots of leafy greens. You must get some sunlight on you each day, but only for very short periods in the middle of the day in the middle of the year. You must eat some oily fish each week.

A diet for a normal weight 2.

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The meat portion was originally rationed by price at 1/2 per person per week or £ 2.31 in todays money. You can use this instead of the 1/2 chicken  + mince.
There is an allowance of sugar of 200g, you can use this for cakes or parhaps a bar of dark chocolate, remember to reduce your fat allowance for the amount of fat in the chocolate. There is a beer allowance of half a pint a day of real ale, or I would suggest a bottle  per week of wine. There is no allowance for any soft drinks, not even calorie free or fruit juice and certainly not smoothies. You can substitute freshly pressed fruit juice in a glass container for the beer allowance. Standard tea isn’t limited, but anything you add is counted from your allowance. Count honey as sugar. Coffee is limited to 4 cups and not after 6 in the evening. One cup of cocoa is allowed, as also is water from the tap. Bottled water must be in glass bottles. You can flavour water with a tiny drop of lemon or lime juice if you wish.

A diet for a normal weight.

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The Revolutionary government will follow Denmark’s lead and ban artificial trans-fat. We know that fatness arrived in America and spread to England in the early 1980s, it has spread to France since 2000. It is incredible how much the official science is contradictory. I’ve done a lot of research and my conclusions are this. A 1950s traditional diet won’t make you fat if you eat the same quantities as people dit in the 1950s and get the same excersise. It isn’t quite as healthy, as regards heard disease as traditional French and Spanish diets. The important differences in the 1950s are these. Food wasn’t put into plastic. Some plastic bottles have oestrogen type chemicals in them. Certainly a factor in Man-boobs. The revolutionary government will ban these plastics for food use. Milk, juice, soft drinks and alcoholic drinks will only be sold in returnable deposit, glass bottles.
The 1950s diet contained very few manufactured foods, eating out was rare, and fast food unknown. Lets be clear, we know a 50s diet works, so lets not make any changes to it on the basis of slimming. For health we need a balanced diet, protein, fats and carbohydrates, and we need them in the form of food, not chemicals. Fats need to be a mixture of animal and vegitable. Lard, dripping, duck-fat, salted butter, suet, and the fat contained in cheese, milk, oats, bread, seeds, etc. We need different kinds of fat, and the quantity needs to controlled to a certain extent. Too much of one kind can use up enzymes needed to digest the other. Its very important not to eat foods with hidden fats sugar or salt. Most restaurant, take-away or ready-meals these items. I think a simple way to keep to the amounts is only to buy the amount allocated, just like as if it was on ration, like in the late 1940s; This is surprisingly hard to do these days. Supermarkets try really hard to make you buy more.
The quantities are, per person per week Bacon/ham 100g, butter 50g, cheese 200g, lard 100g, other fat/oil 100g, milk 4 litres, a tin of fish, 5 eggs, 200g of dried fruit, half a chicken, 125g of minced beef or stewing steak, 125g of offal (liver kidneys..) no specific limit, fresh fish, granery bread, vegitables, including potatoes, salad, fruit though is limited to  one a day, an apple or pear, for example, a handfull of smaller fruits, but more if you pick them yourself.
You don’t need to keep salted butter and hard cheese in  the fridge, butter is easier to spread if you don’t and cheese has more taste.