When we first built our house in Menorca, almost seventeen years ago one of the toughest tasks but conversely the greatest joys, was creating the garden. Pride of place in the front garden was a sapling Palm Tree. Over the years this sapling has grown into a splendid specimen, with a trunk about a metre diameter and height of about 3 metres. The girth of the fronds was a good six or seven metres.
About ten years ago we began to hear stories about the Palm Weevil which was spreading from Africa up the Spanish Coast and the Balearic Islands. A friend had his palm destroyed in a couple of months. We began to spray ours every three months with a special insecticide and our tree remained in good condition. At the onset of Covid last year our visits dropped dramatically. Our last visit ended in late July last year 2020. We were obviously unable to spray the Palm and on our arrival last Monday 28th June 2021. we found that the top of the tree had been completely destroyed by these insidious creatures. So our wonderful Palm Tree is another victim of Covid. I show some pictures of it then and now. A very sad time for us in an otherwise superb week.
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For many years now, Bicycles manufactured in China have been subjected to Anti-dumping duty by the European Union. This means that in addition to the normal duty applied to bicycles made outside the EU of 17%, they are subjected to AD duty of close to 50%, making the import of such bicycles totally uneconomical.
These AD duty’s have in addition been applied to various other Far Eastern countries from time to time as European distributors in league with Far Eastern countries have tried setting up alternative ways to try and circumvent them, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia etc. No doubt other countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia Laos, etc will also fall under the EU’s gaze. Taiwan are the only country to have successfully fought against this imposition, but even they were subject to such duty for a short period, though only on a company by company basis. So how does the EU decide to impose this duty? As we know, unlike the UK where people approach their MP’s with such ideas or Parties publish proposed legislation in the form of manifesto’s which they use to gain votes and hopefully power, no such system exists in the EU. Instead we have a European Commission which makes up and proposes legislation. So, how does the Commission, which we assume knows little about the day to day workings of the Bicycle Industry, get to decide that they are going to impose draconian duty’s on other countries for allegedly selling their products at below market prices. The answer lies in the multi- billion Euro industry of lobbying. Brussels is the home to this industry and its where all European law tends to stem from. In the case of Bicycles there is a somewhat shadowy organisation, grandly known as the European Bicycle Manufacturers Association. I say shadowy, because although they have a website, http://www.ebma-brussels.eu (the Brussels, seems significant) there seems to be no mention on that site of who its members are, where it gets its money from or any accounts showing how it spends its money. On checking the website lobbyfacts.eu, an attempt to introduce some transparency to this shady world, we discover that they have 2.5 full time lobbyists and have spent well in excess of a million Euro’s in the last five years on lobbying the commission. Reading the website, though it of course has grand aims and ideals for the ecological development of the European bicycle industry, it is very clear that their main agenda is maintaining the status quo for existing manufacturers and protecting them from any competitive elements outside the EU and therefore outside their control. So, who sets the level of these duty’s and how do they arrive at the figures? Well, of course, the European Commission do. With the able assistance of their expert advisors, the European manufacturers, they are judge, jury and executioner. They produce a carefully developed set of rules which ascertain whether a product is being ‘dumped’ unfairly and then impose these duty’s which are supposed to level the playing field. If they don’t have the desired effect, they can tinker about with those rules until they do. Let’s look at what they are protecting. In the 1950’s the European bicycle industry ruled the world. Italy and France produced virtually all the lightweight equipment used on racing bicycles and companies like Raleigh in the UK produced commuter bikes which were 100% home produced down to every nut and washer. Due mainly to poor investment decisions by most of the companies involved in these industries, they gradually surrendered production, first to Japan, then to Taiwan and finally to China. Anybody involved in the UK bicycle business knows that we no longer have any manufacturing over here. Giants of the industry like Raleigh now import all their product from such countries as Vietnam and Bangladesh. This is true of most European manufacturers who are at best assemblers of Far Eastern product. Virtually all companies produce ranges of bicycles which are mainly based around the particular, Shimano range of components they specify. Virtually all other components including frames are sourced in the Far East. Shimano have plants scattered around the Far East including China, Singapore and Malaysia. SRAM have made some inroads into Shimano’s market with an American rival range of components, but for America, read Taiwan. So inevitably the bicycle which you select to buy and ride will be built from components made in the Far East. We in the UK, therefore, with no bicycle industry of our own are forced to pay massive duties on bicycles from China, in order to support French, German and Italian bicycle companies, who have long ago abandoned their products to Far Eastern suppliers. In other words, they want us to ride Chinese bicycles assembled in Germany rather than Chinese bicycles assembled in China. Manufacturers in Europe long ago realised that instead of carrying all the jobs, investment, machinery and infrastructure that a genuine bicycle industry requires, it is far simpler and much more profitable to import those parts from China and then sell the resulting bicycles at the same prices as they would have been. But now, those unfair Chinese people have come along and started selling those bicycles directly without going through the European middle-man ‘factory’, so those middle men need protecting. About fifteen years ago I went to see an Italian frame manufacturer to see about making some of our frames there instead of Taiwan. I went to a large factory north of Turin and had discussions in their offices. During the inevitable ‘tour’ of the factory, I was surprised to see amongst a large range of machines and welding equipment, there only seemed to be one guy working. The only part of the plant in full operation was the paint plant. As we came away. I could see a container from a Far Eastern company unloading at the back and three more containers were backing up. I realised then that what they really wanted to do was get my frames made in Taiwan and take their cut for doing the painting on them. On a much larger scale, this is what European bicycle manufacturers are doing and they are using the workings of the European Commission to help them achieve that aim. I am afraid that from the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and most other laws which are passed, the EU is about protectionism and trade barriers to preserve big business and the rich. It is not about getting the best deal for us the consumers. If we were outside the EU we could import bicycles from China and get the same sort of deals which the Americans used to have. That is until Trump started to introduce protection measures, which pale significantly in comparison to what the EU has been doing for more than thirty years. I do not understand why anybody who considers themselves a democrat, would ever vote to remain in the European Union. When I say Democrat, I mean a true Democrat not as defined in the narrow way that it is in the USA. I mean, a true believer in Democracy. I have been a lifelong Tory voter (until the last European Election) but that is irrelevant. Whether you vote for Conservatives, Labour or (perish the thought) Liberal or even if you vote for the Communists or the National Front, you believe in Democracy. Our Democracy is hundreds of years old, unlike most of the rest of Europe, much of which has enjoyed long periods of dictatorship.
The European Union is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation which is run by the commission like a company. It is their Executive, like a board of directors assisted by a 32000 strong civil service, and laws are made up through a system of lobbying, a multi-billion Euro industry, in which the more money you throw at it, the more likely you are to get your laws through. The European parliament is merely a rubber-stamping exercise for the commission and has no real power. When you ask the vast majority of Remain voters why they wish to remain, you never get a straight answer. Things like better the devil you know, or that we have enjoyed an unprecedented standard of living for forty years are all that seems to come out. It is almost as though as a nation we have become institutionalised, like an old lag forty years in prison who can’t face life on the outside. These are not reasons to stay, but reasons to get out. I am of course referring to ordinary people, not the likes of Michael Heseltine or Richard Branson, whose fortunes have soared whilst we have been in the EU because of the unfair playing field that has been created. They should try explaining these things to ex-car workers at Dagenham or cigarette makers in Nottingham who have seen their jobs disappear due to EU policies. No fundamentally undemocratic organisation lasts, and I fully expect this to be the case with the EU. When nations realise that their hard fought for democracies and carefully developed laws, are being eclipsed by a new set of laws made up by an unelected body over which they have no effective control, like the UK they will want to get out. We are just the first. ‘Hello…... Hello. Is that my Great, great, great Grandpa.’
‘Who is this?’ ‘I’m Mikey. My Dad was Freddie and his Dad was George. So, he was the son of Michael who was the son of Ben, Ben Poyzer. I think Ben was your Grandson. ‘That’s right Ben is my Grandson. So, how come you found me today.’ ‘I was just going back through the family history and I found your file. I’ve never contacted you before. I was just doing my German revision and I hate it, so I thought I’d check you out.’ ‘Well its nice to speak to you son. I’m glad you took the time to contact me.’ ‘I don’t really understand how I can speak to you now but its good to get a feel for my past.’ ‘Well, its easy enough son. In 2032 when Microsoft developed their Genesis programme, I was 83 and I was selected to have my brain downloaded, before I died. They then took all these pictures and developed this hologram of me so now, voila. Here I am. I actually died in 2042 so you are just talking to a computer programme, but it’s based on my brain as it functioned at the time.’ ‘That’s great. You can fill me in on the details I don’t know. Is it okay if I just call you Grandpa. The rest of it’s a bit of a mouthful.’ ‘Sure, son. The thing is this programme works better than my original memory. I was prone to forget things then but now everything is as sharp as a button. How’s your school work going. You say you’re doing your German revision.’ ‘Yes, I hate it. Dad says I’ve got to do it though, ‘cos if I want a decent job I’ve got to go to the German provinces.’ ‘You mean Germany.’ ‘Yes, the German provinces. You know Germany, Austria Slovakia etc.’ ‘Slovakia isn’t German.’ ‘It became part of the German provinces in 2045. All the countries who wanted to stay in it had to agree to adopt German as their first language.’ What about the United Kingdom. We were a great country. We don’t speak German, do we?’ ‘Country Grandpa? We are not a country. We are the British province. We didn’t adopt German because enough people voted against it, so we stayed speaking English. But as a second-tier language we don’t get much say in things.’ ‘This is a sad day for me son. I didn’t realise we had sunk that low.’ ‘That’s why I’ve got to learn German. All the factories are over there and Euro distribution of stuff comes from there. We don’t make or sell anything good from here now.’ ‘What about cars? Don’t we make them.’ Peels of laughter. ‘No, Grandpa we make nothing.’ ‘But we used to make cars. I know that Rolls Royce made the best cars in the world.’ ‘Yes Grandpa. That’s what I mean Rolls Royce is the pinnacle of German Engineering.’ ‘German engineering! Mr Rolls and Mr Royce would turn in their graves. Great Britain had the finest engineering brains in the world. Almost all major technological developments came from British engineers.’ ‘So, what happened. We are now a second-rate province of Europa, the most economically advanced country in the world which overtook the USA two years ago as the second world economy, and we are on course to overtake China in two years, in 2072.’ ‘Well son, we had our chance. In 2016 they had a vote and we had the chance to move out of the EU. The majority, of the country voted in favour.’ ‘So why didn’t they,’ ‘Well the Europeans were never going to let it happen. There was a conspiracy with big businesses, rich people and corrupt politicians. Big businesses and rich people wanted the freedom to move their factories around Europe to anywhere they could get the best subsidies and cheap labour and they also wanted to move their money around to get the lowest tax rates at each countries expense. They joined forces with the corrupt politicians and forced the country into abandoning the public vote result and stay in the union instead.’ ‘How could they do that, if people voted for it.’ ‘Well the politicians made a few decisions in 2018 and 2019 which came back to haunt them. The public lost confidence in the system. People stopped voting in their thousands and the system became even more corrupt. Of course, in 2030, national parliaments were abolished, and the European parliament became the only one. No real power. They just rubber-stamped decisions which came out of the European Council which was controlled by Germany. Gradually all manufacturing moved to Germany where most of it had already gone.’ ‘I didn’t know all this. How come this is not on our history programmes.’ ‘Well, it’s easy to manipulate things when you control the Internet. What do people do for a living now in Britain.’ ‘Well, most people work in power. We have the biggest hydro-electric power system in the world, and we supply most of Europe. A tenth of the country is now under water with all the new dams. And we have more windfarms than anywhere in the world. Plus of course we have all fifteen of Europe’s nuclear power stations.’ ‘So, do we make a lot of money out of that?’ ‘No, no. They are all owned by German companies, so all the profits go there. The Government says that rebel forces are planning to try and take them over, but Dad says they are not rebels, but freedom fighters. Trying to take us out of the poverty that exists here now. He won’t admit it, but I think he would like me to join them,’ THIS CONVERSATION HAS BEEN STOPPED BY EURONET. YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO SURRENDER YOUR PASSWORDS TO E.B.B. SECURITY. YOU WILL NOW BE RE_PROGRAMMED AND AN ANTI SUBVERSION PROGRAMME WILL BE SUBSTITUTED. THIS CONVERSATIOON HAS BEEN ERASED AND YOU CAN NO LONGER ACCESS IT. Why I voted To Leave
Many people ask me why I voted in favour of Brexit, a question which most people who voted for remain seem unable to answer. This is my response. Despite the condescending attitude of many remain voters, I am not stupid and I am not a racist, so immigration was not a major factor for me. For many years now we have sold our products online. For that reason, we have dealt heavily with Ebay, Paypal and Amazon. A few years ago, all these companies re-located their European HQ’s to Luxembourg. The reasons they did it were not clear to me at the time. Then I read the following about Jean Claude Juncker. Courtesy of Wikipedia. In early November 2014, just days after becoming head of the commission, Juncker was hit by media disclosures – derived from a document leak known as LuxLeaks – that Luxembourg under his premiership had turned into a major European haven of corporate tax avoidance. With the aid of the Luxembourg government, companies transferred tax liability for many billions of Euro’s to Luxembourg, where the income was taxed at a fraction of 1%. Juncker, who in a speech in Brussels in July 2014 promised to ‘try to put some morality, some ethics, into the European tax landscape’, was sharply criticised following the leaks. A subsequent motion of censure in the European Parliament was brought against Juncker over his role in the tax avoidance schemes. The motion was defeated by a large majority. In 2017, leaked diplomatic cables show Juncker, as Luxembourg’s prime minister from 1995 until the end of 2013, blocked EU efforts to fight tax avoidance by multinational corporations. Luxembourg agreed to multinational businesses on an individualised basis, often at an effective rate of less than 1% So you could be forgiven for assuming that Jean Claude Juncker was some corrupt little figure who had bribed and cheated his way to the top of a minor European country and would soon get his just desserts. You would of course be wrong as he became the leader of the EU team negotiating the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. I began to think that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. These massive multinational companies earn billions of pounds from their operations in the UK but don’t pay tax on those earnings, except in Luxembourg where they get special deals for as low as 1%. Amazon etc. are winners. They get to pay minimal tax. Luxembourg are winners. They earn a relatively huge amount of tax income from businesses where they would normally get nothing. We in the UK are enormous losers. Unlike other UK based companies, every pound of profit has a large percentage paid back into the UK government coffers in tax. With these companies every penny is siphoned away to their US headquarters. Then I started to look around at other companies, even UK based companies. They move their factories around Europe with impunity to exploit differences in labour costs, so it stands to sense that they will also do it with their tax liabilities and the EU are complicit in allowing this to happen. It was then that I started to realise that the EU is not a union of people and states. It is a union of big business and rich individuals who can lobby for new laws and change the level of the playing fields at will, to suit their own purposes and without the dangerous interference imposed by democracy. So, the everyday working people who don’t play the system, earn their wages and pay their taxes are supporting this vastly unfair and corrupt system. That was why I decided to vote to get out of it, the sooner the better, deal or no deal. Nobody knows what the result of leaving the EU is going to be and we may even get into a mess. But at least it will be our mess and we wll have the democratic processes in place to get out of it with no interference from a corrupt and non-elected European executive. As we all know, we had a referendum on 23rd June 2016 and voted for withdrawal from the EU with a vote of 51.9% in favour. In the 1970's I voted in favour of remaining in the EEC as it was then. The European Economic Community was exactly that. Nine countries in Europe having a free trade agreement between themselves which was a no-brainer for any of the countries involved, even though it guaranteed free movement. But then over the years we saw gradually more interference in our law making by Brussels until finally in the 1990's we became the European Union, promising ever closer federalisation of all the countries involved. This I was much more uncomfortable with.
I eventually voted in favour of withdrawal at this second referendum. My reasons stemmed from this discomfort. I don't consider myself stupid and am certainly not a racist, a charge apparently levelled at all those who voted leave by the remainers. I am not an economist or any expert on the subject, but here are my reasons for voting that way. It became very clear to me, that far from being at the centre of decision making, as trumpeted by remainers we were very much on the periphery of it. Over the twenty plus years that we have actually been in the union, jobs have slipped more and more away from us. Good solid manufacturing jobs which are the backbone of our economy, going more and more to Germany and France or the newer Eastern Block members. David Cameron, to try and tame his Leave MP's, promised a re-negotiation of our terms followed by a referendum. He came back from Brussels shouting loudly about the changes he had got for our membership, but on examination there was no real change. The EU were not going to change the rules for all their members just to suit us, and this stubbornness in negotiating remains to this day. All this talk about deal or no deal, or backstops had not been mentioned because remain were so confident that they would win. And so we voted to get out of the EU. It appears to me that many remainers never accepted that vote and plotted and schemed for us to stay in. Since then I have looked harder and harder at this Union and my attitude has hardened considerably. The EU is an undemocratic legislature which sets rules and regulations for its subjects, with none of the checks and balances of truly democratic organisations. It appears to have been set up to suit larger businesses. Wherever their base is, they can freely move their assets around it to get the best deals. Their assets include a fluid labour force which can be moved at will. They pay taxes in the most efficient way and have no regard for traditional industry. American companies base themselves in countries like Luxemburg, where they make special deals to pay minimal tax and pay next to no tax in the countries where they operate. Ford stopped manufacturing cars in the UK in the 2000's and moved to Germany. Many companies have done the same. Is Germany more efficient than the UK? Nissan and Toyota have disproved that. Locally to me, Imperial Brands (no longer Imperial Tobacco) have moved manufacturing to Germany and Poland and we no longer make cigarettes in the UK, losing several thousand jobs in the process. So those jobs have been exported, despite Imperial being a UK company. This decision was made before Brexit, and one has to ask if it would have been made if we were not in the EU. I have asked many people why they voted remain and never received a decisive answer. Things like, 'better the devil you know' or 'we used to be the sick man of Europe', come out, but these are not real reasons. The rules seemed to be stacked against us as the recent Jaguar Land Rover case shows. Slovakia have been allowed to give the owners £120 million pounds to tempt them into a new factory because they are a poorer nation than us. If we stay in the EU whilst these decisions are made we will soon become the poor nation. I suppose then the investment will start to come back as we take jobs from the Eastern Bloc. Until a truly democratic organisation can be developed we must get out. Unlike the USA we are not tied together by a common language and an electoral system which has proportional representation. We are split by about twenty five languages and a sickening rule making gravy train which is controlled by big business, and a split currency where the Euro is slowly bankrupting its weaker members. Globalism is a gradually fading concept which is ecologically bad. We currently make Nissans Toyotas, Hondas and Jaguars in the UK so they are the cars we should be driving. Decisions about our life style should be made with these things in mind. I hope our Brexit decision is not stolen from us by Big Business in the guise of 'moderate' MP's or super rich benefactors, because if it does my faith in a political system which is the envy of the world will be broken.
Some years ago, whilst foraging deep in the pine forests surrounding our house in Menorca, I stumbled across this small edifice (Here being modeled by my wife). At some stage in the distant past it has been lovingly created by a craftsman, and consists of three square stepped plinths made from huge slabs of precisely cut stone, topped by the four remaining sections of what was once a Doric column of indeterminate height. Its situation to us seems very random, with nothing to indicate its reason. My curiosity aroused, over the next few years, I showed it to various people and spoke to the locals, including representatives of the owners of the urbanisation, and even sent photos to the curator of a nearby museum. All this has been met with lack of interest bordering on indifference. For an island which prides itself on preserving its Talaiots which litter the island and are effectively just piles of rock, I find this lack of interest amazing. So, I ask the question - What is it? I'm guessing that it is extremely old. The erosion on the stone around the fluting on the columns suggests that. Is it a grave? Or is it a memorial to some momentous event or to a place of worship. Or is it a geographical marker of some sort. Grubbing around the base of it, I found many fragments of rock some of which had square edges. Carefully reassembling bits, like a jigsaw, I made up what appears to be a cross, which at some stage, presumably sat on the top of it, reinforcing the religious connection. I have this carefully stored in my garden over there, should it ever require restoration. Picture here. Anyone who lives local to me, will now be aware that we have some splendid new road humps, along the length of Standhill Road. I thought that they were only going to be close to the school, but no, they are along the whole length. It has taken over a week of frequent road closures and no doubt many thousands of pounds to produce these monstrosities, which nobody, including local residents, seem to want.
I suggest that whoever commissioned them takes a drive down Second Avenue or Forester Road, or indeed any roads locally. The state of them is absolutely horrendous and repairs have not been actioned for many years. In fact, road humps on them would probably smooth them out We have a legacy now which I fear will never be caught up with and will leave us driving on third world roads for many years to come. And yet for schemes like this, they seem to magically produce thousands of pounds to implement them. They have spent a fortune implementing a 20mph speed limit through large areas of the city, with little evidence of such a need. You can't help feeling that ultimately its a money making scheme as they are getting dwindling numbers breaking the 30mph limit. Of course, I am sure some officials will come forward from the authorities concerned and tell us that this is paid for out of a different budget and this is allocated by road safety or some other ring fenced finances. Well this is B******S. This is paid for out of our taxes so it is just the way these people allocate it. So will they please stop frittering money away on PC projects and spend it on repairing our roads to a reasonable standard, before they are irretrievably gone. As anyone who knows me will be aware, I have been in the bicycle business all my working life. Over the last few years as I wind my bicycle business down, I have become a big seller on Ebay.
Last week they suspended use of my account for new listings and purchases for three days. My crime? I had an e-mail from a customer in Finland through the Ebay e-mail system, enquiring about a specific item on Ebay and other items which we sell. I answered him by pointing to my direct contact details, which are clearly displayed under 'Business Seller Information' on every listing. As a Business Seller on Ebay, it is a legal requirement to display this information under the Distance Selling Regulations, but of course Ebay do it in such a way that it is not straightforward to find. So I assisted this person in finding that information and invited him to contact us. Unfortunately, the Ebay gestapo, spotted this e-mail, accused me of attempting to sell outside of Ebay and applied the suspension. This unwarranted interference with the operation of our business, is one of the things they get away with as they abuse their position in the EU, earning huge amounts of money from the UK but paying their taxes to Luxembourg, with a sweetheart deal. When we are out of the EU I trust that they will be made to pay the taxes on their huge UK revenue to and for the benefit of the UK taxpayers. I also hope they will be forced to abate this unwarranted interference in UK businesses in an effort to reinforce their paranoid fears that they will be cut out of the deal, and I will be keeping all the evidence of this to help any future investigations. The king wanted to go fishing, and he asked the royal weather forecaster the forecast for the next few hours. The palace meteorologist assured him that there was no chance of rain. So the king and the queen went fishing.
On the way he met a man with a fishing pole riding on a donkey, and he asked the man if the fish were biting. The fisherman said, "Your Majesty, you should return to the palace! In just a short time I expect a huge rain storm." The king replied: "I hold the palace meteorologist in high regard. He is an educated and experienced professional. Besides, I pay him very high wages. He gave me a very different forecast. I trust him." So the king continued on his way. However, in a short time a torrential rain fell from the sky. The King and Queen were totally soaked. Furious, the king returned to the palace and gave the order to fire the meteorologist. Then he summoned the fisherman and offered him the prestigious position of royal forecaster. The fisherman said, "Your Majesty, I do not know anything about forecasting. I obtain my information from my donkey. If I see my donkey's ears drooping, it means with certainty that... it will rain." So the king hired the donkey. And thus began the practice of hiring dumb asses to work in influential positions of government. The practice is unbroken to this date. |
AuthorMichael Poyzer. Wit, raconteur and all round nice chap. Archives
July 2021
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