Well so much for trying to post weekly! How do so many people manage when I can’t? Discipline I expect. To be fair to myself I have been in the USA and Canada for three weeks since my last post. One thing is for sure – it is extremely difficult to blog whilst travelling every day. So where was I and what was I doing? Before telling you please also be aware that some posts below are not in their proper order! To make matters worse I don’t know how to put them in the correct order. Apologies to everyone.

We left Edinburgh On Wednesday, 25th May from Edinburgh airport (previously known as Turnhouse Aerodrome) at the very civilised time of 10.00 am. To Heathrow Terminal 5 and then to Washington Dulles Airport. Until January this year I would have done almost anything possible to avoid Heathrow. Previously it was an assault course and was very tiring and stressful to get to connecting flights. However, Terminal 5 is a very large, bright, airy place that is almost a pleasure to experience. I say almost because of all the ‘hoops’ passengers have to jump through these days – online check in, bag drop, check in at the airport if one cannot do so online, pre-security (scanning one’s boarding pass before reaching security), passport control, then actual security (take all coins and other metallic substances from one’s clothing). Security varies from airport to airport. Some demand that one takes off one’s shoes, belts, jackets. Some are interested in shoes whilst some are very interested in belts. Some American airports has full body scanners which ‘x-ray’ the passenger and is intended to speed up the process of getting through security. You can refuse to be scanned by such a machine but if you do you will be subjected to a full body ‘pat down’ in full view of everyone else. This takes about five minutes and the public employee (paid for from our taxes) seems to have the power of a Supreme Being. In order to illustrate this I shall, briefly, relate my experience of flying home from Boston Logan Airport. I was directed by a government employee to stand in a line to get to the security ‘conveyor belt’ and was happy to do so because that was the fastest moving. Unlike the other security lines this one could not see the ‘conveyor belt’ from the entrance it was only once I was some way into the lane I could see that I was heading for a body scanner. Once I had placed all my items in three trays and placed them on the ‘conveyor belt’ to go through the x-ray machine I said that I was not willing to go through the body scanning machine. Oh dear… One might have thought that I was a terrorist, a criminal, for daring to exercise my rights! I was told to stand aside, in a place, where everyone else could see that I was a ‘problem’. The ‘security guard’ shouted and I mean shouted into a radio “we’ve got another opt-out” pause, “what was that, repeat?” In reply, “Yes, I said another opt-out, get someone to do this guy” and was made to wait there for ten minutes before anyone ‘dealt’ with me. Oh hum.. the joys of international travel…

Remember also that one must be at the gate a certain time before the flight which is typically 30 minutes for a domestic flight and an hour for an international flight. If, like me, you have a fear of being late

Notice I say ‘almost’ anything to avoid Heathrow (and to a certain extent Edinburgh) airports and this is because most airports are, for me, pretty souless places. If you enjoy shopping Edinburgh is okay and Heathrow Terminal 5 is as good as any although in total it does not quite compare with some others I have used, for example, Singapore.

Terminal 5 works best if you use British Airways as it is the airline’s national hub and so a flight from Edinburgh arrives at T5 and international and other domestic flights (with a few exceptions) leave from the same terminal. For me, the flight from Edinburgh – Heathrow T5 – Washington Dulles with British Airways was very smooth and uneventful. I would also recommend the use of executive lounges particularly if one has a stopover between flight of more than a couple of hours. They provide free snacks and refreshments, newspapers and magazines, wi-fi, power points, and comfy chairs. Membership is not particularly cheap but if one is a regular traveller an annual membership can be had for about £150.

More later

Since my last blog entry in May – yes May! I have had major problems in adding to this site. I am no expert and just know enough to make occasional entries (recently very occasional!). When I try to open this blog in Internet Explorer or Google Chrome I cannot save changes nor open the WordPress ‘Kitchen Sink’ but when I access the site through Apple’s Safari browser everything seems to work as it ought – fingers crossed.

Anyway this is just to let all my 100,000’s of fans know that I back online and will post again here soon.

I am almost over everything that has afflicted me recently. The ‘flu, or whatever it was, was particularly nasty and I am still sufferinging from some minor after effects such as a runny nose but I am almost 100% The tooth abscess was fixed and I did not loose the tootth. The down side of that visit to the dentist was that I need nine cavities filled (or refilled). I is almost as if all my teeth decided to have the same problem at the same time. My annual MOT (for those not residing in the UK this is annual roadworthiness test all vehicles must undergo in order to be allowed on the road) came back clear and in fact very good. Low colesterol, low blood pressure and a slow heart beat. Nice to know.

Guess what? I am so disorganised that the draft of this post prepared a month ago was never put online! Ah weel… It was the day before I flew off to ICHF so I probably simply forgot. But as well as that I am having problems saving changes to this blog… IE and Chrome don’t seem to work…

After a very restless night I woke up this morning feeling bad. Cold far worse than yesterday. Got ready to go to the office when Yvonne scolded me saying that I was being selfish. Okay for me to go to work but what about those in the office I was going to inflict my germs on? Went back to bed.

Afternoon. Got out of bed and went to the Polling Station to cast my vote. Normally I would have been out there taking photographs of the day but have felt so crap I cast my vote, went to the shop for some paracetamol, and came home to bed.

This morning I woke up this morning with a heavy cold. I had to blow my nose several times… You get my drift… The thing is I only get one cold per year. It is always around December/January – never ever in May! A clue might lie in the fact that Sunday, 1st May was so warm and sunny that I actually thought of having a BBQ and inviting friends and family. This morning when I left home at 06.45 it was very bright and sunny was but very cold. Vehilces were covered in heavy frost and that is unusual for Edinburgh this late in the year. After all we are looking forward to the longest day of the year in a few weeks on 21st June. Yet that event is a long way away as most Scots are more interested in the results of what will happen tomorrow – the election of MSPs to the Scottish Parliament. The results should be clear by breakfast on Friday, 6th May. Will the Labour Party (Lab) sweep to victory? Will the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) repeat, or improve, on their performance of four years ago? Will the Liberal Democrats disappear as a political force because of their alliance with the ‘English’ Tory party? What about the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP)? Or the Green Party? Or the host of smaller parties such as the Christian Party? Then there are the host of independent candidates. All fascinating stuff.

I used to stay up and watch the results being declared on television. Now I go to bed as all the results will be laid out in great detail the following morning.

Whatever the outcome there are interesting times ahead especially because no one, no political party, has spelled out how the global financial crisis will impact on Scotland.

Who could not admire the pomp and ceremony of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate (Catherine) on Friday, 29th April? This is one of the things that we Brits do rather well – even if I do so on behalf of ourselves! It was an all day extravaganza on television which had been declared to be a Public Holiday by the City of Edinburgh Council. That meant that all Edinburgh local government employees had an extra Public Holiday and as many business and other organisations had agreed with their employees to adopt the same holidays as their local council. Hipee!

Oops, I slipped a bit. I had promised myself that I would post at least once a week and I have just made it this time!

Less than a week away Thursday, 5 May 2011 sees an election in Scotland to elect members to the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). In addition there is a national referendum (that is the entire United Kingdom) on a possible change in the method by which Members of Parliament (MPs) are elected to the House of Commons of which more later.

The campaigning by the various political parties (and quite a number of independent candidates) can be interesting (and can be entertaining). But I wondered about the workers behind the scenes and not those working to have a particular politician elected. Instead I was thinking about those thousands of people you see sitting in the Polling Stations handing out the ballot papers, those that actually count the votes overnight and then there are those who have to be on hand to announce the results during the day following the election. Who are these hard working and dedicated public servants? What are their conditions of employment and do they get paid or are they volunteers?

I had thought to myself that it would an interesting experience to ‘see’ the election from an entirely different perspective as someone on the inside. But a little research soon dashed my hopes and raised some concerns. Firstly, those nice smiling people in the Polling Stations are not volunteers they are paid workers. So… could I get a job not only for the experience of being a part of the election process but also make a wee bit money in so doing? The simple answer is no. The reason is that only local government employees are elegible to work in the administration of our democratic elections. This means that only they can be employed (and therefore be paid) to oversee all elections held in the UK: 

• Local elections (election of councillors to a City or Council authority)
• Elections to devolved government (Scotland, Wales and Ireland)
• National (UK) elections (MPs in the House of Commons)
• Elections to the European Parliament

Although disappointed at not being able to be employed in any capacity in the forthcoming election I was not too concerned as I was not in particular need of the money but I wondered – what about people who are? It seemed odd to me that only a particular group of people are acceptable for this work and that they were already in employment. Was there a reason for this?

In Scotland elections are the responsibility of the ‘Returning Officer’ the local official responsible for the smooth running in their local authority area. I was rather surprised that this is nearly always the senior employee of a local authority and that he or she was therefore re-employing their own staff albeit for a diffenent function. That said there are other large organisations which employ people for short periods of time in order to complete a particular task. Why not for democratic elections? I wee bit more digging I discovered the official reason only council employees can be employed as ‘Count Staff’ and this is taken from the City of Edinburgh Council web site: 

“I don’t work for the Council, can I work at one of the counts?

In other words local government does not have the ability to check whether an individual is ‘legal’ and so relies on its own employees who have already gone through a vetting process.

For the rules regarding ‘Count Staff‘ employed by the City of Edinburgh Council click here or on the previous links.

Freemasonry reflects the culture in which is it based and this is one reason why Masonic practices vary from place to place, country to country. Freemasonry is therefore not uniform throughout the world. Scotland is a case in point and although Scotland shares the same island land mass as England and Wales, Freemasonry is quite different in the two kingdoms (Wales is a principality and Freemasonry there is governed by the United Grand Lodge of England).

There are so many differences between Freemasonry in Scotland and Freemasonry elsewhere that Scottish Freemasonry stands out as being unique and a lengthy discourse detailing why cannot be provided in a blog such as this. When I was thinking about explaining the unique nature of Scottish Freemasonry without going into great detail I thought that this (see left) was a good example. Most Lodges around the world sent letters to their members informing them of forthcoming meetings and other Masonic activities. Sometimes these take the form of a Newsletter (or Trestle Board in North America) which report considerably more than just details of the next meeting of the Lodge. In England and Wales these Lodge notifications are called Summonses and in Scotland they are known as Billets. In English the term billet or billets means a military order to provide accommodation for a soldier or other military personnel. By extension therefore the term came to mean the actual place where the soldier would live and sleep. In other words his board and lodgings. In the Scots language Billet is a variant of Bilget, Billiet or Billgate which is a document containing a military command [to attend a meeting or to do something]. In Scotland therefore a billet is a written notification to attend a meeting and serves the same purpose as a Summons in England.

Sending billets by mail has largely given way to sending them by email but the principle remains the same. However, we are discussing Scottish Masonic practice and so, as one might expect, things are done differently. Whilst many Lodges do send notices of forthcoming Lodge meetings by mail and/or by email very many Scottish Lodges also ‘advertise’ in the local press. This practice arose because nearly every Scotsman read the local newspaper which always also included details of the activities of the Lodge (meetings, charitable activities, social events and visits to other Lodges) and these reports were usually accompanied by photographs and were always included in the Friday edition of the newspaper. Sadly, most newspapers (whether local or national), have ceased to report the activies of Masonic Lodges. Despite this, Scottish Lodges continue to use the classified ads of their local newspaper to inform the Brethren of forthcoming events. Such ads are always placed in the Friday evening local newpaper and provide details of ‘what is on’, Masonically, in the coming week. It is very rare for a Lodge to advertise something taking place on a date after the next Friday edition of the newspaper. By this means any Freemason can, by purchasing a local Friday evening newspaper, gain some idea of what Masonic activity there will be during the course of the following week. The image here is an example taken from the Edinburgh Evening News of Masonic Meetings. Note that quite a lot of information is packed into just a few lines: the name of the Lodge, what kind of meeting (regular or special), the date of the meeting, the degree to be conferred and lastly whether or not visitors are welcome. The latter is neccessary because the Lodge meeting is for members only where private business is to be discussed.

So much for Freemasonry being a secret society…

When I was in Houston International Airport in January of this year I noticed this magazine entitled ‘ Mysteries of History – Secret Societies’ with Bro. Greorge Washington dominating the cover. I thought to myself that this would be ideal for me to read on the flight home. As it happend I watched a long film (movie) and then fell asleep and I never got round to reading the publication.

I recently found it again when looking  for something else. I read it this time around. I was rather disappointed. It is a mish-mash of stuff about secret societies (many of which are not secret at all!) and it very definitely has an American bias (not that I should be surprised, given that it was written and published there). Scotland, the place where Freemasonry originated, is not mentioned.

The publication is sub-titled ‘Masons, Religious Cults, Scientology, Opus Dei, The Mafia, Skull & Bones & more.’ I am sure that a lot of Freemasons will be annoyed and disappointed in being lumped in with criminal organisations like the Mafia and with religious groups like Opus Dei and Scientology. There seems that there is little we Freemasons can do to stop publishers such as USNews creating and perpetuating the erroneous perception that Freemasonry is a so called ‘secret society’.

That said this publication is one of the most benign in regards to Freemasonry and anyone who wishes to a general overview of where many people seem to think Freemasonry fits into the world of secret societies that this is as good an introduction as any. Although well illustrated (ncluding some supplied by the United Grand Lodge of England) it is impossible for the publication to do real justice to the history, purpose, symbolism, ritual, regalia, administration, famous members etc., etc. in the 14 pages devoted to the Craft (many of them partly or fully given over to illustrations).

The cover was the thing that caught my eye. George Washington (1732 – 1799) was a Scottish Freemason although that statement requires some explanation.

More to follow…

Last week I posted a series of questions about the failure of my Nikon D2X (see previous posting below) and the concensus was that Nikon were not playing fair especially as this was a professional camera costing thousands of pounds (£4000 to be exact). For such an expensive and professional piece of equipement to fail so completely with in a short space of time was disaapointing to say the least. Following the online debate I contacted Nikon and my questions and their responce are posted below.

My email to Nikon:

I have had my D2X (serial number 5054294) for less than five years and which I purchased new. In November of last year it failed competely. I took it to Cameratiks in Edinburgh who could not repair it and so they sent it onto you. The initial fairly modest estimate for repair was increased to over £900! For a professional camera with only moderate use to fail so completely does not inspire confidence. The estimate (supplied by you) only provides details of the parts and labour required although I had asked for details of the cause of the failure. I was intending buying a D3X as a replacement but am reluctant to do so in case the camera fails for the same reason within five years as with the D2X. I appreciate that the camera is out of warrenty but then what is the point of buying a professional camera that fails in such a short period?

Nikon’s reply:

Dear Mr Cooper,

Thank you for your recent email.

Having looked into the previous estimate provided to Cameratiks back in february I can advise that part of the main dc/dc power board failed and was the reason for the power issues you were experiencing.

I’m afraid we’re unable to determine exactly why this part failed but the only way to resolve the issue would be to replace the part in question.

We are confident that all of our products, not just our professional range are of durable quality.

It is certainly unfortunate that this component has failed within 5 years and if the unit had been under warranty the repair would have been carried out free of charge, however, as it is now 4 years since the warranty expired I’m afraid the repair charges would stand.

I trust that this information was of use to you, however, should you require any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us again.

Kind Regards,

Ben Wetherall
Nikon UK Service Support

Conclusion:

That is it then? Because the camera was out of warranty (12 months) Nikon will do nothing. It does not matter that this was the top of the range professional camera, that it cost £4000, that it only had had moderate use, that I have been a Nikon user (and purchaser) for more than 20 years, Nope, instead they want me to pay £920 (almost 25% of the purchase price) to repair the camera. I looks like that that is the end of the matter – unless anyone out there has any suggestions?