I’m making good progress on the family tree. I have 995 relatives going back to about 1350 so far. I hit a wall about then, which is not surprising. I’m concentrating mostly on the Croft side, less so on the Arnold (Mum’s) side, although that side is very interesting too. I might spend more time on that side.

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Aaahh, sun’s out, warm afternoon. Here we are, six days into spring and we’ve had a lot of rain and wind, too much for me. It’s still only 19degC max. today but I hope it warms up from now on.

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Actually, the white lights, the headlights, are coming towards us on the left of the highway, so it can’t be the USA. I don’t know where it is.

I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube content showing the USA lately and the thing that whacks me in the eye is the density of the houses, highways, freeways, industries. With a population of 350million people, that makes them 13 times our density, and it shows. Although I find a lot to admire about the US (inventing, designing, building aircraft for example), and I like looking, I would never want to live there. Too dangerous. Too violent. Too ready to resort to guns to solve problems. They are the most war-like people on the planet in my opinion.

Yet we need to ally ourselves with them in the face of China’s agression. We have to do it. There’s no way we can deter China alone.

I seriously think there is going to be a war with China within a decade, and it will be enormously destructive and deadly. Possibly millions will die. Thank goodness I can sit on the sidelines.

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I’m listening to the car section on ABC radio at the moment and a listener has asked what electric vehicle she should buy.

But I wouldn’t buy an EV if you paid me to do it. The battery in EVs has a life of about ten years, maybe 15, and when it won’t take a charge any more, it’s far too expensive to replace it. It would cost you about the same as a new car just for the new battery alone. That means your car becomes obsolete, unrepairable.

ICE cars (Internal Combustion Engine) can be almost endlessly repaired, provided parts can be obtained. Notice I don’t say “are available”. Eventually manufactirers’ spares stocks run out, but spares always seem to be obtainable from wreckers, people who don’t want their old car any more, squirrelled away stocks and so on. There are companies that specialise in spares for certain makes.

But I doubt there will be cheap reconditioned EV vehicle batteries. For one thing, thechnology is moving along and it could well be that the batteries will be entirely different in 15-20 years’ time.

So I do not see myself buying an EV in my lifetime. Except…….