tomo,
On the 2-pack epoxy, I recently bought some (German branded) without difficulty on eBay. I suppose the licence requirement in the UK is to make sure you know not to fill your lungs with the stuff. I know that without needing a licence.

Thanks for alerting me to the existence of VOCs though. They look to have slid in quietly in Aus too. Verification of Competency? Just more deceptive language. I'd say the politicians and bureaucrats who've come up with these schemes have already verified their *lack* of competency.

tomo,
The bloated public sector is weighing down the whole western world. Here's relevant talk by Gina Rinehart (wealthy Australian businesswoman) (with fun cameos from a horse) saying the same sort of things you are.

Couple of depressing factoids from that talk:
   Of the 1 million new immigrants of the last two years, 40,000 are now working (let's guess what the others are doing).
   Over that same period, the government has put on an average of 50 new bureaucrats per day.
Both of those are worse than I thought, so I've failed in my outlook of keeping expectations low. Must remember to keep them lower. Now wondering how many of the 40,000 working immigrants are newly employed bureaucrats...

No doubt it was an unintended consequence, but I'm sure 1984 did a lot to keep The Bells of St. Clement's in the repertoire. Interesting reading about it. I remember singing it with the class in primary school, but the game — with children marching under an arch of other childrens arms, and occasionally being trapped — I associate with London Bridge is Falling Down. That's a very distant memory.

tomo,
We are a long way from the optimistic '60s, aren't we! Will there be some sort of pressure release from the high-ups? Will there be pitchforks in the streets and a rehash of la Terreur? Will we find ourselves immersed in the aroma of boiled cabbage, hearing the clocks striking thirteen, and struggling to catch hold of The Bells of St Clement's?

Hoping for the first, but the people that depends on seem to favour the third. Going that way might bring on the second.

I was going to remark about Grammarly that at least it would be restricted to people who know how to spell "grammar". But no, Google automatically changed it when I tried "grammerly".

Of course it's ludicrous. Puts me in mind of one of the Not the Nine O'Clock News sketches where Mel Smith is demonstrating the wonderful electronic organ with auto-accompaniment: "Two hands ...., One hand ...., No hands ...." with the same music carrying on in all cases. Not much sign of talent if the machine does all the work.

And the Gore piece: maybe he wants an Oscar to balance the Nobel on his mantelpiece, but not much chance if that's his best effort at anger. In any case, would he really want us to declare war on China?

No Oscar for that NASA woman either. Holy cow: it's "white" to be a perfectionist, but it's also "white" to favour quantity over quality. Reminds me of trying to reconcile Look before you leap with He who hesitates is lost. I might just have to embrace my whiteness (though with summer approaching, there'll be a little bit of colour coming on).

NASA can't be all *that* white. They've failed on both quantity and quality.

.,
Might be some close scrutiny from the insurers for that one.

Brewing up before they're sold.... oh dear....

https://youtu.be/f4bj6ksvJ-Q

There is a bit of a "powder keg" feeling about the public sector. The blob is: incompetent; indifferent to its incompetence; and unaccountable for both. If the powder keg blows, I suppose it'll turn out that accountability was postponed, not avoided. Not completely relishing the idea though: likely to be quite a lot of collateral damage.

Listened to John Anderson's recent interview with Justin Brierly on "The End of New Atheism". There was a measure of triumphalism between host and guest at various celebrities who have turned from atheism to Christianity. With nearly 2,000 years of evolution under its belt, I wonder which flavour of Christianity they had in mind. The one true religion is a bit of a moving target.

I'm glad it has evolved (I'm hopeful that Islam will soften too), but it seems to me that the ethics that have been evolving don't in the slightest depend on the Christian premise that God is in charge of the universe and He cares about me. My own views build from a more plausible basis:The universe is quite indifferent to my existence, but I choose to care about the universe. In my experience that view is quite compatible with the good parts of Christian morality.