Britain towed to mid-Atlantic! By Joe Yasin
Published 2021-05-22
This may seem an unlikely headline. However, when the cost of every holiday journey out of the UK – due to five compulsory private Covid tests was going to be hundreds of pounds more expensive than pre-Covid (Times, 07/04/21), it meant that price of a return flight to Paris would rise from £50-100 to £350-500. That would be equivalent to the Channel being not a mere 21 miles across, but nearer 2,000 miles wide to fly across. Flights to America would increase by 60-80%, flights to Paris by 400-600%.
There are more ways of fighting COVID-19 than one! By Joe Yasin
Published 2020-06-30
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT’S ANTI-COVID POLICY – THE ONE CLUB GOLFER
For those who are not golfers, the ‘one club golfer’ reference is to a golfer who tries to play using only one club for everything – driving, middle distance and putting on the green, out of the 14 different clubs allowed in a bag. Not surprisingly they don’t play very well. That is the way the British Government has tried to suppress COVID-19. Until very recently, the only policy has been spatial distancing – from staying at home and never seeing anyone outside your household, to staying ‘socially distant’, 2 metres apart whenever anywhere else. Not surprisingly we are finding that few more economically destructive methods of fighting COVID-19 could be devised. And, as evidence is emerging (never enough for our guiding ‘science’ it appears), it seems that our one club spatial/social distancing is not even the most effective method of fighting COVID-19. Britain has the second-worst death rate (deaths per million) in the whole world.
GDPR revisits your local from “Super Saturday” By Charles Calveley
Published 2020-06-29
Looking forward to getting back down the pub on Super Saturday? Don’t leave home without your personal data or you probably won’t get in, let alone be served! Your return visit to your local after more than 3 months should not only be COVID-19 safe but also data protection safe…
Read the sequel to my earlier article on GDPR…
That genius must be an idiot By Eirikur Eiriksson
Published 2020-06-23
A true story, names and places have been altered to protect the innocent.
The day started a bit murky, working on the laptop out on the balcony, in the wee hours of the morning. The problem needed a swift resolution. Poking around and wondering how best to complete the task, I came across a software that was stunning. The user interface was close to perfect and everything flowed naturally. Importing all the data needed for the task hardly require any effort, although I had to occasionally supply my user credentials. Almost all imaginable types of data sources were listed under the data import section. In addition, there was a list of additional data sets that were extremely helpful for solving the problem. Whoever wrote this software must be a genius…
Paperless Perils By Eirikur Eiriksson
Published 2020-06-17
You are a model citizen, caring for the environment. Every day you are sorting refuse and recyclables, no excessive usage of fossil fuels, the electric car is only used when necessary. You shop responsibly, often checking if the packaging is recyclable before reading the ingredients. Preferring walking or cycling to work when possible, working remotely instead of travelling, you feel that you really are contributing your weight on the environmental scales. And of course, you have gone “Paperless”!
But something is missing…
A snake in the cookie jar By Eirikur Eiriksson
Published 2020-06-08
With toolboxes are now virtually full of exciting new data toys that produce stunning visualisations and interactive dashboards, perform complex analysis and operations with greatly reduced requirements of theoretical, technical, and subject knowledge, are we losing focus on the fundamentals?
Are we already achieving ‘herd immunity’? By Joe Yasin
Published 2020-05-29
In La Jolla they’ve made a discovery
Unravelling the pandemic’s mystery
It is not being old
But having a cold
That may be the path to recovery
Where has all the money gone? By Henrik Tuxen
Published 2020-05-27
During this period of lock-down, time is freed (for those of us lucky enough to work from home and have a garden) to think about what next. It will be different for sure. However, I don’t believe anybody can imagine how much different and, indeed, in what direction. Much depends on the political decisions taken by individual states/regions and between those states/regions now. As many have pointed out, coronavirus does not recognise borders, while states/regions concentrate on responses within them with an added pinch of nationalism. If this is the path chosen, getting back in economic terms from this politically and humanitarian (for good reasons) supply and demand induced recession, could take 10 years. Alternatively, this could be a turning point for a reset of the economy in a different, maybe overdue, direction.
The full article
Litigation landslide By Charles Calveley
Published 2020-05-22
It’s an open secret that the Covid-19 pandemic is placing enormous pressure on public services, not least of course the NHS. Another casualty (no pun intended!) is the justice system.
Lawyers all over the country are dipping their pens in the inkwell to sue authorities, (including the government), companies and businesses.
Could this become “the new asbestos” for class action lawsuits?
Learn more in my article “Litigation Landslide”
Let us learn from the COVID-19 By Eirikur Eiriksson
Published 2020-05-21
We have seen it before; “Houston, we had a problem”, one of the most famous communications in recent times, when mission control and the astronauts managed to safely land the Apollo 13 craft on Earth by using creative thinking, pieces of a spacesuit, a flight plan cue card, plastic bags and duct tape to mitigate the problem. Unfortunately, in the COVID-19 pandemic, space suits are even more scarce than other pieces of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), most flights are grounded (so no cue cards), and plastic bags and duct tape are in short supply as those are being used as makeshift PPE kits. But we still have creative thinking!
Data protection in the COVID-19 pandemic By Charles Calveley
Published 2020-05-15
Companies have become increasingly aware of the importance of data protection and compliance. Now, however, as we navigate through the global pandemic that is Covid-19, authorities and businesses are collecting and processing new types of personal information, much of it sensitive, so data protection has been catapulted into the spotlight…..or has it?
Well, it should be…..and you can find out why by reading my article (oh go on – you know you want to – it’s only about 1 page long!):
The value of space is the value of EVERYTHING By Joe Yasin
Published 2020-05-13
V-shaped, U-shaped or, worst of all, L-shaped? What kind of recession will we have? A quick sharp dip and a sharp recovery?, A sharp collapse, then a flat period before we slowly recover again? Or a permanent recession, from which it takes many years to recover?
Unless we successfully develop a vaccine very quickly, social distancing will ensure our recession will be a U or an L. I hope a vaccine will be developed before TOO many businesses collapse, since business corpses cannot leap to their feet like revived zombies. Even a period of months of social distancing will be enough to cause massive damage to our economy.
Read about the damage caused by the choice made by Britain with two metre social distancing and how we need not suffer this pain if we look at the facts…
High Skills Partners’ articles are provided for your interest and do not constitute advice, legal or otherwise. We aim to be informative, thought-provoking and to reflect our experience, whilst striving for accuracy and correctness.
© 2020 High Skills Partners Limited