Category: Uncategorized

Reported in The Week, issue 25 September 2021, page 31, this letter on the Letters page under the title ‘France can’t complain’

To The Times
One suspects the origins of this rift over submarine contracts lie in the EU decision to exclude the UK from the Galileo GPS system as part of the Brexit deal. Not only was an investment of more than £1bn lost, but the UK will need to find another GPS system for military use. France should not be surprised if the UK becomes a competitor to the EU in military matters.
Roger Downing, Whitchurch, Devon

Is there substance to what Mr Downing says? It seems there is from what I read about the Galileo project in Wikipedia. This is a extract of the relevant parts from the Wikipedia entry for Galileo

“Galileo is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that went live in 2016, created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA), operated by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, with two ground operations centres in Fucino, Italy, and Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.

In March 2018, the European Commission announced that the United Kingdom may be excluded from parts of the project (especially relating to the secured service PRS) following its exit from the European Union. As a result, Airbus will relocate work on the Ground Control Segment (GCS) from its Portsmouth premises to an EU state. British officials sought legal advice on whether they could reclaim the €1.4 billion invested by the United Kingdom, of the €10 billion spent on the project.

In a speech at the EU Institute for Security Studies conference, the EU Chief Negotiator in charge of the Brexit negotiations, Michel Barnier, stressed the EU position that the UK had decided to leave the EU and thus all EU programmes, including Galileo. In August 2018, it was reported the UK would look to create a competing satellite navigation system to Galileo post-Brexit. In December 2018, the then British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the UK would no longer seek to reclaim the investment, and Science Minister Sam Gyimah resigned over the matter.

Reported in the 25 September 2021 issue of The Week, page 31

The charms of Brighton

To The Sunday Times

Your restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin describes Brighton as “a heady combination of bracing, breezy and ever so slightly sleazy”. Nice, but no description nails It quite as well as this, from the late Keith Waterhouse: “a town that always looks as if it is helping the police with their inquiries”.

Adrian Brodkin, London

It’s like we all children of each other. If we do not set boundaries, then the world will fall apart.

But it didn’t matter where I might be in the world, I would always be happy to find a dog. No language skills are required and nothing is lost in translation – there is no cultural boundary to overcome. Wherever we may be, in whatever country, dogs will simply treat you as dogs always do – show them a bit of kindness and love and they will gladly return those sentiments. There’s probably a lesson for all of us there.

The following is printed on little sheets covered in transparent plastic that are for sale in the cathedral where Jane Austen is buried

Incline us O God to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

The origin of the word spaniel is described by the Oxford English Dictionary as coming from the Old French word espaigneul which meant Spanish (dog). This in turn originated from the Latin Hispaniolus which simply means Spanish.

From Wikipedia