Politics is beginning to hot up again in the New Year with today's long anticipated cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Theresa May retaining all the big boys, Hammond, Johnson, Davis and Hunt all remain in their positions with some cosmetic changes in responsibilities. Hunt in particular is going to extend his version of compassionate conservatism to the Social services. Justine Greening, who wanted to stay in Education, resigned when the option was not available. New blood has apparently been brought in, to ensure the future of the Conservative Party, but their names have yet to make an impact. Overall, I understand this result maintains a balance between soft and hard Brexit in the cabinet. More decisions may still come tomorrow.
Nigel Farage met European Commission’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier in a bid to counter the constant stream of remainers who he has seen visiting the latter. Apparently Farage found “Mr Barnier clearly did not understand why Brexit happened. I left with the impression that it has not been previously explained to him that the Brexit vote was primarily about controlling mass immigration and democratic self-determination. Unless Mr Barnier can compromise somewhat and be prepared to give on services and financial services, the calls to go out of the EU under WTO rules will increase."
Whilst Tony Blair, Vince Cable and othere still hope that the decision to leave the EU can be reversed, the Chief of the EU commission, Jean Claude Juncker told a conference not to believe "That Brexit won't happen". Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also stated today that in his opinion it was not possible for the UK to stay in the single market and that his efforts would be to negotiate a best possible position for the UK to retain existing benefits.
Across the Pond, a modest President Trump has proudly told farmers that "You are so lucky I gave you that privilege of voting for me", as he spoke of freeing them from legislation and permitting the use of more biotech crops, and logging for export. His administration has also served notice on more than 200,000 San Salvadorians who fled to the US after the major volcanic eruption in 2001 under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). They are to return home. Nicaraguans already lost their protections last year. This announcement comes weeks after more than 45,000 Haitians lost their protections, granted after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, and it could be that Hondurans who are in the States under TPS could also be expelled soon.
Yesterday was a bit of a damp squib, being bedridden with a migraine till early afternoon and just pottering around after a walk to the river just before sunset. Today there was letter writing on the occasion of the death of a past friend, humanist and fellow microscopist at the ripe old age of 93.
Had a play this evening taking pictures of crystal slides between crossed polars using a new two way focussing rail. The objective was to be able to use a camera tube extension with one of the camera lenses to obtain macro images. The focussing rail allowed me to fix the camera on the tripos and stably move it over the sample and adjust the focus. I manually generated focus stacks of a number of slides using the rail. Processed images were in focus throughout, but there was a softening around the edge of the pictures. Have read around the subject of Macro-photography with extension tubes, additional achromatic close up lenses, and the reversal of camera lenses.
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