I came across a large French crane in the City back in early September (see reference 1). Then yesterday, I saw from the Metro that we need to hire the services of the very same company - Sarens - to provide the low loaders needed to move a segment of nuclear submarine from one part of Barrow-in-Furness to another. Very impressive looking low loaders they were too, but it does not seem very satisfactory that our nuclear submarine fleet should be dependent on the French in this way. How would we be fixed if they said no more Sarens until we took in all the refugees at Calais?
Trying to trace a copy of the picture this morning, I find that at least the Telegraph is patriotic to the extent of their submarine low loaders being British yellow rather than French blue, with no Sarens signage in sight at all.
The same edition of the Metro also added to my confusion about the population of Saudi Arabia, which I had thought, from reading the Economist book of useful facts and figures, to be around 40 million. In reporting the recent elections there, the Metro talks of 1.35 million male voters and I seem to recall the Telegraph talking about some rather larger number, but well short of 40 million.
Checking this morning I find that memory fails again, with the Economist figure actually being a little under 30 million. Of which wikipedia claims about two thirds as citizens. So clearly lots of second class citizens knocking about. And, furthermore, it seems quite likely that being a first class citizen does not always mean that you can vote: with the population being very young, an age qualification could pull the number of voters well down. And then there is the question of sex. While just being a resident does always mean being subject to the supervision of the religious police.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/bayes-1.html.
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