Derek Evans Thoughts

The court case was lost. Unsurprisingly really. The jury took a common-sense view of the relationship between personal assistants and their pay masters. So the facts are that two sisters were employed by Nigella Lawson and her, can I say it in jest, ex-husband (not sure about the divorce situation but it would seem to be in process), as personal assistants. They were given carte blanche ability to use credit cards and in any expense agreements, all had been signed off by their paymasters. Unfortunately for Lawson/Saatchi, this involved significant spending on other items. So the jury said, that they should have been wary, and undertaken a professional approach, which would have prevented most of this excess. But they did not. So now the case was lost, the bickering continues, the sisters should be unemployable, with their reputations known publicly as well as their names, and life goes on as normal. Whether the protagonists will learn from this lesson is debatable, but people do what...

Formalities are. I am a parent of a madly loving football daughter, or soccer to those who are not aware that this is the original football. Most children move up with their teams as they grow older, and the size of teams and the size of pitches evolves. This is supposed to ensure that the game encourages skills but also a competitive environment to build on the training sessions that also take place weekly during the season. Teams are put into divisions or sections as they now call them, and between September and December each team should play the other in the league on one occasion to fulfil the league fixture list. Additionally, there were three cup games in a so-called group stage, against teams in the higher or lower section, and I guess that this was also used to see the relative strength of one division against another. She is currently at an age where playing alongside the boys is fine, and that continues until she turns 12 or 13. In general the league is well run, results and ...

Others more qualified than I can write reams about the life of Nelson Mandela, about the intricacies of his life, and about his political operating abilities. However, all must be taken into context with his life and how he was a well educated person, but clearly had a moral upbringing that ensured he had a political belief that he took into the life he then had and how he retained that modesty in him through the many years of being incarcerated on Robben Island, and then finally when there was a realisation on all sides that the status quo could not continue that he has wise to bring as many people along with him as possible but that his ambition was there for him to realise what was probably a personal dream of becoming the President of the Republic of South Africa. His political wisdom continued in that he set in motion a movement to create an enduring rehabilitation of the population of the country, by also improving the life chances of the black and minority peoples, in education ...

I have a statement to make. I use Google maps and the roadmap images to see what houses and areas look like. I also believe that certain members of my family use the same facility to effectively spy on me. The reason that I believe this is that until recently a member of this branch of the family sent occasional correspondence by post to us. However, recently Google has updated their images in this area, they are now showing images taken either in 2012 or 2013 and not 2008 or 2009 as was previously there. Funnily enough there is a vehicle on the driveway at the front of the house. It is not ours, and even somebody who knew us could tell that because the vehicle is not one that we would have, it just would not be one that we would have. The fact is I know whose vehicle it is and can therefore tell on which day of the week this picture was taken, even though I cannot tell on what date it was taken. Therefore, we are not receiving correspondence from this branch of the family (we do not g...

The UK and the EU: in or out of the Union? | euronews, the network The problem with the EU is that it is changing what it wants to be and that change irritates those countries that have differing agendas across areas where EU agreement in participation is not guraranteed such as defence. The UK is not alone to some extent with this viewpoint, the Nordic members are in a similar position regarding the mission that the EU has. So what is the purpose of the EU and where is it going. Well it was a European Economic Community, based on breaking down trade barriers and valuing the ability to buy and sell on a cross-border basis, without excessive red tape. What it is becoming is a supra-national state encompassing all the remits of a normal national parliament of economics, internal relations, foreign relations, defence, education etc. Put together with a situation where there are multiple currencies in a free market global economy and you increase the tensions, as valuations are dependent...

If you have not kept up with the news then one you have missed is the taking out of children from a fostering environment in Rotherham and the reason given was that these people had voted for UKIP and that that was detrimental to the children they were fostering at the time. Naturally the facts have not been fully given, spin is all that seems to be endemic in this day and age so it is difficult for real comments and analysis to be undertaken without some form of if statements. We are aware that these children had been taken out of their parents and placed with this couple in emergency. This is common as sometimes the time from finding out about children at risk and action being undertaken is short. It must be considered that although the aftermath may not be particularly pleasant, the health and safety and general wellbeing of children take priority so it is a better to be safe than sorry measure that social workers are required to take. There have been too many Baby P etc. and as l...

I have a new smartphone. The phone plan that has enabled me to have this phone is in my opinion very good even though it is a 24 month contract. However, what is really scaring me is how easy it is to now become connected with apps and websites unexpectedly such as Google plus or the television screen in the next room when showing a photo to a member of the family. Technology is all very good but is this just another egotistical fix or a way of losing one's privacy without knowing it.