Hooray For The Welsh Mining Disaster !

Yesterday (15/9/11) some sort of disaster occurred at a drift style coal mine in the Swansea Valley, south Wales. This apparent water problem trapped four miners inside the shaft and today (16/9/11) one of the miners has been found dead. Coming on the day that I submitted a section 4 request to my Welsh grandmother's consultant this is clearly the Brit's way of explaining that situation to the world with the "disaster" being my submission and the "rescue effort" being their attempts to make sure my grandmother is denied the medical care she needs.

When you think about it it's actually quite clever because I don't think anyone wants the actual rescue effort to fail. So by giving the story wall to wall TV coverage probably over several days it will have a drip, drip effect building up an almost subconscious belief in the British public that it is in their interest that my grandmother is rescued from appropriate medical care.

Beyond that I wouldn't get too caught up in the details of the story because it is mainly there to cause confusion and cover while the Brits figure out what they're going to do. However there are two things to be aware of. Firstly it is almost impossible to talk about mining disasters without being reminded of 2010's sensational rescue of the Chilean miners. Chile is currently going through a period of quite serious social unrest and political protest fuelled, in part, by the way the rescued miners have been treated since their rescue. So the Welsh story could be being used to gain Chilean support for the Brit's plan by trying to convince the Chilean government that I'm responsible for the current unrest and by doing so energise Pinochet's old allies.

Secondly a similar disaster occurred at a similar drift style mine in November 2010 in New Zealand. New Zealand is a very active British ally providing special forces troops to both Afghanistan and Libya. New Zealand is also currently hosting the Rugby Union World Cup. So the Welsh story could be used for coded discussions between the two nations over those three other situations.

While I'm here I should point out that my father is currently unaware of my section 4 submission. I suspect when he does find out I'm going to get yelled at so hopefully that won't happen for a while yet because later today the Palestinians are supposed to be laying out their game plan for the UN General Assembly.