With all my worldly goods...

If you and I went into partnership making widgets or some such, and then decided that we didn't really get on, and decided to part company, we would dissolve our partnership and share out the assets - if any. If either of us then decided to continue the business alone, and made a success of it, we would not expect the other to come knocking on our door demanding a share of the profits made since they left. So why is marriage any different? If a couple divorce, they are each clearly entitled to a share of matrimonial assets, but why should there be any question of either of them having any entitlement to a share of the future income of the other? I've never understood it.

I am unknown and therefore famous.

A celebrity, according to my dictionary, is a person of distinction or fame. So how come Celebrity Big Brother (which I'm proud to say I've never watched) was won by the one person nobody had ever heard of? More to the point, what was she doing there in the first place?

On the spot

Is it time we looked again at the penalty kick? Watched a couple of Cup matches on telly yesterday, and the amount of foul play that goes on in penalty areas is amazing - stuff which, if it took place anywhere else on the field, would without doubt draw a free kick. The problem is it's what you might call low-level foul play (pushing, shirt-tugging, arm-holding etc) and the referee either has to ignore it, or award a penalty which most people would consider to be out of all proportion to the offence. So most often, it's ignored - but the fact is, it's still foul play. What is needed is some way of punishing such transgressions without having to resort to the draconian measure of the penalty kick.

Wrong target

The Head of the Met has suggested that the British media are "institutionally racist" because they are more likely to report the murder of a white person than that of someone from an ethnic background. The facts are right, but the conclusion's wrong - the media aren't institutionally racist, they're institutionally commercialist. Their only interest is selling papers, and they will publish whatever assists that end. So if there is any question of racism, then I fear the finger has to be pointed at us, the readers.

The proof of the pudding...

So now we shall see whether "democracy" really means the will of the people, or whether it means what suits the West - which basically I fear means the US. It seems Hamas have won the Palestinian elections fair and square - and yet Hamas is designated a terrorist group by both the US and the EU - not to mention Israel. Can they continue to refuse to deal with Hamas, now that Hamas speaks for the Palestinian people? It will be interesting to see how they handle this dilemma - but I've a feeling I already know the answer.

Roamin' in the gloamin'

I'm glad to see that the EU are looking into the cost of using a mobile phone abroad. There's no doubt of the value of being able to keep in touch while on holiday in foreign parts, and I'm perfectly prepared to pay somewhat over the odds for the privilege, but I have to say that I have been rather shocked at just how much over the odds the charges can be. The main problem is of course that you're not necessarily aware of just what the cost will be until you get your bill - by which time it's too late to take any remedial action. When abroad, we've learned to use our mobile prudently - text messages mainly - but I think it should be made clear up front just what the charges will be, and this business of being charged from both ends does I think need looking into.

Sick note.

The apparent inference to be drawn from the Government's plans on incapacity benefit is that the majority of claimants are spongers - able to work if they chose to. Before we retired, both my wife and I had (different) jobs which each brought us into daily contact with those on benefit, and it was interesting that when we compared notes we found we had come to the same conclusion. This was that about a third of claimants were genuine cases - exactly the sort of people the system was designed for - about a third were "apathetic", meaning that there was no reason why they couldn't come off benefit, but for whatever reason they just couldn't be bothered to make the effort, and about a third were quite deliberately "on the fiddle". I would imagine things are still much the same, but the problem is identifying just who falls into which group, because they need very different approaches.

Missing link

Several callers to the local radio station this morning were expressing indignation that the cost of the abortive attempt to rescue the whale from the Thames over the weekend has been estimated at some £100,000, whereas a local children's hospice is having to close beds for lack of funds. No doubt of their sincerity, but what on earth gives them the idea that there is or could be any connection between the two things. Do they really think that if that amount of money (which by the way is only a ball-park figure) were not spent on the whale, it would be available to be spent on the hospice? It's a trap we all too easily fall into - you know the sort of thing "The amount of money they're wasting on (fill in the blank) could pay for x doctors, or y teachers, or (whatever takes your fancy)". More often than not, as with the whale and the hospice, the connection simply isn't there.

I am not a number....!

ID cards - oh dear, what a mess! I'm from a generation which had ID cards during the war - indeed, I've still got mine - so I've no beef with the basic idea. So what's the problem? Well, firstly, cost. Whether we are going to be expected to pay for them ourselves, or through general taxation, we need to be convinced that we're going to get value for money - in other words that they are going to do the job they are intended for, and I think that's far from clear. They certainly wouldn't have stopped the London bombings, and I think organised crime will have no difficulty in getting hold of forgeries good enough to pass any but the most intense scrutiny. Secondly of course there is the "Big Brother" aspect. I'm old enough (that's to say, close enough to the end of my life) not to be too bothered about this, but if I were in my twenties or thirties, I think I would be very concerned about the way things are going, and the way in which my behaviour and movements are becoming scrutinised and recorded on a daily basis, and I would see ID cards as yet another step in the same direction. It's all very well to say "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear", but most of us value our privacy, and that's what's in question.

Have that pinch of salt ready.

It used to be said that history was written by the victors, but these days it seems to be more that history is written by the film-makers and television producers. Steven Spielberg's latest film based on the Munich Olympic massacre is coming under fire for supposed factual inaccuracies, and I'm sure they probably exist. The problem is the ordinary man in the street isn't going to know what's right and what's wrong, and what is likely to remain in his mind is the film rather than anything else. We're already used to the idea that it was Errol Flynn, John Wayne and Audie Murphy who won the Second World War, with Britain playing at best a supporting role, and that it was the Americans, rather than the British, who captured an Enigma machine from a stricken U-boat. We've had a completely unnecessarily scurrilous portrayal of First Officer Murdoch in the film "Titanic" and William Wallace doing things he never did in "Braveheart". And these are the images which tend to remain in our minds, and over time, if we're not careful, they become accepted as historical fact. Perhaps there's a case for such productions to carry a health warning - "WARNING. This film/programme may seriously damage your perception of history!"

Black Country Humour

This blog seems to have been getting rather heavy lately, so let's lighten up a little. I come from the Black Country, and the dialect here is a very thick one, and difficult to get down phonetically, but here's an old joke which used to be told by Dolly Allen (a Black Country comedienne, sadly no longer with us), and I've done my best to transcribe it as she would have said it -

My owd mon 'ad this terrible cuff, so 'e guz t'the doctor.
"Doctor, I've got this cuff", 'e sez.
The doctor examines 'im, then sez "Rite, ere's what I want y't'do. Goo 'um and find yerself a big saucepon. Pour in a pint o' caster ile. Then add 'arf a dozen senna pods, and a couple o' tablespoons - tablespoons, mind, the big 'uns - o' cascara. Bile it all up, let it go code, 'oik aht the senna pods, then drink it all down in one goo."
"Orite" sez me owd mon "If yo sez so, doctor. But will it cure me cuff?"
And the doctor sez "Cuff? After yo've drunk that, yo wo DARE cuff!"

Time to get real?

News in the papers today that the NHS is so short of funds that wards are having to be closed, staff laid off, and building projects cancelled. And all this despite record levels of investment in it. The Government seem to be taken by surprise, and yet they must realise, as any thinking person realises, that the NHS is a black hole. However much money you throw at it, they will always be able to say "We could do more if we had more money". Until we face up to the fact that no amount of money can "buy" the perfect NHS, we cannot begin to solve the problem of health-care. For myself, I cannot see anything other than the NHS eventually becoming a sort of super Accident and Emergency set-up, with other treatment being handled through private insurance. The ideological arguments against such an idea will I feel eventually crumble in the face of ever rising costs.

Rich or poor....

Outrage at the news that a man who won several million pounds on the National Lottery has been granted Legal Aid to defend a criminal prosecution. But why? Our legal system works on the principle of the presumption of innocence (doesn't it?), so why should an innocent man have to dig into his own pocket, however deep it may or may not be, just because an accusation is made against him? If he's found guilty, that's a different matter, but until such time, he should be entitled to look to the State for assistance with his defence costs, and his personal financial position shouldn't come into it.

One more step towards a Police State.

Criminal law seems to be going to hell in a handcart. The latest brilliant idea is that we should extend the already unacceptable concept of the fixed penalty notice, and wherever possible dispense with the courts and hearings based on evidence altogether. In future you'll be given a choice - admit your guilt and accept a fixed fine, or go to court and risk a much bigger fine if you are found guilty. Why is this bad - how long have you got? But just for starters it turns the burden of proof completely on its head, it puts totally unfair pressure on people to make a decision based on financial rather than legal considerations, and will almost certainly result in people admitting guilt when in fact in law they may well be not guilty. It is the most deplorable idea.

No such thing as bad publicity?

When residents in a Midlands town saw more than a dozen policemen standing around a bus stop the other day, they quite reasonably assumed that something serious was up. Imagine their surprise therefore when they discovered that the reason for this display of force was to check that those on the buses had paid their fares, or had valid bus-passes. Surprise followed quickly by righteous anger at such a waste of police manpower. Who the heck organises these things? Have they any concept of public relations? How stupid can you be?

The world we live in...

Much more in the papers over the weekend about the Sex Offenders Register. Perhaps the most disturbing revelation is that it is clear that you can end up on this Register without actually ever having been convicted of anything. Given the serious career consequences which may ensue, this seems to be a denial of natural justice. But then, there's a lot of it about lately, isn't there?

Compare and contrast...

Top news story yesterday, today and probably tomorrow is concerned with how people on the Sex Offenders Register, and the even more restrictive "List 99", could possibly have ended up in jobs which bring them into daily contact with children. This is considered so serious that ministerial heads could well roll as a result. There may well be more to be said on this later, but did you see the programme on the BBC earlier this week about the children who were forcibly removed from their families in Rochdale back in 1990 on the basis of the completely unfounded belief of two social workers that they were being subjected to "satanic abuse". To me the most gobsmacking aspect of the whole business was that the social workers involved are still working in child protection!!! One law for sex offenders and another for - well, I can't think of a word which adequately describes them, but I'm sure you get my drift.

Watch your tongue!

Remember the post about Guy Gibson's dog? Well, two more examples in the press yesterday about words which it would appear are not to be mentioned. A man somewhat the worse for drink suggested that a policeman's horse was gay. He was arrested - yes, I kid you not - and charged with making a homophobic remark. Fortunately the CPS saw sense, and refused to prosecute. The other example comes from across the pond, where Washington's football team (American football, that is) can apparently no longer be referred to with impunity as the "Redskins" for fear of upsetting the native population. You couldn't make it up, could you?

You pays your money (or not)...

I live quite close to the M6 Toll road, and latest figures show that the road is still only being lightly used, despite constant delays and hold-ups on the M6 itself. Not that surprising perhaps when you consider that it costs £3.50 a pop to use it. Hardly small change. Of course, those who run it have to bear in mind that they can hardly justify charging people for using the road unless they can pretty well guarantee a free-flowing journey. In other words, they don't want to attract too much traffic onto it, and set their charges accordingly. So the idea that the road would be a general relief road for the M6 was never really on - it was only ever going to be an alternative for the relatively well-heeled.

Through a glass darkly.

Much gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts here in the Midlands because the drink-driving figures for this Christmas period reveal something like a 100% increase over last year. Whilst it would clearly be better if drivers didn't drink, I think the reaction to this statistic verges on the hysterical. Firstly, it may well be that the increase is simply a reflection of the fact that the Police have become rather more clever in just who they target and breathalyse - it could be that the number of drink drivers hasn't really altered, just that more of them are being caught. Secondly - and I have to be careful here, because it's such an emotive subject - are we reading things into this statistic that are not there? I've touched on this briefly before in relation to speed limits, but there is an underlying assumption that, if you are over the alcohol limit, or exceeding the speed limit, you are ipso facto driving dangerously, and I don't think this necessarily follows. I'm sure I can't be alone in saying that I can think of drivers I would feel much safer being driven by after they had had a couple of drinks, than others when they are stone-cold sober.

Nuclear ambition.

The Foreign Secretary has described as "serious" Iran's resumption of its nuclear programme. He of course believes that their aim is to produce an atomic bomb, despite their insistence that their intentions are purely peaceful. Am I worried - of course I am. The thought of nuclear war terrifies me. But who are we to say who is entitled to have atomic weapons, and who not? The thought of Iran having the Bomb worries me no more than that Israel have it, India and Pakistan have it, and yes, that the US, Russia, China, France and ourselves have it. The idea that in order to be allowed to join the Nuclear Club you should have to pass some sort of test - the main criterion apparently being that you should be "in" with the US - smacks of breathtaking arrogance. I would rather nobody had the Bomb, but given all those that have, I don't see why we should deny Iran, or anyone else for that matter.

Voices from the grave....

The question of whether the Prime Minister should be brought to book for taking us to war in Iraq is once again being raised. The usual arguments are being put forward - on the one side, that the WMD case was clearly "dodgy" from the outset, that Parliament was at best misled, and at worst deliberately lied to, and on the other that a particularly vicious dictator has been removed, and that the Iraqis have for the first time been able to hold democratic elections. What never seems to get mentioned or weighed in the balance is that some 30,000 Iraqis have been killed as a result of what we did, or assisted in the doing of. Who speaks for them? Does anybody care?

Nothing new under the sun

Read in the techno section of my paper today that there are going to be two new standards for the next generation DVDs, and as ever the consumer will be faced with hoping they choose the winner - or alternatively opting out until the winner has emerged. And the winner won't necessarily be the best. Twenty-odd years ago, I was the proud owner of a Grundig Video 2000 video recorder - beat VHS all ends up - far, far superior. But who came out on top in the end? VHS. But it even goes back further than that - was watching an evening of Fred Dibnah's programmes on the history of steam engines on TV this weekend, and apparently George Stephenson and Isambard Brunel couldn't agree on what the distance should be between railway rails (the "gauge") so they both went their own way, using different gauges, until, despite the fact that his wider gauge was demonstrably safer, Brunel had to concede defeat. What goes around comes around, eh?

The magic of the Cup

This being third-round weekend, when the big boys get involved, we have heard much about the "magic of the F.A. Cup". But just what do they mean by this? Well, the F.A. Cup is one of the few major competitions in any sport where, at least once you get to the third round, there is no seeding. Who plays who (should that be "whom"?) is purely a matter of chance, and so any team, however lowly, is always there with the possibility of progressing thanks to a favourable draw, and the top teams may have to play each other early on. But I think the magic is more the general magic of knock-out football. Football is virtually alone in being a game in which the result need not - and often does not - reflect the respective skills of the two sides. All that matters is who scores the more goals - as it is ofen put "you get no points for style". Over a season, the most skillful teams will usually rise to the top, but in a one-off match, anything can happen - there are so many examples I could quote, but who can forget the Sunderland/Leeds Cup Final for one? And this, I think, is what draws us to the F.A. Cup, and long may it continue to do so.

SAD, SAD, SAD.....

Well, that's it - Christmas is really over, and now it's the long drag through to Easter. This is the point each year when, if I had more money than sense (that'd be about one and thruppence, according to my wife) I would swan off to the Canaries or similar and not come back until Spring was well under way. Why is this time of year so depressing? My theory, for what it's worth, is that we are fighting our basic nature. It's only in the last two hundred and fifty years or so - since the Industrial Revolution - that we have lived our lives by the clock. Prior to that, we would have got up when it got light, and gone to bed when it got dark, and that's how our bodies still want to behave, so at this time of year we suffer from the fact that our lifestyle is really right out of sync with our bodyclock.

On the twelfth day of Christmas....

Did you take your decorations down last night? Good for you. But did you refer to it as "twelfth night"? Well, you were wrong. Somewhere along the line, two things have become confused. Back in medieval times Christmas was a twelve day "do". Christmas Day itself was a holy day - you went to church, confessed your sins, sat at home and read the Bible - but starting on the next day (what now we call Boxing Day) you had twelve days of merrymaking. So the twelve days of Christmas ran from December 26th to January 6th, and twelfth night - your last chance for a knees-up - was the evening of January 6th. Quite independently of this, the Church celebrated (and still does) January 6th as the Feast of Epiphany, and as the Christmas decorations in the churches would be looking a bit tired by then, it was decided that churches should be redecorated for Epiphany, and so following the final service on January 5th, the Christmas decorations would be taken down, and that's where the idea that we should do the same with our house decorations came from. But somebody, sometime made the fatal error of connecting the two ideas, and calling this "twelfth night", which it ain't - it's actually eleventh night. So you still have a day of carousing to go!

Beware crossover law!

This idea of victims, or victims' families, having their say in court before sentence is passed is all wrong, and confuses the distinction between civil and criminal law. If you, as an individual, want your pound of flesh for some wrong that has been done to you, you use the civil law. The criminal law is all about society protecting itself against those who have broken its rules. It seems a hard thing to say, but who the victim is, is (or should be) of no real importance. Consider - two men, A & B, both go out with the intention of breaking into what they believe to be empty houses. Both are misinformed, and both come face to face with the householder. In each case there is a struggle during which the householder is severely beaten, and later dies. The circumstances are such that both men are charged with manslaughter, and convicted. The cases are as identical as could be, and I would imagine most people would agree that both men should be punished to the same extent. But now let's look at the victims - call them X & Y (sorry about this, but I always enjoyed algebra at school). X was a thoroughly unpleasant character, estranged from his family, divorced from a wife who detested him, and with no children. Y was the perfect family man, with a wife and two children who adored him, and are now devastated at their loss. Should the one who killed Y be punished more severely, because his death is mourned so deeply? Turn it round - should the one who killed X be treated more leniently because nobody cares that he has gone? Makes no sense, does it?

Let's be fair...

The Government have indicated an intention to get tough with fathers who don't pay child support for their children - imposing curfews on them regulated by tagging is one suggestion. Whilst I can't see this having any real effect, it is clearly right that fathers should be made to fulfill their legal responsibilities, but I hope the Government are going to be even-handed about this, and be just as tough on mothers who fail to fulfill their responsibilities. A lot of fathers who don't cough up the ackers, do so because they are not getting what they consider to be proper access to their children. It's a terribly difficult aspect of family law, but there are so many subtle - and not so subtle - ways in which estranged parents can make life difficult for each other, and there is a general feeling that the custodial parent, invariably the mother, has more of these weapons at their disposal, and in general can get away with using them.

What's the bleeding time?

Have you got one of those numbers you're supposed to ring when your doctor's surgery is closed? We have, and I had occasion to use it over Christmas. I've got this lousy cough and cold (yes, I know, I should have had my 'flu jab!) and it spread to my eye, which got all gummed up and swollen, and I thought I should take professional advice. So I rang the number. The person I spoke to was described as "the nurse" so I assume she had qualifications, but she made no bones about the fact that she was simply asking me a series of computer-generated questions, at the end of which she advised me to keep warm, drink lots of fluids, and get some eye-drops. I didn't feel overly impressed, and couldn't help but feel that the whole system is flawed. I can't remember which of the "Doctor" films it was where James Robertson Justice was playing Sir Lancelot Spratt in charge of a group of student doctors, but I remember his instructions on diagnosis - it went something like "Eyes first and most, hands next and least, and tongue not at all". And yet under this out-of-hours system, there's no eyes or hands - just tongue. I don't think Sir Lancelot would approve.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Ironic that after yesterday's post, today I should have to say that 2006 certainly hasn't started off giving me what I wish for. Swingeing new police powers now mean that you can be arrested for just about anything, however trivial - indeed worse than that, on suspicion of just about anything. And search warrants can now cover multiple searches at different times and places. Ye Gods, what sort of country is this fair land of ours turning into? Don't I trust the Police then? Well, only to the same extent that I trust any large organisation. It is inevitable that there will be good policemen and bad policemen, but the ones you really have to watch out for are the ambitious policemen, who see everything in terms of their own career, and who will assess these new powers, as they assess everything, in terms of how they can be used to help get their feet on the next rung of the ladder. They are not neccessarily bad people, but by God, they can be dangerous, and these new powers will simply make them that more dangerous.

Happy New Year.

May 2006 bring you everything you wish for yourself and those dear to you.