Will we never learn...?

I have so far studiously tried to avoid commenting on the Israeli-Lebanon-Palestine conflict, but the latest news that we (Brits) have failed to join with the majority of the rest of the world in calling for an immediate ceasefire makes me ashamed. Whatever the rationale, the brutal fact is that scores of innocent people - on all sides - are being killed every day the conflict continues. Assuming there is a ceasefire in, say, five weeks' time, what are we supposed to say to the families of those who, make no mistake about it, will be killed during those five weeks, and who otherwise might not have been? It may be nearly four hundred years since John Donne wrote these powerful words, but they are as apposite today as they ever were: "...therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

Joined-up thinking.

Every now and then, there are articles and letters in our local paper from local traders bemoaning the fact that fewer people are choosing to come into town to shop, and preferring out-of-town centres. They are invariably supported by comments from local councillors extolling the virtues of town centre shops and the local market. Could it have anything to do with the fact that these same councillors were responsible over the years for a series of traffic planning measures which have made it progressively more difficult to drive into town, and progressively more difficult - and expensive - to park when you do manage to get there? Do me a favour!

Not a lot of people know that....

Did you know that all those people who flew - and some of them are still flying - St George's flags out of their windows, or on poles jutting out from their houses were breaking the law? It seems that under the Town and Country Planning Regulations of 1992 you need local authority permission to fly a flag in any other way than on a vertical flagpole. Just thought you might like to know!

Here is the news

Israel is bombing the shit out of Lebanon, Hezbollah is mounting rocket attacks on Israel, Iraq is fast descending into civil war - if it's not already there, Afghanistan is a disaster back in the hands of the Taliban - and the front page story in the Midlands own Sunday newspaper? The wife of a local chipshop owner is having it off with the teenage help! Nice to see someone has their priorities right.

Personal

Today would have been my wife's 65th birthday. Happy birthday darling - I am with you always, as I know you are with me.

Amo, amas, amat.....

There's been much discussion lately about the value, or otherwise, of learning Latin. I took Latin and Greek at school and can't really say they've been of much use to me, except perhaps in giving me a better understanding of my own language. For example, as the 1990's came to an end I got a lot of street cred for being unhesitatingly able to spell millennium. Simple when you know it comes from the Latin "mille" (thousand) and "annum" (year), and then you have no problem knowing that it has two l's and two n's. As my Gran used to say "No knowledge is ever wasted".

Bang, bang - whoops, sorry!

So the CPS have decided there should be no prosecutions against any individual police officer for the killing a year ago of Mr Menezes in the mistaken belief that he was a suicide bomber. As one who, admittedly many years ago, studied law, I find this a strange decision, and probably one motivated more by political than legal considerations. Murder, when you strip it down to its essentials, is the intentional killing of another person, and you couldn't get more intentional than what happened to the unfortunate Mr Menezes. So the only possible defences the officers concerned could have are justification or necessity. But these are both common law defences, and as such should properly be matters for the courts to rule on, but the CPS have decided that they shouldn't be given the chance. This, I'm afraid, will forever leave a nasty taste in the mouth that this is more about not wanting the full facts about what happened that day brought out in court and exposed to cross-examination. There are so many questions that we now probably never will know the answers to. Certainly a health and safety prosecution is unlikely to satisfy anyone.

When the kissing had to stop

Ludicrous story here in the Midlands of a vicar who has been censured by the Church for kissing a 10-year-old schoolgirl on the forehead - or cheek, depending on which paper you read. He was helping the girl who was struggling with her maths work, and when she finally got it right, gave her the kiss in congratulations. His Bishop has forbidden him from having any more contact with that or any other school, and to give up his post as school governor. How pathetic!! I have mentioned in the past that I play the piano from time to time at my local primary school. On one such visit a little boy came up to me and said "can I have a hug please?". Of course, I gave him one, but what will I do if that happens again? What the hell sort of world is this turning into?

Diving? I thought I was watching football!

Now that the World Cup's over, I've been thinking about my feelings towards the game as it is played these days. Anybody following this blog will not be surprised that my thoughts are basically negative. This World Cup has to rank as the most unsportsmanlike so far. It now seems an integral part of the game to try and con the referee into giving you a free kick, or better still, a penalty, or into showing an opponent a yellow (or better, red) card. Not that this is new - I remember writing to "The Times" during I think it was the 1990 World Cup complaining about Klinsmann performing a "triple agony roll with pike" following the slightest of touches by an opponent. The letter wasn't published, by the way. This time, Portugal have been pilloried as the major team of cheats, but I don't think they were any worse than several other teams - perhaps just not so clever at doing it. The problem is similar to that of drug taking in sport - do you do it because everybody else is doing it, and if you don't do it, you will be putting yourself at a severe disadvantage, or do you stick to your principles? For myself, I would rather have a team that loses with dignity and can hold its head high, rather than a team that wins by underhand means.

A sad tale made even sadder...

Here's the situation - a devoted married couple, both in their 80's, are in poor and worsening health. They decide to go out together by both taking a drug overdose. When they are discovered, the husband is dead, but the wife is still alive, though only just. She is rushed to hospital where the medical staff do all they can to save her. Why??? What possible good can come of it? If she survives, she will be faced with the same health problems as before - if not worse - and without the husband she loved and who supported her. How cruel is that? Did anyone for one moment consider what she would have wanted?

Nothing new under the sun

I see the Office of Fair Trading has decided to investigate the business of school uniforms at some schools only being acceptable if they have been purchased from certain approved suppliers, despite virtually identical articles being available at cheaper prices from other outlets. Quite right too, but what amazes me is the implied assumption that this is something relatively new. Of course there was no OFT when I went to secondary school in 1948, but I remember my parents complaining bitterly at having to buy my uniform from the most expensive shop in town - they being the school's only official stockists.

True confessions

Maybe it's time to talk about it - maybe, I'm not sure, but it's been more than two months now, so maybe. Why did I go "off air" for a few weeks? Because my wife died, that's why. My wife - my love, my life, my whole being - was taken from me by a particularly aggressive cancer which took less than ten weeks to progress from first vague indications to the final act. How do you cope with that? Well in my case, you don't. You go to pieces. You weep, you rage, you see other couples and hate them for being couples. You look for a light at the end of the tunnel and realise that there is no light - the tunnel goes on for ever. And yet in many ways I'm more fortunate than many - I have family who live close, and are keeping an eye on me. I see my grandchildren regularly throughout the week (I do the school run) and that keeps me geed up. So I'm surviving - but no more than that. Just going through the motions. I hope you don't mind if I occasionally use this blog as a form of catharsis to get my thoughts out in the open.

The Humpty Dumpty approach

The death of a young Asian prisoner at the hands of his psychopathic cell-mate was surely a terrible thing, but the inquiry into it has once again focused attention on the expression "institutional racism". Am I alone in finding this an unacceptably sloppy use of the language? An institution is an organization created for a specific purpose. An organization is by definition organized - in other words it functions by a set of rules, written or unwritten. For an institution to be racist therefore, its rules have to be racist. A classic example would be the old apartheid government of South Africa, or certain Gentlemen's Clubs back in the early part of the last century, both of whom had rules specifying different treatment for different races. But the Police or the Prison Service don't have racism written into their rules and so to my way of thinking cannot be institutionally racist. If what you mean is that racism is rife within an institution, then there are plenty or words you can use - endemic, pervasive, systemic, widespread, general, rampant, sweeping, and so on and so on. So why use an inappropriate expression?