Dear Auntie...

The question of the TV licence fee is in the news again. I am old enough to remember when the only telly available was the BBC (and you only got it between about 7.30 and 10.30 in the evening at that!). Back then it was quite logical to have to pay for this service - as indeed you had to pay for wireless (radio) before that. But today? Why should the BBC be subsidised by the licence fee, when there are so many competitors who have to find their own money by advertisement or whatever? I think the BBC do a marvelous job, but I can't see any reason why they should not have to fight their own corner, like everybody else has to do.

Hidden agendas?

Tony Blair has expressed "deep sorrow" at Britain's role in the slave trade back in the 18th century. Quite right too, but this it would seem is not enough for some, who are demanding an apology. What's the difference? I think we're just playing with words here, and in particular asking Blair to do the impossible. He cannot truly apologise for something which was not of his own doing, and any suggestion that he should apologise on behalf of those involved in the slave trade back then would be an hypocrisy on their behalf because I am quite sure that those involved, if they were able to speak for themselves would see, by the standards of their time, nothing wrong in what they did, and that therefore they would have nothing to apologise for. I can't help but feel that those demanding an apology have their eyes more on the opportunity which that would open up for claims for some sort of compensation.

Catch-22

Here's another for the "you couldn't make it up" collection. We are all constantly being told to shred any document which could be used by crooks to steal our identity - right? Well, a local council here in the Midlands has told its residents that they can't put shredded paper out for recycling, as it clogs up the machine! But more than that - they have also told them that they can't put it out with the non-recycling rubbish either, because it's paper!! Quite what they are supposed to do with it, I don't know, but I know what I'd be tempted to do with it, and it involves councillors and various intimate orifices!!!

Cross purposes

When I first read about the lady who was forbidden by BA from wearing a cross on a chain round her neck, my sympathies tended to be with her, but the more you read, the more you become aware that there is a history here of antagonism between the lady and her employers centering around her Christian beliefs, and her insistence on promoting them in the workplace. So I'm afraid she has lost whatever support I had for her. People are entitled to hold strong views - religious or otherwise - but not to thrust them into inappropriate areas. You will probably have guessed by now that my working life was involved with the law, and to me the five most depressing and scary words in the English language are "It's a matter of principle". When you hear those, you dive for cover, because you know that rational argument is going to be useless.

Know your instrument

Read an article the other day about George Formby. Great performer but the article referred to him as playing the ukelele. Well, he didn't - or at least the instrument with which he is most associated is not a ukelele, it's a banjolele, or banjo-ukelele. The true ukelele looks like an undersized guitar. It's what Marilyn Monroe played (or pretended to play) in "Some Like It Hot".

Eyesore.

Beauty, they do say, is in the eye of the beholder. The town of Walsall here in the West Midlands has a new Art Gallery which has apparently drawn cries of admiration from the critics. To me, it is a hideous building, completely unwelcoming and totally out of character with its surroundings. It looks for all the world like an overgrown public toilet. But like I say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Bad decision

I'm extremely disappointed that the European Court has ruled against the idea of being able to buy drink and cigarettes from other EU countries by phone or over the net without having to pay UK tax on them. Quite apart from the obvious financial aspect, this is yet another example of the blatant discrimination which continually exists in this country against anyone living to the north of Watford. If you live in the south-east, it's no problem to hop across the channel and take advantage of the cheap prices over there, but for those of us here in the Midlands, and even more for those living further north, it's something not to be undertaken lightly. And what about the disabled or housebound? Here was a chance to level the playing field, and they've muffed it. I do wonder if Gordon Brown twisted a few arms!

The long and short of it.

I can't resist passing on a quote from my daily paper. Commenting on the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes wedding, where Cruise appears to have grown - or Holmes shrunk - by a few inches for the photographs, the paper asks what's wrong with short men, and goes on to list several "vertically challenged" men who have none-the-less had no problems in attracting women - Mussolini, Mickey Rooney, Dustin Hoffman and Napoleon, to name but a few. So it concludes that height doesn't matter, and ends with the immortal words "It is better to have loved a short man, than not to have loved a tall". Nice one.

Doh.....

It seems that some schools are dismantling their wireless networks, as there is some suggestion that the radiation from these is causing "loss of concentration, headaches, fatigue, memory and behavioural problems". Really? Obviously there was no such thing as a wireless network back when I went to school, but I well remember the symptoms! Get real!

Rob-dogs!!

Have you seen this business about NI contributions and pension entitlement? At present, you only get a full old-age pension if you have at least 44 years (39 for women) of contributions. If you are coming up to retirement age, and have fewer years than this, the Government will write to you, pointing this out and advising you of the facility for making top-up payments to increase your number of contributions. They have been doing this for years. Now they have stated their intention to bring in legislation to require only 30 years of contributions for a full pension. So where does this leave all those people who had 30 years or more, but have been making voluntary extra payments to bring them up to the old limits for a full pension? The answer seems to be - with egg on their faces! Revenue & Customs have said there will be no question of a refund - they say these letters were not "advising people to make top-up payments, but merely telling them about the consequences if they don't". What a scam!

Smallest room.

Today is World Toilet Day in Singapore - just thought you might like to know.

Book post

I'm an avid reader - nothing heavy, thrillers mostly. I thought I might share with you occasionally details of what I read, and what I think of them. I've been keeping records for years now, and developed a somewhat idiosyncratic marking system. Although marks are given out of 10, the way it's developed is that 7 has become the mark for a reasonable read, better than 7 is good, 6 and 5 are dodgy, and less than 5 is a no-no. I have to say that I tend to go for authors I have enjoyed in the past, so most marks tend to be in the 7 or above region. So on that basis, here are my last ten -
Patricia Cornwell - Predator - 6
Alexander McCall Smith - Morality For Beautiful Girls - 8
John Sandford - Naked Prey - 7
Peter James - Dead Simple - 9
John Gardner - Angels Dining At The Ritz - 7
Mary Higgins Clark - A Cry In The Night - 7
C. J. Sansom - Dissolution - 9
Michael Connelly - The Lincoln Lawyer - 8
Alexander McCall Smith - The Kalahari Typing School For Men - 8
Kathy Reichs - Monday Mourning - 9

Magyar master.

You have to be getting on in years to remember the England-Hungary football match which took place in November 1953 and which changed for ever the way the game was played in this country. The result - Hungary won 6-3 and showed us a completely new approach to the game, based on keeping possession (which, shock-horror, sometimes involved passing the ball backwards!) and playing through defences rather than relying on high crosses and headers. What I most clearly remember was that they could easily have scored another 3 or more goals, but having established a winning lead, appeared to decide they didn't want to humiliate the country they saw as the cradle of the game. They were gentlemen, and non more so than Ferenc Puskás, their captain, who himself scored one goal of sheer magic. I doubt your like will come along again. RIP.

Stamp, stamp!

I am really annoyed...! I have just bought a new all-in-one printer/scanner thingy. Having spent the best part of an hour installing it, I now find it won't work with some of my software. I go onto the printer manufacturer's help page on the web, only to find that this is a known problem! I think it disgusting that hardware is sold with known incompatibilities with commonplace software without this being made clear to any prospective purchaser. Had I known about this, I might well have decided against purchasing this particular item for that reason. Like I say, I am really cross.

You can bank on it...

So First Direct (HSBC) intends to start charging a fee for having a bank account - and this on top of indications that fees for credit cards are probably coming back. Don't you feel sorry for the banks? HSBC for instance, only managed profits of £11.7bn last year. No wonder they need to start charging!! Pass the sick bag, Mabel.

Am I bovvered?

Well the Head of MI5 certainly laid out a disturbing picture in a speech last week - 30 known terror plots, some 200 terrorist groups operating, 1600 individuals under observation. Pretty scary, no? Well, perhaps, but you need to bear in mind that this is part of the same intelligence service which (so we were told) was sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and the same intelligence service which has to take its share of the responsibility for the tragic Stockwell shooting and the massive high-profile raid on a house where it was convinced a chemical explosive device of some sort was being constructed but where, in the event, nothing was found. So let's be concerned, but keep our feet on the ground - OK??

Nostalgia isn't what it was.

I've had Sky TV for a few years now, but since I've been on my own I've been flicking more than before, and it's amazing just what you can find. I've recently come across re-runs of "Drop the Dead Donkey", and how well they stand up! Why did they ever stop making it - it was, and still is brilliant. Stephen Tompkinson's frenetic, desperate-for-a-story reporter is a little classic, but all the cast are simply great, as was the writing. I'm sure it would still work as well today. Please bring it back??

Oops....

In a scenario reminiscent of the film "Charade", an unknown voter in the recent US elections posted their ballot paper in using a very rare stamp which could be worth half a million dollars. I would imagine the burning question now is - just who does it belong to? It could be the voter (if they could ever identify themselves), or the person who spotted it, or it could be argued that once posted, it became the property of the US mail service, i.e. the Government. I know where my money would be!

We will remember them

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - not!!

Go on, smile...

Yesterday was Guinness World Record Day. I was going to go for the apathy record, but I couldn't be bothered. Well, I thought it was funny!

Exploding cake??

When my wife was alive one of our favourite holiday destinations was Majorca - Puerto Pollensa to be precise - and when there what would you have for breakfast other than ensaimadas, those gorgeous fatty pastries which are a speciality of the Balearics. So I was highly amused to see that this delicacy had caused problems for the airports who couldn't decide whether holiday makers who wanted to bring the jam filled variety back home were breaching the restriction on liquids or not. It seems sanity has prevailed, but really.....!

This is how it used to be....

Here in the West Midlands we have a little National treasure called the Black Country Living Museum, where old buildings and workplaces have been lovingly recreated for people to visit and experience. Unfortunately this doesn't sit too well with modern regulation. The result, for example, is that visitors can watch bread being baked in a traditional bakehouse, but the bread cannot then be sold - or even given away - because the premises don't comply with current health and safety rules, so it has to be fed to the pigs or ducks, or simply thrown away! There are traditional "two up and two down" houses there where you're not allowed to go upstairs because there's no fire escape. You do sometimes really wonder how people of my generation ever managed to survive, don't you?

A big number by any standards

I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said that Britain and America are two countries divided by a common language. Certainly there is much room for confusion over words like "hood", "jelly", "fag" and such like, but for the most part these are not likely to cause much more than amusement or embarrassment. But what about "billion"? To most Brits (and to most of the rest of the world) this means, and has always meant, a million million, whereas to an American it means a thousand million. Not exactly a minor distinction. Apparently it's all down to the French, who back in the 15th Century defined a billion as a million million, and that was taken on board by the then civilised world, but then, some 200 years later and for reasons nobody has ever been able to understand, they changed their mind and redefined it as a thousand million, and this is the definition which was adopted by the then newly emerging United States. Just to really confuse the issue, some 60 years ago the French readopted their original definition of a million million! In the 1970's the British Government decided to adopt the American billion in all official Government documents, but beware - there are still those (like me) who stick to the original definition.

Inquiry - what inquiry?

So Parliament has wimped out again. Once more, self-interest has won out over the duty of the Commons to hold the Executive to account. And then they wonder why there's so much apathy about politics. Ah well, plus ça change and all that....