Shear magic!

As a life-long fan, I am delighted that George Shearing has been recognised with a knighthood in the New Year Honours List. Well, well deserved.

Hold the clone....

Cloning is in the news again following the decision of the US Food and Drugs Administration that meat and milk from cloned animals can be sold without special labelling. Some people have an instinctive dislike of cloning, but here's the question for today - if a cloned animal mates and has offspring, are those offspring clones? Because this is the reality of what is being suggested - you won't find meat and milk directly from cloned animals on sale. What will happen is that these cloned animals will be used for breeding, and it is the meat and milk from their offspring, and in turn their offspring, and so on down the line, that will appear in the shops. So will there really be any difference?

The numbers game.

Fascinating - or rather sobering - fact of the day: Number of people killed in the September 11th attack = 2,973. Number of American soldiers killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion = 2,978.

Pay up!

Sorry about yesterday - bit of a downer, but today I'm back on top of things, or at least as much on top of things as I ever get these days. So what's in the news today? Well it seems that we have finally paid off our war debt to the USA and Canada. Only taken 65 years! It's all too easy to take the mickey out of the Yanks for their late arrival in both World Wars, but it's worth remembering that, had it not been for lend-lease, we might well not have survived to see their entry into WWII.

Personal

Oh God, this is so difficult. I've got through Christmas - not without a blip or two, but I got through it. But now it's the run-up to New Year, and wherever you look, papers or television, it's retrospective time. Here I am trying so hard not to keep looking back, but everything conspires against me. I can't open a paper without being reminded of events which happened while my wife was still alive. I keep telling myself that I must concentrate more on the future, and less on the past, but it's so, so difficult.

..on the feast of Stephen.

So - Boxing Day. What's that all about then? First you may be surprised to learn that it is a purely British - and by extension Commonwealth - thing. To the rest of the world, including the USA, it is simply December 26th, or possibly St Stephen's Day. Its origins certainly go back to the Middle Ages, but there seems to be no general agreement about why it's called Boxing Day. The most likely explanation is that this was the day when the churches opened their alms boxes and distributed the contents to the poor of the parish. A more modern suggestion would be that it's the day when you take your unwanted presents (still in their boxes of course) back to the shops to exchange them!

Oh yes, it is! - Oh no, it isn't!!

Merry Christmas - unless that is you are a traditionalist of the Eastern Orthodox Church, in which case today is only the 12th December, and you have several shopping days still to go. How come? Well, the basis of the calendar we use today is a calendar developed back in the time of Julius Caesar, and for that reason called the Julian calendar. This calendar was based upon the calculation that a year - that is, the time it takes the earth to go round the sun and get back to where it started - is 365¼ days. Unfortunately it isn't - it's about 11 minutes short of that, which means that from the outset the "paper" calendar lagged behind the "real" calendar by around 11 minutes a year every year, which very quickly built up into a serious discrepancy. It was quite some time before this was fully appreciated, but in 1582, by which time the two calendars were 10 days out from each other, the then Pope - Gregory - introduced what has become known as the Gregorian calendar, which put matters right (well, nearly). Problem was that, despite it being a sensible and much needed reform, the fact that it was introduced by a Pope immediately put the backs up of the Orthodox and Protestant countries, who simply refused to go along with it. Over time, most of them saw sense and adopted the new calendar, but the Orthodox churches have never officially done so, and although it's something which is continually being talked about, the diehards still go by the Julian calendar, and their December 25th will be in thirteen days time - January 7th to the rest of us.

Help!

Plea on the news for people to think twice before dialing 999 for non-emergency matters, particularly over the holiday period. Perfectly reasonable, but the problem is, who decides what is an emergency? There's a lot of "being wise after the event" here, with examples being quoted of people ringing 999 about things which turned out to be trivial, but the point is that, at the time, those people didn't know whether it was trivial or an emergency, so they played safe and contacted 999. They, after all, are the experts - your average man in the street is not medically qualified. I think the emergency services need to remember this.

Undecided of the West Midlands.

My filter coffee machine is starting to do strange things - I think it may be giving notice. I've been looking round for possible replacements, and being a bloke and therefore irresistibly attracted to gadgets, I've been considering one of these pod machines - you know, Tassimo, Senseo, Dolce Gusto et al. But then I keep thinking - what if the manufacturers decide in a year or so's time that the one I buy is not profitable, and to stop making them. Because you can't use ordinary coffee in them, and because one machine's pods are not compatible with any other machine (VHS and Betamax all over again!) I'd be left with a useless piece of machinery - and they're not cheap. So I'm still thinking about it, and meanwhile my filter machine continues to do strange things!

This is a service?

Aargh, it's happened - the thing you dread at this time of year - a card received from someone you haven't sent one to. It happened to me yesterday. Never mind, I thought, I'll get one into the post straight away, first class. Until, that is, I looked on the Royal Mail's website to discover that, despite the fact that there are (or were yesterday) three postal days still to go, I was already too late, as the last date for posting first-class mail for delivery by Christmas was last Tuesday! I can't help remembering when I was a lad and used to be a "Christmas relief" postman, if you posted a card to a local address in the morning, it would be delivered that afternoon, and to anywhere else in the country the next day. How things have changed.

Fog, what fog??

I feel very sorry for those whose travel plans have been disrupted by the weather, but "dense fog", "visibility down to less than 100 yards"? Do me a favour - this isn't fog, it's just a heavy mist. I'll tell you about fog - fog's when you can't see the front gate five yards away. You don't get fogs like that any more - thank goodness!

Worrying.

Does anyone else find the media approach to the arrests of two men in connection with the Ipswich murders deeply disturbing? Neither of them has yet been charged with anything, and may, in the event not be, and yet their lives are being pried into, family and friends are being pushed into giving interviews, and every detail is being paraded in full public view. I can't help feeling that we are in danger of slipping into the American way, where cases are tried in the media before they ever get to court. This is not - or at the least should not be - the way things are done in this country.

Sense of proportion?

A man who suffered head injuries as a result of a fall at work which turned him from a "devout Christian" into a sexually uninhibited character who frequented prostitutes and became addicted to pornography has been awarded £3m in damages against his employers. Now I'm not suggesting that this would have been anything other than a distressing experience - particularly as it resulted in the breakdown of his marriage - but three million pounds??!!

The demon drink.

Apparently, scientists have found that, although too much booze can damage your brain cells, the brain is capable of repairing the damage, or at least some of it. For me, this is both good and bad news. The good news is that I don't need to worry so much about the amount I drink. The bad news is that I can no longer use it as an excuse for my mental vagaries - perhaps I really am getting senile!

So this helps you? - Tough!!

I was going to post this under the "you couldn't make it up" collection - but unfortunately and shamefully, it's all too believable. A couple have been producing cannabis-laced chocolate for MS sufferers, a great many of whom claim that this significantly reduces their pain and suffering. The couple insist that before supplying their product, their "clients" must produce medical evidence that they do in fact have MS, and they do not charge for the chocolate, although they do ask for voluntary donations. So what do you think - are these good and worthy people who should be praised for what they are doing, or are they criminals who should be prosecuted? No prizes for guessing what the official line is! I sometimes think we've really lost the plot.

Here is the news

One expects certain standards - or rather, lack of standards - from the tabloid press, but something better from the BBC. On their news programme this morning, a police spokesperson was being interviewed about the Ipswich murders investigation. She was asked whether it was true that one of the women involved was pregnant. She replied that it was true, but that it had no bearing on the investigation, and was a private matter which they would rather had not been made public. So what did the BBC make their top headline in their next news bulletin? You've guessed it!
Also on the news was a report about a memorial church service held last night at which candles were lit while the names of the five victims were solemnly read out. I'm sorry, but the word which immediately sprang into my mind was hypocrisy - in view of their lifestyle the church would have had little time for them while they were alive.

Face the facts.

Will the Stevens report put an end to the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales? Nah!! There will always be those who refuse to believe that fate alone could rob the world of (as they see it) such a wonderful person. For myself, the most obvious evidence against this being an assassination is that, if you were intent on killing someone, then this would be a most inefficient and uncertain way of going about it. So much would depend on factors over which you had no control - how fast the car was going, the precise angle of impact, whether or not your target was wearing a seatbelt, and so on. There is no way you could be certain - or even reasonably confident - that you target would die.

It tolls for thee.

Just who is responsible for the deaths of these young women in the Ipswich area? Well, obviously, the person who killed them (by the way, as it appears that they had not been sexually assaulted, has anyone considered the possibility that the killer may be a woman? It would be very unusual, I agree, but just a thought). But does the responsibility go any further than that? Why were these women "on the game"? Was it because they were desperate to get money to feed their drug habit? Why were they plying their trade in dark, dangerous, secluded places? Was it the result of deliberate policing policy to drive them away from well-lit, public areas? Our laws as regards drugs and prostitution are driven by a moral imperative which says that both are "wrong" and therefore to be eradicated, or at the very least made as difficult as possible. All very well, but if our laws had not been framed in that way, these young girls might not have found it necessary to adopt that lifestyle, and might well still be alive. So just who is responsible?

Has anyone thought this through?

Something in the paper the other day bemoaning the fact that a school was so strapped for cash that it couldn't afford enough text books to go round, so it had to photocopy them. Now I don't know whether I've missed something, but surely the cost of photocopying would probably be at least as much, if not greater than the cost of purchase?

Parlez-vous Globish?

When I was much younger, I fancied myself as a linguist. I have to say that experience has proved to me that I'm not really that good, but one of the languages I looked at was Esperanto, which for anyone not aware, was an attempt to create an artificial universal language. It still has its devotees, but hasn't really taken off - mainly because English has arisen as a de facto universal language, partly because it's what the Americans speak (well, sort of) and partly because it is the language of the internet. Problem is that different countries have developed their own versions of English (what at one time we would have probably called "pidgin") and they can't necessarily understand each other that well, even though they claim to be speaking the same language. Now a Frenchman has come up with the idea of formalising a simplified form of English, which he calls Globish. Part of his idea is a reduced vocabulary of just 1500 words. You can look up a list of these words at http://perso.orange.fr/yvanbaptiste/audioglob/index.htm
and I have to say they make for somewhat strange reading. Would you have included words like activist, campaign, fertile and sympathy for example. Good idea, but not sure about the detail.

Heads I win, tails I win.

The Home Secretary has said that a terrorist attack over the Christmas period is "highly likely". So if there is one, he'll be able to claim credit for foreseeing it, and if there isn't one he'll be able to claim credit for forestalling it. Now there's clever!

Not before time

My daily paper is advertising a "Free Gordon Ramsay Calendar". So they've locked the foul-mouthed bugger up at last then?

Respect.

Have you seen the story about Josie Grove? If you haven't, you'll find it on the net, and I'm not going to try and tell it here - I can't type when my eyes are full of tears. It makes me extremely sad, extremely angry and enormously, enormously proud - of what I'm not really sure. Perhaps just proud to belong to the same human race - to be associated, however obliquely, with a young lady of such maturity, serenity and courage. My problems pale into insignificance beside those of her and her family. They will be constantly in my thoughts.

Stating the obvious.

So knife amnesties have no appreciable effect on knife crime? Now there's a surprise! That's not to say there is no merit in them, but anyone with half a brain could work out that the only people likely to give knives up under such amnesties would be those who had little or no intention of using them.

Credit where it's due.

Remember Headingley 1981 - 3rd test against Australia? For those who don't, Australia batted first and made 401-9 declared. They then bowled out England for 174 and enforced the follow-on. England made a better fist of it in the second innings (mainly thanks to Botham) and made 356, but this left Australia with only 129 to get to win. But we bowled them out for only 111 for a famous victory. As I recall, everybody was saying "Well done England" and not "How could Australia have lost - they were rubbish". Now the reverse has happened in the second test over there, and is anyone saying "Well done Australia"? Are they buggery - no, it's all about how rubbish we were, losing from an apparently invincible position. We are a small-minded and self-centered race when it comes to sport, aren't we?

Good will toward men?

With the festive season fast approaching, the question once again arises - who is it for? Some years ago, Birmingham decided to call it "Winterval" and was roundly criticised for doing so. I couldn't understand why then, and I still can't. Christmas is Christmas - nothing can change that, and Christians will celebrate it as such, but does that mean that only they are entitled to have a good time? What about those of other faiths, or indeed those of no faith? Are they supposed to stay indoors and hide themselves away? The Winterval idea was an attempt to make the point that this is a time of good cheer for all who want to take part - each in their own way, and according to their own beliefs, or non-beliefs. Those who insist that it's Christmas or nothing would exclude all those who hold views different from their own - hardly a Christian attitude - and perhaps they should be reminded that it was originally a pagan festival anyway.

Why is why the hardest word?

The Eddington report makes it pretty clear now that road pricing is inevitable. The only way, we are told, of easing congestion - by hitting you in the pocket if you travel on busy roads at busy times. Quite apart from the fact that this discriminates against the less-well-off motorist, perhaps the question which should be being asked is why motorists find themselves sitting in traffic jams on busy roads. They're certainly not doing it for fun! Could it have anything to do with the fact that most people work in towns and cities, and most workplaces start work and finish at about the same time? All things which are out of the control of the poor commuter, who is the one who ends up spending their time queuing to get to work and then again to get home, and who will now it seems have to pay for the privilege. Perhaps dispersal of workplaces and staggering of start and finish times should be looked at first?

Maths 101.

I've posted before on the dangers of misusing and misunderstanding mathematical data. In a recent case a defendant was convicted on the basis of DNA evidence. The prosecution maintained that DNA had been found at the scene of the crime, and that there was only "one chance in a billion" that it was not that of the defendant. How they arrived at this figure was not explained, and I have the feeling that it was just plucked out of the air for effect, but even if we take it as accurate, there are more than 6.5 billion people in the world, which means that there are probably 6 or 7 people out there who would fit that DNA profile. So in the absence of any other evidence you could say that there is only a 15% chance that they have got the right person. It all depends on the way you look at it, doesn't it?

Keep a sense of proportion.

We do seem to have gone overboard about this Polonium 210 business (I have to admit I thought polonium was what my Mum used to put on my sandwiches!). Obviously the whole business is very worrying, but as I understand it, you would have to have been pretty intimate with Mr Litvinenko to have picked up anything vaguely approaching a worrying amount of radiation, so why we're making such a big thing about insignificant (health-wise, that is) traces found here and there is beyond me. All we're doing is risking worrying people unnecessarily.