Site of the month

Life must go on, they keep telling me, so......
If you've been following my book posts you will know that my tastes veer towards what might be termed the "trashy" end of the market. My literary phase, such as it was, was several decades ago - today I just want a fast, easy, entertaining read. Unfortunately, book reviews in the papers tend to ignore these sort of books - even when you get a section headed "Thrillers", the books selected for review tend to be somewhat on the literary and heavy side for my tastes. So I was delighted to find - and to recommend for those of you of similar mind - http://www.lovereading.co.uk/ which has no pretentions, and which allows you to choose your genre, and then lists the current most popular books of that type with a short synopsis, and even in many cases, a short extract. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Josie Grove

It is finished. There are no adequate words.

I want to thank...

What's all the fuss about the Oscars? It's an incestuous love-in whereby those in the movie industry vote for each other. It obviously has relevance if you work in that industry, and it probably has some interest for those celebrity followers who read "OK" and "Hello" magazine. But it means little to me, or I would imagine, to most ordinary people. So why does it feature so heavily in the news - and not just on the day, but for days before and after? Boring...........

Rugby Union

Thank you Ireland.

Nice idea, but....

Interesting story about Israel's original and founding kibbutz finally giving up its communist ideals and opening itself up to capitalism. It always seemed to me that communism was based on a fine and worthy but ultimately flawed premise - that, given the opportunity, people would work hard for the common good. And the fact is that it just doesn't work that way. People are basically selfish - they will work hard if they can see there is something in it for them, but otherwise they will just bumble along, doing enough to keep themselves out of trouble, but no more. Socialism, which is just a watered-down version of the same idea, suffers from the same weakness. This is what Margaret Thatcher realised - if you want a strong economy, you've got to give the fat cats their head, even though that may bring with it less than pleasant consequences.

Just gimme the facts.....

Public Service Broadcasting - what's that all about then? Well apparently, according to the Head of BBC Television News, it's about getting awards. It seems he is furious that the Corporation got only one prize at the recent Royal Television Society Awards, whereas ITN got seven, Channel 4 and ITV got five, and Sky News three. He has made it clear that this is not good enough. And there I was thinking that they were there just to give us the news, not go chasing gongs.

In memoriam

Two stories in the local news linked by a desire to remember the unremembered. Firstly a memorial has at last been raised in West Bromwich to Madeleine Carroll, the local girl who became a Hollywood star, but who has been basically ignored in her home town until now. The second story is of a local man's attempt to get the sunken wreck of the "Lancastria" designated as a war grave to prevent divers looting it. Considering that some 4,000 or so bodies are still down there it's a disgrace that he's having to try - you'd think it would be a question that shouldn't need asking, although the fact that it's almost certainly in French territorial waters may complicate the issue.

Whistle - what whistle?

Should Man U's goal against Lille on Tuesday have been allowed to stand? Lille obviously didn't think so, and indeed for a moment there seemed the possibility that they might have walked off the field in protest. Man U on the other hand, saw nothing wrong in what they had done - "quick thinking" was how they saw it. My view is that this highlights a problem created by the rules of the game being so vague as to allow more than one interpretation - and here we had a case of the two teams working to two different interpretations. Can a free kick be taken before the ref has blown his whistle? On the one hand, you have Law 5 which gives the referee power to stop the game to award a free kick (no mention anywhere in the Laws of a whistle, or how he is supposed to do this) but the Law is silent on how, and indeed whether, it is up to the referee to restart the game. Law 13, which deals with free kicks says "the ball is in play when it is kicked and moves" which at least suggests that it is for the side taking the free kick to decide when to take it. Most referees however require you to wait for a restart whistle, and here the confusion arises. Whatever the outcome of the inevitable investigation into what went on following the goal, I think consideration needs to be given to clarifying the rules, so everybody knows where they stand.

We've got your dabs, mate.

The suggestion that all fingerprints collected for ID card purposes will be checked against prints held on file in respect of unsolved crimes has met with angry opposition on the grounds that it would be an invasion of privacy and a breach of human rights. I have always found the idea of those who have broken the law having rights of any kind in relation to their crime a very strange concept, but what does bother me is the unspoken assumption that fingerprint evidence is reliable. There are plenty of cases - both in this country and abroad - where expert evidence that a print found somewhere was that of a certain person has been demonstrated to be wrong. So the danger is that this will result in more people being accused - and possibly convicted - of crimes they haven't committed. Before going down this line, I think we need to look seriously at the current "16-point" standard for print identification.

What's today?

Pancake Day of course, but just why do we eat pancakes today? Well, it's actually all about tomorrow - tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and that's the first day of Lent. Lent is traditionally a period of self-denial, but back in the Middle Ages it was far more strict than today, and among the foods forbidden during Lent were fat, eggs and milk. As there was no refrigeration back then, there was no way of preserving these ingredients for the forty days of Lent, so you used up all you'd got left today, and one easy way of doing that was to make pancakes. In some parts of the world today is called Mardi Gras, which is the French for "Fat Tuesday" - same idea. On the same theme, meat was also not to be eaten during Lent, and in other parts of the world, the run-up to Lent is called Carnival, which comes from the Latin - carne (meat) and vale (farewell). Back then you would also go to Church today and confess and get absolution for your sins so as to start Lent with a clean sheet as it were. In the vernacular of the Church, you would be "shriven", hence today is also called Shrove Tuesday. And that I think is enough!

We're going to Wem-ber-ly - or are we?

You may recall that I won a bottle of whisky from a friend as a result of a bet that Wembley wouldn't be ready in time for the 2006 Cup Final. In the spirit of evening things up, I made a similar bet with him concerning this year's Final - expecting, of course, that it would be my turn to buy him a bottle. But now I'm getting really worried...!

Not Elizabeth Taylor then...

So Cleopatra was no raving beauty apparently. Of course, just what constitutes beauty varies from place to place and from time to time, so we can't necessarily judge her by today's standards, but what this more probably demonstrates is the old adage that beauty is not in the face so much as in the heart and soul - and in Cleopatra's case, no doubt in the power she wielded.

The mote in thy brother's eye.

Bit of a hoo-hah going on around where I live as a result of the local council demanding that shops remove advertising boards and other "street furniture" from the pavement in front of their premises or face a hefty fine. Their logic is that such things are an obstruction and therefore a danger to pedestrians. Shopkeepers are not surprisingly up in arms about this. I can see both sides of the argument, but it seems to me that if the council want to take this attitude, they should put their own house in order first. By far the most common and widespread obstruction to the pavements is caused by wheelie bins which, having been emptied, are then abandoned willy-nilly all over the place by the bin men.

Respect, respect, respect???

The recent spate of shootings of teenage kids in London is a terrible thing, and I don't claim to have any answers, but here's a thought - just a thought. I went on a management course once, and the person taking the course divided us up into groups and asked what we found most frustrating about our jobs, and the main thing that came out was that although we were the people doing the job, nobody took any notice of our views and expertise - decisions were imposed on us by people who didn't know - or seemingly care - whether what they were demanding was sensible or practical. Some time later we were divided into groups again, and asked to come up with what we thought would be a wish list of those working for us. So we all went for things like more pay, better working conditions, nicer surrounding and so on. We were then confronted with the results of our first meeting, and it was suggested that perhaps the major thing our workers would want was to be consulted, to be noticed, to be made to feel that they counted for something. Is there a lesson here?

Book post

Here are the most recent ten books I have read, and how I rated them. For an explanation of my scoring system, see the post dated 18/11/06.
James Rollins - Map Of Bones - 8
Lindsey Davis - See Delphi And Die - 7
Glenn Chandler - Dead Sight - 8
Frederick Forsyth - The Afghan - 7
Barry Eisler - One Last Kill - 8
John Mortimer - Rumpole And The Reign Of Terror - 9
Robert B. Parker - Back Story - 8
David Baldacci - Wish You Well - 7
Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book - 7
Walter Mosley - Devil in a Blue Dress - 6

Wedding - kerching!!

Are we paying too much for weddings? This is the question being posed by the Church of England, which suggests that the average cost of a wedding these days is about £17,000. It's many years now since I had to shell out for my daughter's wedding, but what I remember most vividly is that as soon as you append the word "wedding" to anything, the price immediately doubles or trebles - wedding cake, wedding dress, wedding cars, and the one that really got my goat - wedding photographs. So the question for me is not so much are we paying too much for weddings, but rather - are we being ripped off?

FWH - the bane of management

The suggestion is being made that all workers should be entitled to flexible working hours. During my working life, flexi-time was a boon to me as a worker, but a nightmare to me as a manager. It always seemed to me, and still does, that the whole concept of flexi-time is based on two false premises. The first is that provided the work gets done, it doesn't matter when it is done, and certainly in most office situations, this just isn't so - quite apart from targets and deadlines, if you have a system whereby A does something, and then passes the work onto B to do something else, who then passes it onto C and so on, then this requires everyone to be there to do their bit at the appropriate time, otherwise the whole thing falls apart. The second fallacy is that 60 minutes equal an hour, and whilst this may be so mathematically, it is by no means so in the workplace - under flexi-time, people tend to give in minutes and take in hours, and the idea that you get the same amount of work out of them in the extra fifteen or twenty minutes they put in here and there as you lose when they take half a day off or whatever, in my experience just isn't so. From a managerial standpoint, flexi-time is a curse.

Foreign phrases revisited

At a family get-together the other night, we were playing at coming up with alternative translations of common sayings in other languages. You know the sort of thing -
Sic transit gloria mundi = Gloria threw up on the bus on Monday.
Here are a few more we came up with -
Carpe diem = Fish for dinner tonight
Cave canem = The bondage party is down in the basement
Coup de grace = That pigeon is smoking cannabis!
Post mortem = Dead letter office
In loco parentis = What do you mean, you're pregnant??!!
- and my particular favourite
Bona fide - Who needs Viagra?

I should hope so!

Opened a packet of nuts and raisins last night that I had bought for Christmas but hadn't got round to eating. The front of the packet said in large letters "Peanuts and Raisins", and on the back of the packet - I kid you not - it said "Warning, may contain peanuts".

Consideration for others?

The snow has brought the predictable travel problems here in the Midlands. If you have children (or in my case, grandchildren), one of the more important questions you want answered in these conditions is whether or not their school will be closed. Ten out of ten to Dudley therefore, for making a borough-wide decision the day before that all their schools would be closed. They could have been left with egg on their faces if the expected snow had failed to materialise, but at least everybody knew where they stood with enough time to make arrangements. Nought out of ten for my local authority (which better remain nameless) for leaving it to individual schools to make their own decision, with the result that nobody knew what the situation was until the last minute, and in many cases only then by actually contacting the school - if you could get through on the 'phone, that is. Chaotic is the only word for it.

The things people say (2)

Way back in my youth, I was an enumerator on the 1961 census. It mostly just involved posting forms through letterboxes, and then going back later to collect them. But every tenth house had to have a more complex form, which involved knocking the door and asking a few questions - one of which was whether the premises were purely residential, or whether any sort of business was being carried out there. So I knocked on the door of this house, and a lady answered, and I went through my spiel. When I got to this one question, I said "Are you wholly residential?", to which she replied indignantly "Certainly not - we're all Roman Catholic!"

The things people say...

I don't know what suddenly brought this to mind, but several years ago my wife and I were on holiday in southern Spain and went on a day trip to Granada and the Alhambra. While there we went round the famous gardens, which as you may or may not know are called El Generalife. As we went in, we saw a sign to that effect, and heard a man behind us say "Look at that - these insurance companies get everywhere!"

The truth at last?

I never thought I'd say this, but hats off to the "Sun". For once, their somewhat intrusive brand of investigative journalism has come up with something really worthwhile - I refer of course to the cockpit video of American planes attacking a British convoy in Iraq which resulted in the death of one soldier, and injuries to several others. The Americans firstly denied that such a video tape existed, and when it became clear that it did, refused to sanction its release. In attempting to justify this, a spokesman said "that's not the way we do things". Well, it should be, mate, it bloody well should be.

Jim won't be in today....

Yesterday was apparently "National Sickie Day" - the day when it seems more people fail to turn up for work than any other. Felt a bit rough myself actually, but you can't go sick when you're retired, can you?

Alternative to seaweed?

I enjoyed the film "Groundhog Day" but didn't realise that it was based on fact. There is indeed a groundhog day (February 2nd) when traditionally the groundhog - a North American rodent distantly related to the squirrel - comes out of its burrow where it has been hibernating. If it stays out, this is seen as a sign that Spring is on its way, whereas if it returns to its burrow, that indicates that we still have some cold weather to come. This year it stayed out apparently, but I'm not sure if that has any relevance to our weather over here, although it was certainly right last year, when it went back in, and you may remember February was really cold. So here's hoping!

H5N1......arghh!!

It is hardly a matter for levity, but it has been almost laughable watching the news channels dealing with the story about bird 'flu being found on a turkey farm in Suffolk. On the one hand you have the "experts" playing the whole thing down, and insisting the risk to the general public is minimal, and on the other you have the presenters seemingly determined that this should be a major story and almost pleading with their interviewees to make sensational and inflammatory statements. I prefer to listen to the experts - let's not be complacent, but equally let's not get our knickers in a twist.

The answer's 42 - now what's the question?

Mobile phones in cars - what's to be done? I think before we can begin to find an answer to that question, we need to clarify just what the problem is. There seem to be two schools of thought - the one is that by using a hand-held mobile phone you are not in proper control of the car, because you only have one hand on the wheel, and the other is that carrying out a conversation on a mobile distracts your concentration from the road, and is therefore unsafe. The only answer to the second of those is to ban using a mobile while driving - full stop. The first however is solvable by technology - require all mobiles to be sold with integral hands-free kits, or perhaps better still, require all cars to be fitted with hands-free provision. I take no particular position on which road we should go down, but I think there are so many people today (particularly business people) who are on the road a lot and rely on being contactable at any time, that an outright ban would probably not work.

Something not right.

As an addendum to yesterday's post, here's another statistic on crime and conviction rates which I think we should be at least equally concerned about. Did you know that around 2 out of every 3 people who are arrested, put on trial and plead not guilty are subsequently acquitted? This either means that our prosecutory system is crap ("not fit for purpose" to use a phrase currently much in vogue) or that people are being arrested and charged, with all the unpleasant consequences that go with that, when the evidence simply isn't there. Either way, it's a pretty deplorable state of affairs.

Did I say that (hic)?

The low conviction rate for rape cases is in the news again - I have posted about this before (29/3/06) and don't intend to rehash what I said then, but I certainly think that the idea which is now being floated of being allowed to escape the consequences of your words or actions by maintaining that you were too drunk to know what you were doing is a dangerous road to go down. I can't see how you would be able to restrict it to females and consent to sex - even if that were the right thing to do.