The Lazy Cook.

It's a sad fact that there will always be washing up, and unless you have a dishwasher (I don't) you're going to have to do it yourself. So, a couple of tips. Firstly, I have found that this is an area where you get what you pay for - when buying kitchen cooking equipment it pays to get the best you can afford. Good quality saucepans, frying pans, woks, baking trays etc. clean up much easier and better. Second, whenever you have used any sort of pan for cooking, before you do anything else, put some water into it - otherwise the residual heat of the pan will bake on any residue, and you'll have the devil's own job to clean it off. Putting water in it straight away makes washing it up a doddle. Just one warning - if you've been frying anything in oil or fat, be sure to put the water in slowly and at arm's length - hot fat and water make for a volatile combination!

Did I do that?

This business of political donations being made through third parties has turned into a "who knew what when" issue, with many Labour Party workers and indeed Government Ministers under scrutiny. I find it difficult to get too worked up about that, but what does disturb me is the appearance on television of one of these phantom donors the other day, saying that not only was she unaware that money had been donated to the Labour Party in her name, but that she did not, and never had supported Labour, and her political allegiances had always been to one of the other parties. So what I think should be a matter of concern is the idea that, without my knowledge, a significant donation could be made in my name to a cause which I would not wish to support. This aspect seems to be being overlooked in the rush to try and embarrass the Government.

Free speech?

A report says that hundreds of protesters tried to disrupt a debate on free speech at Oxford University the other day because speakers had been invited whose views they disagreed with and found distasteful. Anybody else see the irony in that?

Ha ha

Scraping the bottom of the joke barrel by now, but here goes -

There is an ancient myth about a cliff on Mount Olympus in Greece that has special powers. The story is that if you throw yourself off the cliff, whatever you shout as you are going over is what you will get in abundance at the bottom. Three friends go up there one day to try it out. The first one takes a tentative run and jumps off shouting "money", and at the bottom he lands in a huge mountain of money. The second friend sees this and gets very excited and takes a long run and goes as fast as he can and jumps off shouting "babes", and he lands amongst a load of beautiful girls. The third friend gets really excited and takes a huge run-up and goes as fast as he can. Just as he comes to the cliff-edge he trips on a rock and as he goes over the edge shouts "oh shit!"

Keep religion out of it.

So Tony Blair did not talk about his religious beliefs while in office for fear of being thought a "nutter". He contrasts this country's attitude to such matters with that in America, where politicians tend to wear their religion very much on their sleeve. I think the distinction is purely pragmatic - in America the "religious right" carries a great deal of clout, and is a force which has to be reckoned with politically. In this country, if anything, the reverse is true - we have an instinctive dislike of anyone who "preaches" at us. But more to the point is that we elect governments (at least in theory) to do what is best for the country, that is all of us, and frankly, religious belief - or for that matter a lack of such beliefs - has no part to play in making such decisions. And in any event, I can't help thinking how does Blair square his religious beliefs with going to war and being responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians?

A channel too far?

Apparently Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Sun and The Times and has stakes in many other media outlets has said that Sky News should become more like the US Fox News (which he also owns), so as to provide "a proper alternative to the BBC". Well, it would do that all right - have you ever watched Fox News? I first stumbled on it by chance, and honestly thought initially that it was a satirical spoof news show! Assuming it hasn't changed (I haven't really bothered to watch it since) it is so far to the right as to be out of sight. Talk about "My country, right or wrong", it's more "My country, who else matters"! I implore Sky News - which is really pretty good - not to go down that line.

Après moi.....?

"Why should he get a penny?" was the front-page headline in one of the papers yesterday, and certainly is a question being asked by a lot of people in this country at the moment. "He" of course is Steve McClaren who was sacked as England manager following defeat in the Croatia match on Wednesday, and who, it is now revealed, will get £2.5m in compensation. Well, the answer's very simple - because that's what his contract says! He is doing no more than getting what he is legally entitled to under the terms of the agreement he entered into when he took on the job. You can argue whether or not the contract should have been drawn in that way, but that's a matter you would have to take up with the FA, and it may well be that that was the only way they could persuade him to accept what everybody knows is a poisoned chalice. After all, if you were considering going for a job where you knew that almost all of your predecessors had been fired - or left "by mutual agreement", which amounts to pretty much the same thing - you would be a wally if you didn't try to ensure that you would be protected financially should the same thing happen to you. And if you really want an example of "being paid for failure" look no further than the players, who are still there, still picking up their big fat pay cheques. Perhaps if their jobs were on the line, we might see a team with a bit more motivation and desire.

Depends on which way you look at it.

What you might call the "anti-alcohol lobby" is making much of the fact that in some supermarkets it's cheaper to buy lager than it is to buy mineral water. They cite this of course as evidence that the price of lager is too cheap, but for me what it highlights is the ridiculously high price charged for some mineral waters!

Data protection.

The Treasury have been left with extremely red faces following the revelation that computer disks containing personal details of everybody claiming child benefit have been lost in the post. The main criticism seems to relate to the fact that they were sent in the ordinary post, rather than by recorded delivery or registered. But I don't think that's really the point - whilst using those methods would certainly have reduced the possibility of loss, they are not really designed for that purpose, but more for providing compensation if loss does occur - and clearly here no amount of compensation would have solved the problem. As a one-time manager myself, I saw an important aspect of my job to be constantly thinking "what if?" and designing strategies to prevent or limit the damage caused if things should go wrong - because, depend upon it, sooner or later they will. In this case it seems to me that standard operating procedure should be for any transmission of personal data to be in encrypted form, so that if it does go missing it will not be of any use to any third party who might come across it.

Joined-up thinking?

As an occasional treat, I am very fond of popping down my local chippie for cod and chips - except that cod is becoming more and more expensive and more difficult to get hold of. My chip shop has taken to promoting coley and pollock as alternatives. The reason for this, it appears, is an EU directive limiting the amount of cod which can be caught and this is designed to protect the cod from overfishing. All very laudable - until that is, you learn that "caught" doesn't actually mean caught, it means landed. The result is that trawlers are still catching cod in their nets - they can't really avoid it - but because they can't bring it back to port, they have to dump it - dead of course - back in the ocean. So from the consumers' point of view there is a shortage of cod, while substantial amounts of the fish are being thrown away at sea. Somebody's been at the silly pills again!

Yes it is - no it isn't!

The head of the army has produced a damning report on the morale of his troops, saying that they feel "devalued" and "angry" and that the army as a whole is undermanned. The MoD have produced a classic "Yes, Minister" response, pointing out that the report is six months old, and that improvements have been made since then, and that, in any event the report merely reflects "the unedited views of individual soldiers, some of which represent more widespread opinion and others isolated views". Sir Humphrey would have been proud! But the point surely is this - on the one hand you have a serving soldier telling you one thing, and on the other you have a faceless bureaucrat saying something different. Who do you think is more likely to have it right?

We wuz robbed - or wuz we?

Feel a little sorry for the Scots who came so close to qualifying for the 2008 European Championships, only to be denied in the dying seconds by an Italian goal which came courtesy of surely one of the dodgiest free-kicks ever awarded. Not surprisingly, much opprobrium has been heaped on the referee, and more particularly the linesman who flagged for the foul. But before they get too carried away, the Scots should consider that that same linesman in the first half flagged to disallow what seemed a perfectly good Italian goal, which would have put them two up, and then kept his flag down when the Scots equalised from an offside position. So it's swings and roundabouts really, isn't it? And anyway - though it pains me as an Englishman to say it - the Scots can be really proud of their team irrespective of the result.

...but who's it by??

Have you seen the story of the ordinary, every-day family up in Bolton who created forged paintings and other works of art in the back room of their council house which fooled many experts and ended up in museums and galleries all over the country? Needless to say, they have been prosecuted, but for me what it highlights is the fickle and erratic nature of the art world, where a signature on a painting can make the difference between it being worth next to nothing, and being worth a fortune - and yet it's the same painting! If these forgeries were good enough to fool those in the trade, then surely they have merit in themselves? The whole story says far more about the conceits and vanities of art dealers and collectors than about the forgers.

Mumble, mumble.

Bit of a hoo-hah over the performance of some pop singer (I use the word loosely) at a concert in Birmingham the other day. Apparently somewhat the worse for wear, among other things she slurred her lyrics to the point of incomprehension. And I thought - so what? I can never understand what modern singers (again I use the word loosely) are singing about anyway!

Bags of sense?

The question of supermarket plastic bags is in the news again. The official approach seems to be to curb their use, and to this end it is suggested that we should have to pay for every bag we use. But why? As I understand it, these bags can be recycled, so the only problem is collecting them for recycling, given that local authorities don't seem to want to know. And we have a proven blueprint for that - anybody remember "penny on the bottle"? This goes back to the days when all drinks came in glass bottles, and the industry was keen to get as many empty bottles back as possible for reuse, so you got a penny (probably the equivalent of 10p or more in today's money) for every bottle you took back. As kids, we were always on the lookout for discarded bottles so we could get the returns, as it was called. So why not take the same approach with plastic bags? I always think the carrot works better than the stick.

Poor fare.

Much back-slapping and big fanfares have accompanied the opening of the new high-speed rail-link between London St. Pancras and Paris and Brussels. Forgive me if I am none too impressed. It's 30 and more years overdue, and still goes no further than St. Pancras. What happened to the promised fast links to the Midlands, the North and Scotland? Not even a gleam in anybody's eye it would seem. Gordon Brown is apparently after a five-word motto to sum up this country. How about "Too little and too late"?

GB / UK?

As the family fount of all knowledge (ho, ho) I was called upon the other day to settle a dispute between the grandchildren over the respective meanings of "Great Britain" and "The United Kingdom". It's surprising how many people do not fully understand the difference, including - if my granddaughter has got her facts right - her geography teacher! So for the record, Great Britain is a geographical term for the big island we live on - i.e. England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom is a political grouping and consists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The British Isles by the way, is the geographical term for the whole sheboosh - Great Britain, Ireland and all the other little islands around and about. What may surprise you is that the Isle of Man, whilst part of the British Isles, is not part of the United Kingdom. It is what is called a Crown Dependency, which basically means that it looks to us for its security, and to represent it internationally, but is otherwise independent. The same thing, by the way, applies to the Channel Islands.

Not taking a chance.

I thought it was a wind-up, but apparently not. Following up on my post of 25th October, comes the story of a village near Norwich who were unable to get - or at least afford - insurance for a bonfire party, so they projected a film of a bonfire onto a giant screen, and all gathered round that. Ten out of ten for initiative, but really!

A life well lived.

What have Dan Dare and the Samaritans in common? What do you mean - who's Dan Dare? He was the British equivalent of Buck Rogers - a sci-fi comic-book hero who featured in The Eagle, a comic which first appeared in the 1950s, and which continued more or less unbroken for the next 40-odd years. So what's the connection? Well, one of the founding fathers of The Eagle was Chad Varah, who also was the man who founded the Samaritans. He was a clergyman, and so incensed was he when, early in his career, he found himself officiating at the funeral of a young teenage girl who had committed suicide because she thought that her periods starting was an indication that she had contracted some shameful disease, that he determined that there should always be somewhere for people like her to turn to for advice and support. One of life's unsung heroes was Chad Varah, who died last week, at the age of 95.

We will remember them.

I have always been fascinated by the power of poetry - real poetry, that is - the sort that rhymes and scans. It's the discipline of crystallising your thoughts so as to fit them into the restraints of poetic form which is so difficult and so potent when it's done well. War - and in particular the First World War produced some of the mightiest poems ever written. Why I'm not sure, but perhaps at the time it was the only acceptable way in which people could give vent to their feelings. And what comes across most often is the feeling of anger - rage almost. There are so many great poems of this period, but if I have to chose one it would be "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen, who was himself a soldier and ironically was killed just a week or so before the war's end. Here it is, and just look at that last line as an example of how to speak volumes in just eight words.

What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns,
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Was justice done?

How sad is the story of Sally Clark? She, you may remember was the woman who was convicted of killing her two children on the later discredited evidence of an expert witness. Her conviction was overturned and she was released after serving more than three years in prison. Clearly she never came to terms with this, took to drink, and died earlier this year from alcoholic poisoning. The question which arises for me is what support - if any - did she get from the state who had wrongly convicted and imprisoned her following her release? There's a tendency in cases like this to think "Oh, they're out now - that's OK then", and then forget all about them. This case highlights the fact that for many of these people release is just the start of their problems.

To my Sikh friends......

.....and I hope I've got that right!

Cough, splutter...

Seems more and more people are forgetting and putting petrol in their diesel cars with serious consequences. If memory serves, when unleaded petrol first came in, and it was important not to put leaded petrol into cars made to run on unleaded, they solved the problem by making the nozzles a different shape, so you physically couldn't put the wrong sort of petrol in. Surely the same idea could be used for diesel?

Fred.

Wolverhampton will never be quite the same now that "Fred" - an eccentric tramp who lived in a tent on one of the big traffic islands on the town's ring-road - has died. He's been there for years, and always kept his patch spic and span, and could often be seen sweeping up. The local social services kept an eye on him, provided him with meals on wheels and even replaced his old home-made tent with a proper one. And the Council have said that they will make the necessary funeral arrangements if, as seems likely, no relatives can be found. How unusual is that these days, when those in authority so often use their powers pettily and restrictively. Wolverhampton can be really, really proud of the way it treated Fred - good on yer!

The Lazy Cook.

Clingfilm - don't you love it??!! You can never find the end - it's worse than Sellotape, it's the very devil to cut or rip (those serrated edges on the box never seem to work properly) and then it sticks to itself - aargh!! But very often you do need to cover stuff up to prevent it drying out or going mouldy or whatever. So I have found that freezer bags are the answer - stick whatever it is inside a freezer bag and it will keep just as well as in cling-film, with none of the bother. I buy the cheapest sort of freezer bags - works out at less than a penny a bag - they do fine, and at that cost you just throw them away when you've finished.

Who said what - again.

A prospective Conservative candidate has been dismissed for suggesting that Enoch Powell had it right in his infamous "rivers of blood" speech 40 years ago. Except that Powell didn't say that - he never used those words. He was a classical scholar, and what he actually said was "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'." The Roman in question was Virgil, and this was a quotation from the Aeneid. This doesn't make what he said any more right or wrong, but let's be accurate, for heaven's sake.

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells....

There's a programme on BBC on a Saturday morning, which I tend to watch as I am coming to, where viewers can air their complaints about the Corporation's output. Recently, the subject under discussion was the incorrect - as the complainant saw it - use of language by presenters. In particular, the use of "refute" instead of "deny" and (that old perennial) the use of "less" instead of "fewer" when dealing with specific numbers. I'm somewhat of a pedant myself when it comes to grammar and punctuation, but what I think needs to be kept in mind is that language is a tool of communication and that provided the communicatee gets the message that's really all that matters. If people continue to use the word "refute" to mean "deny" (its official dictionary definition is "to prove to be false") then sooner or later it will officially adopt that meaning. There are innumerable words which have changed their meaning - in some instances radically - over the centuries. Language is essentially "work in progress" - it is forever evolving.

Apparently, the buck stops nowhere.

Should Sir Ian Blair resign in the wake of the jury finding the Met guilty in the Menezes trial? It certainly seems unbelievable that an innocent man, acting in a perfectly innocent manner, could be summarily executed on (or more precisely, under) the streets of London without anybody bearing - or even being prepared to accept - any responsibility for what happened. Perhaps the most gob-smacking aspect of all this is Sir Ian's explanation of why he feels he should not resign. He said that the case had "shown no evidence of systematic failure" by his force. All I can say is, if this is an example of the system working properly, then Gawd 'elp us all!

Who said what.

"British jobs for British workers". Who do you think said that? Sounds like a BNP slogan doesn't it? And yet it is attributed to the Prime Minister - an old Labour man through and through. Perhaps this does no more than highlight the fact that the political spectrum is not so much a straight line as a circle, with the extreme left very close politically to the extreme right. And on the other hand, perhaps it is just something dreamt up by the media, because try as I might, I cannot find any reference to Gordon Brown saying that. He did apparently say - or more accurately a Downing Street spokesman quoted him as saying that he was looking to provide "a British job for every British worker" which isn't quite the same thing. Pays not to take these things on face value.

What goes around....

I've nothing against Heather Mills, but her recent outburst on TV about her treatment by the media is I feel symptomatic of the way so many celebrities and personalities - and yes, politicians - want to have their cake and eat it too. If you use the media for your own purposes, then you have to accept that when it suits them, they in their turn will use you.