Back in the mists of time....

Not sure about this House of Lords judgment which does away with the six-year-rule in relation to cases of sexual abuse. It was brought by a woman who was assaulted and raped some 20 years ago. Her attacker was jailed for that and other offences and served more than 15 years. Towards the end of his time in jail he was out on day release and bought a lottery ticket which netted him just over £7 million. The woman is now suing for compensation, and initially failed because her claim was brought more than six years after the event. This is the rule which the Law Lords have now overturned, or at least have given the Judge hearing such a claim the discretion to proceed with the case even though more than six years have passed. Like I say, not sure. The lady concerned is on record as saying that this is not about money, but about justice - but surely justice has been met by the prison sentence the man has served? This is a civil case, and therefore whatever she says this is clearly about money, and the civil law has always taken a common sense approach that in such cases there must be some finality - some point at which the parties can get on with their lives without the threat or expectation of a court case having to be taken into account. You can perhaps argue that six years is not long enough, but twenty years? - or more, because depend on it, it's only a matter of time before someone brings a case based on events which happened even longer ago. I've said it before - hard cases tend to make bad law.

A memory of TV's golden era.

I imagine most people will know the name Quatermass, but there will be few of us who remember the original "Quatermass Experiment". Groundbreaking television which quite literally brought the nation to a near standstill, as everybody tuned in to watch it. I was 15 and it made a big impression on me, both as a sci-fi/horror story and as a morality play (in the end, it is Quatermass's appeal to the monster's essential humanity which saves mankind). It was written by Nigel Kneale, whose death over a year ago has, I'm ashamed to say, only just come to my notice. A writer way, way ahead of his time, he not only wrote three Quatermass serials (of which in my book "Quatermass and the Pit" is, by a small margin, the best), and another brilliant horror story for TV called "The Stone Tape", but also did a memorable and powerful TV adaptation of George Orwell's "1984". But for sheer prescience, his play "The Year of the Sex Olympics" takes the biscuit, portraying as it does a (then) future world where television has become lowest-common-denominator pap and someone has the idea of marooning a group of people on a deserted island, and then broadcasting their daily interactions and efforts to survive. Ring any bells?

Better late....?

Land Army girls (those that are still with us are elderly ladies now) are to get an official badge commemorating their war efforts, says a news story yesterday. Apparently, this is the first official recognition of their existence and the work they did, and for most of them I guess that the recognition will count for more than the badge itself. It certainly seems unbelievable that it has taken so long to accept that those who filled in on the land for the men who were away fighting deserve to be honoured. Of course, this does raise the question about those women who took on the men's jobs in factories and offices - they were not part of any specific organisation like the Land Army or the Timber Corps, but their contribution was equally as important. Recognition for all, say I.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Consider the following two statements -
(1) In this country, at midnight, it is dark.
(2) We are in this country and it is dark, therefore it is midnight.
You will clearly see (at least I hope you will!) that this is utter tosh. Now consider these two statements -
(1)In this country, in April, the probability that the temperature at midday will be greater than 15ºC is 80%
(2)We are in this country, it is midday and the temperature is greater than 15ºC, therefore the probability that it is April is 80%
Perhaps not quite so obviously, but this is also tosh (what about May, June, July, August, September...?)
Now look at these two statements -
(1) A crime has been committed. Blood of a particularly rare type has been found at the scene and it is accepted that it belongs to the criminal. The chances of a person chosen at random having this blood type are 1 in 1,000,000.
(2) You have this blood type. It is therefore a million times more likely than not that it is your blood, and that therefore you committed the crime.
Still tosh - you bet! And yet, substitute DNA for blood type and one in a billion for one in a million, and this sort of argument is being used all the time in court cases, and juries are falling for it. Perhaps we need a resident court statistics expert to keep the record straight.

Smellynet?

Wonderful story of a plan to deliver high-speed internet using the sewerage system. Brilliant! Why hasn't anyone thought of it before? The infrastructure (the tunnelling) is already there and safely below ground, and the system is one to which the overwhelming majority of houses are already connected. Bring it on!!

A man's a man for a' that.

For those of you of the faith, I hope you had a good Burns Night last night. As an ex-pub-pianist, it brings back memories of playing "Scotland the brave", "Roamin' in the gloamin'", "I love a lassie" and so on, not to mention tiptoeing round the vomit in the toilets. I've never tried, or really fancied haggis, but there's no doubt that Burns was a first division poet, who doesn't really get the respect he deserves - mainly because he chose to write in what for many is a fairly impenetrable Scottish dialect. But get beyond that, and his writing compares favourably with Wordsworth, Keats or any of the "greats". Just consider "My luve is like a red, red rose..." - it's up there with the best of them.

Happy birthday to you.......

Here's a hoary old chestnut, but if you haven't heard it before the answer might surprise you. If we (a) ignore February 29th, and (b) assume that a person is as likely to be born on any date as on any other date, then how big a group of people picked at random do we need for there to be a better than even money chance that at least two of them share the same birthday? Most people reason something like this - ignoring February 29th, there are 365 possible birthdates, so the answer must be somewhere around 182 or 3. In fact the answer is a surprisingly small 23!! The point is that what was asked for is the probability that two or more people share the same birthday - whatever that date is. If the question had been how big a group do you need before there's a better than 50-50 chance that two or more of them were born on March 2nd for example, or any other given date, then the answer would in fact be an equally surprisingly large 253 - the reason this is so much greater than 182.5 is because, as demonstrated above, it is virtually certain that many of them will share the same birthday!

The sound of music

This is old news apparently, but it's only just come to my notice, and I am up in arms about it! During my chequered career, I spent many years playing the piano in pubs an clubs at weekends - often in partnership with a banjo player called 'Arry. Good fun. And if I went into a pub with a piano, and nothing was going on, I would quite often (after a few drinks) sit down and start to play. But it appears that if I were to do that today, I would be putting the licensee in danger of a fine, and if 'Arry and I wanted to resume our weekend activities, we would be hard pushed to find a pub where we could. Why? Well there used to be what was called the "two in a bar" rule, which said that live music in a pub or club did not need a licence provided no more than two musicians were involved. This rule has now been revoked apparently, which means that for any live music to be played, a full music licence is needed at a cost which can run into thousands of pounds - which, not surprisingly, many pubs are not prepared to fork out. To add insult to injury, no licence is needed for non-live music, so pubs can turn out ear-splitting dross on the juke-box for free, or have MTV blaring out on the tele, while 'Arry and I up the corner playing a few old favourites for people to have a sing-song to would be breaking the law. It's a mad, mad world.

The mean streets

The Home Secretary's in trouble again for being too honest and forthright in her comments. This time it's her statement that she wouldn't feel safe walking round London after dark. Well, let's be honest - if you're a woman would you fancy it, and if you're a man would you want your wife, girl-friend, sister or whoever out on their own in a big city after dark? Probably not, I would suggest. So she was just telling it as it is. And things I think have definitely changed during my lifetime. When I worked, I visited London regularly as part of my job, and, being a bloke, used to like to wander round Soho in the evenings. As a young man (say in the 60s and 70s), I never felt under any physical threat (and back then I was pretty lightweight and wouldn't have stood much chance in a fight) - I always certainly felt that I was in far more danger of being conned than thumped. As time went by, this changed, and I have to say that on my last few visits to the capital, which would have been 15 or so years ago, I remember feeling somewhat uneasy even walking down Oxford Street in broad daylight and certainly would no longer have considered visiting Soho after dark. You can argue that as Home Secretary she should be doing something about it, but I don't think you can criticise her for telling the truth.

On this day...

....in 1962 began one of the most contentious murder trials of modern times. James Hanratty stood accused of the murder of Michael Gregsten in what became known as the "A6 murder". There are plenty of sites you can go to for details of the almost farcical police investigation which led to his arrest, and he was convicted pretty well solely on the identification evidence of Valerie Storie, who was Gregsten's girlfriend and was also raped and shot by his murderer. This despite the fact that on Storie's own evidence she saw her attacker's face for only a few seconds in poor light, and had already picked out a completely innocent man at another identification parade. The clinching factor seemed to be that Hanratty pronounced "thinking" as "finking" which her attacker also did. It is difficult to see how any jury, doing their job properly, could have convicted on such flimsy evidence, or even how the judge could have let the case go to them, but he did, and they did, and Hanratty was hanged. He protested his innocence right to the end. Recently DNA evidence has suggested that he was in fact the murderer, although decades of potential cross-contamination mean this isn't as definitive a finding as it might seem. But in any event this doesn't alter the fact that on the evidence at the time this was a travesty of justice. Perhaps the only good thing to come out of it was that the furore surrounding Hanratty's execution was almost certainly a factor in the abolition of capital punishment a few years later.

Right on, Gordon!

The Prime Minister, who is on a visit to China, is being criticised for concentrating on trade matters rather than, as his critics would have it, taking the Chinese to task for their human rights record. I think the PM is doing exactly the right thing. His job is to do what is best for this country, and as he sees it the establishment of strong commercial ties with what is the major emerging nation in the world will serve Britain well for the future. He's looking after our interests, as he should be. The human rights issue is essentially one for the Chinese people themselves, and doubtless in due course they will address it in their own way. Those who live in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones.

Ha ha.

Here's one I heard the other day which made me laugh -

A policeman notices a little old lady shuffling down the street with a plastic bag in each hand. As she gets near, she drops one of the bags and a load of banknotes spill out onto the pavement. The policemen goes to help her retrieve them, and she thanks him and makes to go on her way. "Now just a minute" says the policemen "do you mind if I ask where you got all that money?" "Not at all" says the little old lady "you see it's like this - my back garden backs onto the local football ground, and whenever there's a game, a lot of the fans come and relieve themselves in the bushes, and pee all over my flower beds. So I go and stand behind the bushes with a pair of garden shears, and whenever anyone sticks his willy through to pee, I say "£5 or I chop it off" and that's where all that money came from". "Well I can't see anything wrong with that" says the policemen, "and you certainly get ten out of ten for initiative. OK, off you go". Just as she's going he says "By the way, what's in the other bag?" "Well" says the little old lady "Not all of them pay!".

Well said!

I urge you to read the article you will find online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/martin_samuel/article3207061.ece - particularly if you are a policeman, and even more particularly if you are a senior officer in the police. On a very small and comparatively insignificant scale we have had problems around where I live with anti-social behaviour by a group of young people, and it has become quite clear that unless they are doing something specifically illegal, the police do not see this as a matter for them, but rather as something we should sort out ourselves, or learn to live with. The article expresses my feelings far better than I ever could, and should be pinned to the wall of every Chief Constable's office.

Bottom of the barrel?

I remember Kevin Keegan as a top-class and exciting player, and he seems like a nice bloke, so I really hope he succeeds as Newcastle's new manager, but I have to say that for me the appointment smacks of desperation.

What the.....!

Found it difficult to believe my ears yesterday when the Prime Minister was reported as saying he still supported Peter Hain and regarded his failure to register donations as merely "an incompetence". So here's a Government Minister who has been categorised by the Prime Minister as incompetent, but that's OK?? Just read that again.....!

Told you!

"Olympics faces a £1bn black hole". Why am I not surprised (see post dated 1/12/05)?

Lock 'em up?

The question of remand in custody versus bail is highlighted today by two news stories. On the one hand you have a case of a man (policeman actually, although that is not really material) who was charged with murdering his wife, but then released on bail. It now seems likely that he went on to kill his mother-in-law, and then commit suicide, and questions are being asked about why he was free to do that. On the other hand, the trial started yesterday of the man accused of the Ipswich killings. Yes, that's right - that was over a year ago. Here is a man who as yet has not been convicted of anything, but has already been in prison for more than 12 months. That's the other side of the coin. As Gladstone once remarked "Justice delayed is justice denied".

The Lazy Cook

For the most part, recipes I see in books and magazines always look yummy, but are just too complicated and time-consuming for me, but I'm always on the lookout for ones I can adapt for my style of easy cooking. Here's a cheat version of what I understand is a traditional Swedish recipe - hence the title. Don't get too hung up on the precise amounts - these are just what I used, but I don't think a little more or less would make much difference - in fact a little more fish might be nice. This produces what I would call a "hearty" meal, so if you're not feeling too hungry you may want to scale it down somewhat - or eat half today and warm the rest up tomorrow.

Mama Mia!


You will need -
Packet of instant mash made up as directed
About ½ a tin of Easy Onions (see post dated 12th December)
280g tub of sweet cured herring - sometimes sold as "soused" or "roll-mop", but make sure it's sweet cured.
50g tin of anchovies
About 150ml milk
Some butter
Some breadcrumbs


Method:- Pre-heat your oven to 220ºc (gas mark 7). Drain the herring and anchovies and cut into little pieces - scissors are easiest. Butter an oven-proof dish. Layer about a third of the potato on the bottom, then a layer of about half the fish and onions, then another layer of potato, followed by the remainder of the fish and onions, and then the rest of the potato on top. Pour over the milk, then sprinkle breadcrumbs on top, and a few dots of butter. Cook for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven to 200º (gas mark 6)and give it another 30 minutes or so. In fact you can't really overcook this - the idea is for all the ingredients to come together in a sort of mush with a nice crispy topping.

The elephant in the room.

It's funny how often you hear a report on the TV or read an article in the papers, and think that those reporting have missed or ignored the fundamental question. Headline report in my paper yesterday was about how more and more parents are joining churches, not out of any personal belief, but simply as a means of getting their children into church schools. The tenor of the report was how this was exacerbating divisions in society, and whether the answer was to get rid of "faith" schools altogether. For me, the question which was not asked but should have been was how come so many of the best and most oversubscribed schools in the country are faith schools - what do they have that makes them so successful? Should we be looking to identify that and seeing whether it is something which can be applied to other less successful schools, rather than even considering the possibility of getting rid of them?

When in doubt, sack the manager!

As a life-time follower of the consistently underperforming Wolverhampton Wanderers, I can empathise with the supporters of Newcastle United, who have not tasted what they would consider success for more than 50 years. At least they are in the Premiership and looking reasonably safe for another season - would that Wolves could say the same! So does changing the manager really make any difference? Allardyce it seemed to me was doing the best he could with the squad he'd got, and did have positive plans to try and improve matters. Whoever takes over will face the same problems. The difficulty is that the only managers who have the sort of track record that Newcastle are looking for are unlikely to be interested, and those that might be interested are not the sort to inspire confidence that they could make any significant improvement.

What next - jumble-sale police?

If I have something you want, and you are prepared to pay the price I ask for it, what's wrong with that? That's the basis of commerce. So why should tickets to shows or sporting events be treated any different? And yet, that is what is under discussion at present. There's a serious suggestion that selling on such tickets should be made illegal. Indeed, it already is as regards tickets to football matches - the justification being the need to ensure rival fans are segregated - and apparently it will be as regards tickets to the 2012 Olympics, although the justification for that is far from clear. But it seems to me a dangerous road to go down. Just where do you stop? Like I say, if I've got something you want, and we can agree a price, why should the law interfere?

Umpire's decision is final??

How sad to see cricket going the way of football. The present shenanigans between India and Australia haven't come out of the blue, but are the end result of what's been brewing for years. It is ironic that the Australians, who pretty well invented "sledging" are now complaining about it, but more important in my opinion is the way the essential spirit of the game has been cast aside in the pursuit of victory at all costs - and this isn't just a matter of Australia and India. Cricket is supposed to be essentially a self-regulated game. Law 27 makes it quite clear that the umpire is not there to decide for himself whether or not a batsman is out, but to rule on dismissals only where the sides cannot agree, or are unsure. If the batsman knows he is out therefore, he should walk. If he does not, and the fielding side think he is, they can, by appealing, ask the umpire to rule on the matter. It equally therefore follows that the umpire's decision is to be accepted by both sides. The current situation, where batsmen, clearly out, do not walk, and fielding sides make aggressive and hysterical appeals on the flimsiest of grounds, goes against the very basis of the game. By bowing to pressure to change umpires, the ICC have clearly demonstrated that, like football, money matters more than the game - a sad, sad state of affairs.

Public sector pay.

Much in the news again at the moment. Let's be quite clear - a below-inflation pay rise is a pay cut. No ifs or buts - money is only as valuable as what it can buy. If you can't buy as much with this year's wages as you could with last year's, then your effective pay-wealth has fallen. No amount of weasel words can alter the reality. Public sector workers have every right to be angry about the way their real pay has been eroded in this way. Particularly as their pay is decided by the Government, and to the extent that anybody controls inflation, it is that same Government that does so. I am now in the relatively comfortable position of being a pensioner, and of having my pension at least nominally inflation-proofed, but I do feel on behalf of those who are finding that the pound in their pocket buys less and less, while their employer not only refuses to do anything about it, but lectures them on the need for fiscal responsibility into the bargain.

Leave me alone

I'm getting really fed up with being lectured over the food I buy. Just lately it's chickens and eggs - apparently I should hold an enquiry into the way the birds are reared and kept, and satisfy myself that they are being treated humanely before making my purchase, and if that means I have to spend more money, then I should feel a self-righteous glow as I do so. Well, sorry, but I don't see it that way. I'm sure the people who promote these views are well-meaning, and if they want to pay top dollar for "free-range" birds and eggs, that's their privilege, but I'll let them do their thing and expect them to extend the same courtesy to me. I think Walt Disney and his various successors have a lot to answer for, having brainwashed generations into believing that animals think and feel like humans, and therefore should be treated as such. I shall continue to look for the best value for my meagre few pounds.

Nothing is straight-forward any more.

It would seem that low-energy light bulbs are not without their down-side. They may use less juice and last longer than conventional bulbs, but it appears that they contain mercury, which makes their disposal a problem. When they eventually pack in, you can't simply stick them in the bin, it would seem. The official line is that they should be "taken to the local council for disposal". Oh yeh..........!

Music Man

The above is - or was - my alter ego, but, as you will have seen if you have visited that blog lately, I have decided that there isn't enough material to warrant continuing it as a separate entity. I will however post anything musical which comes to mind on this blog under the above title. This apparently is to be Vaughan Williams Year - it is the 50th anniversary of his death. I have to say I have never been greatly struck on him. His output was prodigious, and he certainly deserves recognition for his championing of English folk music and the incorporation of it into his work. He is often categorised as "the greatest British composer of modern times" and certainly he and Elgar stand pretty well alone as pretenders to that title. But the difference for me is that Elgar touches me - often deeply - whereas Vaughan Williams, whilst I can appreciate his music, does not. If you will, Elgar speaks to my heart, whereas Vaughan Williams speaks only to my head. You may of course feel differently - therein lies the beauty of music.

Turn left here...

Headline in paper - "Gay men are as bad as women at navigating, research has shown". I don't know where this idea comes from that women are no good at map-reading, but I have to say that I usually drove and left the navigation to my wife, and as far as I am concerned, she was ace at it. On the few occasions when we swapped duties we invariably got lost!

Size matters.

Big is not always beautiful, particularly in the area of the provision of public services. The "economies of scale" approach may work for businesses churning out widgets, but the idea of extrapolating that experience into the field of public service provision has rarely proved anything other than disastrous. Bigger local authorities have resulted in worse and more expensive services. Bigger hospitals have seen increased waiting times, much less personal care, and superbug infections. Bigger schools have meant "sausage machine" teaching, lack of self-esteem in pupils (and teachers) resulting in antisocial behaviour both in and out of school. Remember the little urban district council office where you could pop in and discuss your concerns on local matters? Remember the cottage hospital where matron ruled and everything was always spic and span? Remember the local school where every teacher knew every pupil, and teaching was tailored to individual needs? Those were the days indeed!

Lesser of two evils?

Is choice really a good thing? I ask because my youngest grandson - or to be more precise, his parents - have just been through the "what secondary schools shall we put him down for and in which order" dilemma (well, it's not really a dilemma in that there are more than two options, but you know what I mean). Wasn't life so much simpler when you just went to the local secondary school whether that was where you really wanted to go or not? I suppose if your choice really mattered, that would be a different thing, but as we are all aware that where he ends up is in the lap of the gods, and his parents' preferences play at best only a minor part, so-called choice just brings with it uncertainty and stress.

Toss a coin!

Given our volatile climate, it's not surprising that the weather - and in particular forecasting what it's likely to do - is such a frequent topic of conversation. So what's this winter going to be like? Three predictions from "experts" in the paper yesterday - it's either going to be very cold, possibly the coldest since 1987, or it's going to be "unseasonably" mild, or it's going to be a bit of all sorts. Well, that covers all the bases, doesn't it?

Happy New Year.

We're so used to today being the start of the year, that it can come as somewhat of a surprise to find that it wasn't always so. After all, there's nothing special or magical about January 1st - it's just a date like any other date. If you were starting with a clean slate and deciding when the year should start, you might quite logically think that the year should start when the natural year starts - in other words, when stuff starts growing again. And indeed, for many centuries in this country, the year started on March 25th - around the official beginning of Spring. It wasn't until 1752 that January 1st was officially adopted as New Year's Day. At other times, and in other countries, the year has started on Christmas Day, March 1st, Good Friday and several other dates. Other religions and races also have their own new years, many based on lunar cycles - but whoever and wherever you are, I wish you all the best for the future.