Get it sorted!

I have enormous sympathy for Debbie Purdy, who is seeking assurances that if she goes to Switzerland for an "assisted suicide" and her husband travels with her that he will not be prosecuted for aiding and abetting her act. The problem arises because of the nonsense created by the Suicide Act 1961, which stated that suicide was no longer a crime, but that assisting someone to commit suicide was - so now it is illegal to help someone do something which they are legally entitled to do. Work that one out if you can! In any other area of the law, it is perfectly proper for you to delegate someone else to act for you where you wish to do something legal but are incapable of acting yourself - if their actions are queried, the only question would be whether or not they were carrying out your clearly and voluntarily expressed intentions. Here Debbie Purdy could not have made her wishes more clear. The courts have said it is a matter for Parliament, but somebody needs to sort it out. It is indefensible that people facing this sort of desperate situation should have this further worry heaped upon them.

The Lazy Cook.

It's getting towards the time of year for mulled wine - and it's really dead simple to do. Rule number one, buy cheap plonk - it's a waste of money to use anything decent. So, all you need is a bottle of house red and a piece of muslin - an old hanky will do. Into the muslin/hanky put a teaspoon each of ground cloves, ground ginger, ground cinnamon and two of brown sugar and tie up tightly. Pour the wine into a saucepan - preferably non-metallic - and add your spice parcel and a couple of bay leaves. Heat up gently - do NOT allow to boil! - and there you are. Prost, as they would say après-ski.

Where does the buck stop?

The Brand/Ross/Sachs business was puerile and distasteful in the extreme. But my understanding is that this was a pre-recorded programme, which means that someone else took the ultimate decision to broadcast it. They, whoever they may be, bear their share of the blame.

There's a plum in my salad!

Scientists have developed a genetically modified tomato which tests on mice suggest can provide a significant degree of protection from cancer. How long it will be before it is available to the general public - indeed whether it ever will be available - will not only depend upon further testing, but also on whether it can get approval from what is a very rigorous EU inspection procedure. And there's a further problem - the genetic modification means that the tomato is purple. Will this make any difference? There seems to be some evidence that purple is an acceptable colour for fruit, but is not a popular colour for vegetables (purple carrots have not been a great success). And most people would classify a tomato as a vegetable, even though it is actually a fruit. So we'll have to wait and see!

It's the silly season...

Why should something which has gone on for eighty years without any problem suddenly become unacceptable? This is what has happened in Newbridge, a small town in Wales, where the organisers of the annual Remembrance Day parade have been told by the local council that they must change its traditional route. The reason given? I'm sure you've already guessed - elfnsafety! And apparently it's not just Newbridge. Pity we didn't have Health and Safety inspectors in 1914 - nobody would have been allowed to leave their trench. Now that would have been worthwhile!

Down, down, down.

Have had to watch the value of my investments drop dramatically over the past week or so. When I was coming up to retirement we had a talk by a very good financial adviser, and one of the things he said which has stuck with me was "As far as investments in stocks and shares are concerned, you've not made a profit until you take it, and equally you've not made a loss until you accept it. If you can possibly avoid it, never turn a paper loss into a real one". So I keep muttering to myself - it's just a paper loss, it's just a paper loss....

Ha ha.

This comes from a chat group, courtesy of someone calling themself LP -

Gordon Brown was visiting a primary school and he visited one of the classes. They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked the Prime Minister if he would like to lead the discussion on the word “tragedy”.
So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a “tragedy”.
One little boy stood up and offered: “If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field & a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a ‘tragedy’”.
“No,” said Brown, “that would be an accident.”
A little girl raised her hand: “If a school bus carrying fifty children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a Tragedy.”
“I’m afraid not,” explained the Prime Minister, “that’s what we would call a great loss.”
The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Gordon searched the room.
“Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of Tragedy?”
Finally, at the back of the room, a small boy raised his hand…In a quiet voice he said: “If the Air plane carrying you and Mrs Brown was struck by a “friendly fire” missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy.”
“Fantastic!” exclaimed Gordon Brown. “That’s right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?”
“Well,” says the boy “it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either!”

Shame on us.

It's one thing to be evicted from your house for failing to pay the mortgage - it's quite another to be evicted from your country because somebody else wants to use it as an air-base. And yet that's exactly what happened to the inhabitants of Diego Garcia and the other islands of the Chagos archipelago back in the 60s. Since when they and their descendants have been fighting for the right to return. And now the House of Lords has ruled against them. Not exactly our finest hour, I feel.

Two plus two is...er...

I like this idea of Google's of not letting you send e-mails late at night or at weekends without testing you to see whether you are compos mentis by requiring you to work out a few maths sums first. Of course, if you're stone cold sober but arithmetically challenged, you're in trouble.

What's in a name - again.

When I was little, pikelets for Sunday tea was a weekly treat. We used to buy them loose from the local baker - they were thick and round with holes all over the surface, and you toasted them (in front of the fire back in those days) and smothered them with butter and sometimes honey. So just when did they become crumpets? That's what they're called in all the supermarkets these days. Ask for pikelets and you're met with a blank stare. To my generation, "crumpet" has a completely different meaning!

I've got a six-er.

It's the conker season - except that you rarely seem to see kids playing conkers these days. Is it a health and safety thing? I certainly seem to remember some schools a few years back banning conkers in the playground because of such concerns. But I think it more likely that it just doesn't fit with today's video game generation - it's gone the same way as marbles. You can't stop progress.

Get your juicy apples - they're lovely!

It's difficult to understand all this fuss about market traders being prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution, for selling fruit and veg in imperial pounds and ounces rather than grams and kilos. The fact is that there is nothing to stop you selling in imperial measures provided that you have the equipment to also measure out in metric units. So it's just a matter of getting an extra set of metric weights for your scales. Provided you can meet a request for a kilo of potatoes, say, then you are complying with the law. I can only assume that these "metric martyrs" as they are being called are just being rather unnecessarily silly - or that some Trading Standards officers don't know the law!

Lions led by donkeys.

"Thank God! We lived through it! The Great War: 1914-1917". One of the most quoted lines from that wonderful, wonderful final episode of "Blackadder Goes Forth". But it does bring to mind the question of just what were the dates of the First World War. It's traditionally given as 1914-1918, but dotted here and there throughout the country you will see war memorials inscribed 1914-1919. So what's going on? Well, the fighting stopped at the famous eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, but that was only a cease-fire, or armistice. The countries involved remained officially at war until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Not that it matters a toss to the thousands who were slaughtered - make sure you buy a poppy.

When in Rome...

Absolutely no sympathy with this British couple who have been jailed for three months in Dubai for having sex on the beach (and isn't that a cocktail?). Even if, as they claim, they were just kissing and cuddling, they know that that is against the law in that part of the world, as is being drunk, which they both were. If you deliberately do something you know is illegal in the country you happen to be in, you must take the consequences.

Spooky!!

I wonder if J.M. Barrie could see into the future - here's an uncanny quote from "Peter Pan", written over a hundred years ago -

"Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him."

The eye of the beholder?

A survey, as reported by the BBC, has found that Birmingham's Bullring has been voted "Britain's ugliest building". Does make you wonder just who was surveyed, and whether they've ever been anywhere near Birmingham, because if they had, they would know that the Bullring is an area, and not a building! Maybe they are actually referring to Selfridges, which is certainly a striking building not to everybody's taste, but this is just small part of the Bullring. I wouldn't however disagree with the Central Library being put in second place. It is certainly a very stark, blocky building which Prince Charles once famously described as looking more like a place for burning books than storing them. It is due for demolition when the library eventually moves to its new location, and I think few Brummies will mourn its passing.

Ah! the little darling...

The Good Pub Guide has reported a dramatic increase in complaints about badly behaved children in pubs ruining it for other patrons. Partly this is due to a deliberate effort on behalf of pubs to make themselves more family-friendly and attract more parents with children, but of course the main problem lies with parents who are oblivious to their children's behaviour, and let them run riot. Strangely. I've noticed round where I live a growing tendency for pubs to shut down in-house ball parks which they previously had and where kids could go to let off steam, and this certainly doesn't help matters, but really this all goes back to the "progressive" thinking of the late 60s and early 70s, when it was considered that any attempt to stifle your child's behaviour was bad, and that you should allow them to do whatever they wanted. Those children have now grown up and treat their children just the same in turn. As ye sow, so shall ye reap!

This call may be recorded....

If you're into computers, and particularly computer programming, you've probably heard of the Turing test. Alan Turing was one of the geniuses at Bletchley Park during the war, and he later laid down a test for artificial intelligence (AI). If, he said, you were carrying out a text-based conversation with (unknown to you) a computer in another room, and you couldn't tell that it wasn't human, then that computer (or more precisely, its program) would pass his test for AI. Apparently there is an annual competition to see whether any computer program can pass the test. As yet, the answer would seem to be "getting close but no", but one expert confidently predicted that the Turing test would be passed within the next two or three years. He saw this as leading, among other things, to computers taking over from humans in call-centres. You mean, that hasn't already happened - that really is a human being I'm talking to and getting no sense out of?

Pick a card....

Here's a simple card trick which requires no skill and will be good enough to keep your kids guessing. Take a pack of cards and give it a good shuffle. Then fan it out on the table face down and invite your mark to pick any card they choose, and look at it. Gather up the rest of the cards and square them up. Now tell your mark to cut the pack wherever they like, put their card on top of the cut pile, and put the rest of the pack back on top. So as they have cut the pack, there is no way you could know where their card is, right? You now turn the pack over and fan it out face up and unhesitatingly pick out the card they chose. So how's it done? Well, when you shuffle the pack, make sure that you see and note the bottom card. After your mark cuts the pack, puts their card in and places the rest of the pack on top, their card will end up being the card immediately underneath the bottom card which you have memorised. When the pack is turned over and fanned out face up, just look for the card which is to the right - as you look at it - of the bottom card, and that will be their card. Simple but effective.

Ha ha.

Lots of good one-liners going around about the current financial crisis. Here are three I particularly liked -

What's the definition of optimism?
An investment banker ironing five shirts on a Sunday evening.

New question for geography students -
What's the capital of Iceland?
Answer - About £3.50.

What's the difference between an investment banker and a pigeon?
The pigeon can still make a deposit on a new BMW.

The Lazy Cook

Have you ever tried shallow-frying oven chips? I'm sure they're very bad for you weight-watching-wise, but they crisp up really nicely. while the insides remain soft and fluffy. Yum!!

USA, USA....

I have a view on the American presidential election - I imagine most of you do too. But is this a suitable topic for a blog which claims to be about current affairs in this country? I've touched on this before - in the world as it is today, what happens in other countries, and in particular the United States has a direct effect on us, so our current affairs are inextricably wrapped up with theirs. So yes, I think it is something which I can legitimately talk about - indeed, I think there is a powerful, if ultimately doomed argument that other countries should have some sort of say in the election. So what is my view? Well, in common I suspect with many Americans, I know what I don't want rather than what I do, and what I don't want is more of the same. I want to get away from the last eight years where America has played the role of the evangelical playground bully, with the approach of "I know what's right, and if you don't do as I say, I'll thump you". I have to say I have reservations about both candidates - and indeed also those who were eliminated earlier - but of the two on offer, only Obama seems to accept the need for a change of direction. Whether, if elected, he will be able to - or be allowed to - follow through on his promises is debatable, but if I had any say in the matter, I know where my vote would be going. And if only a small proportion of what has been reported about Sarah Palin is true, then the thought of her getting her hands anywhere near the levers of power is really, really scary.

Reality.

In vox-pop interviews there have been lots of negative comments about the Government's plan to cope with the present financial crisis. "Why should we bail out those who created the problem in the first place?", "Cutting interest rates will discouraging saving at the very moment when we need people to save", "The banks get government money to help them, but there's no help for my small business", "The government will take preferential shares in the banks to the detriment of ordinary shareholders", and so on and so on. All very valid points, but what we need to realise is that this is very much a case of the lesser of two evils. Yes, this is going to be unfair in many respects, and many people are going to get hurt as a direct result, but if nothing were done, many, many more people would be hurt and to a far greater extent. There is no magic solution, only a least-worst one.

Hidden messages.

I long ago learned that you shouldn't take on face value anything said by anyone in authority - you always need to look for the subtext, that is to say what they really mean. Shop keepers at a village somewhere in Warwickshire are up in arms at the council's proposals to introduce local car parking charges, which they say will hit their trade. The council's response is that it will "benefit the local economy". That is code for "will bring in more money for us (the council) and if it has a negative effect on you shopkeepers, tough!". And then we have the Chancellor saying that the Government will do "whatever is necessary" to maintain economic stability in the face of the present crisis. To me that's code for "we really haven't a clue, but we'll do our best to deal with circumstances as they arise", and whilst that may be the reality in these current unprecedented times, I have to say it doesn't fill me with confidence.

Way to go!

You've got to give Selfridge's ten out of ten for trying to make the best of a bad job by developing and selling a new chocolate treat called - you've guessed it - Credit Crunch!!

A fitting outcome.

So Cardinal Newman had the last laugh after all - when they came to dig up his bones (see last Friday's post), there weren't any! His body had quite literally turned to dust, and so what's left of him will remain where it is, as he always wanted. Maybe there is a God, after all.

Wow!

Mandelson back in government - an inspired decision by the Prime Minister or an act of desperation? Bit of both I think. On the one hand, it pretty well whips the carpet from under those who were plotting to depose him, at least in the short term, but on the other, just look at the man's track record - good chance he won't last twelve months. A big gamble, whichever way you look at it.

Stop meddling.

Rape law raises its head again - at least indirectly. The offence is committed by having sex with a female without her consent - but the law considers that a girl under the age of 16 is legally incapable of giving her consent. Hence the offence of having sex with an under-age girl, sometimes referred to as statutory rape. But it should be noted that the girl in such a situation has committed no offence. The Scottish parliament is considering legislation which, where both parties are under 16, would make them both guilty and subject to punishment. This is being done in the spirit of anti-discrimination. At present in such cases the boy can be charged, but the girl cannot. Provided that the act was factually, as opposed to legally consensual, I cannot see what is to be gained by criminalising either of them. This is an area where the law is best kept at arm's length.

All or nothing.

While he was alive, Cardinal Newman specified - and not just once - that when he died he wished to be buried next to his life-long friend Father Ambrose St John at Rednal in Worcestershire, and so it was. Now however the Catholic Church is in the process of canonising him, and to this end intend to exhume his remains and take them to Birmingham Oratory where he will lie in state and eventually be re-buried there. So why are his express wishes being over-ridden? It seems the Church are uncomfortable with his life-long association with another man. It would appear that there cannot be even the slightest suggestion that a saint just possibly might have been gay - not that there is any evidence that he was. Smacks a bit of air-brushing inconvenient people out of photographs, doesn't it? If he is worthy of veneration, then this is because of who and what he was - it makes no sense to cherry-pick the bits you like and pretend the rest doesn't exist.

You saved my life - thanks, now bog off!

Glad to see the Gurkhas won their case (see post 17/9/08), but pretty shameful that they had to take the matter to court in the first place. When somebody has been prepared to put their life on the line for us, they surely deserve all we can give them. In this respect, the Iraqi interpreters also spring to mind.

A stitch in time...

Tragic story of a man who tried to stop a street fight, and as a result was himself badly beaten up and later died. But what caught my eye on reading the story was the fact that this happened at a particular spot which the police said was notorious for drinking in the street and drunken behaviour. So the question is - if the police were aware of this, what action had they taken to stop it? We've had this discussion before, but surely a major part of the police's job is to stop criminal and anti-social behaviour happening, and not just catching people after the event. If they had taken pre-emptive action this tragedy may not have occurred.