You couldn't make it up...

If you're in a Government office in Norwich and need a toilet seat repaired, where would you go to get that done? A firm in Norwich you would think. But no - if your Department has a maintenance contract with some big national firm, then it's down to them to fix it, and they may decide to send someone from Birmingham to do the job. This has actually happened, and is but one example of workmen being sent long distances to carry out trivial maintenance tasks. In another case a workman was sent from London to Cheshire to replace some light bulbs. Although on the face of it, the loser in all this is the maintenance firm, presumably the costs involved are factored in to the contract cost and at a time when we can ill afford to waste public money, this is something which badly needs sorting.

Music Man

So the most heard classical piece of music over the last 75 years is "O Fortuna" from Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana". I say "heard" rather than "listened to" because its position as No. 1 is down almost entirely to its use in various advertisements and other commercial situations over the years, and particularly in recent times to its use on X Factor. In other words, people are finding themselves listening to it, rather than choosing to do so. Not that it is not a stirring piece of music but I would imagine that it would come rather further down the list of classical music listened to by choice. Orff is one of those "one-shot wonder" composers who is known almost exclusively for this one work. The words come from a collection of medieval poems mainly about love and gambling and "O Fortuna" is a complaint against the vagaries of Lady Luck.

Strip search?

I don't want to trivialise what is a serious issue, but following the "shoe bomber" incident, I understand that would-be air passengers now have to take off their shoes for examination before being allowed through security. So now that we have had what might be termed an "underpants bomber" where does that leave us?

Us and them.

Comparisons are being drawn between an incident in Sussex where a gang of youths pelted a police car with snowballs, and the police seemed to take it in good part describing it as "harmless fun" and a similar incident a few days ago in Washington, where an off-duty cop drew his gun after having snowballs thrown at him. Is this an example of British commonsense as opposed to American hotheadedness, or is it more about armed police versus non-armed police? If our coppers had had guns, would things have turned out differently? We've talked about this before in connection with other things, but if you give people power, then they tend to use it - maybe in ways that you hadn't foreseen. And the moral of the story is....?

Ha ha

Christmas cracker jokes either leave you groaning or have you rolling in the aisles. This one really tickled me - and no, I'd only had one glass of wine -
What do you call someone who used to have an interest in agricultural equipment?
- An extractor fan!

Ethics 101?

A vicar has been taken to task for suggesting, from his pulpit, that shoplifting from a large supermarket would be preferable to burglary, mugging or prostitution if you were desperate for money. Obviously this man is far too sensible to be a vicar! The problem with the Church - indeed with religion generally - is that it sees everything in terms of right and wrong, black and white, whereas those of us in the real world are faced daily with dealing in shades of grey. Turn this argument round, and those who are criticising what was said are presumably saying that if you're going to do wrong, then there's no difference between nicking something from Asda and thumping an old lady and stealing her purse, so you might as well flip a coin to see which to do. And if you really believe that, then I'm sorry for you.

It's Christmas!

Compliments of the season to one and all.

Christmas trivia

In "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" the hero identifies the cup of Christ by the fact that it is a simple wooden cup - "...now that's the cup of a carpenter". But was he? This is based on the assumption that he would follow his father's trade, and the bible tells us that Joseph was a carpenter. But the original Greek word is tekton and the translation of this as "carpenter" is simplistic at best. The idea that he was just a simple woodworker is almost certainly wide of the mark. He was more likely a builder, probably with men working for him. Perhaps understandably, the bible wishes to portray Jesus and his family as simple peasants (born in a manger and all that) but the probability is that they were people of some social status.

The Lazy Cook.

Bit bored with garlic bread? Don't know whether it's a seasonal offer, but my supermarket are doing small jars of crushed garlic and crushed ginger, so...

Mix together a good dessert-spoon of butter (or marg) with a teaspoon of crushed garlic and half a teaspoon of crushed ginger. Take a small French stick and make diagonal cuts about an inch apart not quite all the way through. Pack these cuts with the butter mixture, wrap the whole stick in tinfoil and cook at 180c (160 fan) for about 15 minutes.

And there you have it - garlic bread with a kick.

Christmas trivia

We made a big thing out of New Tear's Eve 1999 didn't we? Start of the new millennium and all that. Except that strictly it wasn't, because there was no year 0, so the first 1000 years weren't completed until midnight on the 31st December 1000, and equally the second millennium didn't start until 1st January 2001. This is all the fault of a monk called Dionysius who was given the job in the 6th century of determining the year in which Jesus was born. Nobody knows just how he came up with the answer he did but he set this year as 1AD, and the year immediately before as 1BC - so there you are - no year 0. Actually it is now pretty well agreed that he got it wrong anyway, and that Jesus was most likely born in 6 or 7BC.

Do we still need the Holocaust?

The theft of the "Arbeit macht frei" sign from the gate at Auschwitz has understandably brought cries of outrage from those who see it as part of a neo-Nazi plot to discredit what happened there. I am not a Jew and therefore cannot fully appreciate the almost visceral race memory they have over these events. But what about the rest of us? After all, there have been many more genocide horrors both before and since the Second World War - so what makes this special? Symbolism I think - the fact that this happened in Western Europe where we're supposed to be civilised, rather than in some more remote part of the world where - stereotypically - savagery is more to be expected. I think it must have been an urban myth, because I can find no reference to it, but when I was in Germany in the 50s I was told that at the entrance to one of these concentration camps a sign had been erected which read (and apologies if my German is not perfect) "Um die Töten nie vergessen werden, und um die Lebenden nie vergessen sollten" - which translates as "So that the dead may never be forgotten, and that the living may never be allowed to forget". And that I reckon just about says it all.

Christmas trivia

I've already mentioned that Oliver Cromwell banned the eating of mince pies back in the 17th century. In fact he went much further than that - he banned Christmas! Well, not strictly - what he banned was the celebration of Christmas. He was a Puritan, and Puritans believed that religion was a serious business, and there was no place for any sort of merrymaking. So as far as they were concerned December 25th was just another day. The Puritan church was a plain building with no statues or stained-glass windows - nothing to distract you from concentrating on the worship of God. But the Puritan reign was short-lived and the ban on celebrating Christmas was lifted after just 13 years.

Tuck box police again.

A school in Liverpool has apparently suspended one of its pupils for selling crisps to other students at an inflated price. I don't know whether it was the fact that this was "unhealthy" food, or the fact that he was making a profit (or both) which led them to take this action, but either way it raises the question once again of the way schools choose to exercise their powers over pupils. The more schools retreat from their basic duty to be fully in loco parentis the more they seem to latch on to trivial areas in which to wield the big stick. It's as though they feel the need to do something, and now they have to be careful not to even look at children the wrong way for fear of complaint they seek out other ways of imposing their authority. Time to get back to basics I feel.

Christmas trivia

Perhaps the most misunderstood of the Christmas stories is the one of the Three Kings. Because the bible story does not say they were kings, or even that there were three of them. According to Matthew, they were Magi, (usually given in English as "wise men") and the Magi were Zoroastrian priests and astrologers. Certainly not royalty. And the idea that there were three of them comes solely from the fact that they presented the baby Jesus with three gifts - gold, frankincense and myrrh. All we know about them is that they came "from the East", and nobody has really been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation of the star that they said they were following. And having done their bit, they are never heard of again.

How much longer?

The Government has announced plans to buy several more Chinook helicopters for use in Afghanistan. But these will not be available for another 3-4 years. Am I missing something, or is this a tacit admission that we shall still be there, still fighting (and dying) for at least another three or four years?

Christmas trivia.

Why holly and mistletoe? Mistletoe is a much older tradition going back to Celtic times. The oak tree was particularly sacred to the Celtic Druids, and this is one of the trees mistletoe grows on, so by association it also developed mystic powers. The fact that it fruits in the dead of winter probably added to the mystique. An old Norse tradition says that embracing under a mistletoe bough is an expression of eternal friendship, which is doubtless where our custom of kissing under the mistletoe comes from. Holly is essentially a Christian symbol - indeed the original name of the holly tree was the holy tree. The symbolism is green leaves to represent the crown of thorns and red berries to represent Christ's blood. The same red-green symbolism is of course seen in poinsettias, which are common Christmas plants in other parts of the world where they don't have holly.

Condemned out of his own mouth?

Two quotes from Tony Blair -

25th February 2003: "I detest his [Saddam's] regime. But even now he can save it by complying with the UN’s demand [to give up his weapons of mass destruction]. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully."

Last Sunday: "[Even if I had known there were no weapons of mass destruction] I would still have thought it right to remove him".

Christmas trivia.

Santa Claus is of course a mangled version of St. Nicholas (almost certainly via the Dutch Sinter Klaas). St. Nicholas was a real person who lived towards the end of the 3rd, and beginning of the 4th centuries AD. He was a bishop of the early church, and by all accounts was a good man who devoted much of his life to collecting money from the rich and distributing it to the poor - particularly children - which is doubtless where the idea of Santa bringing presents to children originated. The reindeer didn't make an appearance until the early 1800s when somebody (there is a dispute as to exactly who) wrote a poem entitled "A Visit from St Nicholas". The title may not mean anything to you, but I bet you all know the opening lines - 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... And this is the first we hear of Santa riding on a sleigh being pulled by eight reindeer (Rudolph of course was a much later addition). And by the way, if the reindeer are pictured as having antlers, then they're female! Male reindeer have lost their antlers by Christmastime, Around the same time as the poem, the image of Santa that we have today - a fat, jolly, ruddy-faced man with a white beard and dressed in red - began to emerge, and was most famously taken up by the Coca-Cola company around 1930 to use in its advertisements.

Just how Scottish is Scotch?

Have you seen the story of the Norfolk distillery which is now producing English whisky? First time in over a hundred years that the golden spirit has been produced in this island south of the border apparently. What caught my attention though was the fact that the majority of barley used by the Scots to produce their whisky is grown in England anyway.

Christmas trivia

Mince pies - a staple of Christmas, but why on earth is the filling called "mincemeat"? Well, originally it did contain meat, and was a way of preserving it by mixing it with fruit, spices and alcohol. But because the taste was essentially sweet, and as other ways were found of preserving meat it changed over the centuries into the dessert fruit pie we are used to today. Many mince pie recipes still use suet which today is the only remaining connection with its original meat-based origins. The association with Christmas is more of a mystery - the best guess (and that really is all that it is) is that the spices used were those brought back from the Holy Land by the Crusaders and therefore the original pies - which were big main-course pies - were seen as having religious significance, and as the shape was somewhat reminiscent of a cradle (they tended to sag in the middle), they were considered of particular relevance at Christmas. It was considered to be particularly lucky to eat a mince pie on each of the twelve days of Christmas. In the 17th century they were banned by Oliver Cromwell who was opposed to anything which gave people pleasure. Today you must leave one out for Father Christmas, who is very partial to them, as witnessed by his girth!

Ha ha.

The best my retirement magazine could come up with this time was, once again, not so much a joke as a comment on contemporary life -

An elderly lady rings up a hospital. The following conversation take place:
- Hello, I'd like some information on a patient, a Mrs Tiptree. She was admitted last week with chest pains and I just wanted to know if her condition had deteriorated, stabilised or improved?
- Do you know which ward she is in?
- Yes, ward 17, room 2B
- Just a minute, I'll put you through to the nurse station
- Hello, ward 17, how can I help?
- I would just like some information on a patient, Mrs Tiptree. I was wondering if her condition had deteriorated, stabilised or improved?
- I'll just check her notes. I'm pleased to say that Mrs Tiptree's condition has improved, She has regained her appetite, her temperature has steadied and after some routine checks tonight, she should be well enough to go home tomorrow.
- Oh, that's wonderful news. I'm so happy. Thank you ever so much.
- You seem very relieved, are you a close friend or relative?
- No, I'm Mrs Tiptree in room 2B. Nobody tells me anything!

Christmas trivia.

As we're entering the run-up to Christmas, I thought I'd look at some of the questions which crop up every year at around this time. So, first off - is it acceptable to use Xmas as a shorthand form of Christmas, or is it just sloppy and irreverent? Not at all - in Greek the word for Christ is Christos and, written in the Greek script the first two letters are Chi and Rho. Chi looks very similar to our capital X and rho a bit like our lower-case p. Early Christians amalgamated these two letters into a single symbol representing Christ. The symbol can still be seen in churches today - here's an example:








We can't cope with this symbol in our alphabet of course, and so a capital X has long been accepted as an alternative. So Xmas is a perfectly acceptable way of writing Christmas - what you mustn't do of course is pronounce it as Ex-mass. That would be wrong!

The computer says...

Following on from yesterday's post, it has been pointed out that the projections of the extent of future global warming have to be taken seriously because they are based on computer models, as though somehow the fact that they have been produced by computers gives them the status of Holy Writ. I think I've mentioned before that I go back to the early days of computers, when for the most part you had to write your own programs. Stuck to the side of my computer used to be a piece of paper with GIGO written on it. It was an acronym much used at the time (although there never seemed to be any agreement as to whether it should be pronounced jee-go or ghee-go) but it stood for "Garbage in, Garbage out" and was a constant reminder that what a computer produces is only as good as the data it is given and the program it is asked to run. Putting it baldly, if you ask a computer the wrong questions, you cannot be surprised if it comes up with the wrong answers. So I think we need to know a little more about how these models were constructed, and what assumptions they were based on before we pass judgment.

Global Warming.

I am trying to make some sense of all the conflicting comments around at the moment on this issue. It seems to me that there are four questions -
1. Is global warming taking place?
2. If it is, how serious a problem is it?
3. If it is, to what extent is it being cause by human activity?
4. If it is down to human activity, what can (or should) we do about it?
The only question with anything like a definitive answer it seems to me is question 1. Although average temperatures have been pretty stable over the last decade or so, the general trend over the best part of the last couple of centuries is upwards and there is little doubt that this is causing things like an increase in the melting of the polar ice-caps. As regards the other questions, it is difficult if not impossible to get a straight answer. And I think this is probably because if truth be told, we simply don't know. People are making best guesses, which may prove in the event to be wide of the mark. I've said before that I think that reducing the amount of "greenhouse gasses" that we put into the atmosphere is a good idea in any event, but I question the morality of pushing developing countries back into poverty over what at present are no more than a collection of mainly unsubstantiated theories. Mind you, I'm glad I'm not the one having to take those decisions.

Where did that word come from?

You have to be of a certain age to remember the 1960 film "La Dolce Vita", which was an exploration of, and possibly an indictment of the hedonistic life-style of the "beautiful people" of Rome of the time. One of the minor characters is a photographer called Paparazzo (I don't think we ever know his first name) who makes his living by taking candid - and if possible, compromising - photos of celebrities to sell to the gutter press. His name very quickly became synonymous with that type of photographer and, being Italian, when there was more than one of them you used the plural - paparazzi.

A life well lived.

Richard Todd who has died at the age of 90. Known mainly for his roles in war films - particularly "The Dam Busters" - he was in fact a serving soldier in the Second World War, and among the first to be parachuted into Europe following the D-Day landings. In the film "The Longest Day" he played his commanding officer of the time, Major John Howard, and in one scene, as Howard, he is talking to himself, played by another actor. And if Ian Fleming had had his way, he would have been the first James Bond. His life was scarred by losing two of his sons, both of whom committed suicide, but true to the characters he played on screen, he met that tragedy with quiet dignity and a stiff upper lip. When asked what it meant to be British, he said it meant "fairness, good sense, decency, kindness and politeness". They don't make them like that any more. And please, please, please, PLEASE, don't remake The Dam Busters.

An undigested bit of beef...?

Sort of trick trivia question - quickly now, how many ghosts visited Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens's "A Christmas Carol"? The immediate reaction is to say three: the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come. But what you have to remember is that the whole thing started off by Scrooge being visited by the ghost of Jacob Marley, his one-time business partner, so the proper answer is four. Try it on your friends - but don't give them too long to think about it.

Here's looking at you...

Marilyn Monroe - sex icon of my youth - is "buried" (not quite the right word, but don't know what would be) in a vault in a Memorial Park in California. There are other vaults around, below and above hers. The bloke who owned the vault immediately on top of hers, knowing that this would be his final resting place, insisted on being placed face down in his coffin. How great is that? Actually of course, the story is slightly spoiled because it won't be his final resting place. The story has come to light as a result of his widow moving his remains and putting the vault up for sale. Somebody's paid the best part of £3m to "spend eternity next to Marilyn". Cheap at the price, says I.

Sign of the times?

Apparently a large proportion of programmes on the main TV channels this Christmas will be repeats. Is this an indication that in the present economic climate they haven't got the money to spend, or is it an acknowledgment that the old shows are so much better than what's being put out today?

Easy peasy.

I don't claim any credit for this, but here's a nice little mnemonic for remembering the names and order of the planets. So, going outward from the sun -

My (Mercury)

Very (Venus)

Easy (Earth)

Method (Mars)

Just (Jupiter)

Speeds (Saturn)

Up (Uranus)

Naming (Neptune)

Planets (Pluto - OK there's some dispute as to whether Pluto is really a planet or not)

You belong to me.

I'm not sure that the current preoccupation with Tiger Woods reflects very well on us, the public. Here's someone who just wishes to do what he does particularly well, and to be judged on that basis. What he does outside his sport is private and none of our business. But it seems we are not prepared for that to be so. We consider him to be public property and as such every aspect of his life is ours to scrutinise, deconstruct and criticise. And the more he retreats into his shell the more vociferous we become and the more insistent that it is our "right to know". Speaking personally, I feel rather ashamed by the whole business.

Ha ha.

Here's an old one-

The Rev. Ian Paisley was seated next to President Clinton on a flight to Ireland. Once the plane was airborne, the flight attendant came round for drinks orders. The President asked for a whisky and soda, which was brought and placed before him. The attendant then asked the minister if he would also like a drink. The Rev. Paisley replied in disgust "Madam, I'd rather be savagely raped by a brazen whore than let liquor touch these lips." The President handed his drink back to the attendant and said "I'm sorry, I didn't realise there was a choice..."

Ireland's call?

Watching the sport on television yesterday, my grandson asked why Ireland play rugby as one team, but football as two. Good question and I'm not sure there's a definitive answer. Both association and rugby football of course well predate the partition of Ireland and therefore originally both codes would have had Ireland playing as a single entity. So perhaps the question is not so much why do they play as a single team at rugby, as why don't they at soccer? And the answer seems to be that whereas there was no real enmity in the pre-partition years between the rugby sides of north and south, there was as far as association football was concerned, and so following partition they took the opportunity to form two separate organisations, whereas rugby didn't bother.

Quick - where's the blacksmith?

As a follow up to yesterday's post, the Marriage Act of 1753 stated, among other things, that if you wished to get married under the age of majority - which was then 21 - you needed the consent of your parents. The law did not apply however in Scotland, where boys could marry at 14 and girls at 12. Further in Scotland all that was needed for a valid marriage was the exchange of vows before a person of some standing (not necessarily a minister) in the presence of two witnesses. This led to an exodus of under-age couples wishing to marry to Scotland, and as the first place the stage-coach would stop over the border was Gretna, this quickly became the Las Vegas of its day. Subsequent legislation made marriage there progressively more difficult but Gretna retains its mystique as a place of romantic love to this day.

Shh - don't tell anyone...

I overheard somebody the other day refer to a couple as "living over the brush". I hadn't heard that expression for a long, long time. What it means of course is that they are living together but not married. Today that's not exceptional, but not that long age it wasn't something you talked openly about. Where does the expression come from? Prior to 1753 and the Marriage Act of that year, there were no specific laws about how you got married. A marriage in Church would be recognised as legal without question, but it cost, and a lot of people couldn't afford it. So in many people's eyes if a man and a woman accepted each other as husband and wife, that was all that was needed. But how was this acceptance to be evidenced? And somehow the tradition arose that one way they could do this was by holding hands and stepping over a broomstick laid on the ground. And there you are.

Bank charges.

Sorry, but I welcome the Supreme Court's ruling that - effectively - banks are entitled to charge what they like to customers who go overdrawn without prior authorisation. What's the alternative? Why should people like me, who manage their finances properly and never knowingly go overdrawn, subsidise those who don't? If you know you haven't got the funds in your account to meet your immediate liabilities, then you approach the bank and ask for an agreed overdraft facility - and if you don't, then on your own head be it. Take responsibility for your own actions, for goodness sake!

Glasses, ref!

Interesting suggestion in a letter to my paper the other day that controversy is part of the very soul of football, and that bringing in more officials, with or without technological aids, would change the essence of the game fundamentally. Would we really want a game where every decision is spot on, and correct beyond any shadow of a doubt? What would there be to talk and argue about in the pub afterwards? Personally I don't think there is any real danger of that - even with the benefit of slow-motion replays, more often than not there is an element of uncertainty. Did he dive or didn't he? Just where was he tripped - inside the penalty area or outside? Was he level with the last defender or offside? Certainly given the standard of technology we have today, there would still be arguments. I think having more officials is a good idea though.

Remember, remember.

Last Saturday was the 35th anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings. One of the worst atrocities of the IRA's campaign on the British mainland, 21 people were killed and many more injured when bombs went off in two city centre pubs - The Mulberry Bush and The Tavern in the Town. The Mulberry Bush has long since been demolished, but The Tavern in the Town is still there - now called The Yard of Ale. I often wonder if any of the people who pass by its fairly anonymous front door every day realise its history. Of course the incident was equally notorious for the fitting up by the police of six innocent men for the crime. The real culprits have never been brought to justice although several names are in the public domain as having been involved.

Automatism.

The tragic story of the man who strangled his wife in his sleep took me back getting on for thirty years to when I was studying for a law degree. This very situation was discussed in theoretical terms as part of our study of the common law on crime. To be guilty of a crime at common law, it is necessary that you committed an unlawful act (the "actus reus") but also that you did so in an unlawful frame of mind ("mens rea"). Just what amounts to the necessary unlawful frame of mind will vary from crime to crime. But the essence of the situation under discussion is that there could be no mens rea because quite simply there was no mens. You were not under the direction of your conscious mind. Given that there is considerable material on this subject in various text-books, all of which are unanimous that in these circumstances no crime has been committed, the surprise is that a prosecution was brought in the first place.

Put a sixpence in...

Today is "Stir-up Sunday" when you are supposed to make your Christmas pudding, with every member of the family taking a turn at stirring the mixture, and making a wish. And you must stir it in a clockwise direction. The reason for the name comes from the collect for the day in The Book of Common Prayer, which starts "Stir up, we beseech Thee, O Lord..." And of course it gives time for all the flavours to come together so that it is perfect come Christmas.

It's just not right...

As a sort of carry-over from yesterday's post, it never ceases to amaze me how many people complain about something without offering any viable alternative. It's always up to "them" to do something about "it" - whoever they may be, and whatever it is. At the moment there are people getting into a lather over the fact that there are a dozen or so oil tankers anchored off the Devon coast. The perception (probably correct) is that the owners are banking on the price of oil increasing, and that therefore they stand to make more money by waiting rather than bringing their cargo into port now. This is portrayed as "greedy oil barons hammering the poor consumer". But what exactly do they expect, and what do they think can or should be done about it? Ah no, that's for someone else ("them") to sort out. After all, let's be realistic. Oil companies are in it for the profit - they're not charities or part of social services. And what's the alternative? Some sort of Government regulation - and how exactly would that work? And would you really want the price of petrol determined by Government diktat rather than by market forces? It would spell the end of supermarket price-wars for starters. If you've got ideas, then let's hear them - but don't just whinge.

Sir, I wish to complain...

The Advertising Standards Authority is considering whether to investigate the M & S Christmas advert currently running on television. What's the story? - well, I'm not sure just how many people will have seen that advert, but it surely must run into hundreds of thousands, probably millions. Why is the ASA considering acting? Because it has received eight - count 'em, eight - complaints. Which makes me wonder just what their threshold is - just how many complaints, or perhaps more to the point, what proportion of complaints are enough to galvanise them into action. Given that, as I have commented before more than once, there are people out there who will complain about anything, and who actively seek out reasons to be outraged, I would have thought eight complaints trivial in the extreme.

Send for a plumber...

I was tickled to read a report in the paper that the "Great Drain" which takes the water from the Roman baths in Bath down to the river Avon is in need of repair - not because of any problems with the part built by the Romans, which is still doing sterling service despite being nearly 2000 years old. No, it's the modern extension, only built about 40 years ago which has collapsed. A real testament to British workmanship!

Sorry??

Once again the question arises over whether it is meaningful for someone to apologise for something which happened in the past, and which they had no part in. We've discussed this before in relation to slavery, and now the Prime Minister will apparently offer an official apology for the policy of sending some children who had been taken into care to the colonies - mainly Australia - supposedly for a better life over there. In reality many were badly treated and abused. At least this is something relatively recent - it was still going on in the 60s - but the problem still is how can you apologise for something which was nothing to do with you? You can certainly accept that it was wrong and bad and promise - to the extent that it is within your power - that it will never happen again, but you can really only apologise for something which was your own fault. Once again, I have the nasty feeling that the word which really lies at the bottom of all this is "compensation".

R.I.P.

Edward Woodward.
Showing my age, but for me he will always be Callan - the swinging naked light bulb, the haunting theme tune - one of the seminal shows of my youth (OK, young middle-age). What perhaps is not so well known is that he also had a fine singing voice and made several records as well as appearing on the TV music-hall programme "The Good Old Days". A consummate professional.

Brnng, brnng

There is a suggestion that a great many deaths and injuries could be prevented by allowing cyclists to officially ride on the pavements. I would go along with this, with one proviso - that it is made clear that pedestrians have the right of way. I get really annoyed when I have to leap out of the way of someone cycling on the pavement who makes no attempt to avoid me but carries on merrily in a straight line. I would also make it obligatory for all cycles to have bells, and for it to be a legal requirement that a cyclist coming up behind a pedestrian must ring their bell to warn them. Subject to this, seems a sensible suggestion.

It ain't half hot Mum !

A poll reveals that many people do not believe that climate change is down to human activity. I wouldn't go that far myself, and I think that reducing the amount of CO2 and methane and stuff that we put into the atmosphere is a worthy endeavour in its own right, but what bothers me is that suppose the doubters are right, and that climate change is going to happen anyway - what (if any) plans are we putting in place to deal with the consequences? Our whole strategy seems to be based on the idea that we can stop it happening, but suppose we can't? Shouldn't at least some of our effort and resources be being put towards preparing for what we will then have to deal with?

Crime? What crime?

One of my abiding memories from my schooldays was something a very good teacher we had was wont to say from time to time, when he felt we needed a dose of reality. "You can pin a note on an elephant saying - this is a giraffe" he would say, "but it don't make it so". The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority have agreed to pay out compensation to the family of a three-year-old child who was attacked and badly hurt by another three-year-old. I'm OK with the fact that they are getting compensation but not that they are getting it from this Authority. A three-year-old child is statutorily incapable of committing a crime - therefore there was and could be no crime, and therefore payment of compensation does not fall within the remit of the Authority. Of course, it is always open to Parliament to change the Authority's terms of reference, but until and unless they do this is another case, I'm afraid, of hard cases making bad law.

Book post

(see post dated 18/11/06)

My latest ten reads -

Dick Francis (and Felix Francis) - Silks - 8
Robert Harris - Ghost - 8.5
Scott Mariani - The Doomsday Prophecy - 8
Steve Jackson - The Judas - 7
Paul Doherty - The Poison Maiden - 6
Andrew Gross - Don't Look Twice - 6.5

Natasha Cooper - A Poisoned Mind - 7
Nicci French - Catch Me When I Fall - 6
Michael Connelly - The Brass Verdict - 8
Sam Bourne - The Last Testament - 6.5

Bhabhi

I was talking to my daughter-in-law about my post of 31st October and why the loser of the card game should be called "sister-in-law". She said it's difficult to understand without a knowledge of traditional Sikh culture. Firstly, only men would play cards, and secondly the choice of sister-in-law as the derogatory title for the loser carries no particular significance - it's being called by a woman's name that is the put-down - any female name would do. She likened it to me being called a "big girl's blouse", or Del Boy's famous belittling of Rodney - "Shut up you tart".

We will remember them

When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today

Epitaph on the 2nd British Division War Memorial at Kohima in Northern India

Kick a man when he's down?

I hold no brief for Gordon Brown, who I consider to be the worst Prime Minister of modern times, but the criticism of him in the press over the hand-written letter he sent to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan does I feel go too far. So his handwriting is not that good - neither is mine. So he made what might be considered a few spelling mistakes (not sure that some of them were, actually - more a matter that his writing is difficult to read) but at least he did take the time and trouble to write the letter himself - the temptation must have been to simply sign a type-written letter. As discussed the other day, the mother is entitled to grieve in her own way, and clearly she found the letter distressing, but for the press to latch onto it in the way they have is distasteful, to say the least.

Ha ha

Man goes to his solicitor to talk about making a will. "I feel a bit awkward about this" he says "thinking about your own death is rather creepy". "Don't worry" says the solicitor "most people feel that way. Just leave everything to me". There follows a few seconds of silence, and then the man says "But I was thinking about leaving a few bob to the wife and children".

Whatever floats your boat.

Apparently there have been some raised eyebrows at the sight of the widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan applauding as his coffin passed by. This reminded me of people who regularly write to a local paper round here complaining of flowers being placed by the roadside or attached to lampposts to mark the site of a fatal accident. And then there are those who pull a face when a pop song is played at a funeral. We all have to deal with grief in our own way and whatever gives us comfort or solace is all that matters. I did some pretty weird things in the immediate aftermath of my wife's death - although as it was in the privacy of my own home, nobody knew. It's easy to say that these people should mind their own business, but it goes deeper than that. It's not just a matter of showing respect for the dead, it's also showing respect and understanding for those who are left behind and have to pick up the pieces.

Ha ha

Liked a cartoon in the paper referring to the story that sex education is to be mandatory for all 15-year-olds. A young lad comes home from school clutching a girl by the hand. "Dad" he says "I've brought some homework back to do".

Can't have your cake and eat it too...

In all the current heartsearching over the Lisbon Treaty and the EU, you constantly hear people saying that they are fully in favour of the "common market" aspect of Europe, but dislike the idea of a political union. But the question is - can you have the one without the other? Was the seed of the EU always there in the EEC? The point is that you can't really have a free trade area without rules - the sad fact is that otherwise you will get countries pulling a fast one in their own self-interest. And if you have rules, you have to have some underlying principles on which they are based - and from there it's only a short step to agreeing policy - et voilà, the EU. I certainly think it has gone too far into intruding on matters which should be left to individual countries to decide, but I think the idea that we can have all the advantages of a European common market whilst distancing ourselves from some sort of central control is wishful thinking.

Formula 1

So - some thoughts on this season -

Button - you have to say that he is almost champion malgre lui. Did enough in the first half of the season, and it was his good fortune that when he and the car went off the boil, no one contender came to the fore, so while he was consistently picking up minor points, the major points were going here, there and everywhere, enabling him to maintain his lead. Nice to see another British champion, though.
Vettel - jury is still out I think. Clearly capable of driving a fast car well, but when the car is off the pace, did not really see any signs of a driver willing to scrap for what he could get. In the right car though, clearly a contender.
Barichello - always the bridesmaid, it would seem. Didn't do enough when Brawn were dominant I'm afraid, and thereafter despite flashes of brilliance, was inconsistent. Would like to think he'd got a championship in him because he's such a nice bloke, but fear it's probably too late.

This is a talent show?

Family get-together last Saturday and therefore forced to watch X-Factor, which I usually avoid like the plague. Just what does the "X" stand for - excruciating??

The elephant in the room

Oh Lord, here we go again! It is suggested that parents who lie in order to try and get their children into the school where they want them to go should face prosecution. I won't rehash what I've said before more than once on this subject, but how diabolical that the Government and local authorities should even think of punishing others for their own shortcomings.

Don't like the tune? Shoot the pianist!

"The truth shall set you free" so the Good Book says. Tell that to Professor David Nutt who has been peremptorily sacked from his post as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for saying - quite correctly - that cannabis, ecstasy and LSD are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. I'm sure he didn't expect to be "set free" in quite that way! What is equally of concern is that the Council was set up to be an independent body - but apparently if it doesn't say what the Government wants to hear, they will not just ignore it, but get rid of it. Wow - just how independent can you get?

Compare and contrast.

There is a certain irony in two stories which both appear in the news today - on the one hand, you have Prince Edward making the point (perhaps somewhat clumsily) that for many young people the possibility of danger is what drives them to take part in outward-bound type activities, such as are run by the Prince's Trust, and then in another part of the news is a report that a 14-year-old Dutch girl has been forbidden by the courts from attempting a solo round-the-world yacht voyage on the grounds that it is too dangerous.

Trivial pursuits

My daughter-in-law, who is of Indian descent, introduced me to the following entertaining card game, which apparently is much played in the Punjab. The rules are simple, and it's a sort of reverse trick taking game. Best with at least four players. Cards rank as normal - Ace (high) down to two. The entire pack is dealt out - doesn't matter if some players get one card more than others. Whoever has the Ace of Spades starts by playing it. Play proceeds clockwise with each player following suit if they can. If all players follow suit, then the cards played are gathered up and put to one side and take no further part in the game. The player who played the highest card now leads to the next hand. If a player cannot follow suit he/she can play any card they wish, and this immediately stops that hand. The player who played the highest card of the suit led must now pick up the cards that have been played and add them to his/her hand. They then lead to the next hand. The object is not to be the last player left with cards. Any player at any time can ask another player to give them their cards - this is essentially a request, but as the object is to get rid of your cards as soon as possible they would hardly refuse. There may be various reasons why you would want to do this, which would become more apparent the more you play. If a player has played their last card, and it would otherwise be their turn to lead to the next hand, then the player to their left leads. The game is known as "Bhabhi" which is what you call the loser - not quite sure why, because apparently it means "sister-in-law".

Early bloomers?

Am I wrong, or is the British Legion's annual poppy appeal going the same way as Christmas - it seems to be getting earlier and earlier every year? I always start wearing my poppy on November 1st, and my recollection is that this was traditionally when they made their appearance, but this year many people - and particularly those on TV - have already been sporting theirs for a fortnight or so. To me it seems to rather devalue the whole idea.

Constitutional Law 101

Parliament makes law, but rarely concerns itself with the practicalities of how that law is to be put into effect. The power to make regulations under Parliamentary legislation is usually delegated to some person or body. Such regulations are published in a document called a Statutory Instrument (SI), which in theory has to be approved by Parliament. In practice what happens is that the SI is "laid on the table" - which means that it is actually put on a special table in the Palace of Westminster for MPs to have a look at if they wish. And if nobody objects within a certain period of time (normally 40 days), the SI becomes law. In reality, the table is usually smothered with documents, and most MPs don't have the time or the will to sort through them and read them. So very often nobody realises that regulations have been made until after they come into force. A good example is a recent SI made under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which extends the original concept of the Act, which was designed to give the courts power to order the freezing of bank accounts and the seizure of assets of persons convicted of major crime to relatively trivial things like council tax arrears. This seems to have caught many people, including some lawyers and policemen, by surprise, and they are not happy. It would be better if these things were discussed in Parliament rather than sneaked through by SI.

Kindling an interest?

Anybody got one of these e-reader things? I'm an avid reader, but I really can't see myself ever taking to the idea. I like the concept that I would have instant access to a whole library of books without the inconvenience of having to physically go out and get them, but I like the feel of a real book, I like actually turning the pages and when I put my bookmark in, being able to see just how far I've got into the story. I think I would find an electronic gizmo rather soulless by comparison.

Eleven out of ten!!

What an absolutely brilliant idea - a small school in Towcester has no canteen so to provide the children with a hot meal at lunchtime, they take them down the local pub! The kids get a good meal, the pub gets the business (and possibly knock-on business from parents coming there to eat) so everybody wins. It's just too good to be true - and that's the problem - how long before some bureaucratic busybody steps in to stop it on some ground or other?

Say it isn't so.

"Routine armed patrols in London"??? Are we finally giving up our proud boast to having the only unarmed police force in the developed world? Oh P.C.Dixon, where are you when we need you? But then, he got shot, didn't he?

Tick tock.

I heard on the news that there is a campaign to ditch GMT in favour of BST and I thought "Yesss!!". Readers of this blog will know I have a regular moan about all the faff associated with changing the clocks twice a year. But then to my dismay I found that the campaign is not to have BST all year round, but to put the clocks forward in the spring to Double Summer Time - so we would still have to change the damned things! Boo!

Nature abhors a vacuum...

Rightly or wrongly, there are plenty of people who for various reasons are concerned about immigration and multi-culturalism. The main political parties do not seem to want to talk about these things, and so these people gravitate to the BNP - not necessarily because they agree with their policies, but simply because they are the only party willing to talk about the things which are relevant to their everyday lives. So if you want to defeat or marginalise the BNP, the answer's simple, isn't it?

Nowt so queer as folk.

The story of a man in America who may be in trouble with the law for standing in his downstairs kitchen naked making a cup of coffee brought to mind a story which my late father-in-law used to tell. This would have been back in the 60s I think - he was in the Specials and had worked his way up to the rank of Sergeant, and as such often found himself manning the front desk of the local police station. One day this lady came in and rather embarrassedly said she wanted to complain about a neighbour of hers whose bedroom she could see from her bedroom window, and who had the habit of walking round in the morning with nothing on, and she found it upsetting and could the police do anything about it. Dad tried hard not to smile and said he'd see what he could do, and later told a young rookie constable to go round the next morning and look into it. Later the next day the constable came back in with a big grin on his face, and Dad asked him what was so funny. "Well" said the constable "I went round to the lady's house, explained why I was there, and she said - Just in time, he's there now doing it, come and see - so I went up to the bedroom and she pointed out the offending house, and I had a look, but other than a vague shadowy outline of a figure, I couldn't see anything. So I said to her, I can't make anything out, and she said - and this is not a word of a lie - Oh no, if you want to see him, you've got to come over here and stand on this chair!"

More about tapas

Following yesterday's post, the question has been asked as to how tapas originated. The Spanish themselves don't seem to be sure. What is certain is that the verb tapar means to cover, and traditionally tapas were served on a small plate which would be put on top of the glass containing your drink. This may have originated purely as a hygiene thing - to keep out the flies or sand, or there is a story that some Spanish king way back issued a decree that alcohol could only be served to those eating a meal, and tapas were invented as a way of circumventing that. Whatever, it's a glorious custom and although in the more touristy parts of Spain it's become a bit commercialised, there are (or certainly were a few years back) still small bars in out of the way places where you automatically get a pincho of something or other free with your drink.

Hay anchoas?

Tapas - don't you love them? One of my regrets at not travelling abroad any more is that I miss going into a Spanish bar and ordering a drink together with a pincho (couple of mouthfuls) or a ración (decent sized portion) of jamon serrano, patatas bravas, chipirones and so on. You do get tapas bars in this country, but frankly they're not the same - perhaps it's not just the food, but the Spanish climate and laid-back atmosphere that you also need. Apparently in Spain tapas consumption is used as a measure of economic confidence - a bit like champagne is here.

Well, fancy that!

"One in three 11-16 year-olds say they are upset, depressed, angry or stressed most of the time, according to an NSPCC poll". Another example of stating the obvious - the moody stroppy teenager has always been a fact of life. I'm only surprised that the figure is as low as one in three.

Why??

I hope there will be an inquiry into the decision by the police to close a large section of the M5 following an accident in which a car left the motorway and collided with a power pylon. This resulted in motorists being gridlocked for some five hours. It may be that the police action was justified, but at first glance it seems to have been a massive over-reaction. Hence the need for an independent inquiry. There have certainly been suggestions that the police acted as they did simply "because they could", and I would have thought the police themselves would want the full facts brought out for public scrutiny.

Ha ha.

Here's the joke which has been rated as the funniest of all time -

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend has collapsed - I think he's dead! What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

Music Man

The recent death of Ian Wallace brought to mind that marvellous pairing of Flanders and Swann, who were responsible for a whole raft of comic songs of the highest quality. I remember going to see their show "At the drop of a hat" in London in the 60s I think it must have been. Even if these names mean nothing to you, I'm sure you've heard of "The Hippopotamus Song" - you know, "Mud, mud, glorious mud"? And then there is "The Gnu Song" with that priceless line - "I'm a gnu, agnother gnu..." But my particular favourite of theirs is "A Transport of Delight" extolling the virtues of "that big six-wheeler scarlet-painted London transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower omnibus." Hold very tight please.

Tweet, tweet.

There's some good in everything you see. I've never been able to understand Twitter, or see why anybody would be bothered to make use of it. But now it appears that the twitterati, as they are called, have struck a blow for the freedom of the press. It seems that, at the behest of a certain company, the courts issued an injunction forbidding the Guardian newspaper from publishing a certain Parliamentary question, or of any details which might be used to identify it. The Guardian instead ran the story of the ban, and apparently within minutes, tweets were appearing identifying the question and the company involved. As a result, the company are not proceeding further with their injunction. What I can't understand is how the injunction came to be issued in the first place - surely the reporting of Parliamentary business is privileged?

Showing too much leg(g)?

I'm sure we're all finding a great deal of amusement - and maybe for some of us, quiet satisfaction - at the way MPs are once again being hounded about their expenses. But has Sir Thomas Legg gone too far? He was asked to consider all claims by MPs for expenses over the last five years "against the rules and standards in force at the time". Those words are crucial, because he quite deliberately and blatantly has not done that. He has ignored the rules and standards in force back when the claims were made, and instead has imposed his own rules and standards and judged the claims against those. It is as though some aspect of your behaviour in the past were being judged, not on whether it was right and proper at the time, but on whether it conforms with the personal views of some individual today. I can well understand MPs taking a dim view of this.

Things ain't what they used to be.

I've been watching re-runs of "Steptoe and Son" on one of those channels which specialise in nostalgia, and the though occurred to me the other day - if somebody came up with the idea for Steptoe and Son today, would anybody dare make it? After all, it breaches just about every aspect of the code of conduct to which modern TV programmes are suppose to adhere. And what about "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" or "Faulty Towers" not to mention "Till Death Us Do Part"? Indeed, could you get away with "Round the Horne" on the radio today? So what's changed? Have we all become more sensitive to others' feelings, or is it simply that those "others" have become more strident in asserting what they consider to be their "rights"? Whatever, they certainly don't make sit-coms like they used to - and I for one think that's a shame.

Global warming?

Interesting (or to use Al Gore's word - inconvenient) fact. Average global temperatures have not in fact increased since 1998.

'Twas ever thus...

I hold no particular brief for Sharon Shoesmith, nor for the social services department of Haringey council but I've seen enough sacrificial lambs go to slaughter to protect the reputations of the great and good to suspect that there may be something in what she is saying.

Quo vadit?

So where should the Staffordshire Saxon treasure end up? At present it is on temporary view at Birmingham's Museum and Art Gallery - simply because they have the facilities. But the treasure dates back to the time of Mercia, well before Birmingham even existed. The administrative capital of Mercia was Tamworth, and the spiritual capital Lichfield, so these two places have a good claim. Of course, at the end of the day, money is going to play a great part in any decision. The finder and landowner are going to have to be paid their rewards - which will almost certainly run into 7 figures - and then it's likely that a purpose-built building will be needed to house the collection and there will be the ongoing question of security. So to be landed with it may prove as much of a curse as a blessing!

Postal strike II.

Two years on and here we are again (see post dated 23/6/07). I cannot understand the postal workers. The business is failing and its only hope of survival is to at the very least retain the customers it has, and how they think going on strike helps towards that end is beyond me. Apparently Amazon are already looking to take their business elsewhere, and I'm sure others will follow. It's like watching a scorpion stinging itself to death.

Everybody off - Cuckooland Central.

I love conspiracy theories, don't you? Here's a good one - the claim is that apparently back around the year 700 AD, the Holy Roman Emperor was one Otto III. He wished to have a special place in history, and decided that whoever was Emperor in the year 1000 would be remembered simply because of that fact. So the theory goes he approached the Pope of the day - Sylvester II - and somehow persuaded him to add 300 years to the date. This wouldn't in fact have been that difficult, because back then very few people knew what the year was anyway. Our history books certainly tell us that Otto III was Emperor at the time of the first millennium - but was he really? The conspiracy theorists further tell us that this explains why we know so little about the so-called Dark Ages - because they didn't in fact exist - they were these missing years! Of course if this is true, that means that this isn't the year 2009 at all, but 1712! Don't you just love it??

Hold the 'phone...

Time was when telephones were used for making telephone calls. They were big chunky things with a rotating dial and attached to the wall by a thick, ropey cord. And so it was for decades - for most of my life in fact. About the only thing that changed was that push buttons took over from rotating dials. And then along came the mobile 'phone - which initially was not that mobile, being about the size and weight of a house brick, so not the sort of thing you wanted to lug about any more than was necessary. But technology was now starting to advance at an incredible rate, and within less than a decade mobiles had shrunk to the kind of size we are used to today. So then came the next question - what else can we use them for? Text messaging was one of the first things, followed by simple games and integrated digital cameras. And today...? What can't you do with them? Me - I'm the old-fashioned sort who just wants to be able to make 'phone calls and send text messages, but my grandchildren do the most amazing things, and it seems they need a new 'phone every year or so just to keep up with the latest developments. Life used to be so much simpler.

Small screen, jerky picture?

There used to be this idea of the "Crown Jewels" - events which were considered to be of such wide national interest that they had to be available on free-to-air television. As far as sport was concerned, this used to include all major sports where an England team was involved. How things have changed. Test matches are now shown exclusively on pay TV, and many football matches involving England have gone the same way. But if you want to watch England's match against Ukraine on Saturday, even if you're prepared to pay, a TV won't do, because it's not being screened on TV at all, but only streamed to computers. So if you haven't got a fast computer - tough! Bring back the Crown Jewels, says I.

Ask the people?

What's your take on referendums (referenda?). On the one hand you could say that it's the nearest we can get to pure democracy - everybody has the chance to have their say - but on the other you can say that we elect a government to take decisions for us and that when for whatever reason it doesn't fancy doing this, throwing matters back at us by way of referendum is an abrogation of its duty. It always strikes me as a rather cowardly sort of "covering our backs" exercise.

Ping...

Referring back to my post of 29/9/09 it's not surprising that sales of metal detectors have soared around here recently. This has brought some criticism from archaeologists and museums who see those using these instruments as little short of vandals plundering the area's historical heritage. A bit harsh, I feel. It's not as though they are in competition with archaeological digs. Nobody had any idea that the Staffordshire treasure trove was there, and if it hadn't been happened upon by a metal detectorist (is there such a word?) it would have remained undiscovered. It is probably better if these sites are carefully excavated by experts where possible, but first they have to be found, and that's where the dedicated amateur with his metal detector comes in.

Ha ha

Saw this one in a magazine in my dentist's waiting room the other day -

For a laugh, a bloke goes into a fortune teller's tent at a fair. "Ah," says the fortune teller, gazing into her crystal ball, "I see you have two children". "So that's what you think?" says the man "actually I'm the father of three." "So that's what you think?" says the fortune teller.

Plus ça change...

So now we've got a Supreme Court - why?? What was wrong with the old Judicial Committee of the House of Lords which has been doing a good job for centuries? I've not seen any cogent reasons put forward for the change, which has all the indications of being yet another example of style over substance.

So...?

Here we have Sarah Brown wheeled out at the Labour Party Conference to tell us what a lovely man and great husband her Gordon is. Am I alone is thinking that this completely misses the point?

Compare and contrast.

Interesting that the CPS have decided to charge a policeman over an incident at the G20 summit where he appears to have hit a woman protester on the legs with his baton, and yet no action has as yet been taken over the newsvendor who was pushed to the ground and later died. I would have thought the second incident far more serious than the first, not simply because of the tragic consequences, but because the newsvendor appeared to be minding his own business, whereas the woman quite clearly was intent on confronting the police and doubtless hoped to elicit some sort of reaction. It seems to me that it could be said that she got what she asked for, whereas the newvendor got pushed to the ground for no apparent reason other than that perhaps he was seen as in the way.

Metal detector, anyone?

I live pretty close to where this hoard of Saxon gold was discovered. Nice to see this part of the world get some attention for a change. In general we get pretty short shrift - our accent is seen as lower class, we are all perceived to work in grubby factories and live in back-to-backs. And even in the Dark Ages, Mercia was generally considered to be somewhat uncivilised compared with Wessex, Essex, Northumbria and the rest. So let's hear it for the Midlands for a change!

Indian summer.

It must be about three weeks or more now since we've had any rain. And there's been quite a bit of sunshine. Unfortunately it's all too late - if only we'd had this weather pattern a month or two back! Ah well...

The Lazy Cook

This post is not so much about saving time as saving money - I got myself one of those halogen cooker thingies a few months ago, and can report that it's one of the best buys I've ever made. It uses about 10-20% of the power that my conventional oven uses, and it's faster because you don't have to pre-heat it. Other than that, it does the same job. Because it's a fan oven, you need to reduce the given cooking temperatures by about 20 degrees C, and I often find that I can knock about 5 minutes off the cooking time as well (because it's all glass, you can see what's going on and make a good guess as to when the food's done). All in all, a great piece of kit which I can thoroughly recommend.

Incy-wincy...

I'm OK with spiders, though I'm not keen on having them in the house. I've got a very Buddhist attitude towards them - I carefully gather them up in some toilet paper or kitchen roll and take them outside and deposit them on some foliage. But first you've got to catch them, haven't you. Several times over the last few weeks I've caught a glimpse of a (very speedy) spider scuttling across my living room carpet but I'm blowed if I can find him (her?). And apparently this year there's going to be stacks more of them because the weather has suited them so they're going to be breeding more. And how the dickens do they get into the bath??

Hoist by her own whatsits.

I'm sure we are all entitled to a touch of schadenfreude over the Attorney General falling foul of her own legislation by not complying with the rules over the employment of an immigrant worker who apparently didn't have the right to work here. Whether she should have resigned, or whether she should be sacked are matters for others, but I find great satisfaction in seeing someone caught up in their own web of bureaucratic red tape. I would like to think that she and others will now think twice before introducing unnecessarily complex legislation - but I doubt it!

So that's clear then? - Not!!

The DPP's "clarification" of the assisted suicide law just highlights what a dog's breakfast that law is. We seem to have become confused about the difference between assisting someone to commit suicide - i.e. handing them a lethal dose to drink for instance, and merely assisting them to travel to a particular place. The latter cannot rationally be considered to be assisting them to commit suicide even if we know that is their purpose in travelling to that place. And then we have this idea that you might be deemed to have fallen foul of the law if you stand to benefit financially from the person's suicide. Given that the people most likely to accompany a would-be suicide on their journey will be their closest relatives, and that they are the people most likely to named beneficiaries under that person's will, this seems to mean that they will always be suspect. Not very helpful. I've no doubt that the DPP has done his best, but Parliament created this mess, and it's about time that Parliament stopped ducking the issue and sorted it out.

What??!!

There's got to be something wrong with a system when a dinnerlady who saw a child being bullied (and this wasn't just name-calling, it involved tying the child up and beating them with a skipping rope) and told the child's parents about it is sacked for breaching "pupil confidentiality". I sometimes think the world has gone mad.

Autumnal equinox.

The equinox, like the solstice (see post dated 21/6/08), is a precise moment in time when the sun is directly over the equator - and this year that's around 9 o'clock tonight. It's often said that the day of the equinox is when day and night are of equal length, and indeed the word comes straight from the Latin - aequus - equal and nox - night. And yet this isn't quite so. It is the day when sunrise and sunset are 12 hours apart, give or take, but what you have to remember is that it gets light about half and hour before sunrise, and doesn't get dark until about half an hour after sunset, so in fact there's about 13 hours of daylight today and only 11 hours of darkness. The day when we get 12 hours of each isn't for about another fortnight. The word twilight, by the way, although we use it pretty well exclusively to mean the time after the sun has set when it's still light(ish), equally applies to the time before sunrise when it's getting light - it actually means "half-light". And that's enough pedantry for today!

Dem bones, dem bones...

Bits and pieces of the bones of St. Thérèse of Lisieux are on a journey around this country for those who are so minded to see, touch, kiss or whatever. This veneration of relics of Saints has a long history in Roman Catholicism and the belief is that such relics have miraculous powers. At least, because St. Thérèse died relatively recently the provenance of her bones is well enough established, so the faithful can be sure that what they are worshiping is what it says on the tin, as it were. It is often said that if all the "pieces of the true cross" from around the world were assembled in one place, they would be sufficient to build a reasonable sized outhouse. So what do we make of those who will queue for hours for the chance of touching St. Thérèse's bones - or more to the point touching the perspex case which holds the wooden box which holds said bones? I personally find the whole business ridiculous, but if there are those who get spiritual comfort from such an act, I am certainly not going to criticise them. We must all come to terms with what life has thrown at us in our own way, and if it works for you, that's all that matters.

Up she rises.

There is a long-standing theory that fashion - in particular skirt-length - mirrors the economic situation. In good times, skirt-lengths rise, in bad times they fall. Not very scientific, but interesting. And apparently next year's fashions are going to see the return of the miniskirt. So let's hope there's some truth in it then!

No Mr Bond - I expect you to sell...

Following the decision to allow "product placement" on commercial television, there was an article in my paper the other day pointing out that product placement was commonplace in all the James Bond films, and detailing many examples. Now the point is that I have watched all the James Bond films - many of them more than once - and (perhaps with the exception of the make of car he drove) have never been aware of all these commercial brand names which apparently were there being flaunted right under my nose. Which raises the question - does product placement actually work? Does it actually increase sales? I suppose it must do otherwise companies would not pay serious money to get their product prominently displayed in this way. So perhaps it's just me??

Back from the dead?

I see they're thinking of resurrecting Williams and Glyn's bank, and there was a discussion on breakfast TV about all the other High Street names that had bit the dust over the last 25 years or so. We had a family catch-phrase which would crop up whenever we started getting nostalgic about times past. One of us would inevitably look at the other and say "...and whatever happened to Spangles?"

R.I.P.

Keith Floyd - the TV chef who broke the mould by showing us that cooking could and should be fun. Let's all have a "quick slurp" in his memory.

Wie geht's?

When I re-read my post of yesterday, it seemed to me that I might have given the impression that I disliked or distrusted the Germans. Nothing could be further from the truth. I did most of my National Service in Germany and the one thing which struck me above all others was the friendliness of local Germans - and this, don't forget, was only ten years after the end of the war, and where I was stationed was close to the Ruhr which, as Germany's industrial heartland, took a heavy beating. The locals would have had every right to hate us, or at best to treat us as a necessary evil, but my experience was that they accepted us as just ordinary blokes doing a job and were always willing to talk to us and help us where they could. I enjoyed my time in Germany. The reservations about a united Germany was all to do with politics, not people.

When the wall came down...

Documents recently published reveal that both this country and Russia had deep reservations about the reunification of Germany following the collapse of the East German state in late 1989. This reminded me of a conversation I had shortly after those events with an elderly man who had fought in both world wars. I was being very positive about the future, but I remember him saying to me "We've had to fight and beat 'em twice, and now, mark my words, sooner or later we're going to have to do it again". Is it too early yet to dismiss what he said?

MG Rover (RIP).

Those of us who live in my part of the world are finding it difficult to understand why it has taken four years and cost £16m to tell us what we already knew. And the feeling is that if the government had made that £16m of public money available to the company at the time, the outcome might have been very different.

Sorry, little girl, I cannot see you across the road - I haven't got a certificate.

So now the full impact of the Government's Vetting and Barring Scheme (see post dated 17/7/09) is becoming apparent. Parents who regularly transport other people's children to school or to out of school activities will be caught by it, as will it seems those who take part in student exchange programmes. And what about "sleep-overs"? Government spokespersons put forward a persuasive case that the safety of children is paramount, but it seems to me that the whole thing is based on an underlying presumption that everybody (or more probably, every man) is a potential child abuser and must be treated as such unless and until proved not to be so. And where do we stop? What happens (and be sure it will happen, sooner or later) when someone who has been vetted and accepted goes on to abuse or kill a child? What's the next step on the ladder? All children to be removed from parents at birth and brought up in "Brave New World" hatcheries where adults cannot get at them? The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Alan Turing OBE.

Turing was a genius - simple as that. He was the leading light in the team of decrypters who worked secretly at Bletchley Park in WW II and who played a big part in winning the war - particularly the Battle of the Atlantic. He is considered the father of the modern computer. Unfortunately he was a homosexual at a time when this was not only socially unacceptable, but also illegal. When this fact came out in 1952, he was prosecuted and as an alternative to imprisonment agreed to undergo "chemical castration". Shortly after, and probably as a result, he committed suicide. This has been a blot on the national copybook ever since. The Prime Minister has finally offered an apology for the shameful way he was treated. Not before time.

Traditional?

Why do we keep on insisting that morris dancing is an essentially English pastime? Quite apart from the fact that similar dancing troupes are active throughout Europe - although on nowhere near such a large scale - the name was originally moorish dancing, which gives a big clue as to where it originated.

Plus ça change...

The "liquid bomb plot" trial has highlighted the fact that evidence which has been obtained as a result of intercepting 'phone calls or e-mails is inadmissible in English courts unless the interception happened abroad and the information has been passed on to us by that other country. Somewhat of an anomaly and I'm sure it will be corrected in due course, but it immediately reminded me of the shenanigans surrounding the Zimmermann telegram. Not that I'm old enough to remember that of course, but the story is well reported. In early 1917 the Americans were dithering about whether to enter the war in Europe or not. The Germans of course desperately wanted them to stay out of it. To this end they proposed making an approach to the Mexican government that if they (the Mexicans) attacked the US from the south - and there were plenty of historical territorial disputes which could be used to justify such an attack - the Germans would give them logistical and diplomatic support. The hope was of course that America would not fancy trying to fight on two fronts, and therefore would stay out of the European war. Zimmermann, who was the German Foreign Minister sent a coded telegram to the German Ambassador in Mexico instructing him to approach the Mexican government with this offer. The telegram was intercepted and decoded by the British, but for various reasons it was considered essential that when it was made public, it had to appear that the interception and decoding had been done by the Americans, so a complicated plot was hatched to allow the Americans to "discover" the telegram and publish the contents. The resulting public outrage in the US was such that they entered the war just a few weeks later, so from the Germans' point of view the plan backfired spectacularly.

Give a dog a bad name...

There's much talk at the moment about airports moving from a blanket screening approach to passenger profiling - that is identifying passengers who may pose a threat and concentrating their security efforts on them. Just how you go about identifying such passengers is a matter of contention. But it seems that teachers are way ahead of them - reports suggest that teachers in the reception classes at primary schools have identified potential trouble-making children before the school year even starts by simply looking at the register. They have already earmarked children with names like Callum, Kyle, Chelsea and Demi as most likely to be disruptive, whereas those called Christopher, Daniel, Rebecca and Sophie for example are unlikely to cause them any trouble. Interesting??

Music Man

"The Beatles are back" was the headline in my paper the other day. I wasn't aware they had ever been away. Quality will always tell, and the Beatles produced more quality stuff than anyone else at the time or since. I am sure that the best of their tunes will still be being played many years from now, long after much of the dross which passes for popular music today has been consigned to the dustbin of history. The danger I think for many modern artists and bands is that if today's youth are exposed to the Beatles they will realise just how rubbish much of today's pop is.

No more than good neighbours?

It is reported that recent events have strained - or maybe even destroyed - the "special relationship" which it has traditionally been said exists between this country and the United States. It is true that we speak the same language - sort of - and subscribe, at least on the face of it, to many of the same values, but the idea that the US is like a big brother looking out for us has never struck me as supported by the facts. America acts purely in America's interests and has always done so. They didn't come in to either of the two world wars until they saw it as in their interests to do so and the idea that they came in to the latter one to help plucky little Britain is a load of cobblers. So this special relationship is really just an empty phrase designed to do no more than suggest that in general we see things in much the same way, and the fact that recently that hasn't been so doesn't really alter anything.

Strange...

Further to Thursday's post, what I don't understand about UEFA's punishment of Eduardo for diving in Arsenal's match against Celtic is that, had the referee seen it as a dive, it seems to be accepted that the punishment would have been a yellow card. But UEFA have banned him for two matches - effectively giving him a red card. So it seems your punishment depends not on what you did, but on whether it was spotted at the time or not. Can't see the sense in that.

Words, words, words...

OK, my post of the first of this month possibly contained a semantic error. I used the expression "of that ilk" to mean "of that family name". I would argue that today this is an accepted usage, but would agree that originally - particularly in Scotland - it referred to a landed person whose surname was the same as the name of their estate - so "Guthrie of that ilk" meant someone with the surname of Guthrie who belonged to the family who owned the estate of Guthrie. Hope that clears that up.

Ha ha

The latest edition of my retirement magazine has been a bit of a disappointment - I can usually guarantee to find at least two or three jokes in there worthy of posting, but this time there was really only one, which is not so much a joke as a comment on modern life. It is, by the way, supposed to be a true story, although I'm certain it's been embellished along the way -

An elderly gentleman in a small town in Mississippi was about to go to bed one night when he saw some people rifling through his garden shed. He rang the police. They asked if there was anybody actually inside the house, to which he said no. They then said that all their patrols were busy, that he should lock all his doors and windows, and they would send someone along when they could but it might be some time. The man put the 'phone down, counted up to 30, and then 'phoned them again.
"Hello" he said "I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot them" and he hung up.
Within five minutes, six police cars, a SWAT team, a helicopter, two fire trucks, a paramedic and an ambulance showed up at his house, and the burglars were caught red-handed.
One of the policemen said to the man "I thought you said you'd shot them?" The old man smiled and said "I thought you said there was nobody available!"

Hey, ref !!

The football authorities have said they are going to clamp down on attempts to con the referee - in particular "diving", that is falling over when there has in fact been no contact with an opponent in the hope of being awarded a free kick, or better, a penalty, and perhaps as a bonus getting the opponent a yellow, or maybe even a red card. Can't argue with that, but what about the player who could have avoided being caught by an opponent but chooses not to? I tend to refer to these incidents as "Oh, look, there's a leg - I'll fall over it". There was an incident recently (no names, no pack-drill) where the referee decided that a goalkeeper's arm had contacted a player's leg and caused him to fall, and penalised the goalkeeper. Thanks to slow-motion replay it became clear that it was more a matter that the player's leg had deliberately come into contact with the goalkeeper's arm - the player could easily have stepped over the arm had they been so minded. So my point is - is this not just as much conning the referee?

Own goal?

Drinking Banning Orders - already nicknamed "Booze ASBOs" have finally been brought into force some four years after the legislation which provided for them was passed. The effect of such an order is to ban somebody from going into any pub, club or off-licence or drinking in a public place within a defined area. The situation regarding supermarkets is not clear. What strikes me is that this and other measures which the Government have introduced to try and combat the anti-social aspects of drinking have in great part been necessitated by the Government's own decision to introduce 24 hour drinking.

Grasping at straws?

Mozart (as in Wolfgang Amadeus of that ilk) is said to have stopped on the outskirts of the Austrian town of Raschala in 1787. Not surprising perhaps that the town should try and maximise the tourist potential of this episode - until that is that you learn that the purpose of Mozart's stop was to have a pee by the roadside! Undeterred by this, the town has put a plaque on the stone where this is supposed to have happened, and christened it the Mozart Pinkelstein (Piss-stone). What's that saying about there being no such thing as bad publicity?

Name association.

I know you're supposed not to speak ill of the dead, and it's probably a generational thing, but when I heard of Senator Edward Kennedy's death, the first things which immediately popped into my mind were Chappaquiddick and the IRA. Perhaps others will see it differently, and maybe he did enough good in his later years to compensate, but for me he was always somebody not to be trusted.

A card is not just for Christmas...

My wife always reckoned that the best time to buy your Christmas cards was in the first few weeks of January, when the shops were selling off the stock they hadn't managed to shift in December. Sensible girl my wife (God, how I miss her), but her approach wouldn't have found favour with an organisation calling itself the Movement for the Containment of Xmas who would like to see the sale of Christmas cards banned before November 1st, and who have threatened to superglue shut the locks of any shops who do put Christmas cards on display before that date. Here we go again - I don't like this therefore you shouldn't be allowed to do it. Get a life folks!

Cutting the Gordian knot?

It's often said that the difference between a bloke and a girl is that the bloke understands the offside rule. But it's most likely that neither the bloke nor the girl really have a clue about the intricacies of the LBW law. Once again, a simple concept - that the batsman can only protect his wicket with his bat, and not with his body - has been turned into a tortuous law depending on such things as where the ball pitched, whether the batsman was offering a stroke, how big a stride forward he had taken, and so on. I suggested some time ago that we should go back to the basic offside rule, and forget all this stupidity about active and non-active players, and perhaps the time has come to do the same thing with the LBW law - if the ball is prevented from hitting the stumps by anything other that the batsman's bat, then that's LBW, and if that's considered too draconian, then maybe give the batsman three lives - if it happens three times, he's out.

Seeing the wood for the trees?

It seems more and more parents are taking their children out of school during term time without permission to take advantage of the cheaper cost of holidays at those times. All political parties have united to deplore such behaviour, and to demand that such parents be held to account. Classic case of treating the symptom as though it were the disease. They should be concentrating their attention on the tour companies and holiday industry generally and asking them how they can justify the identical holiday on a particular week costing anything up to double what it did the week before, simply because the week in question is a school holiday week.

Don't make 'em like they used to!

Have you seen the story of the British-made steam-powered car which has set a new world speed record for steam-powered cars of just under 140mph. What struck me was that the old world record, set just over 100 years ago was 127.7mph. So with all the developments in technology over the last century, like carbon-fibre for the body, light-weight aluminium for the frame and state of the art steam turbines, we've only managed an increase of just over 10mph. Which to my way of thinking shows just how good the old record was.

Smile for the camera.

After you've been writing a blog like this for a while, you find that certain themes keep cropping up regularly, and one of these is CCTV cameras. Apparently we are one of the most monitored countries in the world with about one camera for every 15 of us. Of course, what we want to know is how effective these cameras are - most of us would accept a certain loss of privacy if it meant we were safer, or less likely to be the victim of a crime. I've already commented on the efficacy - or rather lack of it - of speed cameras on roads, and now we have an official report which reveals that street CCTV cameras are pretty useless at solving crime or catching criminals. The figures show that - at least in London - about one crime a year is solved thanks to CCTV evidence for every 1000 cameras. Most often, when they might be useful, they are either not working, pointing the wrong way, or by the time the police get around to looking at them, the data has been overwritten. And they're not cheap. So is it time for a rethink?

Ashes.

So what is there to talk about other than England's magnificent victory over Australia? Great, terrific, super, smashing and all that. I just wish I felt more positive about it. For the most part, it was a roller-coaster series, with both sides alternatively playing very well or very poorly. You certainly couldn't say that either side was ever dominant, and as Ricky Ponting has correctly pointed out, by most statistical measures Australia were superior. In the end it all came down to the luck of the toss, and the fact that their bad patches came at more crucial moments than ours - particularly their batting in the first innings of the final test. So yes, great, terrific etc. but don't let's get carried away - we aren't world-beaters yet by any means.

Battle of the sexes.

There was a rather tongue-in-cheek article in my Sunday paper suggesting that we could solve this problem of gender testing and all that by simply doing away with separate sex sporting competitions - men and women compete together. Like I say, I don't think it was meant to be taken in any way seriously. But it did get me thinking - there are obviously sports (using the word in its widest meaning) where physical ability is paramount, and here clearly men would be at a distinct advantage over women, but there are sports where men and women do not compete against each other despite there being no physical dimension - snooker and darts immediately spring to mind. Why not? Is this simply a hangover from the days when women (or at least "well brought up" women) did not indulge in such activities? Or is there a sort of male protectionism here - the thought of being beaten by a women being too horrible to contemplate?

When I use a word...(Lewis Carroll)

"Afghanistan's presidential poll was marred by intimidation and vote fraud, but generally fair, election monitors say".

Just read that again!!

Athletics.

Why all this fuss about the young South African girl who won the 800m at the World Championships? Clearly she must be physically female - the days when the Press "sisters" could fool the world have long gone - so if she has attributes which enable her to perform better athletically than her peers, she simply joins the likes of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, both of whom owe their success in great part to the fact that they are not made as other men.

Give the man his due.

Neville Chamberlain is in the news following the publication of various documents -including his pocket diary - at an exhibition to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII. I always think Chamberlain gets a somewhat bad press. He is generally seen as at the wimp end of a spectrum of political opinion of the time, with Churchill at the other - bellicose - end. Yet this is very simplistic. Churchill did not want war any more than Chamberlain did. The horrors of the First World War were still fresh in both their minds. The difference was that while Chamberlain believed that war could be avoided, Churchill realised that it was more or less inevitable, and that the country was horribly unprepared for it. If you read the speeches he was giving in the mid 1930s, he was not advocating war, but pressing for us to arm ourselves to be able to defend ourselves if it came to it. Chamberlain's failing was to be unable to believe that anyone could think differently about war than he did, and therefore he approached his dealings with Hitler on the basis of two reasonable men trying to find a way of avoiding all-out conflict. It was Churchill who saw that as far as Hitler was concerned World War One was unfinished business. So like I say, I think Chamberlain deserves rather better treatment from history.