St. George.

Who was he, why is he England's patron saint, and why don't we make more of his day on April 23rd? These are questions which circulate every year around this time. Well, there are various takes on the story, but the most common is that he was an officer in the Roman army who was martyred for refusing to deny his Christian beliefs and make sacrifices to pagan gods. So what is his connection with England? None really - there is no evidence that he ever set foot here - but there are stories that he magically appeared to the Crusaders before they went into battle, and so they adopted him as their patron, and then brought the idea back with them to England. Where the dragon came from is anybody's guess, but this story of a heroic figure slaying a monster was a common theme in medieval narratives. And St. George's Day? Well I think this is more a matter of self confidence. The Scots, Welsh and Irish feel the need to parade their national identity and make a big thing of their saints' days. We don't.

And now for the weather...

Is it my imagination, or as the Met Office's equipment has become technologically more advanced, have the forecasts become more unreliable? These days, every forecast seems to be different - and not just a bit different, but substantially so. At the weekend, they were saying that tomorrow (Thursday) would be showery, by Monday, it was going to be sunny, and now today, they're forecasting a day of rain. Will be interesting to see what finally transpires!

What the...!

Nothing is straight-forward anymore. The women's marathon on Sunday was won by a German with a very non-German, eastern European name, and a Briton with a very Japanese name came second. All very confusing!

Fancy that.

Did you know the Queen owns Piccadilly Circus? Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but the Crown Estate, which manages the monarch's property, holds the freehold there, as it does for a fair chunk of central London. And apparently the Crown Estate has decided that the discount clothes store TK Maxx is not sufficiently upmarket to be allowed to open a branch in the Circus. The site involved has been empty for several years, prior to which it was a Virgin Megastore - which I would have thought was equally downmarket, but there you go.

Moot?

Friday's post raised the question of the meaning of "a moot point". To me, it has always meant a matter open to debate, and that is the sense in which I used it. This is quite different (in my usage) from saying that something is "moot". This means that it is irrelevant, not worth bothering with. The word originally meant a meeting called to discuss something specific and come up with a decision, but in recent times has come to be more associated with hypothetical debates at Universities and Law Schools and such, the end results of which are of no real practical importance. So "a moot point" follows the former usage, whereas to describe something as "moot" uses the latter meaning - for me, anyway!

In memoriam

Red is the colour, apparently.

I don't envy the Chancellor, who now has to make the best of a very bad job, but reverting to Labour's traditional roots by "clobbering the rich" doesn't strike me as particularly sensible, as it's penalising the very people who we are going to be looking to to lead us out of this mess. History tells us that the most likely effect of punitive tax rates on the rich simply results in them taking their money-making talents elsewhere. It may play well down the Working Men's Club, but it's a moot point as to whether it is in the best interests of the country as a whole.

Leave well alone.

They say you should never go back, and certainly in the case of the new "Red Dwarf" episodes, that is advice they should have taken. Very disappointing, and their decision to couple it with repeats of some of the best of the original series just demonstrated how bad it was. I think I'll just pretend it never happened.

Ha ha.

Following his death, there have been many reports of Clement Freud's witticisms. Here's one I came across the other day which I liked. He was on a train and took to task a woman who was smoking a cigarette. She retorted that she was only a few yards away from the smoking section. "Madam" he replied, "we are only a few yards away from the toilet - is it alright if I piss on the floor?".

Book post

(see post dated 18/11/06)

My latest ten reads -

Stella Rimington - Secret Asset - 8
John Grisham - The Appeal - 8
Dick Francis (with Felix Francis) - Dead Heat - 8
Tom Rob Smith - Child 44 - 9
Peter Turnbull - Chill Factor - 8.5
John Connor - A Child's Game - 7.5
James Patterson (with Maxine Paetro) - 7th Heaven - 7
John Connolly - The Reapers - 8
Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning - 7
Rosemary Rowe - A Roman Ransom - 7

Big brother.

The Government intend to restrict local authorities' use of surveillance under the provisions of anti-terrorism legislation, after many complaints that this power is being used for trivial purposes not connected in any way with terrorism. And quite right too - although as the power will still be there, subject only to getting the approval of a senior manager, it remains to be seen whether it will make much difference in practice. But at the same time as they are purportedly restricting councils' power in this way, the Government have also brought into force Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 which can be (and probably will be) construed as making it an offence to photograph police officers. In view of what went on at the G20 protests, this is a serious restriction which must be reconsidered.

The Music Man.

OK, so I'm sure you've probably heard Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream" on TV or YouTube, and pretty good it was, although I have to say the song doesn't do much for me, and I'm not sure it showed off her voice to best advantage either. But go back onto YouTube and listen to her singing "Cry Me a River" - much better showcase for her talent, as well as demonstrating that she can do more than simply belt out a song. And you don't have to be a looker to make it as a singer - think Ella Fitzgerald.

R.I.P.

Clement Freud was a master of the bon mot. One of my favourites of his was that he would refer to his lady as "my first wife". "We are still married" he would explain "but I call her my first wife to keep her on her toes!". A full life and well lived.

When is choice not choice?

Back to this argument over SATS. The Government have said that SATS are essential, because they are used to produce league tables, and league tables are essential as they give parents the information they need in order to make an informed choice of school for their child. Well, that argument would hold at least some water if it were indeed so - but it's not. What's the point of telling me that school A is the best school in my area, if I can't get my child in there? OK, I can put school A down as my first choice school, but as we've discussed time and again on these pages, there is no guarantee that he/she will get a place there, and indeed the higher up the league table the school is, the more people will put it as their first preference, so the less chance I've got. League tables are only useful if indeed they allow me to choose which school to send my child to. Otherwise - to use a phrase beloved of my late father-in-law - they're about as much use as a chocolate teapot!

15.4.1989 - R.I.P.

We are supposed to be remembering Hillsborough, and it's right and proper that we should. But Hillsborough cannot be seen in isolation - it was the culmination (one might say the inevitable culmination) of a problem which dated from decades earlier. Despite the game depending massively on gate receipts, football supporters had traditionally been treated pretty deplorably by the grounds they visited, packed into standing-only terraces with minimal facilities. And the inevitable happened - if you treat people like animals, sooner or later they will start acting like animals, and that's exactly what they did. So what do you do then - you fence them in! And so to Hillsborough. And depend on it, if it hadn't been Liverpool supporters and Hillsborough, it would have been some other team's supporters at some other ground - it was a tragedy waiting to happen. The terraces may have produced "atmosphere" and there may still be those who mourn their passing, but they were used simply because they were the cheap option and few people were prepared to accept the reality that at the bigger grounds they were inherently dangerous even before fencing was introduced. So yes, remember Hillsborough, but remember it in context.

Bringing Music to Life.

Well I asked the question (see post of 10/10/05) and now it appears I have got my answer. A very good and clever work of art was put on display at the Royal Festival Hall, attributed only to "an anonymous prisoner". It has given pleasure to many who saw it. But it has now been removed following the revelation that the prisoner concerned is a paedophile who raped and killed two young girls. Quite what will now happen to his paper sculpture I don't know, but it would certainly be a shame if it were never seen again. I can understand those who say that he should not profit in any way from it, but I still stand by my original contention that it should be judged on its intrinsic merit independent of its creator.

Know what I've heard...?

Worrying reports in the papers that police have so far failed to find any evidence connecting the young Pakistanis arrested last week with any terrorist threat. Which of course raises the question of just how reliable was the "intelligence" on which those arrests (at gunpoint!) were based. Clearly when dealing with the possibility of suicide bombers and such, the police have to err on the side of caution, but even so, you would think they would look for more than mere rumour and speculation before proceeding to an arrest. Maybe in due course we shall be told what they thought they knew, but the problem is, we've been here before. This would not be the first time the police have acted on what they considered to be solid intelligence, only for it to be proved groundless. So let's hope they don't start listening to tittle-tattle about you or me, eh?

May I introduce my wives?

The question of polygamy and the English law has come to the fore again following a ruling that a man with more than one "wife" can claim any benefits to which he may be entitled in respect of each of them. The usual immediate response to such a story is "... but isn't bigamy a crime?" Well, yes but just what constitutes bigamy? It's marrying somebody whilst still being married to somebody else. The essential word there is "marrying". My understanding is that the law of bigamy only applies to marriages which have taken place, or are deemed to have taken place according to English law. Whilst the law recognises marriages contracted under other law or custom provided they were legal under that law or custom when and where entered into, they are not marriages under English law and therefore not subject to the law of bigamy. This is why I put the word wife in inverted commas. And of course, now that living with a partner (and maybe more than one) outside marriage no longer raises any eyebrows, it can be argued that the concept of bigamy is somewhat outdated.

Up the workers!

Teachers want to get rid of SATS tests - the Government want to keep them. Yet another example of those who actually do the job and have to live with the consequences being at loggerheads with those who make decisions affecting them from afar. There's an old management adage that decisions should be taken at "the lowest level of competence". There are two good reasons for this. The first is financial - it saves highly paid people wasting their time (and their employer's money) making decisions which could just as easily be made by someone lower down the chain. But also, it almost certainly makes for better decision making if those making the decisions are actually involved in having to carry them out. Government take note!

What's God got to do with it?

Five days after the Italian earthquake, a father finds his child alive under the rubble. This must, he says, be the result of Divine intervention. Well, think about that - the death toll currently stands at 272 - so that's 272 cases of Divine non-intervention, presumably?

The pound in your pocket...

A recent report has suggested that around 1 in 20 of all pound coins are forgeries. When you hear this, it's human nature to get the coins out of your pocket or purse and examine them. And yet, that's the last thing you should do. Once you know, or suspect, that a coin or note you have is counterfeit, it immediately becomes worthless - and worse, if you pass it on, that's a serious criminal offence. On the other hand, if you don't know... so this is one area where ignorance really is bliss!

Here comes the camera car.

Google Earth's idea of providing views at street level has met with a lot of opposition. Most of it is on the basis that it is an invasion of privacy, and as I've said on this blog before (13/7/08) there is no right of privacy as far as photographs taken from a public place are concerned. But another objection is that such views may aid prospective burglars. I find this somewhat strange, because as far as I am aware, nobody has objected to the original Google Earth views, taken from overhead, and yet if I were a burglar, these would interest me far more, because they allow me to see the lie of the land, and into people's back gardens and such. I think what we're seeing is more a natural reaction to what is perceived - rightly or wrongly - as snooping.

Swings and roundabouts.

Public sector workers are now being seen as pampered "fat cats" because their pay rises are outstripping those in the private sector. How short memories are! For decades (and I speak as an ex-Civil Servant who has seen it and suffered) public sector pay has been deliberately depressed by successive governments, and they've had to watch those in the private sector streak ahead of them pay-wise. Well, what goes round, comes round, and I for one don't begrudge them their present more favourable status in the pay league.

A nice piece of Fred please.

It's too late for April Fool's Day, so what on earth has persuaded Sainsbury's to rename pollock (which they seem to insist on spelling "pollack") as "colin"? Pollock's a nice fish, and a good alternative to cod, which is becoming scarcer and more expensive. Somebody seems to have put the idea into Sainsbury's mind that its customers are embarrassed to ask for it by that name. Personally, I'd be more embarrassed to ask for colin, because if I pronounced it in the french way (and it's a french word) chances are I wouldn't be understood, whereas if I pronounced it as the english Christian name, I'd feel a right twit!

Ha ha.

What's the difference between being in prison and being at work? Well, in prison you can watch TV and play games - at work you can get fired for watching TV and playing games. In prison you spend most of your time looking through bars from the inside waiting to get out - at work you spend most of your time wanting to get out and inside bars, and in prison you have to cope with sadistic warders - at work, you have the same problem, only they're called managers!

Grand National

Well, we're getting better year by year. Last year fifth, and this time the system came up with My Will, and it came third. Of course, if I'd put money on it, it would doubtless have drowned in the water jump or something.

The result is what we say it is.

This Lewis Hamilton business is very strange - why would you say something you not only know to be untrue, but which you know can be easily proved to be untrue? Either he's just stupid, or there's more to this than we are being told. And I for one am getting really fed up with the way so many races are being decided in the stewards' room rather than on track. I rather liked one of the comments on an F1 chat group, which went something like "Hang on there - it's only a matter of time before the stewards decide that the rules mean that Ferrari came 1st and 2nd despite neither of their cars finishing!". One is tempted to say that it's not over until the fat steward sings.

Toon army.

So Alan Shearer has finally thrown in his lot with Newcastle after repeatedly saying he didn't want it, or wasn't ready for it. Canny move really, because by waiting until now (only eight games left) he can scarcely be blamed if they are relegated, whereas if they do manage to stay up, he will be a hero. Best of luck, mate...

Down with - whatever it is.

As political parties of all colours have found over the years, it's much easier to be in opposition and criticising the party in power, rather than being in power yourself and having to come up with practical answers to problems. The G20 protesters have the luxury of being able to complain about just about everything, without actually having to submit tried and tested viable alternatives. No surprise really that most of the groups involved describe themselves as being anti-something or other. It's like a teenager constantly whinging that "it's just not fair" without having any answer as to how it could be made to be fair, or indeed any real concept of just what "it" is. And it seems rather counter-productive to be protesting about poverty, whilst acting in such a way as to tie up significant amounts of money in the necessity of having to police what you are doing. You certainly get the impression that for some if not most of these people it's protesting for the sake of protesting.

Green energy.

So wind power as a renewable energy source is no longer flavour of the month, it would seem. I've always found it rather strange that so much emphasis has been put on what after all is a now and then phenomenon, whereas as far as I am aware little effort has been put into harnessing the most reliable natural power source - that of the tides. There must be oodles of potential energy for us there, and it's constant. Am I missing something?