Success?

So Debbie Purdy (see posts dated 31/10/08 and 21/2/09) has finally got her judgment - good for her. But I'm still not sure we're addressing the right question. There's been plenty of talk about the right to die and the right to live, but let's be clear - what we're really talking about here is simply the right to choose.

My burger's all soggy!

So sitting here writing this with it bucketing down outside, I'm wondering where the barbecue summer is they promised us. What it goes to show is how difficult it is to predict what a chaotic system like the weather is going to do. I think we have to accept that any forecast for more than say three or four days hence is really just inspired guesswork.

Police powers

The present discussion over the way the police dealt with the G20 protesters has raised in my mind the more general issue of the rights of the police when the commission of their duties impinges upon our lives. Often we hear news stories of police evacuating areas, or closing roads and such. What is the legal position here? Suppose I refused to leave my house when instructed by them to do so. Suppose I insisted on entering an area that had been sealed off - to get to my house or business perhaps. Other than possibly being done for obstruction (and I think that would have to be something more than simply disobeying them and would require some positive act on my part which prevented them from doing their job), have I committed any other offence? What right have they to proscribe my movements? Certainly as far as the G20 business is concerned, I would have thought this came perilously close to unlawful imprisonment - unless there is some legislation of which I am not aware.

I remember...

I have lovely memories of Mojácar - though to be fair it's some 18 years since my wife and I were there. So I was horrified at the sight of the forest fires which threatened the town, but it was nice to see TV pictures of the old town again - I always thought it looked for all the world as though someone had spilled a packet of giant sugar lumps on the mountain. And I still have a plaque of the Indalo Man on the wall by my back door.

Biff!

Am I wrong, or have we just invented a new answer to a charge of assault by claiming pre-emptive self-defence - I thought he might be going to hit me, so I hit him?

Ha ha.

Got this one off the web -

"How did it happen?" the doctor asked the middle-aged farmhand as he set the man's broken leg.
"Well, doc, 25 years ago..."
"Never mind the past! Tell me how you broke your leg this morning."
"Like I was saying... 25 years ago, when I first started working on the farm, that night, right after I'd gone to bed, the farmer's beautiful daughter came into my room. She asked me if there was anything I wanted. I said, "No, everything is fine." "Are you sure?" she asked. "I'm sure," I said. "Isn't there anything I can do for you?" she wanted to know. "No thank you," I replied.
"Excuse me," said the doctor, "What the hell does this story have to do with your broken leg?"
"Well, this morning," the farmhand explained, "when it dawned on me what she meant, I fell off the roof!"

Book post.

(see post dated 18/11/06)

My latest ten reads -

Ken McCoy - Tripper - 8
Alexander McCall Smith - The Miracle at Speedy Motors - 7.5
Gregg Hurwitz - We Know - 7
R. J. Ellory - A Quiet Belief in Angels - 6
Chris Kuzneski - The Lost Throne - 7
Dick Francis - Enquiry - 8
Peter Robinson - Piece of my Heart - 7
James Patterson & Maxine Paetro - The 6th Target - 7.5
C. J. Sansom - Sovereign - 9
Kate Mosse - Sepulchre - 6

Where is Rumpole when you need him?

It appears that the courts are creaking under the amount of business they are having to contend with. It seems to me there are two answers - more courts or possibly less legislation? Of course what we shall get is almost certainly neither - instead there will be an extension of the "fixed penalty notice" approach, whereby you either have to tacitly admit your guilt by paying a fixed fine, or risk going to court and ending up with a far larger fine if you are found guilty. The idea of doing justice seems to have gone out of the window.

Personal

TV replays.

There have already been one or two posts on this blog about the use - or non-use - of video technology as an assist to referees in football matches, but now we have to face the same problem in cricket. There were several dodgy decisions in the last test match - not that the umpires should be criticised - seen at normal speed one thing seemed to have happened, but examined in slow motion it would appear something different had occurred. Perhaps because it's a stop and start game, cricket lends itself more to the idea of reviewing incidents as they happen, but once again, a situation where the viewer has better information than the umpire is not good for the game.

Sorry, can't stop - having a wee...

What do you understand by the word "ambulant"? To me it means "walking about" or possibly as a noun "one who is walking about". Apparently in a small Cotswold town, edifices have appeared with the signs "Ambulant urinal" and "Ambulant unisex" on them. One of those words perhaps gives the game away - these are public toilets! But what on earth does "ambulant" have to do with it? Are they toilets specifically for walkers (if you're in a car you have to pee yourself?) or are they toilets to be used whilst walking? Even for us men that would be a bit difficult and messy, but for those of the fairer sex it doesn't bear thinking about! It seems the local council have decided to have the signs changed, but which wally was responsible for them in the first place?

Well I never...!

I think we should have an award for the "most blindingly obvious statement of the year". And I reckon I've got a good candidate - the Government have told pregnant women that they can reduce the risk of contracting swine flu by "avoiding crowds and unnecessary travel". I wonder if they had to appoint a committee and have several meetings to come up with that one!

Music Man

Each year I swallow hard when my TV licence is up for renewal - £142.50 at the moment. But then the Proms season starts. Between them BBC TV and radio allow me to listen to or watch about 25 concerts - and that comes out at under £6 a time. What a bargain!

The Big Lunch

Did you know that tomorrow we're all supposed to be holding street parties under the above title? No, me neither. It's supposed to invoke the spirit of 1977 and the Jubilee apparently. People interviewed on the television were bemoaning the fact that few people these days know anybody in their street other than their immediate neighbours, and that children don't play in the street like they used to. As regards children, I think the difference is down to technology. I would imagine we were a pretty typical family, and back in 1977 there was little entertainment for children in the house - we had just the one television so for the most part they had to watch what we adults were watching, and there were only three channels at that. Today my grandchildren all have TV or a computer in their room, and masses of stuff available to them aimed specifically at children. And then of course there are the Xboxes, PSPs and Lord knows what else. So there's plenty to entertain them without stepping outdoors. I don't think they play any less than back in 1977 - it's just that they are far more likely to go round one another's houses and play there, rather than sit on the chip-shop wall kicking their heels and gossiping as my children did.

Nice little earner?

Although I no longer do, I used to go to a local primary school once a week and play the piano for a kids' sing-song. As there were always teachers present, I did not have to be vetted in any way. This seemed sensible. But now apparently, as from October, if I were still doing it, I would not only have to be fully vetted, but would have to pay £64 for the privilege! We seem to have lost our sense of proportion. Several authors of children's books who go into schools to read to them are up in arms about it, and I'm not surprised. Apparently some five million people will be affected. Now let me see - five million times £64....or am I just being cynical?

Zip it!!

She is 74 and has terminal cancer. He is 85 and in poor health. They have been married for 54 years. They decide to go to Switzerland and commit suicide together with the help of the Dignitas clinic there. They are an intelligent and mature couple who have clearly thought this through and have taken their decision out of mutual love. The fact that he is a well-known musician and conductor has propelled the story into the media. I am appalled and incensed at some of the reaction. How dare people judge them? Another example of the "I don't agree with this, therefore you shouldn't be allowed to do it" approach so prevalent these days. Just keep your noses out! I wish the same choice had been available to me.

Chrome polish.

As a computer user, I am an unwilling slave to Microsoft - like many others, I suspect. So my ears pricked up when I heard that Google were going to introduce an alternative operating system to Windows. But now it appears that this is not a new OS at all, but merely a new front end for Linux. Not that that is not in itself interesting, and I shall be keeping my eye on it, but it is not the wonderful manacle-striking-off move I first thought.

Ashes - first test.

So let's not get carried away - the Aussies outplayed us in every aspect of the game, and we were literally "saved by the bell". Well done to Anderson and Panesar for hanging on in there, but we are going to have to make a massive leap forward if we are going to be competitive in the series. Why could their bowlers get so much out of the pitch when ours couldn't make anything happen? That really was the difference.

Counterproductive?

So the Prime Minister has said that what our lads are fighting and dying for in Afghanistan is "to keep the streets of Britain safe from the threat of terrorist attack." If it were so, I could just about live with that, but is it? It seems to me that the major threat of a terrorist attack comes not from those in Afghanistan, but from those within our own shores - as evidenced by the July 7th attacks four years ago. So does what we're doing in Afghanistan make that threat any less likely? Quite the reverse, I would say. It was said that the invasion of Iraq was the best recruitment poster Al-Qaeda could have had, and equally what's going on in Afghanistan is almost certainly resulting in more and more young Muslims in this country and throughout the world being driven towards extremism. Give it up - bring 'em home!

Snap!

The picture going the rounds of President Obama apparently eyeing up a young girl's bottom (and to be fair, it was a bottom well worth eyeing up!) just goes to show - if it needed to be said - that you should never trust a still photograph. If you watch the video footage from which the still was taken, you will see that he was doing nothing of the sort. I am always suspicious when a photograph is published which appears to back up a story - particularly when it's about a person's mood or state of mind. A snapshot of an instant in time is just that - without knowledge of what went before, or what came after, it provides no basis for making any sort of rational judgment.

Ha ha

This comes from my daughter-in-law -

A typical bloke, having split from his latest girlfriend, decided to take a holiday. He booked himself on a cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life, that is, until the ship sank. He found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts.
After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore. In disbelief, he asks, 'Where did you come from? How did you get here?' She replies, 'I rowed from the other side of the island. I landed here when my cruise ship sank.'
'Amazing,' he said. 'You were really lucky to have a row boat wash up with you.'
'Oh, this thing?' explains the woman. 'I made the boat out of raw material I found on the island. The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree.'
'But, where did you get the tools?
'Oh, that was no problem,' replied the woman. 'On the south side of the island, a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock is exposed. I found if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into ductile iron. I used that for tools and used the tools to make the hardware".
The guy is stunned. 'Let's row over to my place,' she says. After a few minutes of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf. As the man looks to shore, he nearly falls off the boat. Before him is stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man can only stare ahead, dumb struck. As they walk into the house, she says casually, 'It's not much but I call it home. Sit down, please. Would you like a drink?
''No! No thank you,' he blurts out, still dazed. 'I can't take another drop of coconut juice.' 'It's not coconut juice",winks the woman. 'I have a still. How would you like a Pina Colada?'
Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk. After they have exchanged their stories, the woman announces, 'I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There is a razor upstairs in the bathroom cabinet.'
No longer questioning anything, the man goes into the bathroom. There, in the cabinet, a razor made from a piece of tortoise bone. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened on to its end inside a swivel mechanism.' This woman is amazing,' he muses. 'What next?'
When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but vines, strategically positioned, and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckons for him to sit down next to her. 'Tell me,' she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him, 'We've been out here for many months. You've been lonely. There's something I'm sure you really feel like doing right now, something you've been longing for?' She stares into his eyes . He swallows excitedly and tears start to form in his eyes.....
'Bloody hell, don't tell me you've got Sky Sports?'

Free lunch?

If, like me, you're always on the lookout for a bargain, you may - also like me - be somewhat confused about the various ways in which you can get software for nothing. So, here's a quick rundown:
Demo version - what it says. For you to try out. Normally fully functional but time limited.
Crippleware - similar, but usually not time limited. Instead there will be features (probably important ones like saving or printing) which don't work.
Shareware - try before you buy. Similar in concept to a demo version, and the idea is that you have to pay a fee if you want to keep it beyond a certain length of time, but quite often you are put on your honour to pay if you wish to continue to use it, and nothing happens if you don't.
Freeware - completely free. The conditions which come with it may place restrictions on its use, but there is never any question of payment.
Open Source - not only free but also gives you access to the source code, which you are at liberty to amend and develop for your own use, or pass on to others.

So - good hunting!

Captain Who?

Watching the present series of Torchwood has reignited a little niggle which has irritated me ever since the programme first started. Why is the main character who goes by the name of Captain Jack Harkness wearing a WWII style greatcoat with a Group Captain's insignia on the shoulders? This - as far as I am aware - has never been explained. Is he (or more precisely, the man he took the name off) supposed to be - or have been- a Group Captain, in which case he should be addressed as such, or is he some other sort of Captain who has simply happened on the coat? And just to add to my irritation, I'm reasonably sure that when his character first appeared in a Doctor Who episode the insignia on his coat was that of a Wing Commander. Is this just a continuity boob, or what. As an ex-RAF National Serviceman this really grates!

De jure and de facto - compare and contrast.

Remind me - who is Home Secretary at the moment? Whoever it is has apparently said that ID cards will not be compulsory. Who are they kidding? You know what's going to happen - they will not be compulsory in law, but once they are introduced you will quickly find that you can't do many of the things you want to do without producing one - open a bank account, apply for any benefits to which you may be entitled, register with a GP and so forth. So they won't be compulsory, but you'll need to have one - what's the difference?

Ooh no, we can't do THAT!

Bernie Ecclestone has come in for some stick over his views on democracy, dictatorship and Hitler. They are certainly - as reported - somewhat extreme but this should not be allowed to disguise the fact that there is a kernel of truth in there. The main problem with our democratic model is that politicians are generally far more concerned with their prospects of re-election than in doing what the country needs. This results in populist short-termism, which in the long run benefits nobody - except possibly themselves. Dictators don't have to worry about re-election and can therefore make unpopular but necessary long-term plans with impunity. The fact that this is - to use Al Gore's phrase - an inconvenient truth, should not prevent it being brought out into the open for discussion.

Wow!

I started watching for want of anything better, but ended up - like I suspect many others - gripped by a wonderful Wimbledon Men's Final. Scarcely a fag paper between them, and in the end it all came down to just a couple of points. Federer is now being hailed as the greatest tennis player of all time. If you follow this blog you will know that my hackles tend to rise whenever this word "greatest" is banded about - particularly when it's simply based on statistics. Main problem is that the game - in particular the men's game - has changed so much over the years. I think this is mainly down to racquet technology, but the serve-volley game is rarely seen these days, so it's difficult and somewhat meaningless to compare the modern player with those from the past. Nonetheless, I've been following Wimbledon for many a year (Jaroslav Drobny, anyone?) and for what it's worth I would take Rod Laver at his best against all comers. By the way, I've just read somewhere that Andy Murray is a Wolves supporter - and I still can't warm to the bloke!

But look how much I'm saving...!

We're used to seeing Closing Down Sales that seem to go on for ever, but what has struck me this summer is that every week I go to my local supermarket and the first thing that meets my eye is "English Strawberries - Half Price". They're always half price! I thought there was some rule about this - that you couldn't advertise something as being sold at a discount unless it had actually been on sale at what you are claiming is full price somewhere sometime? Not that I'm complaining - they're very tasty and a fair price, but it does make me smile - "Oh no, half price again!"

Words, words, words...

Listen to almost any politician speaking these days, and I can almost guarantee that the words "open" and "transparent" will crop up, and probably more than once. So if we're moving to a more open, transparent society, that's got to be good, hasn't it? But tell that to Andy Hayman, ex-anti-terrorism chief who has written a book about his experiences as such, and now finds himself slapped with an injunction forbidding its sale. Why? Well of course we're not allowed to know! Just how open and transparent can you get??

Checked plastic tablecloths and bring your own drink.

Birmingham apparently wish to "copyright" the balti. For anyone from Mars, a balti is a type of curry dish, the main characteristic of which is that it is served in the vessel it is cooked in. This is a small deep dish with a handle on each side, and the generally accepted wisdom is that this gives the dish its name - balti being the Hindu word for bucket. Birmingham's claim is that the balti originated in the Sparkbrook area of the city in the late 70s, and therefore "belongs" to Birmingham. Not that their claim goes unchallenged - Bradford in particular can point to a similar - if not quite so well-documented - history. As far as I can see, they are both wrong - the concept of the balti was brought to these shores by immigrants from Northern Pakistan, and obviously if it can be said to have originated anywhere, then it originated back in their homeland. The balti is a culinary treasure which belongs to us all.

Cherry picking?

Ten years on after devolution, a poll has found that about two-thirds of Scots want control over their own taxes and pensions, but that about the same proportion of Scots want matters of defence and foreign affairs to stay in the hands of Westminster. To me this seems a classic case of wanting power without responsibility - and you know what Kipling said about that!

Whatever happened to nut roast?

I'm a meat-eater myself, but I have no problem with those who are vegetarian. What I can never understand though is why those who market vegetarian food, package it so as to look like non-vegetarian stuff - you know, vegetarian sausages, vegetarian burgers and so on. Presumably they do this because this is what their customers want, which rather invites the question - why are they vegetarian? Why pretend to be eating a sausage unless what you really want deep down is a sausage. Are these people deceiving themselves? And the other day, believe it or not, I actually saw a packet of vegetarian fish fingers - fish fingers with no fish! Oh come on!!