Yum yum!

Not surprised to hear that fajitas are the most popular party food in the country. They have so much going for them - there's a more or less endless list of ingredients you can use, each person decides for themselves just how much of what they put in, and the whole thing is then presented in a convenient "hold in the hand" form. The Greek souvlaki/gyros approach is similar, using pitta bread pockets rather than tortillas. There's really nothing comparable in British cuisine - a paper of chips is about the closest we come (not that there's anything wrong with that!).

F1

So after the bore in Bahrain, we've had a half decent race in Australia. So what was the difference? Two things, it seemed to me - the weather, and the fact that for various reasons two of the faster cars - both with gung-ho drivers (Hamilton and Webber) - found themselves out of position and had to fight their way through the field. Other than that, it was still a bit processional, I'm afraid. And once again Vettel looked the man to beat, only for his car to let him down again.

Where was Moses...?

Things have moved on since I last spoke about my state of health back in 2007. Despite feeling fine, I am now apparently a fully-fledged type 2 diabetic and on tablets to control that. Unfortunately the tablets have the unwanted side-effect of upsetting my digestive system with the result that at times (and I am presently going through one of those times) I daren't stray too far from the toilet. I won't go into further detail - I'm sure you get the picture - but I was amused to read an article in the local paper about an office where, in pursuit of financial savings, the lights in the toilets have been fitted with timers so that they go out after 10 minutes. Glad I'm not working there!

Ha ha.

Liked this little snippet from a magazine that comes with my pension -

"At twenty we worry about what others think about us. At forty we don't care what others think about us. At sixty we discover that they haven't been thinking about us at all".

Bang bang - you're dead!

You've probably seen the story of the staged "shooting" of a teacher at a school in Evesham which apparently left some pupils - particularly the younger ones - traumatised. Apart from the fact that it seemed a silly thing to do, two things struck me about the story. The first is that, according to the school, the stunt was part of a "science project". I've been racking my brains to try and think what possible connection there could be between someone being gunned down and the teaching of science. and so far I've drawn a blank. The other, rather more humorous thing was a quote from the Head Teacher saying that he felt part of the problem was that the "victim" was one of the more popular teachers. "I don’t think there would have been as much concern if it was one or two of the others”, he said.

Playing with figures.

When is 100% not 100%? When it's a Government promise, apparently. The Prime Minister made a promise some days ago that their policy was to provide "superfast broadband digital power creating 100 per cent access to every home." However in his budget statement the Chancellor said "The 50p monthly landline duty will unlock private investment and enable 90 per cent of the country to access the next generation of super-fast broadband by 2017." Of course the difference is that the Prime Minister was careful not to put a timetable on his promise - in other words it becomes an "aspiration" rather than a promise. Yes, we're aiming for 100% - eventually, at some indeterminate time in the future. Slippery customers, these politicians.

Can you help me with my maths?

Last week's post about parents and homework reminded me of a story (possibly apocryphal) which I heard a good few years ago concerning a local school. It was said that a particular teacher was in the habit of marking homework which had been done to a high standard "Good work - WDM". Nobody quite knew what this meant, and when the teacher left to take up a post elsewhere, he was asked to explain it. "Oh" he said "it stands for Well Done Mum"!

R.I.P.

Harry Carpenter - Saturday afternoons watching Grandstand. Those were the days - know what I mean 'Arry?.

Summer blues - or reds?

Oh no - not another forecast of a "barbecue summer". Except that this one doesn't come from the Met Office, who notoriously made that prediction for last summer, but from a small private concern who claim to have correctly forecast seasonal weather trends since it was formed in 2006. Such a short track record - however impressive - may simply be down to luck, but they are confidently forecasting that summer temperatures will be significantly above average, and that the beginning of August in particular will be really hot. We shall see.

Chase the cheese.

The annual Cooper's Hill cheese rolling event, which I commented on in my post of 29/5/08 has been cancelled this year on health and safety grounds. But not, as I would have feared and suspected because of health and safety fears for the participants, but because it has become such a popular spectator event that it has produced uncontrollable crowd and traffic problems. Hopefully the powers that be can sort this out for next year.

Ha ha.

A couple of policemen were sat in their car in the late evening keeping the carpark of a pub under surveillance on the lookout for potential drink-drivers. As the pub began to empty, their attention was drawn to one man who stumbled out of the door, tripped over a kerb, tried his keys on five different cars before he found his and then sat in the driving seat fumbling around for several minutes. By this time everybody else had driven off and the carpark was virtually empty. So they went over to this man, asked him to step out of his car, and breathalysed him. To their surprise, he registered zero on the machine. The man smiled and said "It's all right Officer - you see, I'm tonight's Designated Decoy!"

All in the presentation.

It seems that the Chancellor may end up borrowing a few billion pounds less over this financial year than he originally forecast. This is being portrayed as some sort of success for the Government's financial strategy. I am reminded of the old cartoon where a wife comes back from the sales festooned with shopping bags from various clothes shops and departmental stores and says to her long-suffering husband "You wouldn't believe how much I've saved you!"

Life begins at...

According to a survey (who thinks these things up?), here in the UK we feel we've stopped being young at 35, and start feeling old at 58. There used to be this theory that 40 was a significant point in one's life, but what I remember was that for me it was the odd-decade birthdays that resonated - I definitely saw 30 as the end of my youth, 50 as the pivotal point of middle-age and 70 as the start of old age. My 40th and 60th passed pretty well unnoticed - by me anyway. At 58 I'd recently taken early retirement and was enjoying a new lease of life - certainly didn't feel old. Not that I feel old now - I think age is as much a mental thing as a physical one.

Well, fancy that!

Another in the "blindingly obvious" category. A study done by Birmingham University has - when stripped of its verbiage - come to the conclusion that having twins is more expensive than having a single child. Who'd have thought it?

Err....Dad?

Don't bother asking your Mum or Dad to help you with your homework - they're thick. This was the tenor of a report in the paper over the weekend which quoted a survey where parents were asked to take the sort of test their children were given at school, and their average score was something like 25%. But this seems to me to highlight the wrong-headed way in which our children are taught and tested. Because in real life, the important thing is not whether or not you know the answer to a question. but whether or not you know how and where to look for the answer and how to evaluate what you find, and this is where parents' experience comes to the fore.

At what age...

Should the age of criminal responsibility be raised from the present 10 to 12? The Children's Commissioner has suggested it should, and of course under such provisions the killers of Jamie Bulger would have escaped prosecution. I think this is one of those areas were introducing an artificial "line in the sand" misses the point. There will be those under the age of 10 who are quite able to distinguish between right and wrong, just as there will be those over the age of 12 who will not have the psychological or intellectual ability to deal with such concepts. To be just, I think every case would have to be treated on its own merits, the child assessed as an individual, irrespective of age, and the decision to prosecute or not based on that.

F1.

I don't know what the thinking was behind doing away with re-fuelling this season, but to me it has removed most of the interest and potential excitement from the sport. The Bahrain GP was frankly boring - and more worryingly, I can't see any of the future races being any different. No longer can you wonder "Is he really that fast, or just lightly fuelled?" And no longer is there the possibility of gaining a position or two by clever re-fuelling strategy. Other than mistakes or mechanical problems, the pattern of the race will be decided in the first couple of laps, and thereafter just become a procession. Not a good move.

Can't be done, surely?

Reports that bookmakers are offering odds of 3-1 against the Pope resigning over the child abuse allegations against Catholic priests in Germany and elsewhere. But surely the Catholic dogma is that the Pope is chosen by God, so how can he possibly resign?

Blue sky thinking?

I've talked about the fact that language is an ever-developing tool before, and now it's cropped up again in relation to jargon. The Local Government Association has come up with its latest list of "impenetrable phrases" which are in use in its offices - words like "webinar" (a seminar conduced over the internet), and "wellderly" (older people who are still healthy). And yet, jargon has its place - both the examples cited say in one word what it would otherwise take half-a-dozen or more words to say. The problem with jargon is not that it exists, it's the danger that it will be used outside those "in the know" to whom it will make no sense. Provided its use is restricted to those who will understand it, I can't see a problem, and many jargon words and phrases from the past have come into everyday use, like "lift-off" and "thinking outside the box", and what about all those jargon abbreviations so beloved of texters and e-mailers - IMHO perfectly acceptable if you know the other person is going to understand them.

Hic!

A new road-sign has appeared in a town in Romania. It depicts a stick-man on all fours groping for a bottle on the ground. It's purpose is to warn drivers of drunks in the road. I can think of a few roads round here where such a sign would be appropriate!

All change.

If anybody does read this blog, they will have noticed that its appearance is different. This was not in fact a deliberate act on my part - what happened is that I am not very computer-savvy and obviously pressed the wrong button or something and somehow managed to lose the previous template on which my blog was based, and couldn't seem to get it back. So I had to select another template from those on offer, and this one looked rather nice and easy on the eye so I've gone for that.

Simple but effective?

Am I missing something? This business about accelerators in Toyota cars sticking - recent story about a motorist in America who pressed the accelerator to overtake another vehicle and then found it had stuck and he couldn't slow down, so what did he do? He slammed the brake pedal to the floor, yanked on the handbrake and that didn't work, but eventually, thanks to going up a hill and the help of a Highway patrol car that got in front of him and slowly backed up into him he came to a stop. So - scary situation, but the obvious question is - why didn't he just put the car in neutral and/or turn off the engine? Like I say, am I missing something?

Prescience?

I've mentioned before the rather spooky way that things I post about have a habit of cropping up in the news some time later. Have a look at my post of 14/11/08 concerning Yorkshire puddings - and lo and behold there is now a move afoot for a law to say that they can't be called that unless they have been made in Yorkshire!

Oh dear, oh dear...

I used the word "depressing" about Tony Blair's appearance before the Iraq Inquiry the other week - so what adjective do I use for Gordon Brown's performance? Evasive and dissembling immediately spring to mind, but they're not quite right. It was in fact a minor master-class in appearing to answer the question whilst in reality giving little or nothing away. It was a combination of pleading ignorance, dealing in generalities and avoiding specifics and hiding behind statistics. After four hours, we had learned precious little - which I'm sure was the purpose of the exercise as far as Brown was concerned. Perhaps the most telling comment he made was that as he saw it the justification for going to war with Iraq was not the fear of weapons of mass destruction, nor even regime change, but to punish Iraq for failing to comply with UN resolutions. I assume therefore that, even as we speak, plans are in hand to invade Israel, whose decades-long policy of disobeying or ignoring UN resolutions puts Saddam's in the shade? Or is it, as I suspect, one law for our friends and another for everybody else?

What did you expect?

What on earth was the point of the referendum held in Iceland on whether or not they should pay compensation to Britain and the Netherlands over the collapse of the Icesave bank at the height of the banking crisis. Big "no" vote apparently. Big surprise - turkeys don't vote for Christmas!

The need to know...?

Why these almost hysterical demands to know what Jon Venables (or whatever his name now is) has done to have his licence revoked and to be returned to prison? Much talk of the public's "right to know" - but why? The assumption is that he has committed another offence, in which case the whole matter is sub judice as it would be with anyone else who had been arrested and charged. The fact that it's a revocation of licence doesn't alter the situation. Let the law take its course.

R.I.P.

Michael Foot - that rarest of beings, an honest and principled politician. Didn't agree with his politics, but you knew where you stood with him, and he was true to his ideals, even when it became clear that he was ploughing a lone furrow. Compare that with today's lot whose policies are more shaped by what they think will be popular rather than what they believe in or know to be right. One of a kind, I rather think.

Holy smoke!

How about this then - a town in Germany is putting the potholes in its roads up for sale. You can buy one for €50 and the town will then repair it, and put a personal message on the surface. What a brilliant idea!

What goes round...

When I was a lad, if you kept a dog, you had to have a licence to do so. I seem to remember the cost was fairly minimal, but it did put you on the official record as the dog's owner, and perhaps made you think about your responsibilities as such. The idea is being resurrected it seems, mainly due to the modern trend of people keeping "attack dogs" as a status symbol or a means of defence. The suggestion is that you will not only need a licence, but also insurance against your dog causing any damage to anyone else, and you will need to convince the authorities that you can keep your dog under control. Not sure whether this will really solve he problem it seeks to address - unless it is rigorously policed, the danger is that the dog owners who are really causing the problem will just ignore it.

Cheap and nasty - but cheap!

Every year, just before Christmas, I get a £250 winter fuel payment. Very welcome, but if I'm honest I don't really need it - I have no real problem paying my fuel bills. There must be many like me, so perhaps it is not surprising that there are constant calls for it to be means tested. But would this in fact save money? Because it is paid automatically to every pensioner, the cost of administering it is virtually nil. If you means test it on the other hand, administration costs become significant. You have to have - and pay for - the staff to assess everybody on an individual basis and decide whether they meet the criteria or not, to make sure that those who are entitled to it get it, and those that aren't, don't. And then you have to set up an appeals procedure to deal with those who have been refused and are not happy about it. And these costs are ongoing because people's circumstances are continually changing. As is often the case in matters like this, the "universal" approach is often the cheapest.

Couldn't make it up.

This story has a certain resonance with the one about Asda the other week. A father took a picture of his son on a ride at a shopping centre, and was then challenged by a security guard who insisted that he delete the picture as he might be a paedophile. When told the child was his son, the security guard asked him to prove it - which of course he couldn't, there on the spot. Tempers flared, the police were called and eventually everyone went on their way. So what's bad about all this? Firstly, it's part of this modern approach of turning the burden of proof on its head - it's now more often than not up to you to prove you're innocent. And secondly, as with the Asda story, legislation has produced a climate of fear in which organisations are terrified of making a mistake and being pilloried for it, so they tend to go over the top and lose their sense of proportion.