What's in a word?

Oh Lordy, why do I find myself coming to the defence of Gordon Brown again? He's in deep do-do this time for calling an elderly lady a "bigot" - except he didn't, he referred to her as "a bigoted woman" which in my book is not quite the same thing. Leaving aside the question of whether a politician of his experience should ever have been caught out by an "open microphone", a bigoted person is someone who holds strong (not necessarily extreme) views on things and will not be moved from them. And this I think was Brown's grouse - what was the point of having me talk to this lady when clearly nothing I - or for that matter, anyone else - could say was going to change the way she thought. Waste of time. A bigot, on the other hand, is a word which has taken on certain unpleasant connotations of racism, antisemitism, homophobia and the like. It's another example of the media putting words into people's mouths which have never in fact been used. Not GB's finest hour by any means, but let's not make things worse by misquoting him.

If we don't hang together...

Hung parliament - good or bad? Our only experience in recent years was in the 70s and that certainly was a mess, and not a good advertisement for the idea. David Cameron has been lambasting Nick Clegg for his (Clegg's) insistence that electoral reform will be his price for working with either of the other two parties should neither have a clear majority following the election. This, said Cameron, would lead to a permanent series of hung parliaments with the LibDems holding the balance of power. Readers of this blog will know that I am not in favour of a "tail wagging the dog" situation, but I've been thinking about this. And I think there's a difference between a hung parliament under the first-past-the-post system, where each party has their eye on the next election, and positioning themselves for best advantage when that happens, and a situation where - as it would be under PR - they know the next election will produce another hung parliament, and therefore there's no point in trying to score political points off the other parties, because they're going to have to continue to work together for the foreseeable. So if we really have moved into an era of three-party politics (and I'm not yet convinced that we have) then I think that PR will be essential to make it work properly.

Personal

Yes, for those of you who enquired, Sunday was the fourth anniversary of the death of my wife, and no, I did not mark it, as I have on previous years on this blog - if only by not posting on that day. This was a deliberate decision on my part. When you think about it, the whole idea of anniversaries is rather strange. The idea that I would think about my wife more, or miss her more, just because of a date on the calendar, than I think about her and miss her every single day is frankly fatuous. So April 25th is just another day I have to get through without her. I wish I could be more positive for any of you out there who have recently lost a loved one, but the bald fact is - in my experience anyway - that it doesn't get any better, it just gets easier. The screaming pain becomes a dull ache, but it's always there. I originally gave myself five years to "get over it" and I think I'm on track for that, but I've long since accepted that "it" will always be there, and it's more a matter of learning to live with it rather than any idea that it will go away.

Are we there yet?

Did you watch the London marathon on Sunday? If so, you might have wondered why the course distance for this event is set at 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 km in new money). Why not a nice round number? The marathon is of course based on the (probably mythological) account of a messenger who was said to have run from the battlefield of Marathon in ancient Greece to Athens (about 26 miles) to bring news of victory, and having done so died of exhaustion. When the modern Olympics were founded in the late 19th century, a marathon race was included. Initially, there was no fixed distance - it just had to be a course of around 26 miles. In 1908 the Olympics were held in London, and for various reasons - not least in order to have the finish line directly underneath the Royal box - the course measured 26 miles, 385 yards. This race generated enormous public interest, because it was the race where famously Dorando Pietri, an Italian runner approached the finish line in the lead but in a state of complete physical exhaustion and was helped for the last few yards by officials - and as a result promptly disqualified in favour of the second-place American runner Johnny Hayes. This generated a series of rematches between the two of them, which were of course held over the same distance, and so when in 1921 the relatively new IAAF decided to set a standard length for the event they chose to accept this rather strange distance.

Burning question of the moment.

How the heck do you pronounce Eyjafjallajökull??

Pants on fire!

Isn't it funny that we have defamation laws to protect people from the damage caused by others telling lies, we have an Advertising Standards Authority to protect people from being misled by untruthful adverts, but it appears that in politics, and particularly in electioneering, anything goes. I'm afraid that I've long since adopted the strategy of disbelieving on principle anything a politician tells me. You know the old joke - how do you know when a politician is telling lies? It's when his lips are moving!

The Lazy Cook

Current season's new potatoes are starting to appear in the supermarkets. You can get them ready washed in bags. Cook them as soon as you get them home. Tip them into a saucepan of salted water, bring to the boil and and leave them boiling for 15 minutes. Get a knife with a sharp tip and give the biggest you can see a poke. If the knife goes in easily, they're done. Drain them in a colander and tip them into a bowl. Drizzle a little olive oil over them and shake to coat them evenly. They'll keep in the fridge for at least a week - maybe longer, but mine are always eaten well before that. Lovely on their own, or with mayonnaise or a little knob of butter. And then you can slice them and sauté them with some onions and garlic - if you add some chorizo and turn the heat down and give them 10 minutes or so for the oil from the chorizo to infuse with the potato and onion you've got a really delicious yet simple dish. Here's to new potatoes!

Pointing the finger

When in doubt blame the government, is the mantra by which many people live their lives. So naturally, the fact that there was a week of no flights to or from British airports has to be their fault? I commented the other day that I couldn't see why planes flying away from the affected area should be grounded, but in general I don't think the government had any choice but to impose the ban they did. After all, this isn't like a car which if it breaks down, you pull into the side of the road and call the AA - if a plane's engines fail, it falls out of the sky, simple as that, and almost certainly all on board die. The government had to act on the best advice they could get. Where I think they can be criticised is their apparent failure to realise the knock-on consequences of the ban, and to have any strategies in place to deal with them. It may be there were things going on behind the scenes that I wot not of, but the impression I got was that they were playing it day by day, crossing their fingers and hoping it would sort itself out. When they did finally get round to doing something, it was too little too late and they still didn't seem to have any cohesive plan - it had all the hallmarks of something worked out on the back of a fag packet after a few beers. So the ban wasn't their fault, but the chaos that followed most certainly in part, was.

Level playing field?

The LibDem "surge" has increased public interest in how our voting system works. We've talked about PR and the various ways it might be introduced before, but what the current discussions have highlighted is the extent to which the present system favours the Labour Party - not because of what they are or what their policies are, but simply because their vote is heavily concentrated rather than being more uniformly spread. The fact is that if all three major parties each got an equal share of the vote, Labour would end up with something like twice the number of seats of the Conservatives and three times the number of seats of the LibDems. And of course, it is perfectly possible for Labour to come third in respect of votes cast, but still have more seats than either of the other two! Effectively the system means that a Labour vote is "worth" more than one for the Conservatives or LibDems. Whether this state of affairs will be allowed to continue rather depends on what the outcome of the coming election is, but it certainly makes you think, doesn't it?

Ha ha.

Watched "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" over the weekend. This was the film that provided the template for "Up Pompeii" with Frankie Howerd, and I have to say that it wasn't as slick and funny as I remembered, but it still contains some really good one-liners. Here's my favourite -
- That's the brute who raped my country, Thrace!
- He raped Thrace?
- And then he came and did it again! And then again!
- He raped Thrace thrice?

What's in a word?

The Government's emergency committee is holding meetings to discuss possible ways of getting the thousands of Brits stranded abroad back home. This committee is usually referred to as COBRA, which sounds very dynamic and macho. It comes as a bit of a let-down therefore to find that this is simply an acronym for where the committee meets - Cabinet Office Briefing Room A!

Peaceful skies

Is the wholesale closing-down of flights over Britain an over-reaction? As I understand it, the ash cloud which is causing the problem is basically to the north and east, so I rather sympathised with a bloke at Birmingham Airport the other day who was due to fly from there to Benidorm (i.e. south) and couldn't understand why that flight had been cancelled. Mind you, I have to say that I was sat out in my back garden yesterday afternoon and it was lovely and quiet and I could hear the birds singing - so every cloud (no pun intended) has a silver lining you see!

First blood?

There seems to be some surprise that Nick Clegg did best in the first TV debate, but really, provided he did nothing stupid, it was always his to win wasn't it? To use a football analogy, he had a two-goal start. Firstly, unlike the other two, he had no baggage. The record of his party couldn't be attacked, because it has no record. In its present incarnation, it has never held power, and even as the old Liberals it never did more than help prop up Labour governments. Equally of course, this allowed him to present himself as a tabula rasa as it were, and appear to be all things to all people. Secondly, neither Brown nor Cameron wanted to lay into him, because they both realise that they might well have to work with him following the election, and it is therefore not in their interests to get on his bad side. It will be interesting to see how they approach him next time, but frankly the same considerations will still apply.

Book Post

(see post 18/11/06)

Robert Crais - The Monkey's Raincoat - 7
Mark Billingham - In the Dark - 6.5
Tess Gerritsen - Keeping the Dead - 8
C. J. Sansom - Revelation - 9
Robert Crais - Stalking the Angel - 6.5
Robert Goddard - Found Wanting - 7
P. G. Wodehouse - The Inimitable Jeeves - 8
Laura Lippman - Baltimore blues - 6

Lisa Gardner - The Perfect Husband - 6.5
Ed McBain - Cop Hater - 7.5

Better things to do with my time.

I have long accepted that my views on most things are at variance with those generally held by other people - perhaps that's why I write this blog? Anyway, I seem to be the only person in my neck of the woods who didn't watch last night's debate between the three party leaders. But why would I? I knew what they would be going to say - they've been saying it for weeks now, so what would watching them saying it yet again do for me? I'm afraid it's a further step down this path that I dislike intensely of what I refer to as "personalisation" - where the person becomes more important than the product. I couldn't care less how personable (or not) they are - even less do I care how attractive (or not) their wives are. I think there is a little more to be said for how articulate they are, given that they may well find themselves representing this country on the world stage, but I don't need a set-piece debate to tell me that. It struck me as being no more than a beauty contest, and about as vacuous.

Keep your eye on the ball.

When I worked, whenever anybody came up with an idea, the acid test always was - what are we here to do, and does this help us do it better? If the answer was "no" then however brilliant the idea, it got shelved. It's too easy to get dazzled by a great idea and spend a lot of time and money on it, and only then realise that it hasn't increased your productivity or efficiency one jot - maybe even had a negative effect on it. This came to mind on hearing all the criticisms of the pitch at Wembley, and the news that it will almost certainly have to be relaid for I think it's the eleventh time in just under three years. Clearly those who designed the stadium didn't follow the acid test and ask themselves - what was the stadium for? The answer of course would have been primarily as a venue for football matches of one sort or another, but obviously they got carried away by the cleverness of their design and failed to realise that the integrity of pitch should have been their primary concern and the stadium designed around that. Too late now, I'm afraid.

Freedom for Tooting?

"Power to the People" was, if I remember correctly the rallying cry of "Wolfie" in "Citizen Smith" on TV all those years ago. Given that he was - or was trying to be - a Trotskyite, it is a little strange to find that it is now the slogan of the Conservatives in the coming election. It is of course a more or less direct translation of "democracy" (demos = the people, kratos = power) so it should be a good thing - yes? Well maybe so, if it means what it says, but think about it. It does not mean that anybody is going to come knocking on your door, asking for your views. If indeed power is going to be given to the people, then it will be left up to people to exercise that power, and you know what that means - those who shout loudest will be listened to, and the rest of us ignored. We will simply have exchanged one lot of tinpot dictators (MPs) for another lot (Mr and Mrs Selfopinionatedbiggob and their entourage). The difference of course is that we do have some small measure of control over MPs (the ballot box) whereas we have no control over Mr and Mrs S and Co. So overall, I am not impressed.

Exterminate...?

The new "Dr. Who" series seems to have garnered general praise, but for me, the jury is still most definitely out. It is perhaps unfair to make a judgment on the basis of just two episodes, but I have found them both somewhat unsatisfactory. The plot-lines have been disjointed and confusing, and I'm not at all sure just how Matt Smith as the new Doctor is playing the role. He comes across (to me at least) as a kid with a new toy that he is desperate to show off, but hasn't yet got the hang of just how it works. And his new assistant? If he's playing big kid, there are dangerous signs that she is becoming his nanny. Hasn't worked for me so far.

Tittle-tattle at the pumps.

Went to fill up with petrol over the weekend and, in the way these things sometimes work, the forecourt was really busy, so I had to hang around for a good ten minutes. During this time I heard a good few conversations, and the majority of them were people moaning about the current high price of fuel - but more to the point, blaming "them" for it and saying that it might well influence the way they vote at the coming general election. So might motorist power be a factor in determining who wins? Might they be the "Great Ignored"?

Grand National

My silly system gave me Big Fella Thanks this year, which started joint favourite and gave me a good run for my money, but finally ran out of steam and came fourth.

Once upon a time...

Apparently the Prime Minister has said that, if he were to lose the forthcoming election, he might retire and write books. Fairy stories presumably? Or maybe a series about a super-hero who saves the world?

D'oh!

New car sales are significantly up, but the number of cars on the road is down - can't get my head round that one at the moment!

Red, blue - or yellow?

I suppose I should say something about this coming election - but what? It's a bit like the "phoney war" at the beginning or WWII - you know there's something nasty coming your way, but you don't know what it is. Back then it was because nobody knew - this time it's because nobody is prepared to say. All parties are desperate not to frighten us by revealing exactly what they plan if they win the election, and so they mouth generalist platitudes and vague terms like "there will be tough decisions". About the only distinction between the two main parties appears to be that Labour's "day of reckoning" may be delayed a little more than the Conservatives' - though I wouldn't put money on it. So really there's little to say.

R.I.P.

Alec Bedser - and I remember the 1953 test match against the Aussies at Trent Bridge. We were out on a school trip somewhere - can't remember where and obviously we must have been unsupervised, because I recall that we went into a pub, and were listening to the match on the radio and Bedser was getting among them, and from then on we drifted from pub to pub just to keep up with the game. He finished with figures of 7/44 (and he'd already taken seven wickets in the first innings as well) and put us into what could well have been a winning position had not rain intervened. On a "sticky wicket" he was virtually unplayable. We got well and truly pie-eyed that day!

We'm shut!

The town of Dudley came to a standstill last Saturday, with shops boarded up and the market cancelled. And why? Because one lot of self-opinionated idiots wanted to protest about something, and another lot of self-opinionated idiots wanted to protest against them protesting. Why do we allow this to happen? Why do we allow minorities to dictate to the rest of us how we live our lives? The actual reason for the protest and counter-protest is immaterial - I'm sure both sides would make a case for their point of view - but what to me is unacceptable is that they are allowed to disrupt ordinary people going about their legitimate ordinary business. I am amazed that the police apparently have no power to stop them doing this - it seems they can ban a protest march under breach of the peace regulations, but not a static protest. Given how much useless legislation gets put on the statute books these days, here's a useful law we could do with.

Chez Nous B & B.

I am solidly behind the Shadow Home Secretary over his comments concerning the right of people doing bed and breakfast in their own home to be able to decide who they allow to stay there. It has cropped up in relation to gay couples, but I think that's a red herring. The reason for refusing accommodation is immaterial - it is simply the basic right of a householder to decide who they are prepared to allow into their home.

Customer satisfaction?

Over 90% of us are happy with our bank account and unlikely to change to another bank it would seem. Can't say I'm surprised - it's not as though any bank is offering anything radically different. I got a bit fed up with the service (or rather - as I saw it - lack of it) which I was getting from my bank a couple of years ago, and spent a week or so going into other banks and talking to them, and it soon became clear that were I to change to another bank I would have exactly the same problems. All banks have quite definitely moved over the last twenty or thirty years or so from seeking to give a personal, individualistic service to their customers to a one-size-fits-all approach which is fine provided the one size does fit you. But if, like me, it doesn't really suit, then I'm afraid their attitude is "tough". So there's really no point in looking elsewhere, because they're all the same. What they do, they do well - they just don't do exactly what I want them to do.

Dates and stuff.

Suggestion in my paper that the date of Easter should be fixed at around the end of April - the idea being that that would increase the chance of having decent weather for the holiday. Easter is of course a festival of the Christian Church and therefore it would require the world-wide agreement of the Church to make such a change. But that would never happen - mainly because the gospels make it clear that Jesus's arrest, trial and execution took place at the time of the Jewish feast of Passover, and the timing of that depends on the Jewish lunar calendar, and therefore varies year to year. You couldn't break the association between Easter and Passover - it would make no sense. What could be done of course is to disassociate the holiday from the Church festival - just as has been done with Whitsun. The problem would be Good Friday - I imagine there would be considerable opposition to that being treated as a normal working day.

What's in a name?

Red faces on Birmingham council after the discovery that tens of thousands of ballot cards have been sent out with the city's name misspelled without the "h". Of course, some clever spin-doctor could have pointed out that the name has been spelled in many different ways over the centuries, and that Birmingam is probably just as valid in an historical context as Birmingham. We call the natives of that fair city "brummies" by the way, because one of the names by which it was known in times past was Brummagem.

No toads is bad news.

I get quite a few toads in my garden, and often they will wander into the drive at the side of the house and I have to catch them and put them back in the garden or risk driving over them in the car. At times this can be a pain, but perhaps I should be glad to see that they are still around. Apparently - nobody quite knows how - toads have the ability to predict earthquakes and will disappear when one is due.