Sticks and stones...

Was David Cameron's "calm down dear" remark unacceptable?  I think it was probably unparliamentarian and I'm sure both parties to the exchange knew exactly what they were doing and how it would play out.  It's all a bit playground banter isn't it?  What it did bring to mind is Thomas Harris's book "I'm OK - you're OK" and the concept of Transactional Analysis, which perhaps needs a post of its own, so we'll go into that tomorrow.

Royal wedding

So the day has finally dawned.  I wish them every happiness, but I'm afraid I won't be watching.  It'll be on the news - in fact it will be interesting to see whether there will be any other news - so I won't be able to miss it, and therefore I might just as well spend the day doing something more useful.  And no, I'm not a republican.  I think the Monarchy are an essential part of our constitution and culture, and do a tremendous amount of good for the country.  It's just that I wish we could treat them more as ordinary men and women doing a job - and doing it well - and get away from the tugging-the-forelock kowtowing on the one hand, and the pop-star-culture adoration on the other.  A young couple are getting married - end of story.

Libya

So it's becoming more and more blatantly obvious that what we're really after here is regime change - William Hague (Foreign Secretary) is now on record as saying that unmanned drone aircraft could be used in an attempt to assassinate Gaddafi.  But what then?  As far as I am aware, there is no credible cohesive opposition or opposition leader, so Gaddafi goes and....?  I would like to think that someone has thought this through, but I have to say that I have my doubts.  Is this a case, at least in the short term, of  "better the devil you know"?

Quis custodiet.....?

Here's a good one - the Audit Commission, which was set up to monitor expenditure by government departments, and to ensure value for money, has itself now been exposed as spending some £20,000 over two years on "luxury goods and services"  like meals at expensive restaurants, flowers and chocolates. 

Those who can, do. Those who can't....

It is perhaps understandable that the NASUWT (teachers') union would find the idea of classroom assistants taking classes by themselves unacceptable, but I claim a certain knowledge of what goes on in primary schools, and in my experience classroom assistants tend to be mature women who have brought up their own families, and in general are much better at relating to, and teaching little kids than some graduate with little experience of life and who knows no better than to slavishly follow what they were taught at University .  It's one of those areas where people should be used (and paid!) according to their particular skills and talents, rather than based on what letters (if any) they have after their name.

Goodbye to the Queen of Mean?

So The Weakest Link is to finish?  Thank God for that!  Let's have something sensible on in the run-up to the Six O'Clock News on BBC 1.  And yet it started as a reasonably good straightforward quiz show with a bit of a twist - but very quickly the powers-that-be decided that it needed spicing up (or dumbing-down, depending on your point of view) and Anne Robinson was told to start being rude and belittling to the contestants and from that moment, I lost all interest in it.  So for the best part of ten years I have had to work round it in the late afternoon while waiting for the news.  However I've just realised that it's not actually finishing 'til next Spring, so I've got some time to suffer yet!

I need to know - or do I?

Papers while I was away fulminating over these "super-injunctions" (see post of 7th April).  Main argument seems to be that if you are rich enough - and almost certainly male - you can use the law to protect yourself from the media's prying eyes, and that somehow this is not fair - just on whom is not clear, is it those who can't afford it, the public, or the media themselves?  The question that doesn't seem to be being asked is, should the media have the right to destroy someone's life simply because they are famous?  If Mr X of High Street, Nowhere-In-Particular cheats on his wife, the media wouldn't be interested, whereas if Mr X is a famous footballer, actor, TV personality or somesuch they would be falling over themselves to tell us all about it, and crying foul if they are prevented from doing so by an injunction.  I am reminded of that old adage - just because the public are interested, doesn't make it in the public interest.  We are badly in need of a statutory privacy law.

Worr-oh!

Well, who would have thought we could have a week in Wales in April and have more or less wall-to-wall sunshine?  Lovely week in a nice house in Cardigan Bay.  A good time was had by all.

Ta-rah!

Off for a week in Wales with the kids and grandkids.  Wish me luck!

Tall story?

I remember on some management course I went on yonks ago, we were split into teams and each had to build a tower out of Lego - of course my team, under my superb leadership (!) won , but I think our tower was only about 6 feet (1.8meters) high, so I was impressed to say the least to read that in Sao Paolo, Brazil, somebody has built a Lego tower 31.19 Metres high.  Clearly top top managerial material!

Made me smile.

You know those diamond shaped notices people stick in the back windows of their cars that say "Baby on board" or some such?  Saw one the other day that said "Ex-husband in boot"!

Spoilsports!

I read that the government are going to stop local councils from fining people for any but the most serious infractions concerning wheelie bins and refuse collection.  Good on 'em, but that is seriously going to affect my ability to post "you couldn't make it up" stories on this site!

A shop a day keeps the doctor away?

So "retail therapy" actually can work then?  A survey of over-65s in Taiwan found that those who shopped every day lived longer than those who didn't.  Could be just coincidence of course, but the point is made that shopping involves contact with other people, physical exercise and at least a degree of mental stimulation, all of which are considered beneficial to health.  Unusually for a man it seems, I like shopping, though I certainly don't do it every day - still, that's got to be good news, hasn't it?

Silly system delivers - but....

Well we finally came up with a winner, and at 14-1 at that.  Hope some of you were on it.  But any triumphalism is tempered by the sad news that two horses were killed during the race.  Sort of takes the gloss off, doesn't it?

Grand National.

Thought this year I would give you my system selection in advance - so it's Ballabriggs.  I take all the credit for any winnings you may get, and absolutely no responsibility for any losses!  It's just a silly system which has a habit of picking horses that fall at the first, though in recent years it's done rather better.  Fingers crossed!

Have you done yours?

So from this weekend, if you haven't returned your census form, you will be getting a visit from a collector - friendly at first, offering help in completing it, but if you still don't send it in, the visits will get progressively less friendly.  But why would people not complete them?  Well, they may have not got round to it yet, or they may have lost the form, but there will be those who are reluctant to answer the questions the form demands. We are always assured that the information on the forms will be confidential, and used simply to provide statistical information - in which case, I'm afraid it has to be asked, why does the form ask for personal details?  If all they're interested in is my sex and age, why do they need my name?  If all they're interested in is how and how far do I have to travel to work and what sort of job do I do, why do they need specific details of my employer?  I'm afraid for all their blandishments, many people have an understandable gut feeling that someone somewhere is going to be cross-referencing these forms with other information held by the government to try and catch people out.

Thou shalt not...

First there was the injunction, which was a court order forbidding you from doing something on pain of imprisonment.  Then came the super-injunction, which not only forbad you from doing something, but also forbad you from publishing the fact that the injunction existed.  But there was a loophole - MPs speaking in Parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege and could therefore disclose that a super injunction existed without fear of punishment, so now we apparently have the hyper injunction which, in addition to all the above, also forbids you from discussing the matter with your MP.  Not surprisingly Parliament takes a dim view of this, and it will almost certainly eventually have to be sorted out by the Supreme Court.

Prophetic name?

No laughing matter, but a theatrical costumer's premises in Devon was burnt down (believed arson) last weekend, and all its stock destroyed.  And the name of this establishment?  Flame Theatrical Costumes!

Electoral reform - continued.

AV is likely to produce more hung parliaments, and therefore more coalition governments.  The big problem with coalitions is that when you cast your vote you don't know what you're going to get.  Each party produces a manifesto which sets out what they intend to do if they form a government, but in a coalition situation the partners have to thrash out a compromise agreement which will inevitably mean give and take, so you end up with a coalition "manifesto" published after the event on which no-one had the chance to vote for or against.  I'm pretty sure that many of those who voted LibDem at the last election might not have done so if they had known that they were going to end up being part of a coalition that was going to massively increase tuition fees, for instance.  It's a bit like buying a sandwich and only finding out after you get it what the filling is.  I prefer to know what I am voting for - or against.

Electoral reform - continued.

Following on from yesterday's post, let's go back to our hypothetical election where A gets 45% of the vote, B 40% and C 15%.  This time let's suppose that the overwhelming majority of C's voters give their second preference vote to A - let's say 12% with the other 3% going for B.  A now has 57% and is clearly elected, and AV has done its job - right?  But the situation now is that A owes their election to C, or rather C's voters.  Let's put flesh on the bone - let's suppose A is Conservative and C is BNP.  We now have a Conservative MP in the uncomfortable position of knowing that they owe their seat to BNP voters, and equally we have the BNP quite justifiably able to say to that MP "You only got elected thanks to us - you owe us some support for our policies".  And then of course there's the question of coalitions, which I'll deal with next.

Electoral reform.

I don't know why this hasn't occurred to me before, but AV does not necessarily do what it says on the tin, as it were.  It's supposed to ensure that the person elected has received 50% or more of the vote.  But consider - three candidates, A, B & C.  When the first preference votes are counted, candidate A has 45%, candidate B 40% and candidate C 15%.  So under the rules of AV, candidate C is eliminated and their ballot papers redistributed according to the second preference votes.  But now suppose that for most of those who voted for candidate C, it was candidate C or nothing, and so they didn't express a second preference.  Let's suppose only 5% did, of which 3% went for candidate B and 2% for candidate A.  So now candidate A has 47% and candidate B 43%.  And that's it - no more votes to be redistributed, and candidate A is elected with only 47% of the vote.  But I've just had another thought which I'll keep for tomorrow.

It's a small world.

Yesterday's post reminded me of a story told by a friend of mine who is a doctor.  On holiday in the wilds of Turkey many years ago, one of the guests where they were staying was taken ill, and my friend was called upon to help.  He decided that she needed certain medication, and they went in search of the local pharmacist who it turned out had no English and my friend had no Turkish, but they discovered that they both had a smattering of schoolboy French so as the pharmacist was making up the prescription, they were able to carry out a very basic conversation.  On being asked where he came from, my friend said "Angleterre - Birmingham" and, as my friend puts it, there we were, miles from civilisation, and the pharmacist's face broke into smiles "Ah" he said "Connaissez- vous Sparkbrook?"  The joke, for those not from round here is that Sparkbrook is an area of Birmingham populated almost entirely by immigrants.

First half good, second half no so good...

Fabio Capello (England's football manager) whose command of the language leaves something to be desired, has said that he only needs to know 100 words to be able to manage the team.  There have been various suggestions as to what those 100 words should be - mostly humourous - but it does raise the question of just how big a vocabulary do you need to get by in another language?  The general consensus seems to be that a "survival" vocabulary needs to have about 500 words, and to achieve anything like fluency probably needs five or six times that number.  So we're going to have to continue to put up with Capello's mangled explanations of why England underperformed yet again for some time to come it seems.