Indian Summer

We're having one at the moment and very pleasant it is too, but why do we call it that?  No definitive answer, but what is pretty certain is that the name does not refer to the country of India (as I always thought it did), but to the "Red Indians" of North America.  The best guess seems to be that early settlers there could relax once the snows came because the danger from Indian raiding parties would be more or less over until the Spring.  But an unseasonal spell of warm weather - an Indian summer - would mean they would have to be back on their guard.  Anyway - long may it continue! 

Same old....?

Ed Miliband's statement that "I'm not Tony Blair" elicited a few boos from his audience at the Labour Party Conference.  It was not clear - to me at least - as to whether the boos were directed at the name of the former leader, or at the fact that Miliband was distancing himself from Blair and what he stood for.  Certainly difficult to believe that they would boo the most electorally successful leader of their party of all time.  Miliband's speech was rather depressingly predicable, I thought.  Great emphasis on equality.  Now equality of opportunity is one thing, but the uncomfortable fact is that we need the rich - because while they're making money for themselves, they are also making money - or at the very least creating the potential for making money - for everybody else. A system which strives to produce a situation where everybody is materially equal just doesn't work.  It's been tried before and failed.  It was called communism.

Torchwood.

So, now it's over, what did you make of the last series?  I thought it was rather overlong - I think ten episodes somewhat overstretched the plot.  Six would have made for a far tighter story in my opinion.  And then I found the American dimension decidedly offputting - of course there has always been an American aspect to the show in that John Barrowman, who plays "Captain Jack" is American - but for me a big part of the show's charm was its Welshness, and we've lost that.  Mind you, if it were me, I'd bring back Owen, Tosh and Ianto - to my mind, Torchwood was at its best at the end of series one, and the whole of series two.  By the way, did you know that Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who?

Here I go again!

One of the hobbyhorses that I wished I didn't have to keep riding is what I see as the inappropriate use of imprisonment in sentencing.  Latest example is two months inside for a lad who took a photograph in a courtroom using his mobile 'phone.  No question he broke the law, but what on earth is going to be achieved by sending him to prison?  Particularly at a time when serious consideration is being given to allowing TV cameras into courts.  It just doesn't make any sense.

Come back Shep - all is forgiven.

Blue Peter has not only moved its production from London to Salford, but apparently is set to swop pets for tech.  The new series will forgo its decades-long association with animals (who can forget the baby elephant?) and concentrate instead on things like smartphones and game consoles.  This may be simply reflecting the current reality, but I can't help feeling that somehow it will lose its soul - it may have the same name, but it won't be the Blue Peter that my children - or vicariously I - grew up with.

Plum crazy

Piece on TV the other day about the fact that, despite a bumper season for English apples, supermarket shelves are dominated by apples from overseas, particularly France.  But what concerns me more is English plums - where are they?  Particularly Vics, my favourite.  There have been very few available for several years past now, and those that you do get are small ones with little flavour.  Where do all the big juicy ones go?  You can get Marjorie Seedlings, which are OK but very much second best in my book.  Anybody know anything about this?

E equals MC what??

Big kerfuffle because scientists in Italy claim to have discovered subatomic particles travelling at faster than the speed of light, which it is said, if true, would demolish Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.  Now I am not a nuclear physicist, and only know what I read, but I am sure I read somewhere some time ago that Einstein's Theory did not mean that nothing can travel faster than light, but simply that nothing can accelerate past the speed of light.  It does not preclude the possibility that a particle can be created already travelling faster than light.Indeed, as I understand it, if such a particle were to exist, it could not decelerate to a sub-light speed - in other words, the speed of light is a barrier which cannot be crossed in either direction.  I shall be watching this one with interest. 

Not again!

So another government IT project bites the dust with a loss of billions of pounds to the taxpayer.  This time it's the NHS project to provide a nationwide database of all patients' records.  Actually, I'm rather surprised at this one - after all, unless I've missed something, it was just going to be a database - a bloody big one to be sure, but just a database nonetheless, and they're pretty basic programs which have been around for a long time and generally work well.  Mind you, every time the equation seems to be

Government + IT = Catastrophe!

Music Man

I was having a discussion the other day about what constitutes a great piece of art - music specifically.  And my take was that it was something about which you could say "After this, nothing was ever the same again". Three examples -  Beethoven's 6th symphony - the symphony as programme music, never been done before. Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" which opened the door to dissonance.  And Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony which ripped the format apart and rewrote it as an emotional tour de force.  What do you think?

Redrawing the map.

Although as I understand it, no definitive announcement has yet been made, my local paper tells me that my present parliamentary constituency will disappear in the forthcoming boundary review, and I will end up in a rejigged neighbouring constituency.  I'm not too bothered about this, but if it means that my current MP disappears as well, that will be a shame, as he is one of the few who seeks to represent his constituents, rather than slavishly follow the party line.  MPs are to be reduced in number from 650 to 600 but it seems that which fifty will find themselves out of a job will be more a matter of luck and geography than ability or competence. Not sure that this is the most sensible approach.

How much?

It's impossible to put a price on pain and suffering, but does anybody else find this reported figure of £2m (well £3m really) as a settlement to the Dowler family from News International in respect of their claim regarding the hacking of their murdered daughter's phone totally unbelievable?

Justice delayed is....?

There is no doubt about the legal position regarding this eviction of "travellers" from the site at Dale Farm (see post of 2nd September) but the moral or humanitarian position is not so clear.  The most disturbing aspect is that it has taken ten years to reach the present situation - which, apart from anything else, means there will be children there who have never known any other home.  And of course you have the perennial problem with evictions of this sort - where do they go?  Are you simply moving the problem on to somewhere else? Whatever happened to the idea that local authorities were obliged to provide sites for travellers? Like I say, the legal position is clear, but I can't help feeling that the underlying problem is being swept under the carpet, and until it is brought out into the open and talked about, we shall continue to see troublesome evictions like this one.

Cui bono?

This is a title that I have used before more than once - it means "who benefits?" (strictly speaking "to whom the advantage?") and it's an approach that I have always found useful when assessing any change in rules or regulations.  So, following on from Friday's post, who will benefit - or benefit most - from this decision to scrap sell-by dates on food packaging?  And it seems to me that the main beneficiaries will be the supermarkets, who will be able to keep food on the shelves for longer.  At present, once an item is past its sell-by date they have to take it off display and probably throw it away.  Whether the knowledge that this is no longer happening makes you feel any more comfortable as a shopper is altogether a different question.

Cuff him Danno!

Picture in the paper this morning of this "rogue trader" bloke who it appears has managed to lose a Swiss bank a lot of money, as he was coming out of the magistrates' court after being remanded in custody.  But why was he in handcuffs?  The offence of which he is accused is a "white-collar" one and as far as I am aware there is no suggestion that he is violent or aggressive, so why?  Is this yet another unpleasant feature that we have copied from the Americans?

Use your noddle!

Are shoppers really so silly as to think that food cannot be safely eaten after its "sell-by" date?  As the government has decreed that such dates should be removed from packaging, it would appear so.  What about "use by" dates?  Do you take them as gospel?  Perhaps it's a generation thing, but as these for me are a relatively new feature, I use my common sense and experience.  Firstly, provided stuff is kept in the fridge, I am happy to go one or even maybe two days beyond any use-by date, on the basis that such dates are almost certainly calculated erring on the side of caution.  Beyond that, use your eyes, nose and brain.  Pork is iffy, so you have to be careful with that - beef on the other hand, up to a point actually improves in flavour for being kept.  Eggs may go stale, but rarely go bad.  Mould on cheese - just scrape it off.  Ditto on bread.  If something smells nasty, dump it.  Just basic common sense rules.  And it's perfectly safe to eat something after its "best before" date - it just may not be quite as tasty as it once was, that's all.  And putting stuff in the freezer effectively puts its use-by date on pause - so if it had three days to run when you put it in, it will still have three days to run when you take it out. In these straitened times, we can ill afford to throw food away unnecessarily.

Disgraceful!

An unbelievable - and yet so very believable - story that the drivers on the London Underground are going to be paid a bonus for simply turning up for work during the Olympics.  This is effectively a bribe to try and prevent them disrupting the Games by taking strike action.  What an advertisement for the British worker!

Ha ha.

Did you hear about the ice-cream seller who was found dead in his van covered in chocolate sauce and sprinkles?  The police believe he topped himself!

Simple solutions to be preferred?

Should we get rid of the 50% income tax rate - which was only ever meant to be a temporary measure?  Yes, I think we should - indeed I don't think it should ever have been introduced.  I was never fortunate enough to earn enough to get into the higher (40%) tax bracket, but I have always been unable to understand the logic of having different tax rates.  The idea that the more you earn, the more you should pay in tax seems pretty obvious and equitable, but the idea that the more you earn the greater proportion of what you earn you should pay in tax has always struck me as logically dubious. Among other things it means that the more you earn the less incentive you have to earn yet more, and where's the sense in that?  Indeed the same argument can be levelled against the idea of personal tax-free allowances.  The cleanest, simplest, most equitable tax system would be one where there is one tax rate which applies to everything you earn.  Everybody keeps, and everybody pays the same proportion of what they earn.  As a by-product, think of all the money we would save in administrative costs!

Made from girders?

I can remember when Irn Bru was Iron Brew and came in those old-fashioned pop bottles where the stopper was held in place by by a metal clasp.  We used to buy it as an occasional treat from a little shop on our way back from primary school - seem to think it was 2½d (old pence) with a penny back on the bottle.  I have to say that I was never that struck on the taste, but the attraction was its vivid rusty-yellow colour - which I now know is down to an additive which today is called E110.  And this has produced a bit of a modern problem.  The EU wished to regulate the amount of E110 allowed in products, and it was feared that this would affect the colour of Irn Bru, but thanks to some hard lobbying by the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond the level has now been set at that used in the drink.  So Scotland's "second favourite drink" (after whisky, that is) is safe.

Slow progress?

The tenth anniversary of "9/11" and what has surprised me most watching the TV coverage, is that, ten years on, "Ground Zero" as it is called is still essentially a building site.  I understand that the question of ownership of the land is somewhat complex, and that there has been much discussion about what should be built there, but you would have thought by now much more would have been done.  If I were a relative of one of those who perished I don't think I would be very impressed.

The West Lothian Question.

We hear a lot about it, but just what is it?  The problem arises because although Scotland now has a devolved parliament to which the Scots elect MSPs, they are still part of the United Kingdom and therefore also elect MPs to Westminster.  So you have a situation where Scottish MPs at Westminster can speak and vote on matters which only affect England say, whereas matters just affecting Scotland are dealt with at Holyrood and therefore (quite properly) English MPs have no input.  It's called the West Lothian Question by the way because it was first raised by Tam Dalyell, who at the time was MP for West Lothian.  I think that many Scottish MPs at Westminster voluntarily stay out of debates on purely English matters, but it's worth remembering that the last Prime Minister was a Scottish MP, as were several members of his cabinet, and they of course couldn't stay out of English matters even if they had wanted to.

Strictly Come Judging?

Much discussion about this proposal to allow TV cameras into courts.  The argument for is that anybody can sit in the public gallery and watch the proceedings, so why should those who for whatever reason can't do that be denied the experience.  The arguments against are mainly that there is a danger that those taking part will be inclined to play to the camera - "showboating" as it is called.  I think the most equitable answer is contained within those arguments - put the camera in the public gallery so that what it shows is no more and no less than that which would be seen by anybody sitting there - no close-ups or indeed any directorial input at all.  Effectively the camera becomes just another person in the public gallery.  Whether this would make for good TV of course is another matter.

Freeview - aargh!

I'm incandescent!  I know there have been adverts on TV for sometime now telling us that if we get our TV via Freeview we would have to retune on the 7th and 21st September - but what I didn't realise was that if you didn't, all your channels would disappear.  Now the television in my bedroom is set on Freeview and programmed to come on at 6.00 a.m.  Except of course that yesterday it didn't - or rather it did but simply showed a message saying "channel not available" or something like that.  Result - I overslept and was out of sync for the whole day as a result.  So firstly, why did they have to do this on a weekday?  I'm sure I can't be the only person who was caught out in this way.  Why couldn't they have programmed it for a Saturday night into Sunday morning for example?  And secondly, was it not possible to have some audio message transmitted for the benefit of those who use their TV as an alarm clock?  Is this another case of people simply not thinking things through?  And of course, I must now remember that the same thing is likely to happen on the morning of the 22nd!

Compare and contrast

Funny how all the attention last week was on the World Athletics Championships and GB's pretty average performances there, which were shown on Channel 4 and Eurosport, whereas the World Rowing Championships, where GB did really well and came top of the medal table were relegated to the "red button" on BBC and mentioned only in passing.

Speaking of films...

...I was watching "Inception" the other night.  What the hell was that all about then?  I suppose it was a bit like my little series of posts on "What is truth" about this time last year - and particularly Descartes' idea that everything we experience could be a dream.  So perhaps it's saying that nothing is really "real" and essentially we are free to construct our own reality.  Except of course that I know it isn't so - I know what reality I would wish for, and try as I might, I can't make it happen.  Still a thought-provoking film though.

Oh, really??

What are we to make of this new film "Anonymous" which posits that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford was the real author of Shakespeare's plays and poetry?  The problem anybody has who wishes to make such a claim - whoever they put forward as the "real" author - is that they have to explain why such a person would not wish to claim the works as their own.  Why would they agree to their writings being published in someone else's name?  And this is where this film becomes silly, because its theory is that de Vere was the love-child (and indeed incestuous lover) of Queen Elizabeth I, and that for political reasons this information had to be suppressed at all costs, and therefore de Vere could not be allowed any sort of fame or public profile.  The fact that there is not one scintilla of evidence for such a claim seems to have been ignored - I am reminded of that old newspaper adage "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story".  So it may turn out to be a good film, or maybe not, but it's complete fantasy - which is perhaps not that surprising given that the director's previous credits include "Independence Day" and "Godzilla".

Mexican food

I love fajitas, but what the hell are you supposed to do with tacos?  How do you (a) stop the filling from falling out and (b) stop the taco from disintegrating in your hand?  I just can't see the point - or am I missing something?

Tricky...

NATO's remit in Libya is the protection of civilians.  There are those (me included) who think they have gone well beyond that, but that's an argument for another time.  But what will happen if the rebels attack Sirte and civilians start dying there as a result?  What would be the difference between that scenario and what was about to happen to Benghazi, which was what brought NATO in in the first place?  Would NATO start targetting the rebels to protect the Sirte civilians?  There may be interesting times ahead.

Where my caravan has rested.

This Dale Farm business - isn't it funny how we refer to them, and indeed they refer to themselves as "travellers" when it seems that most of them don't want to travel at all, but to stay put?

I'm all right, Jock!

Some thirty-odd years ago, a Treasury Minister was asked, as a matter of some urgency, to come up with a formula for the distribution of public money between the regions of the UK.  He did so, and as time was of the essence, he used the simple idea of distributing it on the basis of proportion of population.  He admitted at the time that it was hardly a scientific approach, and he saw it as a stop-gap until a better system could be devised.  Now, thirty-odd years later, we are still using it, and due to demographic changes in the intervening years, it has produced anomalies.  Most notably the Scots now get significantly more money per head than the English, and it is being suggested that this is why Scotland can afford to give their inhabitants free University tuition, free prescription charges and free care for the elderly - in other words we, south of the border, are subsidising them.  Many (English) MPs getting their knickers in a twist about this.  Problem is - and we've been down this line of thought before - that because it's such a simple system, it's cheap to administer, whereas a "fairer" system would cost considerably more.  So, will anything be done?  We shall see.