How much??

Fox-hunting yet again.  I am an occasional contributor to the RSPCA - or perhaps that should be "have been", for I am appalled that the Society should have spent some £300,000 on the prosecution of a hunt for breaking the law.  Whether the defendants were guilty or not is to my mind immaterial (where was the DPP?  It's his job to prosecute law-breakers).  Surely the job of the Society is to spend its money wisely over the whole field of cruelty to animals.  This smacks very much of macho political posturing - was it just coincidence that this was the Prime Minister's local hunt?  I don't think I shall be putting any more money into their envelopes.

Newspeak is alive and well.

George Orwell would be proud - have you heard of the Liverpool Care Pathway? The crucial newspeak word here is "care", because this is a hospital procedure designed to lead to a patient's death - how caring can you get?  Of course proponents would argue that it is caring - only to be invoked for terminally ill patients in their final days and designed to ease their passing - and crucially, with the consent of the patient, or if, as will usually be the case they are unable to function, their next of kin.  But in a very worrying development, the Court of Appeal has ruled that it must ultimately be for the hospital to decide, even where the next of kin do not agree.  So we have the rather bizarre situation where it would be illegal for a doctor to help a person to die who wishes to do so, but legal for a doctor to bring about the death of a person against their wishes, or those of their next of kin.  I think this current buzzword "omnishambles" just about sums it up.

Hair-dryer?

Is Sir Alex Ferguson beginning to believe his own publicity?  Does he really think he's untouchable, and can get away with what he likes simply because he is who he is? Or are his "rants" simply a way of deflecting people's attention away from a sub-standard performance by the team?  I have a feeling it might be the latter.  

Vindication - again?

I contended some time ago (see post of 12th March) that maybe all the current furore about same-sex "marriages" was simply a problem of semantics, and now I have support from Claire Balding (whom I hold in high regard).  She has said that she would like to get married, not because it would make any practical difference to her relationship with her partner, but simply because she finds the phrase 'civilly partnered' "a bit unwieldy".  Thank you Claire.

Vindication?

Fox hunting in the news again - yesterday being the day when traditionally important hunts take place.  I've had my say - have a look at my post of 6/10/05 if you're interested - but something clicked when there was a spokesperson on the box from the League Against Cruel Sports - and I thought "that's it!" - the clue's in the title.  It's not what's going on that's important to these people, it's that it's a sport - it's that those taking part are getting pleasure from it.  Always nice when you find supporting evidence for a theory you've come up with.

The day after

I hope you all had a good Christmas Day, however you chose to celebrate it.  I seem to have exhausted all the topics on this day after - whether you call it Boxing Day, St Stephen's Day, Wren day or whatever. So I thought I'd try and answer a question which has always intrigued me - why did the three wise men, or magi choose to bring gold, frankincense and myrrh as their gifts?  There seem to be two answers - the symbolic and the practical.  Symbolically, gold represents kingship, frankincense represents divinity (it has been burned as an offering to God or gods since time immemorial) and myrrh was used mainly in embalming, and therefore represents death, which must ultimately come to us all.  So the underlying meaning was that they saw Jesus as a king, a god and one who would die for the good of mankind.  Of course the practical answer is that these were three of the most valuable gifts you could give - gold still retains its value today, but back then spices generally were difficult to get hold of, and therefore valuable, and frankincense and myrrh, both of which had to be got by cutting into trees to get at their sap, were especially rare.  Its worth noting that when the Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon, she also presented him with gold and spices.  So they were simply bringing the best they could.

Season's greetings

"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect."  

Oren Arnold

Here's to health, wealth and happiness!

Fast running out of things to say about Christmas, but came upon a recipe in one of my wife's notebooks the other day for posset, which is - or used to be - a traditional Christmas Eve drink.  It's made from hot milk mixed with beer or wine, and spices - most notably (according to my wife's recipe) cinnamon and ginger.  The origin of the word is somewhat of a mystery, but I remember my grandma having a very small saucepan which she used to refer to as "the posset" - don't know if there's a connection.  These days mulled wine or glühwein seems to have taken over as a festive drink but posset is much older and can trace its origins back to medieval times.

Un Bellini, per favore

It must be 15 years or more since I last visited Venice - but I was devastated, as I imagine many other people are, to learn that Harry's Bar may well have to close, and certainly will no longer be run by the legendary Cipriani family.  I never actually went in - I reckoned a glass of wine would probably have bankrupted me - but I did stand outside and thought of Hemingway, Welles, Capote and all the other famous names who had passed through those (fairly mundane) doors.  I think, like so much of Venice, they've priced themselves out of the market, but it's sad to see such an icon going to the wall.

Power to their elbow.

Say what you like about Amazon, but they sure put giving the customer what they want at the top of their list.  What's the worst part of ordering something from them?  It's trying to ensure you are in to meet the delivery.  Go out for an hour or so and Sod's Law says you'll return to find one of those pesky "sorry you were out" cards through the door.  So what are Amazon doing?  They are installing big lockers all around the place - in supermarkets, libraries, the atria of public buildings and the like.  When you place your order you choose the location which suits you best and are then given a unique code which allows you to access your package at a time of your choosing.  Now that's customer service!

It's a sad world...

The Father Christmas at Harrods (and I'm sure other stores are taking a similar line) has been told to make sure his hands are visible at all times.  His grotto will be monitored by CCTV and there will always be an "elf" present as a chaperone. Somehow the magic has gone, hasn't it?

Bang, bang.

The US is once again searching its soul about gun control, and the pro-gun lobby are trotting out their usual mantra of "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" - which is true enough, but what they don't go on to say is that guns allow people to kill more people faster and with less risk to themselves.  If we could wave our magic wand and every gun in the US disappeared overnight, people would still kill people, but what you wouldn't get is massacres like that which happened last Monday in Newtown, Connecticut.  If you go on the rampage and all you've got is a knife, a baseball bat, or your bare hands, you are going to be hard pressed to kill more than a handful of people before you are overpowered or killed yourself.  No, to get your tally up into the teens or higher, you need a firearm.  And that is the fundamental argument against guns.

Shut that door!

A report commissioned by the BBC has recommended that the Corporation should put more gay, lesbian and bisexual presenters on children's TV programmes.  And this is not recommended in the spirit of equality amongst would-be presenters, but so that children should be introduced to "sexual diversity" in their early years.  But what I can't understand is - how are they going to know?  Are presenters going to have to hang a sign round their necks declaring themselves as gay, straight or whatever? Other than that, it's difficult to see how you demonstrate your sexuality while introducing cartoons or suchlike.

Music Man

Ta-ta-ta-TUM, ta-ta-ta-TUM.  You know what that is, don't you?  Yes, the iconic opening of Beethoven's 5th.  The last of the great Classical symphonies.  Somehow it's become fashionable to play it down these days, to suggest that it's not a masterpiece any more.  But it is, it is.  The first movement is about as perfect a piece of classical sonata-form as you could wish for.  The second movement hints at the Romanticism to come, the third is back to classical again, and the fourth is full-on Beethoven bringing it all to a climax - what's not to like?  And of course it just so happens that dit-dit-dit-dah is Morse code for "V" so the first four notes became the wartime symbol of "V for victory" on the BBC, hence the symphony's nickname of The Victory.  One of the great symphonies - let it be.

Ha ha,

Must be time for another joke -
At a Christmas meal in a restaurant, a woman suddenly starts screaming "Help, help, my son is choking.  He's swallowed the sixpence in the pudding.  Somebody please help"
A man at a nearby table gets up walks over and grabs the boy by the crotch and squeezes.  The boy cries out in pain, coughs and the sixpence shoots out of his mouth.  "Thank you so much" says his mother, "Are you a paramedic?"
"No Madam" replies the man, "I work for the Inland Revenue".

And about time too!

Thank you, House of Lords, for voting to amend Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 by removing references to insulting words and behaviour.  Heaven knows I've posted about the absurdities which Section 5 can give rise to enough times.  Of course the matter has now to go to the Commons, who may seek to overturn the Lords' decision, so for the time being just half a cheer, but at least it's a move in the right direction.

Sword of Damocles.

The Home Secretary has (thankfully) decided that Gary McKinnon (see 4/9/08) should not be deported to America, and now the DPP has said that no charges will be brought against him in this country.  So is that it?  Well no, because the extradition warrant is still out there, which means that if Mr McKinnon were to leave this country, any other country he might visit would be obliged to arrest him and send him off to the US.  For it really to be over, America needs to withdraw the warrant.  Come on Obama - do the decent thing.

Time flies when...

I posted a couple of months ago about the psychology of queuing and how people are more content in a moving queue - however slowly it's going - than in a stationary queue.  Well I was reading the other day about the original experiment which gave rise to this theory.  It involved Houston airport in the US where they were getting serious complaints about the length of time passengers had to wait to get their bags off the carousel after they landed.  So the airport decided to do something about it (are you listening Birmingham - they decided to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!) and put more baggage handlers on the job, and got the waiting time down to just eight minutes (are you listening Birmingham??) but there were still complaints.  So then someone had a bright idea - they moved the arrival gates much further away from the carousels, so that passengers had to walk much further to get there, which took them longer, so that by the time they had got there, the bags were already coming through.  Result - complaints virtually disappeared.  So the time between getting off the aircraft and picking up their bags stayed the same, but that time was now taken up with walking rather than, as before, hanging around waiting. Which gave rise to the concept of "occupied" and "unoccupied" time - the former being acceptable, the latter not so.  Interesting, yes?

It's party time!

There's a lot to be said for retirement, but at this time of year one thing that comes readily to mind is that you no longer have to worry about the dreaded office Christmas party.  Whether you're a manager or a foot-soldier, the office party is an absolute minefield.  It all sounds so great in theory - a chance to get to know everyone better, the bosses mingling with the workers on equal terms, and so forth and so on.  But what always happens?  Embarrassment, that's what.  Whether it's drinking too much, making - or staving off - unwanted advances, or just desperately trying not to do something you know you're going to regret the next day.  I was always heartily glad and relieved when it was all over, and we could get back to normality.

You'll never guess what I've found out about...

Worrying story that over 150 local councils have had their access to the DVLA's database cancelled or suspended for misusing it.  Worrying because these are not commercial organisations seeking to use the information for personal gain, but public officials who should be acting in the public interest.  And worrying because governments of both colours seem to be hell-bent on creating more and more databases containing more and more information about us which presumably are and will be just as open to misuse.  We are sold the idea of these databases on the understanding that the information will be confidential except for certain specific stated purposes, but can we trust them?  Stories like this suggest that the answer is no.

Reasonable grounds?

"...[he] was not afforded the opportunity to attend voluntarily at the police station. In due course, the decision that he should be arrested will be the subject of some scrutiny".  So said the solicitor acting for a man arrested (at the almost obligatory ungodly hour of the morning) in the aftermath of - though not directly connected with - the Jimmy Savile business.  I hope these are not just empty words.  I have complained before about this modern police approach of arresting first and investigating later.  Whatever happened to the good old "helping the police with their enquiries"?  Even if you are later released without charge, an arrest goes on your record with possible serious consequences.

When is a CRB check not a CRB check?

Very puzzling story in the news about a child not being able to attend a council-run Christmas party because she has health problems which mean her mother has to be with her at all times, and she (the mother) would not be allowed to attend as she has not been CRB checked by the council.  That would just be another "stupid CRB check" story, and Lord knows we have had enough of them, but what makes this one even more unbelievable is that the mother HAS been CRB checked, but by the County Council rather than the parish council who are running the party. Furthermore, she has been checked at the enhanced level - the highest one there is. So what the parish council think they're playing at I don't know.  Is it the case that, like the animals in George Orwell's fable, some CRB checks are more equal than others?

Anything goes??

What is your reaction to these Australian radio presenters who rang up the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles and may well have been instrumental in the nurse they fooled taking her own life?  What strikes me is that although the radio station concerned have expressed - I'm sure sincerely - shock and horror at what has happened, there is no acceptance that anything wrong has been done.  And this is not an Australian thing - I'm sure you remember the Jonathan Ross/ Russell Brand business - and Sacha Baron Cohen has made a (very successful) career out of fooling people into saying or doing things that they probably wish they hadn't. So, as with newspapers, the question is whether it is acceptable that ordinary people should be embarrassed - or worse - just to boost readers, listeners or audiences.  It's just selfish arrogance as I see it - if it suits me, I couldn't care less about its effect on you.

Did you wash your hands?

Every now and again I see a news story which rings bells with something I have posted about in the past.  This one goes back over six years and concerns the local nursery school refusing to hand out bits of my granddaughter's birthday cake because it was home-made.  Now we have the story of a school in Sheffield saying that they cannot accept home-made cakes and buns as donations for their Christmas fair unless they have been made by someone with a food and hygiene certificate.  It really is a sad world, isn't it?

Symptoms or disease?

The Government seem serious about imposing a minimum price per unit for alcoholic drinks, and 45p seems to be favourite.  So is there a link between the cost of booze and drunkenness?  As one who used to regularly holiday in the Mediterranean and the Canaries, where drink is, by our standards, ridiculously cheap, I don't think there is.  You see very little public drunkenness in those places, and if you do, chances are that those involved are Brits!  I'm afraid the link appears to be between drunkenness and at least some of us who live in these islands, and I don't think price comes into it.  Chances are that those most affected by such legislation will not be those who cause the problem.

R.I.P.

Dave Brubeck - the man who introduced me to jazz piano.  This goes back to the winter of 1955/6 and I was doing my national service in Germany.  One of the lads in the billet had an LP of the Brubeck quartet - I think it was called "Jazz at Oberberlin" and was playing it.  I was classically trained on the piano and had done theory up to A level and I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  I can see myself now, bouncing up and down with excitement on my bed as Brubeck did his solo, shouting "But you just can't DO that!".  But he did - and I loved it.  Music was never quite the same for me after that.

A what??

You probably know the story of the SAS soldier who has had his sentence of 18 months imprisonment for a firearms offence overturned on appeal, in great part due to the public outcry it caused.  It has now been suggested that the MoD tried to suppress the original story by issuing a D-notice.  A D-notice??  Did you know we still had D-notices?  Surely they were a war-time thing?  The D stands for defence and their original purpose was to prevent newspapers from publishing information which could be useful to the enemy.  That's the problem with these things - they are introduced for a good enough reason, but then when the reason has gone, they are not revoked, and end up being used for purposes well removed from their original intent.  There's a lot of it about!

Saves having to carry change?

If you've ever been on holiday down in Devon and Cornwall in high season you will know that one of the biggest problems as a motorist is finding somewhere to park. So maybe you won't be so surprised to learn that a parking space near the centre of St Ives in Cornwall has recently been sold at auction for a eye-watering £56,000. How the other half live, eh?

Formula One

A season that started so brightly - what was it, seven different winners in the first seven races? - disappointingly degenerated into a two-horse race between the two drivers I care least about - Vettel and Alonso.  So, trying to be objective, what did I make of it?

Vettel - you can't argue with three championships on the trot, and at least in the final couple of Grand Prix we at last saw evidence that he can race when he has to.  Still think the championship is more Red Bull's than his though.

Alonso - put in the better overall performance I feel, as the Ferrari once again was not the best car on the grid, but he managed to coax consistently good performances out of it, and really it was somewhat of a miracle that he finished as close to Vettel as he did.  Ferrari however once again showed that they are prepared to cynically bend the rules to get results.

Räikkönen - a distant third.  One win, seven podiums and scored points in every race bar one. Five years away, but clearly still got it and if and when Lotus produce a more competitive car will be a force to be reckoned with.

The Brits (Hamilton and Button) - inconsistent, simple as that - whether it's them or the car, or some combination of the two I don't know, but they both showed themselves well capable of winning but, like I say, inconsistent.

Birmingham (well Smethwick actually) rules!

Eat your heart out Scotland - you may have the deep fried Mars bar, but we've got battered mince pies and Christmas pudding!  Head off to the Bearwood Fish Bar and tuck in.

Leveson inquiry

I cannot believe that we are even talking about a statutorily regulated press.  That way lies totalitarianism. An independent press is an essential feature of a democracy.  There's no doubt we need to beef up the way complaints are handled and give the Press Complaints Authority (or whatever succeeds it) more teeth, but for God's sake, leave Parliament and politicians out of it - just look at the way the mere discussion of the inquiry itself has immediately degenerated into personal and political posturing and point-scoring.  We're very much into "lesser of two evils" territory here - you can make a case for statutory regulation and a case against it.  For me the case against is overwhelmingly more powerful, but that's not to deny that there is a case for.  What we should be looking at is making the law on defamation more available to the ordinary man or woman in the street and coming up with some sort of privacy law.  Other than that, keep legislation out of it.

Law of blindingly obvious consequences?

It appears that that part of the A47 which bypasses Norwich carries a lot of traffic and regularly experiences serious congestion.  The local council decided that in order to decide what, if anything they should or could do about this, they needed more detailed information.  To this end they set up a survey whereby for one day they would record each vehicle using the road and where it came from, where it was going to, and why.  You can imagine what happened can't you?  A massive traffic jam!  But the point is that this apparently caught them by surprise - difficult to believe.

Send three'n'fourpence, we're going to a dance...

I'm sure you've probably seen the story of the skeleton of a world War II carrier pigeon which was found recently in a chimney down in Surrey with a coded message still attached to its leg.  Since when all attempts to decipher the message have proved fruitless.  Not surprising really - almost certainly the message was coded using a "one-time pad" and such messages are literally impossible to decode without a copy of the pad that was used, which of course has almost certainly been consigned to the shredder or the furnace decades ago.

Wimps??

Funny how the same topics keep cropping up in the news, and one which has surfaced once again concerns the Royal Mail and their core business - delivering the post.  Or, as is the case here and in previous entries, not delivering the post.  An elderly lady who has lived in her house for 50 years without any problem, has suddenly been told that her post will no longer be delivered to her door because the path to her house, which she and her neighbours use on a daily basis is "too slippy". So an 80-odd-year-old lady copes with it, but a postie half her age or less finds it too hazardous?  The verdict is yours.

Blimey!!

Oh come on, do tell - what was the "offensive weapon" the naked man who climbed a statue in Central London and caused roads to be closed has been charged with being in possession of?  I'm all agog!

Woe, woe, thrice woe...

A couple of months or so ago I mentioned this idea that the world will end on December 21st, because that's when the Mayan calendar runs out.  Now an even weirder idea has surfaced that a little village in the French Pyrenees called Bugarach will be the only place to survive.  Just where this idea comes from nobody seems to know, and it's difficult to see any connection between the ancient Mayans and France but enough people are taking notice of it to raise concerns in the village as to how they will cope if thousands of people turn up on the day.  Apparently, according to the Mayor, they have already become "overrun with esoteric weirdos" and "the mountainside is swarming with hippies".  I liked his comment following one such who died trying to climb the mountain - "The end of the world came a bit earlier for him than he expected".

R.I.P.

Larry Hagman - I was never a fan of "Dallas" so for me he will always be Major Nelson in "I dream of Jeannie".  A long and distinguished career and a life well lived.

England rugby union "change" strip.

Last year it was black, which was bad enough, but did you watch the Australia match the other Saturday?  A rather hideous shade of mauve, for goodness sake. Words fail me.

Here we go again.

So it's now nine managers in nine years for Chelsea - the mind boggles.  I was going to say who'd want the job, but after reading how much they all got in compensation when they were fired, I reckon it's a good career move - take the job, fail (at least by Abramovich's standards) and leave a few million pounds to the good - nice!

It's the 21st century for Heaven's sake!

It appears that those opposed to the idea of women bishops base their argument on the fact that the Bible says that Jesus chose twelve men as his disciples.  Regular readers will know that I have little time for organised religion and find the whole business rather silly, but I would have thought that if you were going to base your view on following what you believe to be Jesus's ideas, then surely the question should not be what did he do two thousands years ago, but what would he do today? And do you really believe a modern-day Jesus would only pick men? 

How's your thetan?

I read that the Church of Scientology is to make its UK headquarters in Birmingham. Well we are already a cultural and religious melting pot around here, so it will be interesting to see how they get on, and I certainly think their ideas will come under even more intense scrutiny than perhaps they are used to.  At least they are taking over the listed Pitmaston site and have said they will restore the existing mansion, which is an important Art Deco building which was falling into disrepair, and might otherwise have been demolished to make way for housing.  

Ha ha

Loved the story of a civilian police worker who came across some banknotes marked "P C World" and spent the rest of the day asking everybody if they knew how she might get in touch with Police Constable World so as to return them.

Please, please, no!!

When I titled a post back in 2006 "I know - let's remake Casablanca" my tongue was firmly in my cheek - but now it seems I may have to take it out.  Well what's being suggested is not strictly a remake, but a sequel.  Just as bad though - how could you possibly follow up on what is generally considered to be one of the most perfect, if equivocal endings in movie history?  Any sequel would of necessity ruin the original. Say it isn't so.

Defamation 101.

Assuming Lord McAlpine does in fact sue Sally Bercow for libel, it will make for an interesting case.  To recap - the BBC broadcast a programme suggesting that "a senior Conservative politician" was involved in child abuse at a children's home in Wales 30-odd years ago.  No-one was named in the programme, but shortly after Sally Bercow tweeted "Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face*"    Now I don't use Twitter, and for those of you who also don't, as I understand it "trending" refers to a topic which is constantly cropping up in tweets at the moment, and asterisks can be used to indicate a facial expression.  So what she was really saying was "Why is everybody talking about Lord McAlpine - and I am asking this (at least superficially) without any specific motive".  So given that it is now accepted that Lord McAlpine was in no way involved in what is alleged to have gone on at that children's home, is that, or could that be libellous?  It is a defence to libel to show that what you said was the truth, and she could argue that Lord McAlpine was in fact "trending" at the time so her statement was true.  Indeed I think had she left out the words "Why is..." that would be a good defence, but her inclusion of those words leaves her open to a charge of innuendo - in other words, it's not what you say that is to be judged, but what a reasonable person would understand you to mean.  Like I say, it is a potentially very interesting case.

It's all on file!

You may remember me posting about ContactPoint (see 28/1/09) an official database of all children in this country under 18.  Well, like so many government databases, it eventually failed and was withdrawn.  But now we learn that Capita - a huge private organisation who provide outsourcing services to central and local government amongst others - is running a database called the One System which contains details of nearly all schoolchildren including their academic, attendance and behavioural records and even photographs, and all this without the knowledge, much less the permission of their parents.  Once again we have this problem of whether a database which simply gathers together information which is already out there in different places should concern us.  Much may depend on who has access to it, and for what purposes, and that we don't know.  I think Capita should come clean.

Seems obvious to me.

I sometimes wonder if I'm just not "getting it" - or whether perhaps I'm the only one who is getting it.  The feeling has cropped up again watching the Public Accounts Committee grilling Google, Amazon and Starbucks about the corporation tax they pay - or rather don't - in this country.  Now come on - if you were a large corporation operating in many countries, all with different rates of business tax, where would you choose to arrange things so that you paid your taxes?  In the country with the lowest rate of tax, obviously.  So if we were to reduce corporation tax to a rate below these other countries, we would have these multinationals beating a path to our door to pay their taxes here.  Isn't it that simple??

Far too sensible.

I think I would get on well with Baroness Warsi, who goes by the rather long-winded title of "Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Minister for Faith and Communities".  Why?  Well she strikes me as one of the few politicians who is prepared to tell it as she sees it without regard for political correctness (Ken Clarke being one of the others) and particularly because she has spoken out on a couple of the things I have posted about in the past - first, that the Christmas festive season ought to be open to all (5/12/06), and secondly that providing translation facilities for those who speak other languages just encourages them not to bother to learn English (9/12/07).  Right on, girl!

Told you!

I suggested some seven years ago that the main reason for introducing "chip and pin" for credit and debit cards was to seek to shift the liability for any fraudulent transaction from the bank to the customer and now Santander (and it's only a matter of time before other banks follow suit) has come out into the open and accepted that this is exactly the way it's going.  They are amending their terms and conditions to give them far more leeway in rejecting claims for compensation where a customer has lost money as a result of fraud.  They will not compensate where they consider that the customer has chosen a too-easy-to-guess PIN number for instance, or in their opinion has failed to adequately conceal the keypad whilst entering their PIN number.  You read it here first!

Poor old Auntie!

It seems at the moment that the BBC cannot do right for doing wrong.  They do seem to have a habit of putting their foot in it, don't they?  The management of such a huge organisation must be fraught with difficulties, but from what you read and hear, it seems that they simply don't talk to each other, which is always going to be a recipe for disaster.  For what it's worth, I think the original decision to not go ahead with the Newsnight programme on Savile was, given what was known or suspected at the time, a reasonable one - you can argue whether it was right or wrong, and given what has come to light since it was clearly wrong, but at the time it was a decision which a reasonable man on the evidence (or rather, lack of it) could have made.  The other Newsnight programme on the other hand was a mistake, and one which basic research could have avoided.  What's fascinating is to see the way BBC news is reporting what's going on - a bit like watching a snake swallowing its own tail.

Personal

If you read the same daily paper as me, you may already have seen this.  If not, you may find it interesting, and hopefully for some of you, helpful.  I've spoken before of how powerful poetry can be and even though it is now over six years since my own loss, I found myself nodding in agreement at every line.  It's called Condolances and written by Frances Gibb.

Please do not ask

If I am now recovering

Or if I see the light

At the tunnel's end.

Nor speak about relief - or burdens lifted.

And, worst of all, new starts.

Please, please don't ask

If I am getting through -

Have come to terms

Or find my life

Is back on track.

Of course I live each day to each

And gladly smile

My coping, to "prepare a face

To meet the faces that you meet".

What else is there to do?

In any case, you would not want to know

The daily loss that lasts eternally.

Just, please, don't ask.

We will remember them

Lest we forget
What they were dying for.
Lest we forget
What they were killing for.
Lest we forget
What the hell it was for.

Owen Griffiths

Is the force still strong?

So Disney have bought Lucasfilm and with it the right to the Star Wars franchise, and are promising a series of new films, starting with an Episode VII in 2015.  So should those of us who were blown away by Episode IV back in 1977 be excited or worried?  Or should we just accept that that film was very much a one-off of its time and we're never going to recapture that magic?  None of the other five episodes have really come close and several have been panned - although I seem to be one of the few who thought Episode I was quite good and rather liked Jar Jar Binks. The interesting thing is that George Lucas (who will still be involved in a consultative capacity) always envisaged an ongoing story line, which means that Episode VII should be a true sequel to Episode VI, and Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are all still available to continue their roles - now that would be something!

Doomsday, anyone?

I'm a long-time fan of The Simpsons, and one concept which keeps cropping up in its episodes is that of The Rapture.  So what exactly is it?  Well perhaps "exactly" is an unfortunate word, because the idea is anything but exact.  It's all to do with the second coming.  Christian dogma says that Jesus will one day return to the earth, and that will be the "end of times" - the world will end and we will all be judged - the blessed will go to heaven and the rest of us will go to the other place.  But there is some dispute as to the way this will happen and one version prevalent in the US is that the blessed will be taken up (literally) to heaven first, and this is The Rapture. The rest will be left behind to await their fate.  Interestingly the word rapture comes from the same Latin root as the word rape!

Three espressi please waiter.

Interesting article in the paper the other day about the way you should grammatically treat foreign words which have been accepted into the English language.  Did you know, for instance that "panini" which is now regularly used in English for a posh toasted sandwich is, in its original Italian, plural?  So to order "two paninis" could be said to be a nonsense.  Of course, we've always been used to the potential peculiarities of Latin and Greek words - like "what's the plural of octopus?" (strictly it's octopodes) but these are now so well embedded into the language that none but a pedant (like me) would baulk at octopusses.  But with some more recent imports it's not that easy.  Pizza for instance is an Italian word, the plural of which should strictly be pizze.  Is it now so accepted as an English (or maybe American) word that pizzas goes without comment?  I've talked before about the strength of English being its easy absorbtion of words from other languages, so there's no right answer - it's pizze for the purists and pizzas for the rest.

Déjà vu?

A little village in Warwickshire, in common with towns and villages all over the country, holds a parade of veterans to the war memorial on Remembrance Day. Has done every year since the end of WWI.  But this year, the local council have told them that they cannot parade down the street until they have provided -

• an event plan
• a full risk assessment
• emergency contact details
• marshals
• traffic management procedures
• road closure applications
• an evacuation plan, and
• public liability insurance

Does this ring a bell?  Yes we had something similar four years ago - that time it was somewhere in Wales.  I would have hoped we'd moved on since then, but apparently not - if anything things have got worse!

LOL???

Once again, I find myself struggling to understand something that the media are getting all het up about.  These texts and e-mails which may or may not have been going back and forth between David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks - so what?  Are we really saying that a Prime Minister (in fact I don't think he was Prime Minister at the appropriate time - just Leader of the Opposition) cannot have close personal friends and correspond with them?  Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether private messages should be subject to Freedom of Information legislation, just what is going to be achieved by publishing them?  Even if, as some people hope, they turn out to be "salacious"? Am I missing something?

Three for a quid - they're lovely!

You go to a market, you expect the traders to be shouting their wares - it's all part of the atmosphere.  Well not in Scunthorpe it isn't.  The council have unilaterally imposed a "charter" on market traders there which prohibits "pitching" as they call it. And it's no idle threat - one trader has been taken to court, had an injunction slapped on him which bans him from the market for three months, and been hit with costs of getting on for £1000 - and all for calling out his prices. Where do councils find these people?

Double standards?

So in the backwash from the Savile business it seems anybody is fair game provided they're dead.  Recent accusations have been made naming Leonard Rossiter and Derek McCulloch (Uncle Mac of the radio "Children's Hour" programmes of my childhood), who of course are in no position to answer back, but the BBC's Newsnight programme earlier this week was careful not to go further than talking about "a senior Conservative politician".  Why?  Because he's still alive and might sue for defamation.  You either have the evidence, in which case you should put up or shut up, or you haven't in which case you should just shut up!

It's not called "The Fall" for nothing.

Here's an interesting question - at this time of year trees lose their leaves.  Who do those leaves belong to, or more to the point, who is responsible for those leaves? An elderly lady in Stratford-upon-Avon lives on a tree-lined street.  Some of the leaves coming off those trees end up in her front garden.  She (or more accurately, her gardener) sweeps them back onto the pavement and into the road.  She has now been advised by the council that this constitutes fly-tipping which is punishable by a fine or even imprisonment. But the point is that the trees are on council land - the pavement - and therefore I think it could forcefully be argued that the leaves "belong" to the council, and that this is simply a matter of returning them to their rightful owner.  Discuss - as they would say in an exam question.

Not so elementary?

So - if you watched it - what do you make of "Elementary" - US TV's attempt to update Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century.  Comparisons with the BBC's "Sherlock" are obvious - in fact as I understand it, "Sherlock" was offered to CBS but they preferred to go their own way.  But it seems to me that they've missed the point. Sherlock succeeded because it remained faithful to the Conan Doyle stories - effectively updating them and giving them a modern twist.  Elementary on the other hand is just another detective show where the detective happens to be called Holmes and the sidekick Watson - could just as well have been Smith and Jones. So it's perfectly OK of its type but other than that the detective's MO is heavy on observation and deduction it has little connection with Conan Doyle's original concept.

What's next - Marmite?

First it was HP Sauce being bought by Heinz and production transferred from Birmingham to the Netherlands, and now it's Branston Pickle which is to be sold to a Japanese company - is nothing sacred?  At least it seems Branston will still be made in the UK - one must be thankful for small mercies.

Trick or treat

Hallowe'en seems an appropriate time to talk about our two favourite ghouls - Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster.  The story of Frankenstein and his creation is well enough known - Lord Byron (mad, bad and dangerous to know) was hosting a party in Italy in 1816 when he suggested that all his guests should write a ghost story and one of them, Mary Shelley, came up with Frankenstein - and the monster, created from bits of dead bodies, was born.  Dracula, as written by Bram Stoker, didn't appear until some 70 years later, but in fact had its origins in that same ghost-writing party.  Byron himself and his doctor, a man called Polidori, came up with the idea of a man returning from the dead who needed to feed on the blood of the living to survive, and they named this character The Vampyre.  Over the following years there were several subsequent stories written on the vampire theme, but Bram Stoker's is the one which has stood the test of time.  I imagine that few people have actually read either book (I haven't although I keep meaning to) and so both characters are known from the various films which have been made about them. Which is the scarier?  Well Dracula I would submit, who is driven to do what he does by his need for blood, whereas the monster, although frighteningly hideous is a rather pathetic character who really just wants to be loved.

Spend, spend, spend!

For a couple of years or so while the kids were little my wife had a job going round supermarkets doing stock control for various suppliers, and she learned and passed on to me the ways in which supermarkets use layout, lighting, aisle width and other tricks to get you to spend as much money in their shop as possible.  The one I could never understand was what she used to refer to as "endcaps" - these are the displays at the end of the aisles, as you turn the corner from one aisle to the next, and according to her are much prized by supermarkets as they generate getting on for double the revenue of stuff displayed in a straight aisle. Now I would imagine that most shoppers, like me, start at one end of the shop and go up and down the aisles in sequence, which means that you are bound to miss around half of these endcaps - if you're turning right you will miss the one on your left and vice versa. I'm sure the supermarkets have done their research and know what they are talking about, but I could never - and still can't - see it.

If it's Monday, I must be a woman.

I posted a little time ago about the way "Fräulein" and "Mademoiselle" were being phased out as titles for unmarried women in Germany and France, and wondered how long it would be before "Miss" went the same way.  But Brighton and Hove council are proposing to go one better, and do away with  all gender titles - so no more Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms.  And their reasoning?  Forcing people to decide what sex they are is unfair on transsexuals.  Yes really!  Whether transsexuality is rife in Brighton I know not, but it seems a very strange idea.  I occasionally get letters which start "Dear D Random" - presumably because the writer is uncertain whether I'm male or female and it always sounds very clumsy and rather rude.  I don't mind people choosing which sex they prefer to be treated as, irrespective of what dangly bits they may or may not have, or even changing their minds about it on a regular basis, but not knowing - oh come on!!

Red for danger...

It seems the government have come to some outline agreement with the leading supermarkets over the question of nutritional food labelling, although the actual details are still to be finalised apparently.  The stated objective is to make it easier for consumers to differentiate between "healthy" and "unhealthy" foods.  I think a big part of the problem is that, whilst nutritionalists might be in agreement, there is no real consensus among shoppers as to what exactly constitutes healthy and unhealthy foods.  As one who has been watching his weight for a good fifty years now, I well know the various approaches - calorie counting, low fat, low carbohydrate, low salt and so on.  So different shoppers will be looking - if indeed they look at all - for different things.  Me?  After 50 years I work on the principle of "a little of what you fancy" - in other words it's how much you eat rather than what you eat that matters.  So I don't think any new labelling system is going to be a lot of help to me.

Too late.

 A survey (yes, another of those surveys) has found that the West Midlands is the sex hot-spot of the country.  Apparently one in five of us have sex every night.  So they wait until I'm 75 and past it to tell me that??!

Buried.

So Time Team (see post of 12th February) is finally to be ditched by Channel 4. Great, great shame - a perfect example (at least in its original format) of public service broadcasting which surely should be encouraged.  It speaks volumes about the mental state of the viewing public when programmes like this go to the wall, while dross like "Strictly Come Dancing", "X Factor", "Britain's Got Talent" and the like pull in the audiences.  BBC2 was originally set up to provide minority educational stuff - perhaps they could take it over?

Ha ha.

A postmen walks up to an isolated cottage in the country.  An old man is sitting on the porch and a rather vicious looking dog is lying down next to him.  The postman is a bit apprehensive, and says to the old man "Does your dog bite?".  "Nope" replies the old man, so the postman goes ahead and the dog leaps up and attacks him and savages his leg.  "I though you said your dog didn't bite" screams the postman.  "That ain't my dog" replies the old man.

Blimey!!

Who'd be a Grandad - you're supposed to have all the answers.  No too bad when the grandkids are small and you don't have to deal with anything more difficult than "why do flowers die?", but then they grow up and you are faced - as I was the other day - with questions like "what is existentialism?".  That one threw me!  So here, for what it's worth, is my very amateur back-of-a-fag-packet answer.  Every movement, whether in art, music, literature or philosophy, tends to be a reaction, even a revolt, against what has gone before.  "Traditional" philosophies have been based on the concept that there is some meaning to life (42 anyone?), that there is some purpose to it all, and we should be seeking to live our lives in such a way as to give effect to that meaning or purpose.  Existentialism says that's rubbish - there is no meaning to life, life simply is.  Don't waste your time looking for something that isn't there, just get on and deal with it.  Life is what you make it - life is for living.  That's existentialism.

I know my rights!!

The story I referred to in April 2010 about a gay couple who were refused accommodation at a Mom and Pop bed and breakfast because the Mom and Pop were committed Christians and as such opposed to homosexuality, has come to the fore again as a result of the couple being awarded some £3,000 in damages under equality legislation.  Can't help but feel that this is not so much about discrimination, as about common sense and good manners.  There's a growing tendency for minority groups to thrust their "minority-ness" in other people's faces, and here we seem to have had two pairs of people doing just that.  If you were gay and you and your boyfriend went to visit a straight-laced maiden aunt, you wouldn't hold hands and snog in front of her.  If you were a committed Christian and went to visit someone you knew to be atheist or agnostic, you wouldn't insist on saying grace and singing hymns - this is just basic good manners.  I feel sure that with a bit of goodwill and give and take on both sides, this whole situation could have been avoided.

Passing by.

My local polling station is on my regular morning walk, so I've always popped in and voted whenever there's an election or referendum.  But I'm seriously thinking of breaking the habit of a lifetime and not bothering to take part in the forthcoming election for a Commissioner of Police.  Two reasons - firstly the candidates, to the extent that we know them, are all political animals (whether party or independent) who I fear if elected will be following their own political agenda, and secondly, as I have mentioned before in these pages, I have an instinctive mistrust of elected officials, who are likely to be more interested in their prospects of re-election than in doing what is best for the community.  And as there will be no provision (as far as I am aware) on the ballot paper to say "I don't want a Police Commissioner" I shall not be taking part.

Guilty pleasures.

The Government are talking about legislating to ban supermarkets from offering discounts for those purchasing multiple bottles of wine.  So that would be the end of my "three for a tenner" then?

Like a bad penny...

You know the old joke about the man who was trying to get rid of his boomerang, but every time he threw it away, it kept coming back?  Well, we now have a story about a man in Kent who keeps pigeons and, as a result of complaints from his neighbours, had now been ordered by the local council to get rid of them.  But as he points out, they're homing pigeons, so wherever they're taken to, they will follow their instincts, and return to him.  Tricky, eh??

Underground magic.

To my generation, the Spitfire is iconic.  All us young boys wanted to be Spitfire pilots when we grew up.  So it's been somewhat sad - if inevitable - watching the number of serviceable planes slowly dwindle over the decades.  But hope is at hand. Apparently, in the dying days of the war, and for reasons which I don't fully understand, some 60 brand new Spitfires were crated and buried in the Burmese jungle at a secret location.  And now a treasure hunter has found that location and plans to dig them up.  Records show that they were carefully greased and waxed before being crated, so there's a good chance that a least some of them may be in good flying order.  This could easily double the number of serviceable Spits out there and hopefully give us a good few more years of seeing them fly.  On a related matter, shame that a lack of spare parts means that the one surviving airworthy Avro Vulcan will have to be grounded next year.  Beautiful aircraft.

There's none so deaf...

So we have yet another report saying that drug-taking is no more a social evil than eating junk food or gambling, and that vasts sums of money are being wasted in the so-called "War Against Drugs".  We've heard it all before several times, and just as before, the Government are turning a deaf ear, and insisting that their approach of bringing the full force of the law to bear on users and dealers is the right - indeed the only - way to go.  Dubious morality wins out against common sense yet again.

Sliders...

There has been much criticism of Newcastle United for signing a sponsorship deal with Wonga.  For anybody from Mars, Wonga run what is known as a "payday lending" business - essentially short-term loans at an eye-watering rate of interest.  But the outrage is not so much directed at the football club as at Wonga itself, which is seen as a company which makes its money on the back of poverty and desperation   Now I certainly hold no brief for Wonga, but once again, I think we are missing the big question, which is - why are Wonga so successful?  And they are indeed successful - they have recently posted profits of some £45m and their business has grown by getting on for 300% over the past year.  And the answer is clear - they make borrowing money easy and fast.  It takes a matter of minutes to arrange a loan, and the money is usually in your bank account within the hour.  Compare that to the hoops you have to jump through to arrange a loan or overdraft with a bank or building society.  So don't blame Wonga for seeing a gap in the market and exploiting it - blame the "traditional" lenders for creating that gap.  And if you want to see the end of Wonga and the other payday loan companies, the answer is obvious isn't it?

Me - I shall continue (promise).

Good job I am no longer a Civil Servant.  Owen Paterson, who rejoices in the title of Food Secretary has issued a diktat to his staff on the correct (as he sees it) use of English, and punctuation in particular. No dashes, no brackets, and lots of semicolons it seems.  So that would be me on the carpet then?

Justice delayed is...

A new medical report on Gary McKinnon (see post of 4/9/08) has concluded that, if extradited to the US, he is "very likely" to attempt suicide.  But that wasn't what made my blood boil - it was the fact that this business has now been going on for TEN YEARS!!  We're supposed to be a civilised country for Christ's sake.  This man and his family have been left dangling 'twixt Heaven and Hell for a decade.  Whatever the outcome, we should hang our heads in shame.

You can't say that - or that - or that!

Voltaire said (or rather, didn't, but is quoted as saying) "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".  This aphorism is regularly trotted out to encapsulate the much vaunted concept of freedom of speech - a concept which seems to be coming under much scrutiny - or even attack - lately. There have been several instances recently of people being charged and in some cases convicted for simply saying or writing something which others have found (or even just might have found) offensive.  Many of these cases involve social media websites, the dangers of using which I have posted about before, but I think the question we have to ask ourselves is  - do we accept that freedom of speech inevitably means the freedom to insult and offend?  And if not, do we really have any freedom of speech?  I am really beginning to think that the answer is no.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Traffic warden in Wimbledon was in an enforcement van taking pictures of drivers parking on double yellows so that they could be issued with fixed penalty notices. So what makes that worthy of comment?  He was parked on double yellows himself!

Pot plant

Can't claim any credit for the title, but it was just too good to pass up.  An elderly couple down in Bedford bought a plant at a car boot sale, took it home, put it in the garden and looked after it until it grew into a big shrub.  They then got a visit from the police, who said did they realise it was a cannabis plant!  Apparently the biggest one the police had ever seen.  At least the police have confirmed that no action will be taken against the couple, which makes a nice change.

Annual income twenty pounds....

I'm sure we all know the famous words of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield to the effect that if your expenditure exceeds your income it can only bring misery.  Well how about this?  The latest figures show that there are now over 53% of households in this country who are receiving more from the government in benefits than they are paying to the government in taxes.  Now wonder we are in a mess!

Disgusting!

I posted back in June about the shamefully belated memorial to Bomber Command being unveiled in London.  Big occasion - the Queen and most of the Royal Family were there together with thousands of veterans - so who do you think should foot the bill for the day?  The Government, right?  Wrong!  To be fair, they have chipped in with about £200,000 but that still leaves a shortfall of over half a million which they say is not their responsibility and therefore falls to the Bomber Command Association to pay.  Problem is, the Association has no money left, and the trustees - themselves Bomber Command veterans - face losing their homes. Given that half a million pounds is chump change in governmental terms, they should do the decent thing.

Level playing field?

So it's OK for the FA to call Ashley Cole a liar, but unacceptable for him to call them a bunch of twats?

Bombe surprise?

Heard about the Sainsburys "Wiggles the caterpillar" birthday cake which set off the security alarms at Stanstead Airport?  Actually it turns out it wasn't the cake at all, but the packaging which contained acetate that apparently shares some chemical characteristics with semtex.  Good story though?

Music Man

It's 50 years since the first Beatles' single was released - Love Me Do - and strangely the critics now seem to be lining up to denigrate it.  Well certainly they went on to produce much better stuff, but you have to assess it in the light of the pop music scene of 1962.  We'd had a decade or so of Rock'n'Roll - twelve bar blues with a strong off-beat rhythm - good of its type but not remotely original, and suddenly we had this song with a poignant harmonica riff and a melody sung in open fourths and fifths - almost plainchant.  It came as a bolt from the blue.  The fact that with the benefit of hindsight it was not their best work is immaterial - at the time it was a breath of fresh air and certainly it opened my eyes - and ears.

Just a healthy appetite?

My granddaughter's birthday is coming up, and there is talk of going out for a family meal at one of these restaurants where you pay a fixed charge and can then eat as much as you like, so I was tickled by the story of a similar setup down Brighton way where the proprietor has banned a couple of 26-year-old men for - you've guessed it - eating too much!

The thin yellow line?

We're used to seeing policemen and women dealing with an emergency wearing those high visibility day-glo yellow jackets with "Police" on the back, but apparently these are to become standard daily attire for the police. So we'll no longer be able to refer to the boys in blue then?

Sorry son, can't come and cheer for you.

I thought that we'd seen the end of these silly CRB (Criminal Record Bureau) checks stories, but apparently not.  A school in Wiltshire has ruled that parents cannot come to spectate at sports events in which their children are taking part, unless they have been CRB checked by their local council.  Their reasoning is sound enough - it is to try and ensure that strangers do not gain access to their playing fields - but this is a problem which would be simply solved by issuing parents with a school identity card.  Why on earth a CRB check?  Couldn't be that they are getting some sort of kick-back from the £26 fee you have to pay to get such a check, could it?

Away with the fairies.

So Ed Milliband is now pressing the "One Nation" button as many other politicians - usually when in opposition - have done before him  If we all pull together everything will be hunky-dory, and Labour are the party to create the political and economic climate in which we will all want to pull together.  Like I say, I've heard it all before and the bald fact of the matter is that it's all cloud cuckoo-land.  We will never all pull together - there will always be those who are looking out for themselves and couldn't care less about anyone else.  Probably the closest we came to the One Nation ideal was during the Second World War, but even then there were those deliberately working against the common good.  Apart from the criminals who simply went on being criminals, there were the spivs and black marketeers, and there were workers who went on strike - yes, believe it or not, there were official strikes called in wartime.  So, nice idea and goes down well with the party faithful, but let's keep our feet on the ground.

The dead can't answer back.

I have absolutely no idea whether Sir Jimmy Savile did in fact do the things he is now being accused of, but I find it very depressing the way, following the death of any celebrity, that within a very short time people start coming out of the woodwork to say unpleasant things about them.  Things which, presumably, they didn't dare say while they were still alive - and of course, the object of their accusations is conveniently no longer around to defend themselves.  Abject opportunism is a phrase which springs to mind.

Good news and bad news?

Whilst I - in common I suspect with most people in this country - am happy that the Abu Hamza business seems to be finally coming to an end, and he will soon be off to the US to face trial there, concerns have been raised that the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights which rejected his appeal against extradition may make it more difficult in the future for the Home Secretary to refuse requests by the US for UK citizens to be extradited there, and given the fact that many people consider the US/UK extradition treaty to be at best biased, and at worst fatally flawed, perhaps any cheers over Abu Hamza should be muted.

Formula One

I am very disappointed with Lewis Hamilton who is to move next season from McLaren to Mercedes.  I feel very much as I remember feeling when Wayne Rooney left Everton to go to Manchester United - whatever happened to loyalty?  Rooney had been nurtured by Everton, just as Hamilton has been by McLaren.  Am I old-fashioned in thinking that both owed a debt to those who had made them what they are - a debt which both of them in their way have conspicuously failed to honour.

To Sir, with love

15-year-old schoolgirl runs off to France (willingly as it appears) with her 30-year-old married maths teacher.  Has any offence been committed?  The police clearly think so, as they have issued an international arrest warrant against the teacher, and in fact he has now been arrested in France under its authority.  So why?  Well the warrant cites "child abduction".  OK, as she is 15, the girl is legally a minor, but abduction?  It seems to be accepted that she went with him willingly, so how can there be any question of abduction?  And when they get back to this country, what then?  They will presumably want to continue seeing each other - is the law going to try and stop them?  Unless there are things we are not being told, the authorities seem to have chosen a very heavy-handed approach which I feel is only going to make a difficult situation worse.

Cheers!

Halfpenny Green - near Wolverhampton - has traditionally been known for its airport, but is now becoming famous for its vineyard.  They've been making wine there for many years, but apparently the weather last autumn was perfect for grape production, and they've come up with a stunning red wine made from Rondo grapes and with an ABV of 15% which is getting rave reviews.  Mind you, at £15 a bottle, I'm afraid it's outside my price range!  One other thing - I've always pronounced it Hayp'ny Green, like the coin, but some presenters on the TV  news - including the local news - are pronouncing it as written.  How do the inhabitants say it?

Sorry Sir, your car has failed the breathalyser!

A couple of years ago I posted about a Scottish distillery which had come up with a way of turning their waste product into methane gas, which could then be used to power their machinery.  Now we have a story of another distillery up there which has entered into a partnership to convert their useless byproducts into butanol, which can be used to fuel cars.  What struck me most forcibly is that apparently 90%  of what a distillery produces is of no use and normally thrown away.  What a waste!

Further update

Well, I've had my Kindle for nearly two years now, and I certainly wouldn't be without it.  I still buy the occasional paperback when there's a good offer on, but where the Kindle has really come into its own is when I go on holiday - instead of weighing down my case with around half a dozen paperbacks to last me a fortnight, I just load up the Kindle with more than enough books to keep me going.  I always think the acid test of any gadget is - if it broke, would I replace it?  And as far as the Kindle is concerned, the answer is a definite yes.

Well I never!

The Government has spent something like a couple of million quid on a survey to find out what makes people happy, and the answer, surprise surprise, appears to be money!  The better off are happier, and the poorer are unhappier.  This is not, I suspect, the result the Government were hoping for, but I think most of us could have told 'em that for nowt!  You remember that old saying - money can't buy you happiness, but it sure takes the edge off being miserable.

The story continues...

This Andrew Mitchell business (see last Saturday's post) won't go away, will it?  As is so often the case, I think the most pertinent question is not being asked (or if it is, I've missed it) and that is, why did the police refuse to allow him to ride his bike out of the main gates, as apparently he was used to doing?  An approach I find useful when trying to get to the bottom of something, is to think in terms of a domino race - you know, where each domino knocks the next in line down.  And what you look for is the first domino - the one that starts the whole thing off - and here, that clearly was the decision of the police to not allow him to use the main gate.  Everything followed from that.  So why?  After all, the Chief Whip is one of only three members of the government to have offices in Downing Street, and I hardly think they would have refused to let the Prime Minister or the Chancellor (if in fact he rides a bike) go through the main gate.  So was this in fact just a matter of mistaken identity?  After all, he's only been in post a week or two and maybe he wasn't recognised?  In which case, I would think apologies are due from both sides.

Be careful what you wish for...

I should keep my big mouth shut!  Just the other day I was musing about whether BT would be putting their charges up to help pay for the money they have had to outlay to get the rights to show premiership rugby, and now I've had my quarterly bill with a little flyer which tells me - you've guessed it - that they are increasing their prices from next January.  Nice one!!

So what?

The Government Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell, is apparently facing calls for him to resign, following an altercation he had with police manning the gates to Downing Street the other evening.  Can you see a connection, 'cause I'm blowed if I can? Presumably the Prime Minister appointed him as Chief Whip because he considered he had the characteristics necessary for the job, and I'm sure that good relations with the police never came into it.  How does the fact that he bad-mouthed a policemen make him any more or less fit to hold his post?  The opposition of course are out to make trouble, as is their wont - you might even say their job - but the only question relevant to him staying in his job is - is he good at it?  And, given the nature of the post you might think that a tendency to fly off the handle is a plus point rather than a minus one.

Nostalgia

A story about a shop in Warwick which had remained virtually unchanged for over 100 years going out of business because it could not compete in the modern world brought to mind a name which I am sure will ring a bell with many in my neck of the woods - Snapes of Wolverhampton.  This was a tea and coffee shop in Queen Street which had been trading there since the end of the 19th century and its charm was that the fixtures and fittings were basically still as they were all that time ago.  All the teas and coffees were sold loose and kept in jars and drawers behind the counter and your purchase would be wrapped in paper and tied with string which hung down from a ball in the ceiling - this in itself was a work of art, and people would come miles for the experience.  Sadly for various reasons, there was nobody to take it over when the last tenants retired, and in 2002 it closed and the contents were sold at auction.  Nothing remains but the memory.

You shop - we drop??

I think I've mentioned before that, unlike many men, I actually enjoy going out shopping, so I've never been tempted to do my supermarket shopping online.  I know lots who do though.  I think even if I were unable to get out for whatever reason, I would baulk at having to pay to have my shopping delivered - £5 seems to be a standard charge.  And now somebody has done the maths, and reckons that it actually costs supermarkets about £20 a time to collect, bag and deliver to on-line shoppers.  Which means of course that they're losing money doing it, and supermarkets don't lose money, so clearly they put their prices up to recoup their loss - and that means those of us who shop in person are subsidising those who shop online.  Now that makes me cross!

The language of Shakespeare?

Apparently a poll has found that the most popular Bond theme song is "Live and let die".  For me, this one would immediately be ruled out on the grounds that it contains one of the most grammatically terrible lines ever written - "...this ever changing world in which we live in...".  What on earth were the McCartneys on when they wrote that?  Personally, for what it's worth, I think the classiest Bond theme tune was "Nobody does it better".

Well blow me down!

We've talked before about the Law of Unforeseen Consequences, but what about the Law of Blindingly Obvious Consequences?  Last year it cost about £3500 for a University place.  This year it's anything up to £9000.  And would you believe it, the number of people applying to go to University has gone down.  Couldn't be cause and effect could it?

Nice tits?

The topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge have created a furore - or have they?  The Editor of the Irish paper which published them made the point that "she's not our future Queen" and the same goes of course for France and Italy, the other two countries (so far) to have published them.  So is this just a British reaction - maybe over-reaction?  To most of the rest of the world's media she's just a celebrity, and as such is fair game for any story or picture which might boost sales.  I think Max Clifford made the most perceptive point when he said that the man with the camera and a long lens could equally well have been a man with a rifle and a telescopic sight, and that's what ought to be concerning us.

Many a true word...

Birthday card from my granddaughter.  On the front - "Grandad, you are always doing nice things for me, so I got you this lovely birthday card because it was my turn to do something nice for you!"  And inside? "OK, now it's your turn again!"

Shafted both ways??!

As an armchair sports fan I am concerned at BT buying up the rights to show premiership rugby from next year.  I have no intention of paying more for my television viewing than the considerable monthly sum I have to shell out at the moment, so presumably this means that I shall not be able to watch any of the top rugby matches after this season.  Mind you, as a BT customer I am even more concerned about where the money is coming from for this deal, and whether I shall find that my 'phone and broadband bills go up as a consequence - which would mean that I would end up paying for the privilege of not being able to watch the rugby!

Personal

When I started this blog I seem to remember mentioning several times that I was coming up to 70.  At the time, it seemed a bit of a watershed, as indeed have my previous odd-decade numbered birthdays - thirty and fifty.  Well, time marches on, and I've just turned 75.  So - free TV licence, which is nice.  I have to say that my legs are not what they were, but I can still walk without the need for a stick, and although I'm somewhat overweight and drink far too much, generally I feel OK.  I still miss my darling wife, and always will I suppose, but I've come to terms with the solitary life, and I have family close by so it's not that solitary.  Why am I telling you all this?  Not sure really, but there seems to be so much doom and gloom talked about getting old nowadays, that I thought I ought to make the point that there are those of us who may not see, hear or move as well as we once did, but are still trucking and looking forward to the future - however short or long it may be.  Glass definitely half full.

A man for no seasons?

How utterly sad and depressing to see the historic and once noble office of Lord Chancellor devalued virtually to the point of extinction.  The latest incumbent is neither a lord nor a judge, nor even a lawyer.  It is difficult to see how he can speak with any authority for the Judiciary or on constitutional matters.  We seem to have lost all sense of history - indeed, lost all sense, full stop.

Piracy - not all bad?

Interesting research carried out at North Carolina State University which suggests that the supposed "naughty" activity of file-sharing, far from economically harming artists and publishers actually more often than not leads to a "small but significant" increase in sales.  Another example of the dangers of seeing everything in terms of black and white - grey rules you see (apologies to E. L. James).

You couldn't make it up.

Haven't had one of these for a bit, and this particular story is over a year old, although I missed it at the time.  Anyway Butlins have apparently ruled that bumper cars on their sites are not allowed to bump!  The reason given, you will hardly be surprised to learn is "health and safety", although it will equally not come as any surprise to learn that the real reason is the fear of being sued if anyone were to complain of being hurt as a result of being bumped.  And apparently it's not just Butlins - many funfairs are taking a similar line - oh for the innocent fun days of my childhood!

Oh, who is that young sinner...

...is the title of a poem by A. E. Housman, which contains the line "they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair".  Came to mind when I saw the story of a young Scotsman who maintains he was arrested and spent a month in gaol simply because he had red hair, and a shoplifting offence had been reported as being committed by a red-haired lad.  He had an alibi, but the colour of his hair was enough to get him banged up.  Fact stranger than fiction?

Murderball? It's murder all right!

Why on earth is wheelchair rugby called that?  OK, they're in wheelchairs, but rugby??  It's not rugby, it's basketball without the hoops!  They don't use a rugby ball, and they ignore the basic rule which makes rugby what it is - that the ball cannot be passed forwards.  As far as I can see, the only similarity with rugby is that, in order to score a point, you must carry the ball into your opponent's end zone.  I feel like complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority!

It's not alright, it's not ok...

What's happening to "New Tricks"?  Jack Halford (James Bolam) has gone - DI Pullman (Amanda Redman) and Brian Lane (Alun Armstrong) are apparently on their way out. I'll put my cards on the table - I love New Tricks - it's one of the few BBC programmes I watch these days.  And it appears that there are some 7 to 8 million other viewers who feel the same.  It's the television equivalent of a comfort blanket. And I, for one, feel let down by those who have left or are leaving.  Do they not feel any loyalty to their dedicated viewers?  It's not as though they are young actors seeking to make a career for themselves - quite the reverse.  I feel very disappointed.

Ha ha.

Here's one that made me smile - and before anyone starts on about racialism and stereotyping, the person who told it was a Jew -
A devout Orthodox Jew was walking along a cliff path, when he slipped and fell over the edge.  Frantically thrashing about, he managed to grab hold of a branch sticking out of the cliff face.  As he dangled there, he looked up to Heaven and prayed  "Please God, help me.  Help me - is there anybody there?"  And he heard a voice "This is the Lord, thy God.  Let go of the branch.  Trust me, let go of the branch. Hear the word of the Lord, let go of the branch".  And the man looked down at a drop of some hundreds of feet onto some very unpleasant looking rocks, and looking up to Heaven once again he said "Is there anybody else there?"

...you saw me standing alone...

Blue moon, of course.  But what's the origin of the expression?  There are several explanations.  The "official" definition of a blue moon is the second of two full moons which appear in the same month (it's just happened in August), or the third of four which appear in the same season.  Because the moon's cycle is slightly shorter than a calendar month, this two-in-a-month or four-in-a-season event will only occur every two-and-a-bit years, which is seldom enough for it to be worthy of comment, hence the expression "once in a blue moon" for an unusual event.  But why blue? No-one knows, but there is a 16th century poem poking fun at the Church's insistence that it had all the answers, which includes the line "If they say the moon is blue, we must believe it is true".

Well I never!

I'm always reading about the result of some research or other - often on the most surprising or baffling things.  Here's one for the list - apparently if you're a beer drinker, the shape of your glass affects how quickly or slowly you will down your pint.  It seems that you will drink more slowly out of a straight-sided glass than a curved one.  Various explanations have been put forward for this, but the real mystery is that this only applies to beer - for those drinking a soft drink it makes no difference.  Work that one out if you can!

I've got a little list...

Worrying story which broke over the weekend (although it actually took place a few months back) of an Australian lawyer who was initially prevented from boarding a flight from Heathrow to Sydney because, she was told, she was on an "inhibited person list" which meant she needed special clearance before she could leave the country.  So is there such a list, and if so, what's it all about?  Nobody has been prepared to comment, but the only reason I can think of why there should be such a list, is that it consists of people who are on the point of being arrested for some serious offence, and it is to prevent them from fleeing the jurisdiction.  But this was somebody who, as far as is known, had never done anything controversial, and certainly nothing remotely criminal, seeking to travel back to her own country.  Our government, the US government and the Australian government have all denied operating such a list, so like I say, worrying.

You can't see his lips move!

The death on Saturday of Max Bygraves brought to mind what must be one of the most bizarre entertainment programmes ever produced.  He initially made his name (as did many other well known comedians) on a radio programme called "Educating Archie" - Archie being Archie Andrews, a ventriloquist's dummy worked by Peter Brough.  The act had been playing the music halls for some years, but a ventriloquist act on radio??  It was enormously successful, so obviously people didn't see the absurdity.  RIP Max.

Oh, get a move on.....!

Always fascinating when you come across a personal experience and suddenly realise that it is proving some theory you have read about.  Coming back through Arrecife airport the other week, there was (most unusually for that airport) a long queue to get through security.  So we joined the end and for some time nothing moved, then we moved on for a bit, then stopped again, and so on and so on.  And I suddenly realised that when I wasn't moving I was feeling tetchy and cross, but when I was moving, even though we were only moving slowly, and I knew we would probably stop again, I suddenly felt much better.  And I remembered an article I had read about the psychology of queueing, which said that research had found that, provided the queue is moving, however slowly, those queueing will be content, whereas what people find infuriating is "dead time" when nothing is (or appears to be) happening.  It's the same idea behind variable speed limits on motorways - people are much happier crawling at 25 mph than stuck in a stationary tail-back.

History is bunk - Henry Ford.

It's a truism that history is written by the victors, and you need to bear that in mind when judging what you read about what has happened in the past.  I thought of this recently when the story broke about the site of Richard III's grave being sought underneath a car park in Leicester.  There is now considerable doubt whether Richard was really the hunchback monster he was portrayed as by his Tudor conquerors - and Shakespeare.  And then there is the story of a two thousand or so year old poem which has been discovered and recently translated which suggests that the Roman emperor Nero and his wife Poppaea may not have been as black as history has painted them.  So always keep that pinch of salt handy.

Book post

(see post of 18/11/06)
Kathy Reichs - 206 Bones - 8
Scott Mariani - The Sacred Sword - 8.5
David Baldacci - Zero Day - 8
Rod Pennington and Jeffery A Martin - The Fourth Awakening - 6
Rob Hamilton - the Whitechapel Murder Mystery - 7
Scott Mariani - Passenger 13 - 8
Jonathan Kellerman - Compulsion - 7
John Grisham - The Litigators - 8
Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt - 6.5
Robert Goddard - Blood Count - 8.5

London 2012 (am I allowed to say that?) - part 2.

If I couldn't get enthused by the Olympics, then I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that I can get even less excited by the Paralympics.  That's not to say that I do not admire the dedication and effort put in by the disabled athletes and what they are doing, it's just that I'm not that interested in watching them do it.  So good luck to all of them, but while they're doing their thing, I'll be doing mine.

Sorry - I didn't see you.

One of those things that "everybody knows" is that carrots are good for your eyesight.  Now it's a fact that carrots are a source of vitamin A, and that vitamin A deficiency can result in poor eyesight, but we in the Western world get plenty of Vitamin A from other sources, so where did this urban myth that eating carrots will enable you to see in the dark come from?  Well in fact it was a piece of government inspired misdirection in WW II to offer an explanation as to why our fighter pilots were so successful at shooting down German bombers at night - the real reason of course was our use of radar which back then was top secret.  So eat your carrots - but if you're out in the dark, best carry a torch!

... some are more equal then others.

If we are to believe what we read, the outgoing Director General of the BBC turned down the idea of a statue of George Orwell outside Broadcasting House on the basis that he was "too left-wing".  Well, he was certainly a committed socialist, but the author of "1984" and "Animal Farm" - two of the most savage criticisms of totalitarianism and communism - too left-wing??  I don't think so!!

Apocalypse - now??

Will the world end on December 21st?  That's when the Mayan calendar runs out - and it's been going for 5,000 years, so it's got more going for it than some of the more recent "end of time" predictions.  But did the Mayans really believe that this would be the end of everything, or as others have suggested, that the calendar would simply reset to zero and start another 5,000 year cycle.  And is it worth taking any notice of these increasingly frequent doomsday prophesies?  After all, the world has been around for some four and a half billion years (sorry creationists, the facts are against you) and we humans, or our ancestors, have only appeared in the last two million years or so.  Put another way, if the age of the world is a day, then we humans first made our appearance at about ten seconds before midnight. So do you really think what we believe - or don't - has any relevance in the great scheme of things?  Oh, come on!!

How do you pick and choose?

Exam results in the news again - not, as for the last umpteen years, because the percentage of those getting good results has increased, leading to accusations that the exams are getting easier.  No, this time it's the reverse - the percentage of those getting good results has decreased (albeit marginally) and the accusation this time is that this is as a result of deliberate government pressure.  So what, if anything is going on?  Well, there are two ways of awarding grades.  Up to twenty or so years ago, what grade you got depended on how well (or badly) you did in relation to everybody else - so if you were in the top 10% say in a particular subject you might get an "A" - if you were in the next 20%, a "B" and so on.  But then the system changed and you were assessed not against everybody else, but against a set "line in the sand", so it might be for example that if you got 150 marks or better you would get an "A", between 100 and 149 a "B" and so on.  Problem is these "grade boundaries" as they are called are reset every year, and often retrospectively, leading to accusations that they can be, and have been used to achieve a certain result - for political or other reasons.  The current Secretary of State seems to want to go back to the "percentage" method, and certainly I would have thought that this method of ranking you against your peers would be more useful to prospective employers or further education establishments.

In off the red.

What are we to make of Prince Harry's "strip billiards" (which actually appears to have been pool) session?  My initial thought was "what a prat!".  If he'd been 17 or 18 you could have put it down to youth and immaturity, but he will be 28 in a few week's time for Heaven's sake, and is way old enough to know better.  Which invites the question - was this to some extent a deliberate act?  Was he seeking to send a message of some sort to who knows whom? Funny way of doing it, but you never know.  The Sun has broken ranks with the other newspapers and published a picture of the Prince in his birthday suit - it is, according to them, a matter of "freedom of the press".  That would be freedom of the press spelled M-O-N-E-Y then?

What Olympic legacy?

Remember the story of the street in London where the council removed the speed bumps so that the official Olympic cars could have a smooth ride, only to replace them once the Games were over?  Well here's an even more unbelievable one - a school gymnasium was identified to be used as a training hall for Olympic volleyball teams.  The school pointed out that their gym was a hot and stifling room - so much so that their pupils were limited to using it for just 15 minutes at a time.  So our good friends at LOGOC arranged for air conditioning to be installed.  You can see where this is going can't you?  Now the Olympics is over, they've taken the air con units out again!

Eat your greens - if you can afford them!

We've been here before - the wet summer means that there is a shortage of home-grown vegetables, which will result in an unavoidable rise in prices.  We're already seeing the price of tomatoes up by about a third on last year, and there's warnings of more to come.  You just can't win, can you?

Oh dear, Mr Akin...

OK so this is an American story, but it seems it has its origins over here.  The said Mr Akin, a senatorial candidate, suggested that a woman who is raped is unlikely to conceive.  He used the rather strange phrase "legitimate rape" which is an obvious oxymoron, but the idea behind what he was saying goes back to the English common law in the 13th century or thereabouts.  The theory back then was that, in order to conceive, a woman must experience orgasm, and therefore if she does conceive, the sex must have been consensual. In English law, this idea had more or less been discredited by the 17th century, but  surprisingly is apparently still alive and well in at least some parts of the US!

I don't like....

...Mondays, as the song goes.  But apparently, there's something to it.  A recent survey has found that statistically, bad things are in fact more likely to happen on a Monday than on any other day of the week.  Why?  No-one knows, although there is a theory that the weekend is traditionally "dead time" and therefore what happens on a Monday is the accumulation of three days' worth of experience. You've had all weekend to mull it over, and on Monday you let it all out, sort of thing.  Best stay in bed, I reckon.

So what??

Does anybody really care what happens to Julian Assange?  Well, clearly there are those who do, so perhaps the question is - should we care?  This idea that he is some sort of knight in shining armour dedicated to protecting the public's right to know the dubious things their governments are getting up to strikes me as confusing cause and effect.  It may well be that the result of his activities has been to shine a light into some murky corners and to cause embarrassment to the US in particular, but I don't think his motives are that clear-cut.  If you look at the totality of his history, it seems to me that he's one of those people who do what they like simply because they can and they care little for what may result (good or bad) from their activities.  So why should we care?  As my Gran would have said - he's made his bed, and must now lie on it.