Connection?

Two stories in the news -
1. Tube drivers are to be balloted on taking strike action after rejecting the offer of a bonus of £500 for working during the Olympics (see post dated 15/9/11).
2.  London Mayor Boris Johnson has plans to introduce driverless tube trains within the next few years.
Wapping all over again?

Where does he stand?

Richard Dawkins' statement that he preferred to call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist seems to have surprised a lot of people.  So just what is the difference?  Both words come from the Greek a- being a negative prefix, theos meaning god, and gnossis meaning knowledge.  So an atheist is one who maintains that there is no God, whereas an agnostic is one who does not know (and maybe doesn't care).  Of course, as there can never be any absolute proof of the existence or non-existence of God, atheism is as much a matter of faith (belief without proof) as the contrary stance that He does exist.  And as a scientist, by definition, is one who arrives at conclusions by the gathering and examination of facts, it is difficult to see how any scientist true to his trade, could be an atheist.  Given that, as he himself said, Dawkins cannot be absolutely certain that God does not exist (just sure on a scale of  6.9 out of 7) then he has to be agnostic.

How churlish!

If you want to know what's wrong - or at least what I think is wrong with football today consider the following. After just scraping home in the Carling Cup on penalties against a team a full league below them in a match they were expected to win with relative ease, Liverpool's manager Kenny Dalglish was interviewed for the BBC.  "What a hard way to win a cup" said the interviewer.  Dalglish looked at him and shrugged.  "The name's on the trophy - that's all that matters".  

Brrring, Brrring.

The Prime Minister has jumped on the bicycling band-wagon - if you get what I mean.  I haven't ridden a bike for over 40 years but as a driver I do have a point of view.  Cyclists are the only road users who don't have to pass a test, or indeed even have any sort of instruction.  One of the first things any driving instructor will tell you is that the secret of safe driving is to not put yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And yet how often do you see cyclists coming up the inside of cars or lorries waiting at a junction - about as dangerous a place to be in as you could imagine.  And if there is an accident it is of course always the car or lorry driver who gets the blame - "they should have seen me" is the cyclist's cry. Whereas they need to be told that they should have used their brains and not put themselves there in the first place.  I don't want to go down the line of licences for cyclists, but I think basic cycling "nous" should be part of the school curriculum. Not that long ago I used to regularly see kids from the local primary school on their bikes wearing fluorescent jackets out for a cycling "lesson" - doesn't seem to happen any more, which I think is a backwards step.  Mind you, my experience is that it's usually the adult cyclists that do the stupidest things!

Madness at Molineux

I'm sure you're not in the slightest interested, but I feel I must have my say on the farce which has been playing out over the last ten days or so over who should replace McCarthy at Wolves (see post dated 15th Feb).  It quickly became apparent that McCarthy had been sacked with no contingency plan in mind - surely a piece of crass management.  Then over the next week or so it equally became apparent that nobody wanted the job - at least not on the terms on offer.  And the outcome?  They've appointed McCarthy's deputy - the man who was there all along, and who has to bear his share of the responsibility for what went before.  Doesn't make any sense to me.  What's going to change?  They might just as well have stuck with Mick - in fact I wish they had.

Rewarding failure?

Heard a lot about this lately - mainly in regard to people getting what are perceived as unwarranted bonuses, but the Civil Service are past masters in the art.  Make a bit of a mess of your job, and you risk being demoted or maybe even sacked, but make a complete Horlicks of it, and you'll probably get promoted!  Any Civil Servant of any experience can almost certainly quote examples of this - I sure can.  So I was not really surprised to see that the Head of the Border Agency - which has been slated for consistent failures over passport and visa checks - has been promoted to chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs.  'Twas ever thus.

Here we go again.

The Education Secretary apparently intends to ban parents taking their children on holiday during term time. We've been here before (see post dated 28/8/09) and sadly nothing seems to have changed.  Those selling holidays still double or treble their prices in school holiday weeks with apparent impunity.  And what about parents who have to take their holiday allowance when it suits their employer - which may well be during term time?  Once again it seems that the official mind sees children existing for the benefit of schools rather than the other way round.

As she sees it.

Difficult to know just what to say about the news that Amanda Knox ("Foxy Knoxy") is to receive some £2.5m for writing - or co-writing - her autobiography, essentially telling her side of the story of how she found herself in court in Italy charged, convicted and then cleared of the murder of Meredith Kercher.  There does seem to be something morally dubious about making money on the back of the brutal killing of a young woman, and yet it needs to be pointed out that her family are some £1m out of pocket as a result of financing her defence, and this (presumably) will put them back in funds.  What we can be sure about is that we shall not learn the truth from this book - just Amanda's version of events.  What will be interesting will be to see what she has to say about the behaviour of the Italian authorities - there have been consistent suggestions that this was a case where they had decided early on what they thought had happened and thereafter massaged the evidence to fit their theory.

Football - bloody hell....

...as Sir Alex Ferguson once said.  It has all the makings of a pub quiz question for years to come - which team scored four goals to their opponents' three, and yet lost the match 6-1?  The answer is Brighton who were at Anfield to play Liverpool in the F A Cup last Sunday.  The explanation is that three of their goals were into their own net.  Quite bizarre.

Listen to the people!

As an ex-Civil Servant I liked this one - the Land Registry office in Coventry were having problems with delays in post-opening.  In true modern managerial fashion, they asked the staff what should be done.  "Get more people opening the post" came the reply.  But management thought this a little too simplistic, so they set up a review at the cost of a few thousand pounds which looked at various aspects of the task, including a study of the ergonomics - whatever that means - and considering cutting edge post-opening equipment and such like.  After four months, the review body came back with its recommendation - get more people opening the post!

Disestablishmentarianism?

Following the "council prayers" case (see post of 11th February) there have been claims that Christianity is "under attack".  Makes for a good headline, but somewhat hysterical I think, because if anything is under attack, it is not Christianity, but the concept of the Established Church.  Under our system, representatives of the Church of England - the bishops - are part of our law-making process.  They sit, speak and vote in the House of Lords, and they do this in their capacity as representing the views of the Anglican Church - which by the way is a far cry from any suggestion that they represent Christianity as a whole.  Secularism is a philosophy which says that church and state should be kept separate, and it is this principle which is under discussion.  There are various arguments, not least of which is that as we are now a de facto multicultural country, is it right that one set of religious views should take precedence in this way?  On the other hand, it is instructive to look at America, which does have a secular constitution, and yet religion plays a very significant part in politics, as witnessed by the current arguments in the battle for the Republican nomination for President.  So is it better to have religion inside the tent, as it were, rather than creating trouble outside?  This is a topic which I fear will run and run, and I may well have to come back to it.

...and again

Another to add to the list of those likely to be deported to the US to face charges of doing something over which they have not been charged here.  Chris Tappin is now retired, but ran a haulage company, transporting anything to anywhere.  Some years ago, his firm was hired to take a shipment from Texas to Amsterdam.  The shipment turned out to be five industrial batteries.  The US have now claimed that these batteries were eventually intended for Iran and could be used for ground-to-air missiles.  Mr Tappin says that as far as he was concerned he was simply fulfilling a contract to transport them to Amsterdam - nothing more.  So he is likely to end up in an American jail while it is all sorted out, which could take months or even years.  I really think the Home Secretary needs to get a grip on this.

Can you choose your colour?

Ever a fan of British eccentricity, here's one for the list.  Later this year Stoke on Trent are hosting the inaugural World Watching Paint Dry Competition.  Yes really - competitors will stand in front of a one metre square area of freshly emulsioned wall and watch it as it dries.  Whoever can outlast the others wins.  Only in this country...!

Hic!

The Prime Minister has vowed to tackle what he describes as the "scandal" of public drunkenness, and this has resulted in more calls for the price of alcohol to be regulated and set at a high enough level to discourage over-indulgence.  I've had my say on this argument before, but whilst it is clearly a factor, I don't think the price of alcohol is the main cause of public drunkenness.  At one time it was commonplace for a publican to refuse to serve another drink to a customer on the basis that they'd had enough and it was time for them to go home.  Today it is equally commonplace to see people coming out of pubs and clubs clearly much the worse for wear, and yet there is no indication that any action is being taken against said pubs and clubs as a result.  If the proprietors of these establishments were made aware that their licences were at risk if their customers were seen being tipped out in such a state it might have a much greater effect on the incidence of public drunkenness than simply making alcohol more expensive.

Magic Mick

So Wolves have finally parted company with their manager Mick McCarthy - sad day for many reasons, not least this strange idea that when a football club is not doing well, the fault lies not with the players, but with the manager.  Just who is it who are out on the pitch failing to do the business?  The performance against West Brom last weekend - which was probably the straw that broke the camel's back - was shameful, but it wasn't Mick who was out there aimlessly passing the ball about - usually to a West Brom player.  It's a fact that sometimes a change of manager does result in a change in a team's fortunes (think Martin O'Neill and Sunderland) and I think the hierarchy at Wolves had reached the stage of "anything's worth a try", and it was on that basis that they took the decision to sack McCarthy.  When he first took over, he said that his initials did not stand for Merlin the Magician but for many Wolves fans what he did working on a shoestring budget sure looked like magic.  So who should replace him?  Wolves face the usual problem of a club at the wrong end of the table looking for a new manager - those putting themselves forward probably don't have the ability to do any better than the one they replace, and those who could perhaps make a difference, wouldn't be interested.  Best of those readily available is probably Alan Curbishley, but I don't hold out any high hopes.  Thank you Mick - sorry to see you go.

What a nerve!

Who is this bloke - described as a "No. 10 adviser" - who has the temerity to suggest that I should move out of my house simply because I am now (sadly) on my own and there are three bedrooms?  It's my home, God-damn it.  I've paid for it, and lived there for getting on for 50 years.  How dare he!

Crouch...touch...pause...

With the Six Nations underway, is it time to consider doing away with the scrum? It wastes an awful lot of game-time, it is accepted as being one of the more physically dangerous aspects of the game, and these days, thanks to referees turning a blind eye to scrum-halves blatantly feeding their own front row, it's not really a contest for the ball - the side putting in wins possession (or should do) virtually every time.  So does it any longer serve any useful purpose?  I'm not sure what you replace it with mind you - dare one suggest a rugby league style "play the ball"?

Dig deep.

One of my favourite factual TV programmes is "Time Team" - or perhaps I should say "was", because it seems it is the latest show to fall foul of the modern trend of dumbing-down.  Local archaeologist Mick Aston has quit the show (did he fall or was he pushed?) over the decision to introduce a new younger co-presenter selected mainly on the basis of her looks, and to "cut down the informative stuff about the archaeology".  Great shame - the old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" springs to mind.

Nice one Judge!

Council banned from saying prayers, says the headline.  Really?  Actually I thought the decision was a bit of a judgment of Solomon.  An atheist councillor had complained about the fact that council meetings all started with prayers and claimed that this discriminated against his beliefs - or rather lack of them.  The council maintained that this was a long-standing tradition which simply reflected the fact that this is a Christian country.  Cutting out all the legal verbiage, the judge decided that there was nothing to stop prayers being said provided that this was done before councillors were formally summoned to attend.  In other words, those who want to can, and those who don't want to don't have to.  Like I say - judgment of Solomon.

Ha ha

The seven deadly sins -
Number 1 - Sloth
Numbers 2-7 - Whatever.......

Next please.

I reckon whoever is the new manager of the England football team should carefully read the small print in the contract - or if it should be Harry Redknapp, get somebody else to do it for him.  The type of contract which it now appears Capello had - "You are the manager but we reserve the right to override your decisions if they do not suit us" - would not I think find favour with most applicants.  And although there is now a rush to denigrate his reign, it's worth pointing out that, on a win-percentage basis, Capello is the most successful manager England have ever had.

Flobbalob?

We knew that Prince Charles talks to plants, but it now seems that plants talk to plants.  An experiment carried out at Exeter University has established that when a cabbage plant has one of its leaves cut off, it emits a gas - it seemed for no apparent purpose.  But now it has now been shown that other cabbage plants nearby pick up this signal and take measures to protect themselves.  Of course, there have always been people who claim to hear plants screaming when they are uprooted - perhaps they weren't quite so barmy after all?  And then do you remember Bill and Ben...?

Music Man

How low can you go - or more exactly, how low can you sing?  A composer has written a choral piece which requires the basses - or at least one of them - to hit an E below bottom C.  This is way below the lowest note in any other choral work, and also below the officially recognised lowest note ever sung according to the Guinness Book of Records.  So the search is on for anyone who can accomplish this feat - if you're interested have a look at http://www.howlowwillyougo.com

It's an ill wind...

Have you heard about Top Totty?  It's a beer brewed in Stafford which describes itself as "blonde, full bodied with a voluptuous hop aroma" and it advertises itself with a picture of a scantily clad woman on the beer tap.  It has recently been guesting in the Strangers' Bar in the Palace of Westminster - I say "recently" because following a complaint from one MP that it was offensive it has now been removed.  But step forward our old friend the Law of Unforeseen Consequences - as a result of all the fuss, the brewery concerned has seen demand for the beer from pubs all over the country go through the roof!

Who's in charge?

As presaged in Friday's post, John Terry has lost the captainship of the England football team.  But wait a minute - that decision was taken by the board of the Football Association, not by the manager of the England team - in fact he has made it clear that he was not consulted, and I think it can reasonably be inferred that had he been, he would have argued against it.  Which of course raises the question - just what is the role of the manager?  Surely one of his main duties is to pick the team - including who should be captain?  So what right have the FA to go over his head in this way?  If I were Capello I would be sorely tempted to stick two fingers up to the FA and give the captain's armband to Terry anyway.  Either that, or sit back and invite the FA to pick the whole team, if they think they know best.

This land is my land...

Argentina's sabre-rattling over Las Malvinas, as they would have it, highlights the basic absurdity of countries, as countries, laying claim to land.  Land belongs to the people who live there, simple as that.  The Falkland Islands don't belong to Argentina, nor for that matter do they belong to Britain - they belong to the Falkland islanders, Gibraltar belongs to the Gibraltarians and so on.  And the inhabitants of any particular piece of land have the basic right to seek to align themselves with the inhabitants of other pieces of land as they think fit.  This is exactly the situation under discussion in Scotland at present. A problem only arises when, as in Scotland, and even more so Northern Ireland, there is no general consensus among the inhabitants as to how they see themselves.  But the Falkland islanders have consistently made it clear how they wish to align themselves, and until that changes, Argentina's claim has no merit.

Power of the press?

Innocent until proven guilty - isn't that the way it's supposed to work?  So several stories in the news which call this fundamental principle into question.  Fred Goodwin loses his knighthood despite not having been convicted - or even accused - of any wrongdoing.  John Terry has at least been accused of a criminal offence, but not yet come to trial, and yet despite this, there are calls for him to be stripped of the captaincy of the English football team.  And then there is the suggestion that, if he is charged over a motoring offence, Chris Huhne should lose his ministerial post. What's the logic here - or isn't there any?  Are these just examples of the media stirring things up in the hope of boosting circulation?  I hope Lord Leveson is taking note.

When is a pint not necessarily a pint?....

....when it's beer!  Did you know that up to 5% of your pint can be froth, and still be arguably legal?  I say "arguably" because there is a measure of disagreement between Trading Standards and the British Beer and Pub Association.  The former say that a pint should be a pint (20 fl.oz.) of liquid, whereas the latter's guidelines say that the "head" is an integral part of the drink and can account for up to 5% of it.  Many pubs now use "line" glasses, which have a capacity of slightly more than a pint and where there is a line etched on the glass to indicate the pint level, and in general pubs using such glasses ensure that the liquid comes up to the line - but beware pubs that don't use such glasses - there's a very good chance that you are getting short measure!  

You couldn't make it up

Haven't had one of these in a while, but how about this?  Things may be about to change, but at present you can take a course at school which leads to a Certificate which is treated as the equivalent of a GCSE, and the subjects covered include - wait for it - discovering what benefits you may be entitled to if you are unemployed, and how to claim them.  Now I've no particular problem with kids being taught such things - indeed for some of them it may well turn out to be a necessary life skill, but what I find unbelievable is that knowing what benefits to claim and how to claim them is seen as an academic qualification!