All's well that ends well?

Here's the story - It's January 2010 and heavy snow has closed Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster.  Many frustrated passengers.  One of them, a young man in his 20s, was so annoyed at having his travel plans disrupted that he sent a "tweet" to his friends saying "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"  Important to note that he did not seek to conceal his identity, and did not send this tweet to the airport - indeed it was some days later when somehow or other it came to the attention of one of the managers there, and was reported to the police.  They of course investigated it and, although it seems they accepted that there was no real threat and that it was just something said in the heat of the moment, decided to charge the young man with "sending a message of a menacing character".  He was convicted in the Magistrates' Court and fined.  Since when he has been trying to get that conviction overturned.  You would think that, given it was never intended that the airport should be aware of the existence of the tweet and could therefore not be menaced by it, this should be a formality, but in fact it has taken two years and two appeals - the latest to the Court of Appeal - to achieve the obvious.  Meanwhile the young man has lost his job and is now, in his words, unemployable.  So has it all turned out alright in the end??

La la la laa la la.....

For reasons best known to those in charge, it has been decided that any gold medals we win at these Olympics will be greeted by the playing of two verses of the National Anthem, and you will be expected to sing the first and third verses.  You don't know the third verse?  Well I suspect you are in good company - there will be few who do.  So here it is -

Thy choicest gifts in store

On her be pleased to pour,

Long may she reign.

May she defend our laws

And ever give us cause 

To sing with heart and voice

God save the Queen.

So start praticing.

Yum, yum!

The nation's favourite food is bacon, apparently, closely followed by chicken and chocolate.  But in the list of the top 100 there are some strange omissions - no chips or crisps, for example.  And black pudding at number 37  - really!

Let it snow, let it snow....

So yesterday was the official opening of the 2012 Olympics in London, but it was also, believe it or not, the opening of the Christmas Department at Harrods store in London.  Yes, Santa has arrived!  In the earliest launch so far the prestigious store has declared the festive season up and running a couple of days short of a full five months before the day itself.  Anybody for a 2013 Easter egg?

It beggars belief...

...that the designers of the Olympic aquatic centre did not realise that their stylish curved roof would mean that the top of the high-diving board would not be visible from some 3,000 of the seats.  Bit of a fundamental cock-up, I would have thought.

Stick to your job!

So we're being given another lesson in morality by this Government.  First it was (perfectly legal) tax avoidance schemes - now a minister has said that paying cash-in-hand is "morally wrong".  Problem is of course that there is no such thing as absolute morality - morality is subjective,  One person's concept of right and wrong may differ from someone else's.  And even where there is general agreement that something is acceptable or unacceptable, there will always be a minority who think differently, as is their right.  The question of the extent to which the law should reflect a particular moral code is one which has been argued about throughout history.  But let's be clear - the law is the law and must be obeyed, but morality is a matter for the individual.  The Government is entitled to make laws, but not to demand that we follow their particular ideas as to what is right and wrong

Can you see a pattern?

Two statistics which have surfaced as a result of the PC Harwood business (see last Friday's post).  1. Over the last 40-odd years, on average one person a week has died while in police custody.  2. No police officer has been convicted of manslaughter for a crime committed while on duty since 1986.  I for one find those facts very disturbing.

Well done, but...

Why can I not get more excited about a Brit winning the Tour de France?  First time ever apparently, and the feat has been described as up there with Bannister's four-minute mile, England winning the 1966 World Cup and Steve Redgrave's five Olympic gold medals.  I think it's because I have always felt that the Tour de France is a bit of a con - it puts itself forward as something which it is not.  It is presented as a man against man contest, whereas in reality it is team against team.  Bradley Wiggins won because he was lead rider for the Sky team, and the Sky team got their man home in first place.  Had they chosen someone else as their lead rider, then there's a good chance that he would have won.  The team are there to boost the chances of, and protect their lead rider, and they did that superbly well.  So congratulations to all of them - not just to Wiggins.

This earth, this realm...

The recent TV production of Shakespeare's Richard II serves to remind us that one of the most misunderstood and quoted-out-of-context things that Shakespeare ever wrote (after "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo...") is John of Gaunt's speech from that play containing the well-known passage which starts "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle...".  Usually put forward as a paean of praise to everything that is best about England, it is in fact the dying Gaunt bemoaning what he saw as the parlous state England had got itself into under King Richard.  Later he says that England "...is now leased out...like to a tenement or pelting [paltry, worthless] farm...England, that was wont to conquer others, hath made a shameful conquest of itself...".  So next time you hear the "precious stone set in a silver sea" bit, remember there's more to it then that.

Oops...!

The American National Press Club decided to host a dinner in honour of the Olympics and the host nation, England.  On the menu - fish and chips, and to drink? Newcastle Brown?  Banks's?  Worthington?  Theakston's Old Peculiar (a particular favourite of mine)?  Well no actually --- Guinness!  Much tittering in London and Dublin.

No, you can't have a twelve-inch BMT!

How about this for a brilliant - if somewhat non-PC - idea?  A school in Manchester became aware that a lot of its sixth-formers were going to a local Subway branch at lunchtime, so what have they done?  They've invited Subway to open a branch in the school!  This way of course, they can exercise some control over which subs are on offer and promote the more healthy ones.  Rather like that story of the school which took its pupils down to the local pub for lunch, it seems such a good idea that you feel it's inevitable that some jobsworth will step in and put a stop to it.

Shift yourself!

Difficult to understand the verdict in the PC Harwood case.  It seems to be accepted that PC Harwood intended to do what he did, and that what he did resulted in the death of Ian Tomlinson.  So how can that not be manslaughter?  His defence was "reasonable force", which clearly the jury accepted.  So that seems to mean that a policeman, simply because he is a policemen, is entitled to shove you out of the way if he considers that you are obstructing him.  If you or I did it, it would be assault.  So if you see a policeman coming down the road, I'd cross over if I were you!

Service not included?

We Brits are bad tippers, it seems.  Indeed, the majority of us are non-tippers a survey has revealed.  Speaking personally, I object to being expected to pay extra for what I've already paid for.  If somebody goes out of their way for me, then that's a different matter, but if I go out for a meal then I expect the food to be brought to my table, the wine to be poured, and the plates to be taken away when I've finished.  That's included in the price, and if the waiter/ress isn't being paid a decent wage, that is hardly my problem.  And I really object to those restaurants which automatically include a "service charge" on the bill - as though they're doing you a favour by allowing you in!

Music Man

Thanks to an off-the-cuff remark by the Prime Minister, the question of which anthem should be used by English sports teams has been raised again.  The PM is in favour of Jerusalem apparently.  This was in fact used at the 2010 Commonwealth Games but initially both verses were played, making it far too long. The eventual shortened version was better received, but for many people, Jerusalem doesn't really work as a purely orchestral piece.  Of course, traditionally Land of Hope and Glory has been used as the English anthem and the question was raised as to why there should be any change.  It was put to a vote apparently, although it wasn't widely publicised, and the number of respondents was pretty small, so to what extent it really reflected public opinion is open to question.  For what it's worth, Land of Hope and Glory does it for me.  Although as an afterthought, what about There'll Always Be An England?

You can squeeze it in there!

A mayor in Germany has caused some controversy by designating the more awkward-to-get-into spaces in a public car park "men only".  The inference of course is that women can't park, or at least, can't park as well as men.  Apparently there is some dubious statistical evidence for this.  Well I'll come clean - I've never been terribly good at parking.  I like it when I can find three empty bays, so I can park in the middle one.  And then of course, Sod's Law says that when I come back, someone will have parked next to me in something big and opaque, so I have to back out of my space blind.  And I never could do that Reginald Molehusband thing. My daughter on the other hand reverses (reverses!) into the tightest spaces with aplomb.  So some people are good at it, and others aren't.  Don't think gender comes into it.

Back to the Penny Bazaar?

M & S are in trouble it seems.  My wife had two staples that she always swore by - Delia Smith and Marks and Sparks.  Delia because her recipes always worked, and Marks because their clothes were always well-made and fitted well.  I've been dragged round M & S often enough to know that it's all a matter of reputation - St Michael was a name to be trusted.  And maybe that's what's gone wrong?

John Terry

From what I have read, I think the verdict was correct, although I don't necessarily go along with the Magistrate's reasoning.  What struck me most forcibly is that the case was all about what Terry said - or didn't - whereas what Ferdinand said (which as far as I am aware was not disputed) passed without comment.  And yet what Ferdinand said was just as nasty and personal an insult as what Terry was accused of saying.  So what was the difference?  It seems to me that it was all down to the fact that what Terry said included the word "black".  Which to my mind points up the absurdity of the whole business.  An insult is an insult is an insult.  Both players should be ashamed of themselves, and I hope that the FA takes action against both of them.  And I've mentioned before that I think S.5 of the Public Order Act 1986 needs reconsideration.

Life ain't fair!

Pensioners' "perks" are in the news again, with the suggestion that winter fuel allowances, free bus passes, prescription charges and TV licences should all be reconsidered.  Presumably the idea is that these allowances should be means tested. Two points - I've mentioned before that the costs involved in means testing may well cancel out any savings made.  But the one that really bugs me is that those of us who have been prudent and put something away will be the ones to lose out, whereas the feckless who have spent their lives "splashing the cash" and have nothing left will still get their freebies.  What sort of message does that send out?

Chips with everything? Err....no.

Heard the latest Olympic idiocy?  There will be plenty of places to eat while you're there, but you won't be able to have sausage and chips, pie and chips, or in fact anything with chips other than fish - and certainly not chips on their own.  And why not?  You've guessed it - it's another of these sponsorship things.  McDonald's have the exclusive right to sell chips - the only exception being fish and chips. The mind boggles - not least because McDonald's don't sell chips!  They sell fries, which are nice enough, but chips they ain't.  Are you as fed up with all this corporate greed and stupidity as I am?  I'll be glad when it's all over.

Lords Reform.

As a starter, have we decided yet just what we want our second chamber to do? Surely we need to be clear on that before we can begin to discuss how it should be constituted.  And if we want it to be a purely revisionist chamber, then it seems to me that the current House of Lords is doing a pretty good job in that respect.  The main problem is not its composition but its size.  Once you are a member, the only way out is death.  And as, every time there is a change of Government, the new Prime Minister appoints more life peers to try and ensure a majority for his party, the size of the Lords just gets bigger and bigger.  This certainly needs addressing - perhaps we could borrow an idea from Nick Clegg (who??) and instead of appointing Peers for life, appoint them for a 15-year non-repeatable term, set a maximum number and have a "one in, one out" policy, so you can't appoint a new one until there is a vacancy.

Make way, make way...

There's a street in London where the council have come along and removed the speed humps - well, hooray, horrible things and good riddance.  But wait!  Why has this been done?  Have the council finally seen sense?  Not a bit if it - it's been done because this is part of one of the Olympic routes to be used by competitors and officials, and the council want to ensure they have a comfortable ride!  And you can guess what, can't you?  After the Olympics are over, the speed humps will be replaced!

Music Man

A computer program has been used to create a piece of music which will be performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.  But this is simply a modern take on an idea which has been around for a long, long time.  The relation between mathematical patterns and music has been known about certainly since the time of the Ancient Greeks and several 18th century composers - most famously Mozart - experimented with what was called Musikalisches Würfelspiel which involved rolling dice to "stitch together" small fragments of music in some random order to generate a unique composition.  Nothing new under the sun, you see.

It's not what you know....

Still here then......So now we are going to have yet another list of questions which those applying for British citizenship must answer - I think this is at least the third re-write since I started this blog getting on for seven years ago.  Once again I have to ask - what relevance does what a person knows have to their suitability, or otherwise, to be a citizen of this country?  Surely what matters is what sort of person they are?  I don't know how you test for that, but I don't see how being able to answer pub-quiz type questions or knowing the words to the National Anthem helps.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So will I be posting tomorrow?  I certainly intend to, but apparently there's a computer virus which is going to cause a lot of people's internet access to disappear tomorrow, so if I fail to post, you'll know why.  In fact, it's not the virus itself which will cause this problem - it's the FBI!  The way it works (or rather, doesn't) is like this.  The virus itself was reasonably harmless - it simply temporarily redirected you from the site you were trying to access to another site which earned the virus writer money.  So if you typed in "www.xyz.com" for instance, the virus would redirect you to this money making site, and then a split second later, on to xyz.com.  You would have scarcely noticed the delay, and would have ended up where you wanted to be.  So what did the FBI do?  They wrote their own program to effectively take the place of the virus program. So now www.xyz.com would redirect to the FBI program and then on to xyz.com. Same effect as far as you are concerned.  But now budget cuts mean that the FBI are having to close down their program, so as from tomorrow for those affected, www.xyz.com will go nowhere, and that's the problem.  Just so as you know.

I've got a dummy cigarette, and I'm not afraid to use it.

Well we didn't 'arf have some fun round here the other day when the M6 Toll Road was completely shut for over six hours following a report that a passenger on a coach had been seen with a bag with smoke coming out of it.  The driver stopped the coach and the police were called.  So far, so reasonable.  But then, in short order, we had Uncle Tom Cobley an' all - the bomb squad, the army, sniffer dogs, ambulances, fire engines - the works.  The police maintained that it was a "proportionate" response.  Well, I suppose you can't be too careful, but given that this was a false alarm - and surely given the circumstances, this must have become apparent very quickly - it did all seem a  little OTT.  You have to wonder whether the emergency services in fact used this incident as a sort of training exercise. Whatever, a lot of people were at the very least inconvenienced.

Hi again, cuz.

Of course it follows from last Monday's post that, if you pick anyone else from the whole wide world at random and you go back far enough, you almost certainly have a common ancestor, and therefore are cousins of some sort.  Indeed, if you accept Genesis as historical fact, then we all have a common ancestor in Adam and Eve.  Ain't family a wonderful thing?

R.I.P.

Eric Sykes - comedian, actor, script-writer and, as far as one could see, a thoroughly nice bloke.  His sitcom performances were all the more remarkable when you realise that for most of his life he was virtually stone deaf and only managed by lip-reading what the other actors were saying.  I loved his self-deprecating joke - "For twenty-five years I never heard a laugh.  Then I got these (indicating his specs which in fact concealed a deaf aid) and realised -  I wasn't getting any!"  We shall miss you.

It's a mobile what??

So now what we all suspected has been confirmed - the purpose for which mobile 'phones were originally developed - that is making 'phone calls, is now very much a minority activity.  You are far more likely to be using your mobile for surfing the net, social networking, playing games and listening to music than actually making or receiving calls.  I mostly use mine for sending text messages, but apparently this is even more out of fashion, ranking only 7th in the list of the ten most common usages.

Book Post

(see post of 18/11/06)

Linwood Barclay - Never Look Away - 9 
Dennis Lehane - Darkness, Take My Hand - 8
Michael Connelly - The Reversal - 7
Barry Eisler - Hard Rain - 7.5
Raymond Khoury - The Templar Salvation - 8
Rebecca Forster - Hostile Witness - 8
Jo Nesbø - The Redbreast - 6.5
Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games - 7
Dennis Lehane - Gone, Baby, Gone - 7.5 
Tom Harper - The Book of Secrets - 6

Hi, cuz!

The recent story of the Queen shaking hands with Martin McGuiness has brought into focus the Queen's relationship with Earl Mountbatten, who was assassinated by the IRA.  I always thought he was her uncle - mainly because she used to refer to him as such, but it turns out they were cousins.  But what sort of cousins?  The rules on this are relatively simple, once you understand them.  So - the first thing you have to do is find the most recent common ancestor.  If you and X's most recent common ancestor is a parent, then clearly you are brothers and/or sisters.  If it's a grandparent, then you are first cousins - usually just referred to as cousins.  If it's a great grandparent, then you are 2nd cousins; a great-great grandparent, 3rd cousins and so on. But what if the common ancestor is a different relation to you both - your grandparent, but X's great-grandparent for example?  In this case the ranking (1st, 2nd, 3rd cousins etc) is determined by the closer relationship - in the example, a grandparent is a closer relationship than a great-grandparent, so you and X are first cousins of some sort.  You then look at the generational difference between the two relationships - here grandparent and great-grandparent are one generation apart, so you and X and first cousins once removed.  So how about the Queen and Earl Mountbatten?  Well their most recent common ancestor is Queen Victoria.  She is the Queen's great-great grandmother and Mountbatten's great grandmother.  So they are second cousins (great grandmother) once removed (one generation apart).  The Queen and Prince Philip, by the way, both have Queen Victoria as their great-great-grandmother, so they are 3rd cousins.

Follow the money.

OK, this business of Barclays Bank falsifying the Libor rate (the rate at which banks lend money to one another) so that their traders can make extra money betting on it - very naughty and almost certainly illegal, but what I can't get my head round is - who are the victims?  Just who is being defrauded?  And as far as I can see, it's other traders.  It's a zero-sum game.  What one trader wins, another loses.  Still naughty and probably illegal, but if one dodgy trader takes money off another dodgy trader, should we be bothered?  What I think we should be looking at is the bonuses which these traders get.  If as a result of winning more money gambling on the Libor rate a trader gets a bigger bonus than he otherwise would have, that bonus is effectively paid by the shareholders - which may very well include us, taxpayers.  Now that is definitely a matter for concern.