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.