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.