I think that I shall never see...

Ash die back is in the news as it's just twelve months since its appearance in this country was confirmed.  There are tales of woe and despair for the trees and for the plant, animal and insect life which could be affected.  Now I'm a townie and claim no particular knowledge of country matters, but as far as I am aware there is no suggestion that this disease is in any way created by man, so isn't it just a matter of nature doing its thing?  And nature has a pretty good track record of sorting things out for the best, so shouldn't we simply let it get on with it?

Whatever next??

Apparently in Belgium pigeon racing is a very popular sport and top racers can change hands for large sums of money.  So perhaps no surprise that the sport appears to have gone the same way as horse racing, cycling and athletics, and birds have been found testing positive for performance enhancing substances.  Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "flying high", doesn't it?

R.I.P

Edna Krabappel.  I didn't know Marcia Wallace who provided the voice, but Mrs Krabappel has been a virtual friend - almost a member of the family - for many a year.  I shall miss her.  Ha!

Turn, turn, turn...

Did you know that all the planets in the solar system bar one rotate on their axis from west to east - so, as here, the sun would appear to rise in the east and set in the west. The odd one out is Venus which rotates the other way, and very slowly at that - a Venusian day is the equivalent of getting on for four months here on earth.

The Music Man

Was listening the other day to a recording I have of the famous Carnegie Hall concert by the Benny Goodman Orchestra, and in particular the performance of "Avalon" by the Quartet.  And I was reminded of the fact that the composers of that song were sued by the publishers of Puccini's opera "Tosca" who claimed that the tune had been lifted from "E lucevan le stelle", one of the major arias from that opera.  If you listen to both you would be hard pressed to see too much similarity - different tempo, different mode, different key but they won and were awarded $25,000 damages - a considerable sum at the time (1920s).  There are of course many instances of tunes which sound similar - unavoidable when you consider that there are a relatively small number of combinations of notes which appeal to the ear, but if you want an example of two melodies which are uncannily similar, listen to "I'll never stop loving you" from the movie "Love me or leave me" and the trio tune from the "Dambusters March".  No suggestion that either was copied from the other, but they are seriously alike - melodically. harmonically, the works.  And another - just a snatch but pretty well identical - "O, peaceful England" from the operetta "Merrie England" at the point where she sings "Sword and buckler by thy side..." and the slow movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto.  Spooky!

What goes round comes round.

Tragic story of a young girl who was killed when the scarf she was wearing got tangled up in the rear axle of a go-kart she was driving.  Ring any bells?  Google "Isadora Duncan".

Who's a naughty boy then?

A five-year-old boy has been expelled from a local primary school for persistent bad behaviour.  His mother says he has "not been given enough support" by the school. There was a time when problem children were sent to special schools which had the resources to deal with them, but the thinking today - and for a good few years past - is that they should be put in with the other children at their local school.  It is possible to see both sides of the argument, but what seems to get overlooked in all the discussion of what is best for them, is what is best for all the other children. A naughty child can disrupt the class and make it difficult for the other children to learn and do their work.  Who was it who said that you should do whatever produced "the greatest good for the greatest number" (Bentham I think) and that's what I think the Head of this school is seeking to achieve by excluding him.  Of course he's a product of our time, isn't he?  See my post of 25.9 08.

It's gorn orff!

Tesco have revealed that something like 50% of their fresh fruit and veg ends up being thrown away - either by them or by those who buy it.  Well - shock horror, fresh fruit and veg goes bad!  Who would have thought it?  The problem, it seems to me - and this doesn't just apply to fresh stuff - is that supermarkets don't really cater for the single eater.  For the most part packaged stuff tends to be aimed at couples or families, so if you're on your own you're often left with a surplus which in many cases ends up in the bin.  Smaller packs would be welcome, and might well help to cut the amount of waste.

The ultimate ploughman's?

Did you see the story the other day of a lorry carrying jars of Branston Pickle which crashed near Cheddar.  Oh, come on, there's got to be a joke in there somewhere!

What's in a word?

I thought the whole point about "free" schools was that they were free - free of local authority control, free to set their own curriculum and free to choose their own teachers - qualified or not.  Nick Clegg it seems is in favour of free schools, but just doesn't want them to be - well....free.  His argument seems to be that without regulation, there is no guarantee that children at such schools will get a good education.  Leaving aside for the moment the fact that being under local authority control is no guarantee of a good education either, parents who send their children to a free school presumably do so in full knowledge of what the school stands for and how it works, and if they are happy with it, why should Clegg or anyone else interfere? Much has been made of this Muslim free school which has been closed down, but what few parents I saw being interviewed seemed quite happy with it, and the argument seemed to have more to do with the strict Islamic dress and behavioural code it imposed rather then the education it was providing.  There are arguments for and against free schools but I don't think you can have it both ways.

Layers.

My God, we have turned into a nation of wimps, haven't we?  The mere suggestion that you might wish to save a little on your energy costs by putting on a sweater has been met with incredulity in some quarters - as though round-the-clock central heating were some sort of basic human right.  Young people today don't know they're born!  In the days before central heating and double glazing you huddled round the fire with as many layers on as necessary.  I can see my Dad now sitting in his chair with his travel rug tucked around his knees and his hands cradling a steaming mug of Bovril.  That's how we coped when it was cold, and we were grateful we had a decent fire to sit round - there were many that didn't.  And when you went out of the room or upstairs you accepted that it would be freezing.  So stick a jumper on and stop moaning!

It's a secret!

As an ex-Civil Servant who had to put up with more than my share of bureaucratic idiocy, I liked the story of the Whitehall office where the milk rota was classified as "restricted".  Been there, seen that, got the T-shirt.

Quick - where's the cleaver?

A severely overweight man was required to book two seats on an aircraft - seemed reasonable to me, except as it transpired the two seats were in different parts of the plane!  I was irresistibly reminded of the story of Solomon and the two women who both claimed to be the mother of the same baby.  But messy but it would solve the problem, wouldn't it?

Racial purity???

"The only people who should play for England are English people" - so says Jack Wilshere, who does in fact play (football) for England.  Oh, weren't things so much simpler back in the days when you were almost certainly born where your parents lived - and probably you grandparents too.  Can you remember when, to be eligible to play cricket for Yorkshire, you had to be born in Yorkshire (though it has to be said that a blind eye was occasionally turned)?  But then people started travelling - so what of an English couple who happen to be abroad when their child is born - is that child English? Common sense would say yes, but take it a step further - suppose that child continues to live and grow up abroad, and marries someone of a similar background, and they have a child.  We have decided that both are English, being born of English parents - though never having set foot here, so what of their child? English??  You see how complicated it gets.  So I think Wilshere has his heart in the right place, but needs to define exactly what he means by "English people".

Be upstanding...

I mentioned the other day that back in the 1950s, before we were married, my wife and I would go to the pictures on a Wednesday, and back then, the programme would end with the playing of the National Anthem and we would all stand - how could you not?  And yet a theatre in Bury St Edmonds, where an RAF band is putting on a concert has told those buying tickets that they must remain seated at all times during the concert - even if the National Anthem is played.  I'm sure I don't need to tell you what they've put forward as their reason, but really...!

Is "may" the hardest word?

Did you see the BBC's Crimewatch programme about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann on Monday?  The police have now suggested that the abduction may have taken place as late as 10.00 p.m., which means that her mother may have been close to coming face to face with the abductor when she went to check on her around that time and found her missing.  And the headline in pretty well every newspaper the following morning?  "Mum missed kidnap by minutes" or something similar.  Note the absence of the word "may" - a possibility has been turned into a certain fact.  Lot of it about.

Dead, Dave...

Weird situation has arisen in the US, where a man who was legally declared dead the best part of 20 years ago has turned up alive and well, but the courts have said that they cannot overturn the original declaration, and therefore, legally, he remains dead.  Couldn't happen here, because under our laws a declaration of death is a "rebuttable presumption", meaning that if new evidence comes to light that the original declaration was wrong, it ceases to have effect.  Of course, going back to the US case, the interesting question is, what would be the position if that man now commits a criminal offence - you can't charge a dead man, can you?

Harvest Festival

Talk about two sides of the same coin!  Three years ago I was posting about the fact that at a Harvest Festival service you were far more likely to see gifts of tinned and packaged food rather than fresh produce, and that some people found that sad. Now today we have a news item saying that, although more people are now growing their own and so more fresh stuff is being donated, churches and schools are finding it difficult to get rid of it, because charities and food banks are refusing to accept it for "hygiene" reasons, whatever those are.  Can't win, can you?

Get 'em off!

How the hell do you "prove" you are gay?  Apparently those seeking asylum in this country on the basis that they are being persecuted in their home country for their sexual orientation. are being asked to do just that.  But how...?  I suppose if you are sexually active and have no shame and a camera, there are possibilities, but other than that?  Answers on a postcard please.

Tick, tock.

As we're coming up to changing the clocks time - and you know how much I hate that - my eye was caught by a news story that Spain are considering moving from Central European Time to Greenwich Mean Time.  If you look at a map of the world, it's pretty obvious that that is where they should be, and apparently they once were, but Franco moved them on to CET in the early 1940s as he wished to align himself - and the country - with Hitler and Germany.  What I hadn't realised is that Portugal has always been on GMT, which must be an ongoing problem for those living either side of the border.  If they do go for the change, and time it to coincide with the end of Summertime, they could get themselves an extra two hours in bed!

Shshhhhhhh!

Just what right do the authorities have to keep what they are doing, supposedly for our safety, from us? We've talked about this before and it's cropped up again in relation to the Guardian newspaper publishing leaked documents about the scope of intelligence gathering both in the US and here.  The Head of MI5 has said that such revelations are damaging to national security and the Deputy PM has pitched in as well.  So - what do we think?  You would hardly imagine that would-be criminals and terrorists are not aware that their communications are potentially being intercepted, so it wouldn't come as any surprise, although perhaps it's the methodology rather than the principle that "they" would prefer remained secret.  I suppose you have to accept that if there are things you want to keep from the bad guys, you have to keep them from all of us.  Sad world, isn't it?

Elephant in the room?

It seems scarcely a day goes by lately without some doom and gloom story about the health service - be it GPs' surgeries, A & E departments or problems in hospitals, and I can't help feeling that our current "sticking plaster" approach cannot go on much longer.  And it's my generation who are mainly causing the problem.  We're living longer, which is nice, but unfortunately many of us are living longer in bad health, which is putting a strain on the aforementioned services.  And all this at a time when public money is scarce.  I've talked about this before, but has the time come (or even passed) when people should be required to take out personal insurance to cover their care in old age?  Is it fair that we oldies automatically look to the working tax-payers to look after us?  And the myth that the National Insurance payments we made while we were working would fund our health care "from cradle to grave" has long since been exposed as a fraud.  It's a big problem which frankly none of the major parties seem to want to confront, and I fear that one day in the not-too-distant future it's going to blow up in our faces. And as somebody staring down the barrel as it were, I am concerned.

Err...what was that??

Was reading a humorous post the other day about mis-heard song lyrics, and it reminded me of the first time my wife and I heard the choral theme music that they play before UEFA Champions League football matches.  I now know that the final words are "the champions", but we both heard it - and indeed, even now knowing what it is,  I can still hear it - as "lasagna".  So UEFA Champions League football is forever known throughout our family as lasagna football.

In that case...

"Case" is a word with a lot of different meanings, one of which is "container" - so we have briefcase, jewel case, suitcase and so on.  In the early days of printing, individual letters were stored in large drawers known as cases and for whatever reason, it became accepted that the capital letters would be kept in the top drawer, and the ordinary ones in the bottom drawer - hence upper-case and lower-case. Now there's interesting!

Simples!

I was a bit surprised to come across a serious article the other day wondering about why buses seem to come in threes.  This is something that has been talked about since I was a lad, and surely the answer is obvious?  How fast a bus can complete its route depends on how many passengers it has to pick up and set down.  Every time it has to stop for these reasons, it loses time.  If several buses are plying the same route, the first one in sequence will pick up the majority of the passengers, which will slow it down, while the following ones will pick up fewer, and therefore catch up with the first and indeed with each other.  It's inevitable, and the further down the route you are, the more likely you are to see a bunch of buses coming along at once.  Seems clear enough to me!

Let's just call it marjoram?

We tend to get a bit insular when it comes to English, don't we?  After all, it's our bloody language isn't it?  How dare those johnny-come-lately Yanks muck it about? And yet every now and again we find that they are at least as much in the right as we are.  "Gotten" for example used to be the past participle of "get" here as there - we changed, they didn't, so who's right?  I was watching a cooking programme the other day when the chef referred to oREGano, and I cringed.  Like most people over here I pronounce it oreGANo, and the American pronunciation grates on the ear. But who's right? And I have to say that if you go back to basics, it derives from the Greek word rigani which they pronounce with the accent on the first syllable - RIGani, so somewhere along the way it picked up an initial "o", but you can certainly argue that the stress should still be on the "reg" syllable, and in Spanish (where it's spelled the same way) that syllable is accented to show that that is where the stress should fall.  Still don't like to hear it, but perhaps it's as valid as our pronunciation.

Ha Ha (??)

Sick I know, but the story of the North African migrants who set their boat alight irresistibly brought to mind the Muir/Norden joke about the Eskimo who lit a fire on his canoe to keep warm and it burned through the bottom and he sank, thus proving that you can't have your kayak and heat it too!
Really sorry for making light of what was a tragedy, but I feel better now I've got that out of my system.

Welcome back Nipper?

Interesting to see that HMV, which went into administration earlier this year, has been "rescued" by one of those restructuring companies which specialise in that sort of thing, and has now re-opened it's original Oxford Street store.  I sincerely wish them all the best, but wonder whether there really is much of a market these days for musical recordings in a physical form.  I have a pretty large collection of cassette tapes and CDs which I rarely listen to - and yes, I have some vinyl records too, though no longer any record player.  If I want to listen to music today, I use YouTube or Spotify - they give me access to a far more extensive library than I could ever own myself, and it's quick and easy to find whatever I'm looking for.  So like I say, I see little point in even considering buying recordings these days - but, thinking about it, perhaps HMV are aiming more for the games market, where you do still need a physical disk or cassette.  Mind you, there's a lot of competition there.

Seconds out!

Big row blown up between Ed Milliband and the Daily Mail over an article in the paper which labelled his father "The man who hated Britain".  Milliband has said this is "a lie" and accused the paper of "character assassination" (of his father, and by implication, of him).  So, what are we to make of it all?  Milliband's father was a committed Marxist and his views are a matter of public record.  It's clear he had an intense dislike of the institution of the Monarchy, and of privilege generally and would have welcomed a workers' revolution after the style of the Russian one. But does this justify saying that he "hated" this country?  It is surely just as valid to want to change a country out of love for that country as out of hatred for it.  Given that Milliband has said that his father was an inspiration to him it is clearly perfectly proper, in considering his credentials, to examine what his father believed and stood for, but the headline was intentionally provocative and rather unnecessarily nasty.  So the moral high ground is rather with Milliband, I feel.

8/10 - Good effort!

So Michael Gove (Education Secretary) has clarified this business of pupils retaking their GCSEs over and over again, and, for me at least, has got it spot on.  His ruling is that kids can retake as often as the school is prepared to pay for them to do so, but only their first mark will count towards the school's standing in the league tables. Judgment of Solomon, I think.  Mind you, what he should really do of course, is abolish league tables!

Duck!!

Following a fire on one of them on the Thames, "duck boats" are in the news - so what are they, and why are they so called?  Well, they're amphibious people-carriers, designed back in the War for use in situations where transport over land and water was required.  On land, it ran on six wheels and in water the engine drove a single screw at the rear.  Familiarly known as the "duck" its official designation was DUKW which looks as though it should be an acronym of something, but is in fact just a series of letters describing its function and features. I have to say I'm surprised that there are any still around - my recollection is that they didn't have a particularly good name for reliability back then,