Formula 1

One of the most boring seasons I can remember - indeed for the first time I couldn't be bothered to make the effort to watch most of the "unsocial hours" races, or indeed some of the others.  So -
Vettel - what is there new to say?  Fast driver in the fastest car.  
Alonso - once again, made the best of what he'd got
Webber - nice bloke, and we shall miss him.  Good luck, mate.

So what, if anything, can be done, or should be done?  This isn't the first time a driver has dominated for season after season.  Schumacher made the early 2000s his own, but never seemed that invincible - perhaps because of refuelling, there were few races where he was able to simply drive away from everybody else, as Vettel has so often done.  So - bring back refuelling?  Safety is the obvious concern. Turn the grid upside-down, so the fastest cars start from the back?  Safety again, plus the fact that qualifying would be in danger of becoming a joke, with the top cars tootling round in third gear as it were, so as to be able to start from the front. Or do we just accept that for the time being it seems the Vettel/Red Bull combination is unbeatable, and go and watch something else instead?

Bigger on the inside...

So Doctor Who is 50 and there's been lots of comment about the series.  As one who has watched it since the beginning, here's my take,  What tends to now be referred to as "Old Who" (1963-1989) seemed to me to be funny/scary, but "New Who" (2005-date) is above all emotional.  There's scarcely an episode of the new series that has not ended with me wiping away a secret tear, or even openly weeping. Maybe that's because my personal life has made me more receptive to sadness, but I think that the writing has quite deliberately made the stories veer more towards the tragic.  I defy you to watch the Van Goch episode with dry eyes, and then there's the one where Rose's father has to die by being run over by a car in order to repair an anomaly in the time/space continuum, and Rose gets to say goodbye to him in that church - this is anything but fun.  And Donna Noble (who in my opinion, albeit by a small margin, is the best of the "companions") stepping out under the wheels of a truck to save the universe.  I have to say- as I've said before - that for me Matt Smith's Doctor doesn't hack it, but that doesn't make the stories any the less sad and downbeat.  What will Peter Capaldi bring?  Watch this space.

Thou shalt not...

So there is to be no smoking in hospital, or anywhere around a hospital.  Patients are not in any way to be helped to smoke - by getting them out of bed and taking them to a smoking area, for example (there won't be any smoking areas, anyway - they will be banned). I've mentioned before that I am an ex-smoker, and well aware from personal experience how difficult it is to kick the habit, and how not being able to have a cigarette when you want one can play on your nerves.  So although I can see the logic, this seems to me to be a case of kicking a man when he's down - those in hospital, or those visiting their loved ones in hospital, are already under stress, and this is just going to make it worse.  You have just been told you have cancer, or someone close to you has cancer, and God, do you need a fag!  Are you to be told you can't have one?  How cruel!

Expect a ******* broken arm!

So the game of cricket plumbs new depths.  The Australians pretty well invented "sledging", but originally it was no more than relatively good-natured banter aimed at disrupting a batsman's concentration, but now it's turned into something decidedly more nasty designed to put a batsman in fear of physical harm.  How long do we let this go on? Because it's not going to stop by itself - it will only stop if players and teams are made to realise that it's not worth it, and that won't be achieved by handing out fines, but by penalising teams where it hurts - by docking runs or wickets.  That's how I see it anyway.

Equality - but on our terms!

Three female RAF recruits have been awarded £100,000 each because they claimed that having to march alongside their male colleagues forced them to over-stride, causing injury to their spines and pelvises.  But if they had been prevented from joining on the grounds that their gender meant that they wouldn't be able parade together with the men, that almost certainly would have been classed as sex discrimination.  You just can't win, can you?

Mince pie, vicar?

So Aldi's mince pies came out top in a blind tasting test, beating those from Selfridge's and  Fortnum & Mason's costing something like eight times as much. Well done!  I've posted before about how good the small "pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap" supermarkets are.  Unfortunately Netto stores have all disappeared, having been taken over by Asda, and for whatever reason, Lidl have decided to close my local branch, but thank goodness Aldi is still there.  I've said it before - their stuff is cheap and I've never had any rubbish.  Power to their elbow!

A step too far?

A local primary school has arranged for their Year 4 and Year 6 pupils (not sure what happened to Year 5) to attend a "workshop on Islam" at a local University. You may think this is a laudable enterprise, or a waste of time, but whether you are in favour or not, I think you would be appalled to learn that the school has written to the parents of the children involved to say that attendance is compulsory (and costs £5 by the way!) and any non-attendance "will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child's education record, which will remain on this file throughout their school career."  Furthermore, any child claiming to be sick will have to get a GP's certificate in support.  Not surprisingly this has produced cries of outrage from some parents, and apparently the school are rethinking their stance. I should think so too!

Do you remember...?

So yes, I remember where I was when I heard JFK had been assassinated - in fact I remember it well, because I misheard the announcer the first time he broke into whatever programme was on, and thought he said "first reports say the President has been shot in the leg", and thought - well, that's OK then, so it was all the more shocking when, some half an hour later, a second announcement said that the President was dead.  How did I feel?  Devastated.  It's highly debateable whether, had he lived,  he would have fulfilled my hopes and expectations, but I did have hopes.  We were so used to national leaders being old men set in their ways, who seemed to be intent on maintaining the status quo that he came as a breath of fresh air, and anything seemed possible.  And that's what died that day - not just a man but a dream.

Oh, for Heaven's sake!

A school in Edinburgh has a mural in its assembly hall painted back in the 1930s. It is based on the "Alice in Wonderland" story.  It has recently been restored.  In one panel it includes a picture of a golliwog.  A prospective parent spotted this when having a look round the school, and reported it to the police.  The police have logged the matter as a "hate incident".  Words truly fail me.

We have set and met our targets!

What's the point of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's latest decree that hospitals must publish monthly details of the numbers of staff on each of their wards, if there is no agreement as to what those numbers should be (see post of 10th August)? Effectively it is being left to individual hospitals to decide for themselves what they consider a safe level of staffing to be, and then publish a monthly return showing that they have met those levels.  Crazy!!

I say, old chap...

Like, I suspect, many a male of my generation, I was brought up on the Biggles books of Captain W E Johns.  And damned good they were too.  But what I've only now found out is that what Captain Johns actually wrote was heavily "sanitised" by his publisher - perhaps with a view to being suitable for a juvenile audience.  So "My God!" (which back then would have scandalised polite society) became "My Gosh!", and Biggles drank lemonade rather than the whisky which was in the original Johns stories.  Johns himself was a WWI pilot in the RFC (which later became the RAF) and therefore knew exactly what he was writing about.  It would be really interesting to be able to read the uncensored versions of the stories. The only puzzle is where the "Captain" came from - there was no such rank in the RFC or RAF - see also my post of 9th July 2009.

Les feuilles mortes.

So once again my local authority have decided that there will be no need for any further collection of garden rubbish until next April.  They do this every year.  I wish somebody would tell the trees, which are still laden with leaves yet to come down.  I can only assume that the council officials who make these decisions are not gardeners!

What next - sprinklers??

In Sweden, there's a hotel made entirely out of ice.  Each summer it melts, and each winter they rebuild it,  But this year, they have been told that in order to get the necessary planning permission, they will have to have smoke alarms fitted! Nice to know that there are bureaucratic barnpots in other countries as well.

Ha ha.

Did you hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper?
He sold his soul to Santa!

Oh dear, oh dear.

Have been watching Masterchef Professionals and learned to my chagrin that what I have always called kwinowah (quinoa) should be pronounced keenwha. Oh, the shame!

You've been framed... Your Majesty?

At the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall last Saturday one of the small girls in the poppy girls choir was reduced to tears when her R.N. officer father - whom she believed to be serving in the Seychelles - appeared in the Hall.  Loud applause and many a secret tear in the audience at their reunion.  Anybody else find that creepy and rather disturbing?  These are real people for Heaven's sake - not puppets to be manipulated for our entertainment. And I can't help feeling that, if you were intent on doing that sort of thing, you could scarcely have chosen a more inappropriate time and place - a solemn ceremony in the presence of the Queen??  What next?  Strictly Come Poppying with Bruce Forsyth?

Better late than never? No, not really!

The Americans have an expression "Monday morning quarterback" for those who come up with wise-after-the-event ideas.  I don't want to be seen as such, but I can't help feeling that there is something worrying about the response to the typhoon which struck the Philippines last week.  This was not an earthquake or a volcanic eruption which came out of the blue and caught people by surprise - the existence of this weather system and what was likely to happen to it and its probable track had been known days in advance, so surely we should have been far more ready for it and prepared to move in with assistance at the earliest possible moment.  I find it scandalous that it has taken virtually a week for us to even begin to get our act together.

Music Man

As an addendum to last Sunday's post, for those who don't know, the tune to "I Vow To Thee My Country", which is known in the church hymnal as Thaxted, is in fact a slight re-writing of the middle tune of "Jupiter" from Gustav Holst's suite "The Planets".  Apparently, according to Holst's daughter, he was asked to set the words to music at a time when he was very busy and over-worked, and was mightily relieved when he realised they would nicely fit the "Jupiter" tune.

When is full not full - part 2

This is a continuation of the post of 3rd November.  I think my problem is that I'm being too logical.  We have two statements - (1) all rooms are occupied, and (2) I can create an unoccupied room, and clearly these two statements are mutually exclusive - they cannot both be true.  Either all rooms are occupied, or they're not. So the paradox doesn't make sense on a logical level but, because we are dealing with infinity, it does on a mathematical level, and Hilbert (who was a real person) was a mathematician.  There will always be a "next room" for each occupant to move into, but that room will be occupied, so that occupant will have to move into the next room, which will be occupied, and so that occupant will have to move into the next room, which will be occupied, and so on ad infinitum.  In fact it's worse than that - Hilbert claimed he could not only accommodate one extra guest, he could accommodate an infinite number of extra guests.  How? Well he would ask each guest to move to the room whose number was double that of the room they were in - so 1 would go to 2, 2 would go to 4, 3 would go to 6, 4 would go to 8 and so on. This would free up all the odd-numbered rooms, and as there are an infinite number of odd-numbered rooms, he could accommodate any number of extra guests.  And I don't know about you, but my head hurts!

We will remember them.

The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them
Czeslaw Milosz

Each to his own...

Poetry is often ambiguous - in many cases that is the object of the exercise, to make the reader think and appreciate that there may be more than one way of looking at it.  So the vicar who reads "I Vow To Thee My Country" as "patronising" and "a divine call to kill people" is entitled to his opinion, but should we take any notice?  I imagine most of us know it simply as the hymn set to the music of Holst, and a darned good tune it is too, but read the words (written by Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador to the US in 1908).  Sure, they're jingoistic, but no more so than "Land Of Hope And Glory" and the third verse, which is rarely heard, makes it clear that the "country" the poet had in mind as the ideal was the Kingdom of God, and I can't see how the vicar can argue with that!

What's in a name?

The other day I was visited by a transparency enhancement facilitator - yes, that's right, the window cleaner came!

This is an ex-torch!

The Winter Olympic torch has taken off in a rocket to go to the International Space Station, where it is due to be taken outside the station for a space walk.  But it won't be lit - doesn't this sort of negate the whole idea of the torch - a torch (in its original definition) is a torch because it burns, surely?  The original flame will remain lit here on earth apparently, but what will go walkies up there will simply be a dead token.  As witnessed by the title, I am reminded of the Monty Python parrot sketch.

Movember.

If you're a bloke, in November you're supposed to grow a moustache.  I did have a moustache period in my thirties, I think it was, but it didn't last long.  What I do remember is it was a bit of a pain when it came to eating and drinking, and this brought to mind that back in the Victorian days there used to be moustache cups - these were tea-cups with a ledge about a third of the way across that had a gap by the rim that allowed you to drink while your moustache rested on the ledge. Brilliant idea.  You may still be able to come across them in antique and bric-a-brac shops.

Ooh, you can't do that!

A small village in Derbyshire has traditionally built a bonfire on waste ground to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night.  Residents say that this has been done for at least the last twenty years with no problem.  But this year, the council have moved in and dismantled the bonfire and cordoned the area off.  I know what you're thinking - health and safety, right?  Well no, not this time - the council say that the bonfire amounts to fly-tipping, and in any event is illegal as no application has been made for a licence to hold such an event!  Where do they find these idiots?

Cluck, cluck.

Did you know that livestock can become naturalised?  There are proposals - by the EU, who else? - that after a period of residence in this country, animals and poultry can be labelled as "British" irrespective of where they originated.  And in some cases the period of residence would be very short - a chicken for example, would become a British chicken after just 28 days living here.  At present there is a legal requirement as far as beef is concerned, and a voluntary arrangement for other meat and poultry, that means that any animal or bird can be traced back to where it was born, reared and slaughtered.  Should we be concerned?  I think we should - the horsemeat business demonstrates how the race to be the cheapest can compromise quality, and those who specifically look for "British" products as a (maybe questionable) guarantee of quality ought to be able to rely on the label, and these proposals will mean that they wouldn't be able to.

The choice is yours

I'm wearing my poppy - November now being well underway (see post dated 30/10/09). but it seems that fewer and fewer people are with every year that passes.  Not that surprising maybe - every year there are fewer and fewer people who remember the last war and none now I think with any meaningful memory of the Great War.  But what is perhaps more worrying is that there seem to be a growing number who are making a conscious decision not to wear a poppy.  Why worrying?  Because the reasons they give for this decision appear to completely misunderstand what the poppy is all about.  Phrases like "glorifies war" and "advocates war" are bandied about, and yet the Royal British Legion whose emblem the poppy is, exists simply to help members of the armed services - past and present - who need financial assistance.  I wear mine to honour those who didn't come back or who came back destroyed, physically or mentally.  You have a right to wear one or not as you choose, but please don't make your decision based on a false premise.

When is full not full?

Hilbert's Grand Hotel has an infinite number of rooms.  Every room is occupied. Along comes someone who would like to stay there.  He can't be accommodated, yes? The hotel is full.  Not so, says Hilbert (the owner).  All I have to do is move the guest in Room 1 to Room 2, the guest in Room 2 to Room 3, the guest in Room 3 to Room 4 and so on.  Because the hotel has an infinite number of rooms, there will always be a "next room" for each guest to move into, and Room 1 is now available for the newcomer.  I have to say I have problems with this, but what do you think? More later.

How much?

The reported figure of £600,000 compensation for Sharon Shoesmith (see post of 11.11.09) may be eye-watering, and will be seen by many as payment for failure, but in my book she was entitled to all she could get.  She was disgracefully hung out to dry by Ed Balls - then Children's Secretary - to save his political skin, and then clearly wrongfully dismissed by Haringey Council, doubtless under pressure from the same man.  This has nothing to do with what happened to poor little Baby P, and everything to do with a cynical politically inspired public crucifixion.  

Is an absolute absolute?

Apparently Italian couples wishing to divorce and unwilling to go through the lengthy procedure required by Italian law are setting up false addresses in this country and filing for divorce here.  The High Court is being asked to annul nearly 200 divorces which have been obtained in this way.  My understanding always was that a decree absolute was inviolable - the problem of course is that the parties to such a decree may have gone on to remarry on the strength of that decree, and where does that leave such a second marriage, and any children which may have ensued?  I was also fascinated to learn that the office of The Queen's Proctor still exists!