A paper hat, a joke... and a fine?

It's illegal to sell Christmas crackers to anyone under the age of 12, it seems.  Yes, really - under an EU directive (what else?) crackers are classified as low-grade fireworks and therefore age-restricted when it comes to sales.  Of course what has happened is that shops have erred on the side of caution and refused to sell them to any young person who cannot produce proof of age.  Playing right into UKIP's hands?

To what end?

I'm always looking for the "why?".  Motivation fascinates me - particularly when it's not obvious.  So what about these recent computer hacks - particularly those affecting PlayStation and Xbox.  Where's the pay-off for the hackers?  Who are their real targets?  Surely not the unfortunate kids who have not been able to use their Christmas present games consoles?  Or are they just collateral damage in a war between the anarchist hackers and Microsoft and Sony?  Or perhaps most worrying and terrifying is that maybe this is just a case of "I'm doing this simply because I can, and I don't care who gets hurt in the process".  So - principled, unprincipled or merely amoral?  I don't know.

Two and two makes...

City Link parcel delivery service has gone out of business with the loss of some 2000 jobs.  Their vans are standing idle and their workers looking for things to do. Meanwhile, Yodel - another parcel delivery service, is having to apologise for delays in delivering Christmas packages due to unforeseen demand.  Join the dots, someone?

But we've always...

Mentioned foxhunting in passing the other day, and of course it's now that time of year where the pros and antis trade verbal blows with each other.  It's now ten years since legislation made it illegal to hunt wild animals with dogs and yet attitudes do not seem to have changed.  Hunt meets still go on - and indeed seem more popular than ever - although today they are theoretically chasing a man-made trail rather then a real fox.  And hunt saboteurs continue to monitor and disrupt.  I've made my attitude plain in previous posts but one of the arguments consistently put forward by those in favour of hunting is that it is "tradition" - which seems to me to be one of those "it means what it means" words.  A tradition is something which has gone on for a long time - nothing more, nothing less.  It certainly carries with it no suggestion of right or wrong.  You can have bad traditions, good traditions and meaningless traditions.  So I don't think that particular word adds anything useful to the argument.

The name's....er....

So the question is - can you have a black James Bond?  One of the things to have come out of the recent leaked e-mails from Sony is a suggestion that Idris Elba "should be the next Bond".  Only problem - he's black. No questioning his acting ability or that he could carry off the part, but....?  The issue seems to be - to what extent do we owe a duty to Ian Fleming to be true to the books he wrote? He certainly portrayed Bond as white - but then it could be argued that he wrote M (Bond's boss) as male, whereas the role has been played over several films now by Judy Dench.  So if one character can be fundamentally changed, why not another?  I have to say I would find it difficult to accept a black James Bond, though I can't really explain why.

Whoopee!

So what does Boxing Day mean to you?  The sales?  Football matches? Race meetings?  Foxhunting (if you're posh)?  It's certainly a busy, busy day for many people.  This was of course traditionally the first day of the "twelve days of Christmas" festivities.  At one time, Boxing Day football matches would be arranged to be local derbies so players and fans didn't have to travel long distances - although that idea seems to have gone the way of all flesh.  For many people - perhaps you - it's the day to relax after the stresses of Christmas Day.  So, a day to be enjoyed.

Season's greetings.

Merry Christmas to all our readers (are there any?).

Not fair!!

I'm going to have a whinge - I feel like a good old whinge.  Went shopping the other day and being the time of year it was, I had to search for a parking space and ended up best part of 100 yards from the shop door. And my legs were having one of their not so good days, so it was a bit of trial to get there and even more so to get back. And right outside the shop were the usual disabled and mother and child parking spaces. And as I was shuffling along, that got me mad.  Think about it - the majority of disabled badge holders are in wheelchairs, so unless the pushers are themselves disabled, why do they need to be able to park near the door?  And toddlers are usually in pushchairs so the same applies.  I have no problem with giving them extra wide spaces - indeed I think we should all be given extra wide spaces - but why should they get preferential positioning?  What about us "not disabled, but getting on in years and legs don't work so well" types??  End of whinge.

And the viewers said...

I have sympathy with those who are criticising the award of BBC's Sports Personality of the Year to Lewis Hamilton rather than Rory McIlroy.  I didn't watch the programme (it's got far too X-Factor-ish these past years) but had I voted I would definitely have gone for McIlroy.  Not that I've got anything against Hamilton - I'm a Formula One fan and pleased that he won the drivers' championship, but as I'm sure he would be the first to acknowledge, his success was as much down to the car he was driving as to his driving prowess.  McIlroy's success on the other hand was 100% down to his own skill.  But then it was decided by a public vote and golf perhaps does not have the same "wow" factor as F1.  I think a panel of sports writers might well have come up with a different result.

Er...........?

One of those "where's the story?" stories.  A 20-some-odd year old pregnant woman is tragically killed, but is being kept alive artificially because her baby is still alive and apparently developing normally.  The fact that this is Ireland, and that Irish law requires it seems to me to be irrelevant. Unless there are things we are not being told, why on earth wouldn't you seek to save the baby?  I keep reading the story and thinking - am I missing something?

Shake, rattle and roll.

If you're opening a bottle of champagne, what shouldn't you do?  Shake it - right? Well, apparently not so - it may seem counter-intuitive, but shaking the bottle, provided you then wait about three minutes before opening it, actually decreases the pressure inside the bottle, and therefore makes it less likely that you will get an explosive shower of foam.  So there!  My wife once did an instore demonstration for Cordorniu I think it was and I remember the trick she taught me for opening fizzy wine - hold the cork and turn the bottle, not the other way round.

Psst! You wanna black market pie? Good price?

We're used to the idea of ruthless businessmen trying to corner the market in some desirable commodity with a view to hoiking up the price and making themselves a fortune.  When you hear of such stories you tend to think in terms of gold, diamonds, oil and the like.  But pork pies??  And yet the Competition and Markets Authority which keeps an eye on such things has expressed concern at the purchase of Kerry Foods by Pork Farm, suggesting that it will put too much of the manufacture of pork pies, sausage rolls, scotch eggs and the like in the hands of one company with a reduction in competition and choice and possibly an increase in price.  So beware the pork pie monopoly!

D'oh!!

Heard of the Darwin awards?  No, neither had I but apparently they are given posthumously to people who have killed themselves in a particularly stupid way, thus removing their genes from the human gene pool and therefore supposedly benefiting human evolution - hence the reference to Darwin.  All very tongue in cheek of course, but now someone has done some research and found that of the 318 people who have won the award since 1995, 282 were men and only 36 women.  As the criteria for getting the award is to have done something outstandingly idiotic, this is put forward as proof that men are more stupid than women!

England playing tonight? Tough!!

So now Wimbledon looks as if it's going the way of other of the sporting "Crown Jewels" with the news that BBC are looking to hive at least some of the matches off to BT Sport.  International football matches, test matches, formula 1 - more and more often these days if you want to watch these events you will have to shell out for pay-tv.  Sign of the times, I suppose, but you can't help but feel that those who are sports fans and can't afford (or are unwilling ) to pay over and above the basic licence fee are getting a progressively worse deal

Swings and whotsits...

So the oil price is plunging.  Good news for me as a motorist, but bad news for me as a holder of investments which include oil shares.  Seems you just can't win!!

How do you detonate chocolate spread?

I think we're all familiar now with the ban on taking more than 100ml of liquid aboard an aircraft in hand luggage.  Whatever we think about it, we are aware of the rule. But did you know ('cause I sure didn't) that the ban extends to gel-type products, which I think most of us would not think of as liquid. So toothpaste, face cream, marmalade and the like are all equally caught by the regulation. This came to my attention when a woman flying from London to Edinburgh had a couple of jars of Nutella which she had bought as Christmas presents confiscated as breaching the rule.  One thing which occurs is that such items are often sold by weight rather than volume - how on earth do you convert grams into millilitres?

Management 101?

Seems totally unbelievable that there was no backup for the computer system which runs the national air traffic control centre and which failed last weekend effectively grounding all UK aircraft and causing chaos for some 120,000 would-be travellers.  I think I've mentioned before that I saw an essential aspect of management to be constantly asking "what if?" and trying to ensure that all the bases were covered. Clearly where computer failure would produce such a catastrophic situation you would surely have another independent system (or maybe more than one) running in parallel and ready to cut in and take over should the need arise?

I baptise thee...

Came across that old idea on the net the other day that "you can't change your Christian name".  Now I think I've mentioned before that, under English common law, you can call yourself whatever you want provided that by so doing you are not breaking the law or seeking to do so.  So how can you reconcile those two statements?  Well, the answer is in the wording.  Your Christian name is the name you were given at your christening, or baptism, and as a christening is a one-off event, it follows that the name you were given then you are stuck with as your Christian name for life. Well, that's not entirely the end of the story.  At your christening, your godparents make certain promises on your behalf.  When you become of sufficient age, Christian dogma allows for a ceremony called confirmation whereby you confirm those promises on your own behalf.  Now there is a theory - don't know if anyone's ever done it - that at confirmation you can if you wish revoke the name you were given and choose another one.  But the point is that you need to differentiate between your first name - that is the name by which you are known to officialdom, and your Christian name (if indeed you have one) - the name by which you are known to the Church.  The former can be changed whereas the latter (subject to what is said above) can't be.

My, my, my....

It is being suggested that Welsh rugby supporters should be banned from singing "Delilah" when supporting their national team.  It has become something of a rugby anthem for the Welsh in the same way as "Swing low, sweet chariot" has for the English.  The objection is that the song is all about a man killing his unfaithful girlfriend and as such could be considered as "promoting domestic violence".  Well, it's a point of view, although I can't see it finding too much favour with the crowds at the Millennium Stadium at Cardiff.  If we are to throw out all songs which include references to conflict or violence, we shall sadly deplete the repertoire.  And what to replace it with?  Ar hyd y nos?  Lovely song, but hardly stirs the blood, does it?  I think things are best left as they are.

Problem solved?

This is a continuation of yesterday's post.  Romeo and Juliet was written sometime in the 1590s and was not an immediate success - indeed Samuel Pepys described it as "the worst that I ever heard in my life".  So initially it was very little performed. After the execution of Charles I in 1649 the Puritans closed all the theatres and it wasn't until Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 that theatreland sprang to life again.  One of the first popular plays to be put on was The History and Fall of Caius Marius by one Thomas Otway. This was set in ancient Rome but was a shameless rip-off of Romeo and Juliet - it even contains the priceless line "Oh Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius?"  But by now the idea of balconies had spread to Britain, so when the heroine Lavinia has her conversation with Marius in the garden below, she is described as being in the balcony.  And when Romeo and Juliet was revived soon after, it took up this idea as being far more stageworthy, allowing Juliet to be outside and fully visible to the audience.  And there you are.

Verona - we have a problem...

If I say "Romeo and Juliet" to you, what's the first thing that comes into your mind? I imagine for many if not most of you it will be the balcony scene - you know "...but soft, what light through yonder window breaks,,,".  And that quote in fact contains the word which is the nub of the problem. My Complete Works of Shakespeare - a Christmas present from my Gran when I was 15 - has the stage direction "Juliet appears above at a window".  So in Shakespeare's original text, there was no balcony - Juliet was inside, behind a window.  Indeed the word "balcony" and the concept of an upstairs outdoor terrace was unknown in Shakespeare's time.  So how come any production of the play almost inevitably has Juliet standing at the balustrade of a balcony? How come you can go to Verona and see the Casa di Giulietta complete with balcony? It's a bit complicated, so I'll leave that until tomorrow.

Where's yer grammar? Upstairs - were's yourn?

Apparently the go-ahead may be given for the first new grammar school for 50 years. I've had my say on this before (see 31/5/07) and I think once again we are missing the big question.  We shouldn't, in my opinion, be talking about the pro's and con's of grammar schools and the 11+ selection system. What we should be discussing is why the comprehensive model hasn't worked the way it was supposed to.  There was nothing wrong with the theory, so why has it not worked in practice? If it had, there would be no need to be talking about new grammar schools.

Statistics, statistics...

Much has been made of a comment by a BBC correspondent that the Chancellor's planned cuts would take us back to the levels of the 1930s - notorious for the Great Depression and the Jarrow March. The Prime Minister has accused the BBC of "hyperbolic" coverage.  So who's right?  Well, they both are.  The BBC are correct that the cuts announced in the Chancellor's statement would take the government's spending as a proportion of GDP to a little over 12% - the lowest since the 1930s. What of course this doesn't take into account is that GDP today is significantly different in both scale and composition to back then so you are really comparing apples and pears.  Perhaps the BBC, as a supposed neutral commentator, should have made that clearer?

Ooh - look at her!!

I would feel somewhat embarrassed and uncomfortable if I were in a restaurant and a woman nearby started to breastfeed a baby.  This does not make what she is doing in any way wrong - simply that that is the way it would affect me.  I would imagine there are a fair few people who would feel the same.  Given this, should nursing mothers give any consideration to the feelings of people like me? All this arises because a mother breastfeeding her baby in Claridge's tearooms the other day was asked by staff to cover-up with a napkin. Don't think for me the napkin would have made any difference - it's more a matter of whether this was an appropriate place for such an activity.  The danger is that this will turn into a feminist/party political issue. Nigel Farage has already come in for some stick for making what seemed to me quite reasonable off-the-cuff comments on the matter. Isn't it just a case that there are certain things which perhaps you should think twice about doing in public?  Isn't it just a case of good manners??

Read on...

Thank goodness common sense has prevailed.  The High Court have ruled that the ban on sending books to prisoners is unlawful (see post of 29th March).  Let's hope the Justice Secretary shows equal common sense by accepting the ruling and not appealing it.

Income twenty pounds, expenditure twenty pounds nought and six...

Yes Mr Micawber, it really is that simple - give out more than you're getting in and you're going to be in trouble.  I am constantly amazed that people can't see that. Following the Chancellor's Autumn Statement there have been the usual cries of "foul" from the Opposition and those who will be disadvantaged. Understandable, but what's the alternative?  And the answer is - tax rises.  Nobody wants to talk about it but that's the reality.  If we are to continue to hand out money at the present rate, then revenue will have to increase significantly to pay for it.  As I have said many times before, Government has no money of its own - what it has is what it gets from us.  So do you want to pay more in income tax, VAT, petrol duty and so on? I guess the answer is no, but if so you have to accept that government spending will have to be curtailed.  It's difficult and painful to take away from people that which they are used to getting but as Gran was wont to say, you can't have the penny and the bun!

Match and more...

I think I've mentioned that I'm a Morrisons shopper, and they've recently introduced a storecard under the above title which compares their prices with other supermarkets - including Aldi and Lidl - and gives you points for any difference which are then converted into money-off vouchers.  Now there are two ways of looking at this - my granddaughter (the 9-year-old - see post of 25th November) said "if they're trying to match their prices with Aldi and Lidl why don't they just sell their stuff at Aldi and Lidl prices?"  And that's a very good question (told you she was smart) - when you think about it, they are effectively admitting that you could shop cheaper elsewhere - which you would think is the last thing a supermarket would want to say.  But the other side of the coin is that by giving you the difference in vouchers they are ensuring that in order to get your money back you have to continue to shop with them - you can't use the vouchers anywhere else.  I'm sure they must have done their research and done the maths and reckoned that the latter aspect outweighs the former, but it's a funny do, isn't it?

Would you believe it??

Can you sexually harass someone who doesn't exist?  It appears there is at least one person who listens to the BBC who thinks you can, because they have written to the Corporation complaining about the way Samantha - who keeps the score in the radio comedy show I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue - is constantly subjected to "schoolboy sexist so-called humour".  Well, there's no doubt that she is - for example it has been said of her that she has "scored on more desks than she can remember" and that she enjoys going out to see horror films with men because she likes nothing better then "sitting in the back row and being given the willies for 90 minutes".  So - unacceptable?  The point is, of course, as any aficianado of the show is well aware, Samantha is a completely fictitious character, who simply exists to be the butt of the contestants' jokes.  Clearly the complainant (and as far as I am aware there was only the one) doesn't really appreciate what the the programme is all about.

Ha ha

This from my pensioners' magazine -

A young man was doing his shopping in the supermarket when he became aware of an elderly lady staring at him.  When he got to the checkout, he found the lady was immediately in front of him,  "I hope you didn't mind me staring" she said "but you look so like my late son".  "That's OK" he said. And then she said "I know this will sound silly, but it would mean so much to me if you would say 'Goodbye Mum' as I leave the store."  So as she was going out of the door he shouted "Bye Mum" and she smiled and waved back.  Feeling virtuous that he had brought some pleasure into her life, he went to pay for his stuff,  "That'll be £121.85" said the cashier.  "But I've only got five items" said the man.  "I know" said the cashier "but your mother said you were paying for her things too,"!

Why 10 isn't really a number...

I've mentioned before that the way we count is really down to the way we're made - we count in tens because we have ten digits.  If the Good Lord had created us like the Simpsons, with a thumb and three fingers on each hand, we would count in eights (by the way, did you know that the only character in the Simpsons with a full complement of fingers is God himself?), so counting, Simpsons-style would go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - and then what?  No, not 8 - it would be 10.  Just as, counting in tens as we do, there are (ignoring zero) only 9 digits, so in eights, there are only 7.  10 is not really a number, it simply represents one of whatever base we are counting in plus 0.  So in binary (base 2) 10 is 2 in decimal.  In hexadecimal (base 16) 10 is 16 in decimal. And in octal (base 8 - the Simpsons way) 10 is 8 in decimal.  So 10 represents a concept - not a fixed number.

Cricket, lovely cricket?

Following the tragic death of Phillip Hughes, has the time come to outlaw the head-high bouncer?  It was of course us who started it all with the (in)famous "bodyline" series against the Aussies back in the 1930s and the objective was simple - to stop Bradman scoring.  Not necessarily to get him out, you understand, but simply to try and prevent him getting runs.  And therein lies the nub of the matter - the head-high bouncer is not normally bowled with any realistic intention of getting the batsman out, but to restrict his ability to score and - more recently - simply to intimidate.  So should any ball which reaches the batsman above chest height be called a no-ball?  Of course that wouldn't necessarily stop a bowler bowling them - it might be thought worth losing a run or two to put the fear of God into a batsman - so maybe some more drastic punishment might be needed.  Or is it in fact a legitimate tactic and we need to accept the death of Hughes as just sheer bad luck?

Formula 1

Well, last year my assessment of the season was "boring".  This year, the word which springs to mind is "depressing".  The drivers' championship was won by a Brit, which was nice.  The question of who would win it went down to the wire, which created some interest, but once again, for the - how many years in a row now? - one make of car has dominated, and therefore its drivers have dominated. Whereas in recent past years it has been Red Bull and Vettel, this year it's Mercedes and Hamilton/Rosberg. The names may be different, but the effect is the same - a turn-off.  It seems to me that the problem is that F1 suffers from a split personality. It's trying to be two different and mutually incompatible things. Bernie Ecclestone and his lot wants to present it as an exciting spectator sport, but the constructors, as I see it, are just interested in producing the fastest car - and being miles ahead of the competition is something to be desired.  The fact that this will deny the watching public any sort of thrilling competition just doesn't enter their thinking. Anyway -
Hamilton - no question the best man won.  Would have been somewhat of a travesty if he had been beaten by someone who had only won half as many races.
Rosberg - the fact that he ended up such a close second was more down to his good and Hamilton's bad fortune than anything else.  Showed himself to be a good racer though.
Ricciardo - where did he come from?  Mr Consistency in an underperforming Red Bull (and certainly put Vettel in his place).  One to watch.
I just hope next season will produce better entertainment.

Over there...

I don't normally comment on matters outside these islands, but so many people have asked me for my views on the shooting in Ferguson USA, that I've decided to put my thoughts on record.  Obviously I don't live there and so am looking on matters as an outsider, but I don't know which disturbs me the most - that a policeman (and I think it is important to remember that he is in fact a member of the police force - protect and serve and all that) could shoot and kill an unarmed civilian simply because he felt physically threatened by him, or that the American public, through their grand jury system, have effectively said that such behaviour is acceptable.  I repeat, I don't live there and maybe if I did I would see things differently, but I hope I wouldn't.

Opening mouth before putting brain in gear?

Difficult to see the sense in the government's pledge to cut net migration into this country to "tens of thousands" - a target which they have finally admitted they have no hope of reaching - when everybody knows that the concept of free movement of people within the EU means that they have no say over the number of EU citizens coming here - or for that matter, leaving here.  Why pledge to do something over which you have no control?  Crazy!

What did I tell you??

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that the cost of benefits for pensioners is getting more and more expensive as there are more and more of us, and that we have been sheltered from the worst of the austerity cuts which the government has made over recent years.  Their report says that this is a problem we will have to face and there are only three answers - cutting the benefits we pensioners get, cutting the benefits and services that everybody else gets, or increasing taxation. Well, you read it here first - see my post of 4/7/08.

How fresh is fresh?

Article in the press about fish being sold in supermarkets as "fresh" which is anything up to 15 days old.  Dreadful. yes?  But perfectly legal - apparently you can officially call fish fresh provided it has been kept on ice since it was caught.  Can't help remembering when I had fish and chips once when on holiday by the seaside and was blown away by how delicious the fish tasted - I reckon it had been swimming in the sea just a few hours earlier!  Where I live is about as far away from the sea as you can get in this country, so I suppose we have to be glad of what we can get. 

When is too young?

There is a suggestion that a law will be passed making it an offence to leave a young child alone - only question seems to be at what age and for how long?  I'll put my cards on the table - I regularly leave my 9-year-old granddaughter alone in the house while I go to pick up another granddaughter from school - a 10 or so minute trip.  She (the 9-year-old) is a sensible child and knows not to answer the door or answer the 'phone, and although I lock her in, she knows where the front door key is should she need to get out of the house for any reason, and in those circumstances to go round next door.  So I feel I have covered all the bases.  You may ask why I don't take her with me, and the answer is I ask her every time, but she prefers to stay in the house. But it may be that I shall have to rethink this if indeed it becomes illegal to do what I do.  So when is too young, and how long is too long?  Once again we seem to be looking for a "one size fits all" solution to what is definitely not a one size fits all problem.  So much depends on the child - I reckon my 9-year-old could run rings round many kids three and four years older than she.  But she has a schoolfriend of the same age (slightly older in fact) who I most definitely would not trust to be on her own - a completely different character who would probably end up burning the house down or something!  And therein lies the problem with passing laws like this - in order to do good for what is probably a small minority you have to interfere with the lives of the majority who are not in fact those you are seeking to affect.  As somebody-or-other said "God save us from people who mean well"!

Crazy!!

Ofsted examined a primary school in Lincolnshire.  It got top marks all down the line, but Ofsted failed to give it an "outstanding" rating.  Why?  Because it was all white! There were no children there from any other culture.  No suggestion that this was in any way the school's fault, and its intake merely reflected the area it was in, but as Ofsted saw it the children there were denied "first-hand interaction with counterparts from different backgrounds", and this was sufficient to deny them the highest rating. So being white British is now somehow not good enough?

Most influential...

Somebody has created a list of the films and programmes that are said to have changed the world.  It may be a generational thing, but nowhere did I see "Cathy come home" which must be one of the most hard-hitting plays ever aired on television.  Instrumental in the creation of the charities Crisis and Shelter, it completely changed the public perception of homelessness.  Truly groundbreaking.

Elementary

A couple of years ago I was a little scathing about the above programme, which is the US's attempt to update Sherlock Holmes - and comparisons with our "Sherlock" were obvious.  Well I've been watching it regularly - it's now in its third season - and I have to say I really enjoy it.  The point is that it does not in fact put itself forward as any sort of rival to "Sherlock", but as something completely different. Its genius is that it decided to make "Watson" a woman - thus introducing an undercurrent of sexual tension between the two main characters.  Because American TV series tend to be much longer than ours - often upwards of 20 episodes - this relationship has had time to develop and has become the main driver of the programme.  I apologise - I was wrong.  It's really good.

Panic stations!

I don't know how to tell you this, but we're eating chocolate faster than it's being produced!  Yes, that's right - chocolate is running out and at the present rate in another five years or so, there'll be precious little to be had, and what there is will be ruinously expensive.  In fact, the signs are already there - have you noticed how those nice Christmas tins of chocolate sweets cost the same - or maybe a little more - than last year, but weigh less?  Thin end of the wedge, folks!

Ha ha

The inventor of predictive text has died.
His funfair will be hello on Sundial.

Made me smile!

Sliding...

The Financial Conduct Authority has taken steps to curb the perceived excesses of Wonga (see post dated 17/10/12) and their like.  So that's got to be a good thing, right?  Well, maybe, maybe not.  Those with some sort of credit rating - however poor - will be able to find alternative lenders, but for the desperate, the hopeless, where do they now go?  And the danger is that they will be forced to go down the pub to see "that bloke" who knows somebody...  And that bloke and his mate are most definitely not regulated by anybody. So would that be a move for the better?

Och aye!

Anybody else getting a bit fed up with Scotland?  They always did have an inflated sense of their own importance, but it's all becoming a bit much, isn't it?  And the thought of the SNP holding the balance of power at Westminster is truly disturbing!

Die Frau sagt "ja"

You know the flashing green man that tells you when it's safe to cross the road? Well Dortmund in Germany have decided that on the grounds of gender equality 50% of their green men should be replaced by green women.  What do you think?  Where does this go?  What about age equality, disability equality and of course race equality? How about having a picture of an old stooped man with a walking stick, a man or woman in a wheelchair, or a green figure with a brown face?  Stupid you may think - but is it any more stupid than what they intend to do?

Salt and vinegar?

Yesterday's post reminded me of another war story - WWII this time.  Don't know if it's true but I was told it by someone who was definitely part of the D-Day landings. He told me that it was accepted that in the immediate aftermath of the landings, there would be chaos and confusion, and so in order to be able to distinguish between friend and foe, you would shout out "fish".  If you got the response "chips" you would know you were safe - at least temporarily.

Stille Nacht...

The Sainsbury's Christmas advert is based on the story of how soldiers from both sides in World War I at Christmas time declared an unofficial truce and met in no-man's-land to exchange greetings and even to play a football match.  Gives you a good warm glow doesn't it?  So it might come as a bit of a shock to find that this was looked on with something like horror by the high commands of both sides. The idea of any sort of fraternisation with the enemy was seen in the official mind as somewhat akin to treason, and orders went out that there was to be no repeat of this type of behaviour.  Somewhat diminishes that good warm glow, doesn't it?

En garde!

What a funny to-do!  Go to Paris during the day, and you can take as many pictures of the Eiffel Tower from as many angles as you like.  But go back at night and you are not allowed to photograph it.  Why not?  Well the Tower itself is what is known as "in the public domain" and therefore fair game for anyone who wants to take its picture. But at night it is lit up, and this illumination constitutes an artistic work which cannot be reproduced (e.g. by photographing it) without the permission of the artist.  Of course this is theory - it is unlikely that you will be hauled off to be en taule just for taking a personal snap, but you have been warned!

What the....???!

So as anybody who follows this blog will know, I am an elderly man, on my own (sadly) and I don't go out much, but would have thought that if and when I do, I would not be seen as posing any sort of danger or threat.  But it appears that this is not so. A (private) park near Weston-super-Mare that caters for families has a policy of not admitting single adults - male or female.  This apparently is for fear of admitting paedophiles.  I would have assumed that this is just the extremist view of this particular park, but to my astonishment the director, in defending their policy, said that what they do is "in line with all other parks".  So this is a general thing? What a sad world we live in - and isn't this discrimination and quite possibly illegal?

Tricky...

Somewhat disturbing case involving a council who are seeking a payout from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board in respect of a disabled child in their care. There seems little doubt that the child was born disabled as a result of the mother drinking heavily during pregnancy.  The council argue that this amounted to a crime under the Offences Against The Person Act 1861 and therefore compensation is justified.  But English law has long held that an unborn child is not a "person" until it obtains an existence independent of the mother, and therefore cannot be offended against.  Few people I think would have much sympathy for the mother here, but the point is that, had she not been pregnant, she would have committed no offence by drinking as she did - so are we to have different laws for pregnant women?  Is behaviour which is generally accepted as OK to become criminal if you are pregnant? What about abortion??  And what if you don't know you're pregnant???

Lest we forget.

Particular poignancy this year as we commemorate the centenary of the start of World War One. Have you ever wondered just why the poppy is the symbol of remembrance for the war dead?  And you may be surprised to learn that although we make such a big thing of it, it didn't originate here. The inspiration came from a poem written in 1915 by a Canadian surgeon - I'm sure you all know the opening line - In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place...  And after the war this prompted an American lady in 1920 to persuade the American Legion to adopt the poppy as their symbol of remembrance.  From there the idea spread to France and thence to here.  The Flanders poppy thrives on disturbed earth, and so was about the only plant to survive the destruction of the battlefields.

Leave us be!

I posted the other week about how the Black Country and Birmingham see themselves as fundamentally different from each other.  And now, shock horror, there is this idea of bundling the two together - and even including Solihull and Coventry - and calling the whole thing "Greater Birmingham".  Can't see that going down well. And to what end?  We already have the West Midlands which covers much the same area.  The argument seems to be that when you're dealing with people abroad, the Black Country means nothing to them, whereas they know about Birmingham.  But is that worth losing our identity for?  Surely what matters is the quality of what is produced, rather than where it is produced?

Pigeons roosting?

Back in 2005 on what was then my separate blog for matters musical, I posted about the dangers of Radio 3 trying to ape Classic FM.  I suggested that, as a non-commercial station, they should not see ratings as the be-all and end-all, but should concentrate on giving their core audience what they wanted.  Well, it doesn't seem they listened, because their audience figures are falling, and they are being accused of "dumbing down" their output.  Perhaps they're just going through a bad patch but it would be a tragedy if Radio 3 were to be seen as failing.  I'm a Classic FM listener personally, but classical music gets little enough airtime anyway and it covers a wide spectrum which extends well beyond the Classic FM output, and I'm sure there are plenty of those who are into the heavyweight and avant-garde stuff and it is to them that Radio 3 should be speaking.

Remember, remember (conclusion)

The gunpowder is there (some of it had decayed but was replaced), and Guy Fawkes is there ready to light it, so why didn't it work?  Well one Lord Monteagle received an anonymous letter advising him not to attend the opening of parliament because "God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time" and "they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament".  Monteagle passed the letter on to Robert Cecil - the King's spymaster, who had already heared rumours of a plot.  As a result the buildings around parliament were searched and Fawkes and the gunpowder discovered, But the idea that he was discovered match in hand as it were is false. When he was found he first spun the soldiers some sort of yarn and they went away for further instructions. At this point it seems Fawkes could have made his escape, but stayed at his post and was eventually arrested when a search party returned. The rest as they say is history, except a little known fact is that when Fawkes was taken to the gallows to be hanged drawn and quartered, he threw himself headlong off the scaffold and the fall broke his neck thus saving himself the agony which he would have had to endure.  It was never discovered who wrote the "Monteagle letter" and modern thought is that it was probably written by Cecil himself to justify investigating people who he was already suspicious of being Catholic conspirators. To this day the cellars under the Houses of Parliament are ceremonially searched before the State Opening.

Remember, remember (continued)

So James is on the throne, and in general English Catholics are pleased.  The hope was that he would - if not actually break his promise - at least sympathise with their cause.  And at least initially it seemed that was how it was going to be.  Early Catholic plotters were pardoned and exiled rather than executed.  But James (who remember was also King of Scotland) became more involved with the possibility of a union between the two countries and less concerned with purely English politics.  It wasn't long before Catholics were once again being persecuted as badly - if not worse - than before. What was to become the Gunpowder Plot had its origins in a meeting at Robert Catesby's house in London in February 1604 (James had been on the throne for less than 12 months at this time) where the possibility of blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament was discussed. At what point it developed from discussion into intent is not clear but three months later at a further meeting at a London pub, the conspirators swore a sacred oath and started making plans. The idea was that if James and the majority of the Lords were killed, the conspirators could put James's 9-year-old daughter Elizabeth on the throne and effectively reign as her regents.  They amassed a large quantity of gunpowder which they stockpiled in a room they had rented which was right underneath the House of Lords and engaged Guy Fawkes (who, despite being known as Guido, was in fact English) to do the deed.  What could possibly go wrong?  That's for part 3.

Remember, remember...

So Guy Fawkes night - we all know the story.  Or do we??  It seems to me that what I was taught as a child, and it seems what schoolchildren are still being taught, is a very simplified and to a certain extent, sanitised version of what took place.  This may take more than one post, so here goes - part 1. It's all down to Queen Elizabeth The First - the "virgin queen".  Most unlikely that she was a virgin, but she certainly never married and died childless (at least officially) so on her death, the throne of England would be up for grabs.  The memory of her predecessor's reign (Mary I, known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants) was still fresh in many people's minds, and so the fact that all three of the obvious contenders for the throne were Catholics (or at the very least Catholic sympathisers) was a problem - to put it mildly. Arguably the one with the best claim was James, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was Elizabeth's cousin and would have been the obvious successor, had she not been executed for treason years earlier.  In the months before Elizabeth died, the government negotiated with James, and apparently got assurances from him that he would reign as religiously neutral, and leave such matters to parliament to deal with. On this basis he was offered the throne. He was already King of Scotland - then an independent country - so he became James I of England, whilst still being James VI of Scotland,  And here endeth part 1.

Too much information?

Apparently I am to get a personalised breakdown of how what I pay in tax is used - as indeed are all of you.  I think the idea is that being told that we as a country spend (say) £500bn a year on something or other just goes straight over most people's heads, whereas we can relate better to being told that we personally have spent (say) £273 over the last year on the same thing.  But is this asking for trouble?  You may remember at the height of the CND movement's popularity, many people tried to withhold part of their tax on the basis that they shouldn't have to pay towards something (nuclear armament) of which they personally disapproved. The establishment's counter-argument was that you didn't pay tax for specific purposes - you paid tax, full stop, and it was up to the government of the day to decide how it should be used.  So are we now in danger of people looking at these personal tax statements and saying something like "I pay £150 a year for (here insert your personal bête noire)!!?  Well, not any more I'm not!

Pay me, pay me.

I refer back to my post of 28th May and the idea which found favour with the European Court that those who work on commission should be paid "theoretical" commission when they are on holiday.  I suggested that it was a barmy idea, but it has now turned into a dangerous one.  There are two cases pending before Industrial Tribunals where workers who regularly work overtime, or who get extra pay for working unsocial hours are now claiming that when they are on holiday they should continue to be paid the same as when they are at work - in other words paid for overtime which they don't do or unsocial hours which they don't work - and the tribunals may well feel they are bound by the European Court judgment and find in their favour.  So stupidity breeds stupidity!

Real??

A statue called "A Real Birmingham Family" has been unveiled outside the city's new library.  It portrays two young women - one of them heavily pregnant - each holding a child by the hand.  It is based on a pair of real sisters, who are single mothers, and their respective sons.  The sculptor, a Turner prize-winner, says that her intention was to show that "a nuclear family is one reality but it is one of many and this work celebrates the idea that what constitutes a family should not be fixed."  I am in two minds about it - first of all let me say that it's a good piece of work - it's a good likeness of the sisters and their children, and she (the sculptor) has resisted the temptation to do something pretentious or clever-clever which so often seems to be the norm for works of art these days.  But - but, but, but...  is this in fact just a feminist statement?  Is it saying that dads don't count, don't matter? If it had been called A Birmingham Family I would have no issue with it, but A Real Birmingham Family?  I suppose the argument would be that such families do exist and therefore it is simply reflecting reality, but the word Real in the title seems to me to be implying that a family without a father is somehow more worthwhile, more commendable and that I find disturbing.  

They seek him (or her) here...

So first it was Baroness Butler-Sloss who was hounded out as the head of the inquiry into "historical child sex abuse" and now her replacement Fiona Woolf has gone the same way.  Is this, as many would have it, a Home Office shambles, or is it rather more that those representing the purported victims are so insistent that there has been an organised cover-up that nobody with any sort of connection to the "establishment" - past or present - will satisfy them?  In which case, it will be difficult to come up with anyone of sufficient status and dignity such as will be necessary to give the eventual report credence who will not be seen as an establishment figure, or who will not have had some contact with someone which might be considered as calling into question their impartiality.  So good luck with that!

Sooner or later...

Once again we have an official report saying that dragging drug-users before the courts and fining or imprisoning them is a waste of money and has little or no effect on levels of addiction, and that drug-taking should be treated as a health issue - not as a crime.  And once again the government - as successive governments have done in the past - is trying to push the issue into the long grass, in the hope that it will eventually go away.  I've had my say - I believe you could pretty well eliminate drug-related crime "at a stroke" by making drugs freely available - yes, the number of people using drugs might increase as a result, but the advantages to society would massively outweigh any problems this might cause.  I'm afraid this is one of those areas where fear of the Daily-Mail-readers-backlash has been allowed to trump common sense.

Wave after wave...

So are we being "swamped by migrants"?  This was the phrase used by the Defence Secretary, who I bet wishes he could go back in time and reconsider his choice of words. "Swamped" is a very emotive word, but is it justified?  Well, I could take you to places not a million miles from where I live, where you would be hard pressed to find anyone over the age of about 8 who was born here in the UK.  And I'm sure if you were to find such a person, they might well feel "swamped" by those who have come here from elsewhere. But I could equally take you just a few streets away to where just about everybody is 100% white and British.  As we've mentioned before, this is simply a case of "birds of a feather flock together" - migrants associate with their own sort as do non-migrants.  So "swamped"?  Depends where you are, doesn't it?

Negative reinforcement.

Although it seems harsh and uncaring, I think we are right to say that we will no longer assist in rescue operations for would-be immigrants who get into trouble in the Med trying to get to Italy from North Africa.  It's similar to our long-standing stance of refusing to negotiate with kidnappers.  You do not do anything to encourage behaviour of which you disapprove.  Simple as that.

Don't get it.

Sometimes difficult to understand the attitude of "experts" towards what seem to be common-sense decisions.  It has been suggested that those who are terminally ill and who agree, should be able to be treated with unproven drugs.  What's the worst that can happen?  They're dying anyway - difficult to see how things could be any worse than that, and it's possible that the drugs might be beneficial, and certainly the exercise will provide data which would otherwise be unavailable.  And yet, a respected scientist has said that such an idea is "too risky" and might end up doing harm.  To whom? Can't really see how you can do any great harm to those who are already dying. I would certainly volunteer to be a guinea-pig in such circumstances - what would I have to lose?

Rigid rules?

You do sometimes wonder, don't you?  The question of whether there should be a life-guard on duty at a beach should surely be decided on the basis of how many people are using the beach, rather than on what the date is?  Whether or not, had there been a life-guard on duty, the recent tragedy at Newquay in Cornwall might have been avoided is open to question, but there seems to be little sense in having the beach supervised up to the end of September and then ignoring the fact that half-term week falls at the end of October and that will be a popular time for surfers to go there.  Sort of smacks of the "computer says no" syndrome, doesn't it?

No - not the dance!

A story about refugees on a British base in Cyprus, whom Britain refuse to accept responsibility for, had one of them saying "we are in limbo".  So what exactly does that mean?  Well it's all to do with Catholic dogma, according to which you cannot go to heaven unless you've been baptised, and if you don't go to heaven then you automatically go to the other place.  But this produces a problem - what about all those who have lived a blameless life, but did so before Jesus was born and the (Catholic) church came into existence and therefore had no chance of being baptised? What about children who are stillborn, or who die unbaptised in very early infancy before they are capable of sin?  Are they to be condemned to Hell?  And so the concept of Limbo was born - a sort of neither here nor there place where such souls can rest easy for eternity - not accepted into Heaven, but not subjected to the torments of Hell.  

It's no secret!

I wish politicians would stop treating us like idiots.  The PM has gone into table-thumping mode over this demand by the EU that we pay an extra £1.7bn into the European kitty.  Yes, it's an eye-watering sum, and it will detrimentally affect our economy, but why the shocked surprise?  This is an exercise which is carried out by the EU every year at this time.  We knew that, and we also knew the figures that they would be working on - because it was us that provided them.  So we could work out for ourselves (and I'm sure we did) what the outcome would be.  It doesn't make things any better, but please, stop taking us for fools.

A bus stop is for _____ to ____ at.

Wolverhampton (Wolv'ram'tn) is just down the road from me and it seems that buses there are being ticketed by traffic wardens for stopping at... bus stops.  How about that then??

What's the matter with you? Well now...

What are we to make of this scheme to pay doctors £55 for each diagnosis of dementia they make? Just who gets the money?  If it's the doctor personally - that is as part of his salary - then the cynic in me says that a lot of people who are perhaps merely old and forgetful are going to be diagnosed just to get the money. And if it is going to go to the practice to help with treatment, then once again my cynical side says - is £55 really going to make any significant difference?  Can't imagine that £55 gets you much these days.  And my final thought is - should you really be paying doctors to do what they should be doing anyway?

I'm feeling peckish...

Made myself a corned beef sandwich the other day (and very nice it was too) and (I had never really thought about it before), wondered where this word "corned" came from and what it meant. Coincidentally at much the same time, I saw a recipe which called for corned mutton.  So what's the story?  A standard way of preserving meat before the days of refrigeration was by soaking it in brine - that is, salted water. "Corn" was an old English word for "grain".  Today we would refer to "a grain of salt" - back then it would more likely have been "a corn of salt".  So corned simply meant salted. The beef would be treated that way and then boiled.  In other parts of the world it is called salt-beef or bully-beef (from the French bouilli = boiled).  Ooh, I'm feeling like another sandwich!

What is justice?

And the answer is that it's one of those Humpty Dumpty words - it means whatever you want it to mean.  The question has arisen again because a professional footballer, who was convicted of rape and released from prison having served half his sentence (which is standard procedure provided you've behaved yourself whilst inside) is due to go back to playing for his club.  So "[He] gets early release and a new contract... victim gets scarred for life..." as one blogger put it.  Fair?  But that's another Humpty Dumpty word.  I imagine there are plenty of people who would like to see him have his bits chopped off and be thrown in prison for life.  On the other hand there are those who point out that the girl involved was blind drunk - indeed this is the basis of the conviction, that she was too drunk to have consented - and must accept some responsibility for getting in that condition and for anything that happened as a result. The waters are somewhat muddied by the fact that the girl, who has apparently moved away and tried to change her name, has been "outed" on the internet (no suggestion as far as I am aware that the footballer had any hand in that) and that he is appealing his conviction - which of course is his right under the law.  So - justice??  The verdict, as they say, is yours.

Death by a thousand cuts?

So the proposal is that smoking should be banned in public parks.  It is of course already banned in public places indoors, and there are constant calls for it to be prohibited in cars and houses where there are children present. Which of course raises the question - just where can you smoke these days?  And is this the real strategy - to make smoking illegal by the back door as it were, by restricting, bit by bit, the places where you are allowed to smoke, until there's nowhere left?

R.I.P.

Lynda Bellingham.  Difficult to write this because I'm crying.  I was so rooting for her to make Christmas.  For me, she'll always be the Oxo Mum.

...and Mummy made the gravy...  Best advert ever.

Vive la différence!

A guaranteed way of getting up the nose of someone from Wolverhampton or Dudley or thereabouts is, when they tell you where they're from, to say "Oh, you're a Brummie then?".  Birmingham and the Black Country may be close geographically, but are light-years apart in terms of - for want of a better word - culture.  We call them "brummies" because (I think I've already mentioned this) one of the older names of the city was Brummagem.  They call us "yam yams" because in Black Country speak "you are" becomes "yo am" which contracts to yowm or yam, as in "Yam a roit dipstick!"  We have a healthy disrespect for each other - hence to call somebody from Willenhall, say, a brummie would be seen as an insult.

Ready to rumble?

One of the less attractive aspects of our Parliamentary system is the way - particularly as a general election gets near - that the parties look for any way of slagging off the opposition, even if it means misrepresenting what someone has said, and ignoring a valid point that has been made.  At the moment, everybody is having a pop at a Government Minister who it is alleged has said that disabled people are "not worth" the minimum wage.  The Opposition are frothing at the mouth with rage, the Prime Minister has been forced to distance himself from the remarks, and all and sundry are lining up to give him a kicking.  So what exactly was he saying?  It seems to me that it was this - there are people who are so disabled that they are incapable of performing even the most menial of jobs. Nonetheless, these people - or at least some of them - would like to feel valued, would like to do something to make it worth getting up in the morning, would like to have some interaction with their fellow man. At present, employment law makes it impossible for an employer to offer such a person any sort of "job" - even if it's just turning up every now and then and making the tea - without paying them the minimum wage, which would clearly not be justified in such circumstances.  So can anything be done about this?  This was the question being asked it seems to me, and I would suggest it is a topic worthy of discussion.  But then - there's an election coming isn't there?  Put you hob-nail boots on and get your pitchfork out...

Are you taking the piss?

Only a couple of days after the last school story comes the almost unbelievable one of a secondary school in Kent where pupils and banned (note the word - banned) from going to the toilet during lessons unless they have a doctor's note.  Indeed the toilets are locked up except during official break times.  As someone with a rather weak bladder who well remembers the embarrassment of having to put my hand up to "be excused" at school,  I can only imagine the even worse embarrassment of being refused and wetting myself.  Is this just an exercise by the school of power for power's sake?

I'm not talking to you...

Talking about Lady Godiva the other day brought to mind the saying about being "sent to Coventry" which means to be ostracised, to have your very existence ignored. A common expression here in the UK, but its origins are a bit of a mystery. Best guess is that it is a reference to the Civil War when Royalist soldiers captured here in the Midlands would be sent to Coventry and imprisoned there.  And as Coventry was a staunchly Parliamentarian city chances are that they would have been treated with disdain and contempt.  We know the expression has been used in that way since at least the mid-18th century, but it gained most currency in the 1950s and 60s when workers who refused to come out on strike would be treated this way.

Teacher knows best.

12-year-old boy at a school in Hampshire has to take his lessons in isolation because he's wearing the wrong type of shoes.  They are all-black and lace-up but are not "polishable" - i.e. they are trainers. There are more and more stories lately about children being punished for not conforming with the school's uniform policy and I make the same point I have made before - the real issue here is almost certainly between the school and the boy's parents, but of course the school have no power over the parents, so what do they do?  They take it out on the boy!  Unfair, unfair, unfair!!

Whooo - hooo. Spooky!

Had a rash of ghost sightings round here in the West Midlands area lately.  The story of the "Grey Lady" who is said to wander the grounds of Dudley Castle is well enough known, and now a visitor has taken a photograph which seems to have captured the fuzzy image of woman in a doorway - mind you, this was daytime and the castle was open to visitors, so I'm not sure why this should be seen as that significant.  More troubling - if you're that way inclined - is a rash of sightings of "the black-eyed child" on Cannock Chase. Unlike the Grey Lady, there is no particular back-story here, and sightings only really go back thirty years or so.  Also sightings of ghostly black-eyed children are common in other parts of the country, and indeed abroad, Cannock Chase can be rather bleak and desolate, and of course is where the bodies were found of three little girls who were murdered back in the 1960s, but any connection with that is tenuous as the black-eyed child did not first appear (as far as is known) until some 20 years later.  You may want to think twice before venturing out on your own after dark!

The naked truth.

A pub in Geneva called The Lady Godiva has been sent a solicitor's letter saying it must change its name because it is infringing the copyright of a Belgian chocolate company which patented Lady Godiva's identity some years back.  So this is a dispute between Switzerland and Belgium (or actually Turkey where the parent company is) so should it concern us?  Well, yes, because if the chocolate company win this battle, there is no reason why they should not demand that those using the Godiva name in this country - even in Coventry - should stop doing so.  But Godiva was a real historical person, even if her naked ride may be a fiction, so can you claim ownership of her name?  "Intellectual property" is a fractious area of the law, and the matter may well hinge on the question of confusion.  If you trade under a name which could be confused with the name of another trader, and that other trader has trade-marked that name, then they can demand that you stop trading under that name.  So is it likely that a pub could be confused with a chocolatier?  That may well be the crucial question.  Mind you, if they try it on with Coventry, I think they will have a massive fight on their hands!

Ha ha

I think I've mentioned before that Nick Owen, a presenter on a local television news programme, is a constant source of groanworthy jokes.  Here's another of his -
     -  What do you call a judge with no fingers?
     -  Justice Thumbs.

Playing with fire?

Strange goings-on at the LibDem party conference.  Nick Clegg seems to have decided to re-invent his party as the "save the ship" party - only we LibDems in coalition can curb the excesses of a Conservative or Labour government.  Dangerous policy it seems to me - they could just as easily be seen as the "millstone round the neck" party.  If either of the big boys come out of the next election with insufficient seats for an overall majority I have a feeling they will decide to form a minority government and dare the LibDems to bring them down.

The Great British Bore - I mean Bake Off

Thank God that's finished!  I mentioned before that I go round to my son's on a Wednesday evening, and they have been watching it for the past few weeks, so I have as well - mainly through gritted teeth.  I find the presenters infuriating - why have presenters anyway?  They add nothing to the programme - indeed I get the impression they feel like spare whotsits at a thingumy and are simply trying to justify their existence.  Then the judges - they may be, and presumably are, experts in their field but their expertise doesn't really show.  For the most part their remarks came across as banal and trivial.  "I don't think this sponge  works" for example - hardly adds to the sum of human knowledge.  And then the bloke who has swept all before him over the past few weeks mysteriously crumbles in the final - which I'm afraid just raises the question of whether it was all a fix.  You can just hear it, can't you - "Come on, you've had your moment of glory - quite a few of them actually - it's time to do the noble thing and think of the ratings". I have to say that my daughter-in-law and granddaughter were rooting for what-ever-her-name-was, although whether this was just the feminine vote going to the lone female up against two men or not, I don't know.  Anyway, when it comes back - as I fear it will - please schedulers, steer clear of Wednesdays!

The robots are taking over...

Apparently supermarkets are extending the use of their self-service checkouts - I suppose you can't blame them, you don't have to pay wages to a machine.  I never use them - or to be more accurate, I have only ever used them once or twice when I was accompanied by one of my granddaughters, who insisted we do it, and led me by the hand.  Why don't I use them?  Well, firstly my shopping tends to include booze of one sort or another, which means that I would have to find an assistant who can press the appropriate button or whatever to verify I am allowed to buy it, but mainly because I am very wary of the "computer says no" syndrome.  It would be very embarrassing (to me at least) to have to find someone to sort out a problem at an automated checkout, whereas at a manned checkout any difficulty can be dealt with without too much of a fuss.  Or perhaps I just like the human interaction - you know, "cold this morning isn't it?" sort of thing.  I'm not a luddite - I even have a smartphone now (although I don't use - or understand - a tenth of what it can do) but I can't bring myself to even think of using one of those checkouts.

It's my life...!

It seems if you have half a bottle of wine a day you are a "heavy drinker" or even, heaven help us, a "mild alcoholic".  Well, that puts me in my place - which is obviously right down there in the gutter!  So the next time I go to see my doctor, I fully expect he will mention this new drug which is supposed to block the receptors in the brain which register the pleasure you get from drinking, thus reducing the urge to have "another one".  I shall politely but firmly say "No, thank you".  Why?  Well lots of reasons - not least that I am 77 and by their definition have been a heavy drinker (or, God help me, a mild alcoholic) for at least the last 40 years, and am in pretty good physical health for my age, so clearly my body can cope with that level of alcohol. But that's not the main reason.  I demand the right to choose - to choose when and what I eat and drink and do generally, and I would object to that choice being interfered with by medication.  I am in control of my body, and wish to remain so.

Silver medal.

Pub quiz question - which fictional character has appeared in the second most number of films?  No prizes really for guessing who comes first - Sherlock Holmes by a distance, but second?  My team thought maybe Frankenstein's monster, and we were on the right lines, but the correct answer is his mate, Count Dracula. By the way, the non-fictional character who has appeared on film most often is Napoleon Bonaparte.

Be careful what you wish for...

I remember about 20 years ago, my wife and I seriously talked about going to see Hong Kong while it was still "British".  We never made it, but I still have a soft spot for the region and so am a little troubled by what is going on there.  My natural instinct is to support those out on the streets in the name of democracy, but I wonder if they have really thought through what they are doing.  Hong Kong is part of China, whether they like it or not and unless they are seriously looking for independence (which would be a whole different ball game) then it cannot be in their interests to have a Chief Executive who is completely out of tune with the government of the mainland.  So the idea that China should "vet" candidates for the post is really no more than common sense which gives HK the best chance of maintaining the special status which I am sure they - and China - want to keep. 

Smoke and mirrors??

The Justice Secretary has indicated that a future Conservative government would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and replace it with a Bill of Rights.  The avowed purpose of this is to "stop British laws being overruled by human rights judgements (sic) from Strasbourg".  Strasbourg is where the European Court of Human Rights sits. But is this just sound and fury?  I claim no special knowledge of human rights legislation, but I am an ex-civil servant and can read a statute and as far as I can see such a change would have little effect in practice.  The idea that our laws can be overruled by the European Court is a fiction.  The Human Rights Act makes it clear that Parliament (Westminster) is sovereign.  Also the Act makes it clear that although our courts (and those of the other EU members) have to "have regard to" judgments of the European Court, they are not ultimately bound by them.  I have a feeling that this is not so much a fight between Westminster and Strasbourg as part of the ongoing battle between successive governments in this country and the judiciary, who have a habit of coming up with decisions which frustrate what government is trying to do.

Times change...

So Tom and Jerry now has to be shown with a warning that some people might find it racist.  We've been down this road before - there was the time when the Commission for Racial Equality wanted to ban a Tintin book and then there was the BBC's decision not to re-run the comedy series "It Ain't Half Hot, Mum".  I'm simply repeating what I said then, but are people really so stupid (and I think that that truly is the appropriate word) that they cannot understand that views and attitudes are forever changing and that things of the past need to be accepted as "of their time".  What happened, happened - you can't rewrite history (unless you're North Korea, that is).

Join the dots...?

Couple of Government "initiatives" announced over the last few weeks.  1. GP's surgeries to be open seven days a week. 2. Everybody to have their own personal GP. So doesn't that mean that GPs will have to work - or at least be on call - seven days a week, fifty two weeks of the year - or am I missing something?

Separated by a common language...

Food is one of those areas where English and American often use different words. We say aubergine, they say eggplant.  We say courgette, they say zucchini and so on. But the one which can really cause confusion and end up getting you something other than what you thought you were going to get is "chips".  In America, these are the deep-fried wafer thin slices of potato which we know as crisps. Our chips, as in fish and chips, are french fries to them.  Why - who knows?  But I would argue that our words have the better derivation.  Both originate from the Latin.  Chip comes from cippus which means a small pillar, which of course is (sort of) the shape of a (British) chip.  Crisp on the other hand comes from crispus which means curled or wrinkled, which accurately describes our crisps.  So I think this is one of the areas where we can claim the linguistic high ground!

Two sides to every coin...

Are you enjoying this unseasonal warm weather?   Well not everybody is, it seems. We're not shopping as much as we normally do at this time of year, and in particular shopping for clothes.  So the High Street isn't happy.  Mind you, I reckon the first touch of colder weather and we'll be out buying jumpers and looking for a warm winter coat, so it's a case of - hang on in there folks.

The Lazy Cook

Believe it or not (and frankly I sometimes find it hard to believe myself) but some 25 or so years ago I did a course in Indian cooking at a local community school on a Sunday morning.  I still have all my notes but am ashamed to say that I have never kept it up - just too much faff for my "keep it simple" approach.  But the other day I came across a reference to Aloo Tikki which is apparently street food from Northern India.  And I looked at the ingredients and thought "I can do a quick and easy cheat version of that" - so here's how.  Make up a packet of instant mashed potato - use a little extra water so it comes out a bit sloppy.  Put it in a bowl and add about half a tin of Easy Onions, a dessert spoon or so of crushed ginger (comes in a jar from most supermarkets), some garam masala or other spices to taste and some dried parsley. If you've got it, add a chopped up jalapeno chilli and a handful of frozen peas (not essential but adds colour and authenticity - not to mention an extra kick!).  Now add some plain flour and water, bit by bit, and get your hands in and mix up until you get a nice "silly putty" consistency.  Make the mixture up into little "patties" and shallow fry until golden brown.  And there you are.

Generous - or diabolical?

Richard Branson's idea that his staff can take holidays "whenever they want for as long as they want" seems to me to be a sort of flexi-time-max.  I've had my say on flexible working (see 13/2/07) and haven't changed my view and as far as I can see, Branson is relying on his staff seeing (and perhaps more to the point, being able to see) the big picture, and being able to assess whether or not their absence will damage the business. Which of course raises the question of whether in many cases staff would ever dare take time off.  And perhaps that is the thinking behind the whole thing?  Is this actually a clever ruse by Branson?

It's just a photo!

There was a case a while back where a man was accused of being a paedophile for taking a photograph of a young girl in a swimming costume at a swimming baths.  In the event it turned out that she was a relative of his whom he had taken swimming there and he had taken the photograph to show her family, so no action was taken. But it did raise the question - is a photograph of a young girl in a swimming costume potentially child pornography?  The argument is that there may be - probably are - those who would view such a photo for sexual gratification.  So which is the determining factor - the reason it was taken or the use to which it might be put?  A judgment in a recent case in Texas has come down firmly in favour of the first of these.  This is America of course, and so the case was decided on the basis of their First Amendment which protects freedom of expression, but there is no doubt it was a sensible decision as otherwise you are holding the creator of any sort of image responsible in law for whatever illegal use it may be put to, which should clearly only be so if it was created specifically for that purpose.

Once more unto the breach...

So despite our lamentable track record in our recent dealings with the Middle East, here we are again. We're going to carry out air strikes on ISIS, ISIL or whatever we're calling them today.  And does anybody really believe it will end there?  I think the expression is "mission creep" - air strikes in Iraq will lead to air strikes in Syria which will lead to limited troop intervention which will lead to...  I hope I'm wrong but that's what I foresee.  And the tragedy is that at the end of the day, chances are that the problem will still be there - maybe even more acute.  What else could we do?  Our real misfortune is that we're already on the rollercoaster and we can't get off.  We are doomed to follow the path that to a great extent we ourselves have helped to create. What's that saying about chickens coming home to roost?

I need a wee - which way's north?

We've talked before about the Ig Nobel awards (see 2/10/11) and this year the biology prize has been awarded to a team who documented dogs' behaviour when they urinate, and established that when they do so, they tend to align themselves with the earth's magnetic north/south axis.  So if you're lost in the woods, and there's no moss on the trees to help you establish north and south, just watch out for a dog having a pee!

Intractable problem?

Perhaps I'm being thick but I can't see why the idea of "English votes for English laws" would be that difficult to manage in practice - at least the English votes part. We know which MPs represent which constituencies so where's the problem?  I see a far bigger issue being in identifying "English laws".  Suppose for example that Scotland decides to set its corporation tax at 25%, and then the Westminster government proposes to set England and Wales' corporation tax at 23%.  You could argue that this is a decision for England and Wales only, but clearly it will impinge on Scotland - which is still part of the UK, so can they be denied the right to have their say on it?  Of course the problem is that if you turn it round - Scotland proposes to introduce a lower rate of corporation tax than us - we would and could have no say in that decision. This is the West Lothian Question in all its glory, and I have no answer to it, save to say that we should never have agreed to Scotland having a devolved parliament in the first place.  The problem is and always was inherent in that decision.

Aargh!!

Cristiano Ronaldo to come back and play in the Premiership?  Oh, no please - anything but that!

Simple logic

A news item on the local TV the other day said that, according to the police, 95% of cases of sexual harassment on public transport go unreported.  Of course, my immediate reaction was - if they are unreported, how the hell do they know that?

In the aftermath...

There may well be lessons to be learned from the Scottish referendum, but I think some people are seeing things that aren't there.  For starters, there's this theory that the referendum has "energised" or "incentivised" voters and that this enthusiasm will be carried forward to next year's general election.  I think not - you are trying to compare chalk and cheese.  It's one thing to be presented with a yes/no decision which will make an enormous difference to your immediate future, and quite another to have to make a choice between one set of politicians you don't really care that much about, and another set of politicians you don't really care that much about.  I can't see the turn-out at the general election being much different from usual.  The other is that the referendum proves that 16 and 17-year-olds can be trusted with the vote.  Well, does it?  It seems that the 16 and 17-year-olds voted something like 70-30 in favour of independence.  Could you not argue that this shows that they are too naïve and headstrong to be trusted to make important decisions?  Put it this way - would you really want to put your future in the hands of some 16-year-old?

Trust me. I'm a homeopathic doctor...

The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (more commonly referred to as the "health regulator") has approved the creation of a register of qualified homeopaths.  This has been criticized by some as giving "credibility to quackery".  So what's the problem?  Homeopathy (from the Greek - same suffering) is based on the belief that "like cures like" - that is that a small dose of whatever has made you ill will cure you.   Although there has never been any empirical proof of this, it is an idea that goes way, way back and came to particular prominence in the 18th century. What opens it to charges of quackery is that the substances used as a cure (that is, whatever has caused the illness) are diluted and diluted until no molecule of the original substance remains.  So what you are taking is just water - or whatever liquid has been used in the dilution process.  The theory is that the water - or whatever - retains a "memory" of the substance.  So - quackery?  There's plenty of evidence that if someone is taking something which they believe will cure them, they do sometimes recover - do not underestimate the power of the human mind.  The other side of the coin is that if homeopathic remedies are pursued in place of conventional treatment you may be putting your health - life even - at serious risk. Your choice, but you need to understand the pros and cons.

The Lazy Cook

Seems a long time since I've posted anything under this title - perhaps a reflection of how unimaginative I've become lately in my eating habits.  But the other day I was given a bag of king prawns and wondered what on earth can I do with them? So here's a simple tasty idea - it's sort of based on "pigs in blankets".  I got some prosciutto (I reckon parma ham or jamon serrano would have done just as well) and wrapped each prawn in a slice (or more like half a slice to be precise) and then grilled them. I had them with some tagliatelle mixed with a dollop or two of thousand island dressing.  I thought it tasted really nice so I pass it on for what it's worth.

Och - naw!

So the Scots have spoken - and now the fun begins.  It would be nice if we could now turn the page on this particular issue, and talk about something else, but I fear not.  This may be the end (for the time being at least) of the Scottish independence issue, but just the start of an argument about the extent to which all of us should or should not be ruled from Westminster.  One of William the Conqueror's first acts was to centralise power to himself in London, and it's been a bone of contention ever since.  If it brings home to Westminster that there's a country out there beyond the M25, and that they're responsible for it, then perhaps some good will have come out of the Scottish independence circus.

Salt and vinegar?

So now we know why Manchester United were so crap under David Moyes last season - because he stopped them eating chips the night before a match!  It seems this was something of a tradition (they were low-fat chips apparently) and the players didn't take kindly to Moyes banning them.  Poor souls - eh? Didumms den and all that. Presumably chips are now back on the menu?  Mind you, after splurging £120m-odd in the transfer market, can they afford them any more?

Smile for the camera!

I mentioned last December that the car tax disc is to disappear (as from the beginning of next month apparently) and suggested that this was not necessarily a good news story.  Well now I'm even more certain it's not.  In order to try and identify those who haven't paid their tax, number plate recognition cameras are being installed throughout the country, and whilst this may be considered to be reasonable at first sight, the troubling aspect is that they will record not only the tax dodgers but also you and me going about our everyday business, and this information will be stored for an indefinite period.  Which means of course that if they wish to do so, the authorities would be able to construct a pretty comprehensive record of where you have been and when.  And how do you feel about that?

Scotland decides? - a final comment

So we're looking at what might happen if the Scots vote for independence on Thursday.  It's mostly guesswork of course, but my feeling is that as far as Scotland is concerned, there would be an initial "feelgood" bounce which might last a year or two, but that in the longer term the Scottish economy would begin to falter, which almost certainly would lead to the more entrepreneurial Scots moving south, which would hasten the demise of the economy, and so on.  So in the long run I think Scotland will be worse off rather than better.  And for the rest of us?  Well I'm getting on in years and throughout my life I've seen successive Labour governments mess up the economy, leaving it to a Conservative government to sort it out, only for the next Labour government to mess it all up again.  That's pretty simplistic of course - a lot depends on outside factors and there have been exceptions - the first Blair government being the most obvious.  But to the extent that the loss of Scottish MPs would make it more difficult for Labour to get into power here, a "yes" vote in my book would have to be seen as A Good Thing. So that's it - let's see what Thursday brings.  And one final thought - whatever the outcome, I reckon the people who will end up rubbing their hands will be - the lawyers!

Strange but true.

Here's a funny thing - if you write down the length of all the rivers in the world, how many of the answers would you expect to start with the digit 1?  Well there are 9 possibilities for the first digit, so logic suggests that one ninth of them (about 11%) will start with one.  Would you be surprised to learn that the actual figure is just over 30%?  And even weirder - it doesn't matter how you measure them - in miles, feet, inches, metres or whatever, the result will be the same - about 30% will start with the digit 1.  I don't pretend to understand it, but this is known as Benford's Law, which says that for the majority of comprehensive collections of data the most common first digit will be 1, then 2, then 3 and so on in sequence down to 9 being the least common.  Like I say, I don't understand why, but it works.

My school - my rules.

We haven't had a "teacher knows best" story for some time, but here's a good one. You may have heard that from the start of this school year, all primary schools have to provide a hot cooked meal for Key Stage 1 pupils (up to 7 years old). That's got to be good, yes?  Well not necessarily - a school in Yorkshire has decided that this means that Key Stage 1 children are obliged to have the hot meal provided, or go home for their mid-day meal.  They cannot bring a packed lunch.  Furthermore, the same rule applies to the older children - except of course they don't get their meal free, they have to pay for it - £1.75 at present.  So if you have an older child at this school, and are out at work all day or otherwise cannot have them home for lunch, you have no alternative but to shell out £1.75 for whatever the school chooses to give them.  Power seems to go to some people's heads!

Scotland decides? - continued

Suppose the referendum result is "yes" for independence?  How will I feel?  Well, sad that the union will come to an end, but perhaps far more annoyed that The United Kingdom of which I am a member will break up without me having had any say in the matter.  And suppose it's a close call - 50.5% yes to 49.5% no, for instance.  I am surprised that for such a major constitutional decision there is no "threshold", which means essentially that the views of a very small number of people could decide the issue.  But other than sad and annoyed, I can't say I shall wake up on the day after feeling any different.  My life will not change, whatever the result.  At least, not in the short term. But what about the long term effects?  We'll consider that next time.

Pass me that magazine...

I'm not a Buddhist, but I do have this "they're all God's creatures" attitude to most wildlife, so I will carefully gather up spiders, beetles and such and take them outside and put them in the garden.  But there are two things I will cheerfully splat - flies and wasps.  And yet, I hadn't thought about it, but wasps are the main predators of aphids, and in a world without wasps, greenfly and blackfly would devour all our roses, tomatoes, cabbages and such.  So they have a purpose.  And if there were no flies - well, there's no delicate way of putting this - we would all be up to our eyeballs in shit.  So I'll continue to splat them. but perhaps with more awareness.

Scotland decides?

With just a week to go, I feel I should make some comment on what is the top news story of the moment, so over the next few days I'll be looking at the Scottish Independence Referendum. So, first off - how likely is it that they will vote "yes"? Well, it's certainly a distinct possibility, and the "Yes" campaign seem to have seized the momentum.  But really, isn't that to be expected?  Indeed what I find surprising is that the "No" campaign have held such a healthy lead for so long.  When you think about it, the "No" campaign's pitch has been, and couldn't really have been anything other than - vote "No" to keep things as they are, and that is never going to stir the blood.  The "Yes" campaign is all about charging forward to a (possibly) exciting tomorrow - the "No" is more pipe and slippers and a cup of Ovaltine.  The "No"s should have been on the back foot from day one and the surprise is that they haven't been.  And therein maybe lies the "No"s best hope - I would have expected by this point in the campaign that the "Yes"s would be significantly ahead, and the fact that they aren't must be a concern for them, because experience of elections seems to suggest that as voting day draws nearer, the "status quo" effect comes into play and voters tend to revert to clinging to what they know.  But what does it mean for the rest of us?  More to follow.

Wot - no soldiers for my egg?

The EU have now said that we shouldn't eat toast!  Well, not exactly - it's all about acrylamide (see post dated 22/4/12) which is a substance which has been linked to cancer in rats and mice, and which is created naturally by grilling food - that is, exposing it to a close source of high heat.  Which is of course precisely how you turn bread into toast.  The longer the exposure, the higher the amount of acrylamide.  So the EU's advice (and despite eyecatching headlines, that's all it is) is that you shouldn't cremate your bread - just a nice light brown colour is fine.

I don't want no peas!

I can still remember my son (about 4 years old at the time I would think) proclaiming that at the dinner table. And I remember trying to convince him that what he was saying was the opposite of what he meant ("Here's the world with peas - here's the world with no peas.  Which do you want - which don't you want?).  Not sure I got through to him, but what about this business of the double negative?  It seemed so clear to me at the time - and for that matter still does - but many other languages use double negatives as a matter of course (Spanish: No dijo nada = I didn't say nothing) and indeed it was common in Middle English (I ne saugh nawiht = I didn't see nothing).  So perhaps it's just a matter of logic rather than grammar - and indeed, as I've said more than once, provided what you say is understood, that's really all that matters.  And there's no doubt that my son made his wishes clear! 

Yah, boo, sucks!

Sad to see the arguments for and against Scottish independence degenerating into party political sniping in Westminster.  It is of course the duty of Her Majesty's Opposition to hold the Government to account and to offer alternatives to their policies, but here the coalition and the opposition are agreed on their approach to the independence debate - the official stance of both is to support the Better Together (i.e."No") campaign. So to see people trying to score cheap political points is depressing. There's more a stake here than your personal futures, folks!

What's that in old money?

Have you ever wondered, as I have, why in the Fahrenheit scale, the freezing point of water is 32°? Funny number, as is 212° for boiling point.  How did he come up with that?  And it appears that the scale was not originally based on the various states of water at all and these numbers were simply later calculations.  He based his scale on the freezing point of brine (mixture of water and salt) which he set at 0° and the temperature of the healthy human body, which he set at 96°.  Why 96? Because it's a multiple of 12 - we're so used today to working in 10s but in fact 12 is a far more useful base to work in because 12 is equally divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, whereas 10 is equally divisible by only 2 and 5.  Those of an age will remember that the pre-decimal shilling was made up of 12 pence and very useful it was for dividing pocket money between multiple children.  And on this 0-96 scale the freezing point of water came out as 32 and the boiling point 212 - and there you are.

R.I.P.

Joan Rivers - funny, funny lady.

Amps x Volts = Watts... so what?

Once again I've that feeling that I'm missing something.  If you have an electrical appliance that performs a task then it will take a specific amount of electricity to achieve that.  A more powerful appliance will do the job quicker, and a less powerful one will take longer but the amount of electricity used will stay the same. So what is the point in the EU's latest regulation restricting the size of motor allowed in vacuum cleaners?  And it appears that this sort of restriction will in due course apply to hairdryers, toasters, kettles and such.  As far as I can see, all it means is it will take longer to vacuum your house, dry your hair, make your toast and boil your kettle but the power consumption will remain the same.  Where's the sense in that?

New Tricks

Those of you who watched the original - are you still watching it?  What do you think?  I expressed my disappointment a couple of years ago (8/9/12) about the way it was going and I haven't changed my opinion.  I am still watching it and don't get me wrong, it's good, but it's a bit like going to some seaside place you enjoyed as a child.  It's still the seaside, the pier's still there and the amusement arcades you remembered and the sands are as inviting as ever, but somehow most of the magic has gone.  Anybody else feel the same?

Ha ha.

Knock knock
- Who's there?
The Gestapo
- The Gestapo who?
(Screams) VE VILL ASK THE QVESTIONS!

One way traffic.

Can't get my head round the Government's apparent approach to the problem of Brits going to Iraq or Syria and then potentially coming back here to carry out atrocities. It seems the plan is to try and prevent them going by confiscating their passports. But surely this is the wrong way round?  Why stop them going?  If they're that sort of person with that sort of mindset, we're well rid of them.  What we should be doing is stopping them coming back in.  Seems simple to me.