Two sides to every coin...

A news story from Canada caught my eye.  A car driver who hit and killed a cyclist is suing his (the cyclist's) family for damages for "emotional trauma".  I'm sure your first reaction is "what a nerve", but it does serve to remind us that in cases like these there are two parties involved.  Recently near where I live a young boy was hit by a car and killed.  My first thought was "Oh God, the poor parents".  But then quickly came the second thought "Oh God, the poor driver".

Waja say??

I see mumbling actors are in the news again (see 19/7/13) following the BBC's production of Jamaica Inn (which I didn't watch).  I reckon it all goes back to Marlon Brando who famously used the Stanislavski Method when preparing for his role in "On The Waterfront" and muttered and slurred his way through his part as a punch-drunk boxer.  Strangely I didn't find him that difficult to follow in that film, but the idea that in order to produce a good performance you had to fully immerse yourself in the character became the done thing.  Dustin Hoffman went to extreme lengths in preparing for his role in "Marathon Man" as a man at the end of his physical and mental tether by going without sleep and not eating properly.  He was surprised to see his co-star Sir Laurence Olivier looking urbane and sophisticated and asked him how he managed to get himself into his part.  The great man looked at him and said "It's called acting, dear boy".

It's a long day.

Most primary schools now run before and after school clubs, and indeed there is pressure for all schools to do this, and this is leading apparently to more and more parents putting their children into both, resulting in them (the children) being at school solidly from something like 8.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m.  Questions are being asked as to whether this is detrimental to the children, but in many cases the parents have no choice, other than for one of them to give up work.   It seems as a country we want it both ways - we want Mums to go out to work, but we also want to promote family values - and I'm not sure that the two are not incompatible.  I'm old-fashioned - I think a Mum's place is at home looking after her children, but I appreciate that in today's world, that probably means not being able to have the standard of living that you would wish for and that you see others having. Can't win, can you?

Oh dear - giggle, giggle...

Have to admit to some schadenfreude over the recent events at Manchester United. But the more you look at it, the less sense it makes - to sack your manager when there's enough time left to turn things round is one thing, but to sack him when your league position (or more to the point, non-position) has already been settled is strange to say the least.  Moyes it seemed to me was making progress and getting the team to play the way he wanted them to - this may not have been the way the fans, or even some of the players, wanted them to play, but at least he seemed to have had a plan, and was getting there.  So now what?  With no European football, it is going to be more difficult to attract a top manager, or top players.  It will be good for the Premiership if they fall out of contention for a season or two, but can't help feeling that in the long run they may have shot themselves in the foot.

Back...

Nice week in a nice property, big enough for us all to rattle round without getting under each other's feet. Reasonable weather for the time of year, although, as to be expected, there was a bit of a chilly on-shore wind most of the time.  So now it's back to reality...

Bye....

Off for the traditional Easter family holiday - Bridlington this time.  See you in a week.

Fifth column?

There's a bit of a kerfuff going on in my part of the world about something called the "Trojan Horse" business.  The suggestion is that Muslim "hardliners" are secretly infiltrating schools and putting pressure on teachers and governors to provide an education more in line with their thinking and beliefs. The evidence for this is for the most part anecdotal, and mainly second-hand anecdotal at that ("I know somebody who knows somebody who...).  Is there anything in it, and if there is, what if anything should we do about it? Whenever you get a clash of cultures, there is bound to be friction, and for either side to seek to impose their ideas on the other can only lead to trouble.  It's all a matter of balance and live-and-let-live, but that requires goodwill on both sides, and round here at least, I'm afraid that is in short supply.
As a post-script, the Education Secretary has appointed the former head of the Met's counter-terrorism force to head an inquiry into the matter.  Can't help but feel that this will do nothing to calm local feelings, by suggesting that what so far has been seen as an educational issue may in fact be a matter of potential terrorism..  Not a good move.

Poor little kid!

Interesting story in the papers of a mother who has a son called Rooney (yes, I know!) and who bought him an Easter egg from Thorntons, who will normally if asked pipe a name on an egg in white chocolate.  But they wouldn't put this child's name on because they feared it might create "copyright issues".  I can see where they're coming from - everybody these days lives in fear of being sued, and many work on the principle of "better safe than sorry".  But in fact my memory recalls a very old case of a titled man who tried to get an injunction to stop his divorced wife from continuing to use the title and name which she had when married to him, only to be told that "there is no property in a name", so there is no question of Wayne Rooney copyrighting his name, even if he wished to.

Music Man - the Devil's interval.

What do "West Side Story" and "The Simpsons" have in common?  Listen to the first three notes of "Maria" and the first three notes of The Simpsons intro theme. They're the same, right?  The first two notes form what is known as a tritone - that is, they are three tones apart.  So what?  Well, back in the Middle Ages, when the Church (Catholic back then of course) pretty well ruled the world and decided what was what, this interval was deemed to be associated with Satan, and was banned. It was described as Diabolus in Musica (the Devil in music).  Of course, as any psychologist knows, to forbid something is an open invitation to those who like to challenge authority, and many composers took pleasure in concealing a tritone inside another chord (D⁷ contains the tritone C-F# for example).  But why the diabolical association?  Well listen to the intro to "Jonathan Creek".  This is a piece called "Danse Macabre" by Saint-Saëns and starts with a naked tritone played by a violin. And doesn't that sound a bit scary and spooky?  So there you are.

On cloud nine!

Well over the last two years I've had to post about Wolves' decline from the Premiership to the Championship and thence to League One, but now I can rejoice in the fact that they will be promoted back to the Championship next season. Whether that will be as league champions or runners-up is still to be decided, and because they haven't been televised I haven't seen them play this season so I'm not in a position to judge how good - or otherwise - they are, but for the moment I'm just relieved that the corner seems to have been turned and the slide reversed. Up the Wolves!

Here we go again.

Co-incidentally, it was just about a year ago (4/5/13) that I was questioning the relevance of some of the evidence being given in the trial of the man accused of the murder of April Jones.  And now I must do the same again.  Hillsborough was a tragedy, and I have nothing but sympathy for the families of those who died, but what is gained by them standing up in court and making statements about the deceased, and how what happened that day has affected them?  It may or may not help them, but how does it help the jury?  An inquest jury is concerned with determining the manner in which someone died, and I fail to see how knowing what sort of person they were, or how their death has affected others, in any way helps them in their deliberations - indeed if anything, I would imagine it makes their job more difficult by introducing an emotional element into what should be a fact-finding exercise.  Once again I have to ask - where's the relevance?

Do tell??!

A professional footballer has been found guilty of making a "homophobic" gesture to a section of the crowd at a match he was involved in.  We're not told what the gesture was, but I would dearly like to know - I'm still trying to make sense of the "quenelle" gesture which got Nicolas Anelka the sack recently.  We seem to be getting into dangerous waters where if words or gestures are "perceived" by somebody to be racist, sexist, homophobic or whatever, then that becomes prima facie evidence that they are, and that strikes me as giving far too much power to people seeking to promote a particular agenda - I've mentioned before that there are those who go out deliberately looking for things to be offended by, so they can then complain about being offended.  Mary Whitehouse's soul goes marching on!

Tweet, tweet.

I don't use and don't understand Twitter, so maybe I'm missing something, but apparently Cambridgeshire police sent out a tweet saying "Doing a bit of gardening this weekend?  Make sure your hedges are neatly trimmed, max 1m at the front and 2m at the back".  Two things occur - what business is it of the police how high your hedges are, and secondly what about those - like me - who aren't on Twitter? Is it one law for the twitterati and another for everybody else?  Can't see the sense, myself.

Work it out!

Back in the 70s when inflation was rampant and what percentage pay rise you got or were going to get tended to dominate your working life, particularly around this time of year when such things were being negotiated there was a common saying which tended to crop up - "ten percent of nothing is nothing".  That saying popped into my mind the other day, when some coalition spokesman was saying that raising the personal tax allowance from £10,000  to £10,500 would benefit everybody.  No, it wouldn't - if you earn £10,000 or below (and there are plenty who do) you will see absolutely no change - ten percent of nothing is nothing!

That's how it works.

Co-incidentally over the last couple of weeks or so I've had getting on for half-a-dozen "begging" letters from various charities exhorting me to save a tiger, or a rhino, or adopt an elephant or a snow leopard, or something similar.  Well, first off - they all go in the bin.  I decide what charities I support, and I will not be pressured by unsolicited post or (as I've mentioned before) people shoving collection tins in my face as I leave the supermarket.  But as I've also mentioned before, should we get all misty-eyed and sentimental at the thought that some species or other may be on the brink of extinction?  The extinction of species has been going on throughout history, and is nothing more than Darwinism in action isn't it?  What seems to get people worked up is when the underlying cause is human activity - if we are responsible, shouldn't we be doing something about it? But we are - there are zoos and conservation areas which are not the same as life in the wild, but are better than nothing.  I'm afraid that we are the dominant species, and it's as simple as that - just nature taking its course.

What a nerve!

Did you know that in the "small print" of last month's budget was a provision giving Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (i.e. the tax man) the power to take money out of your bank account without your permission if they consider that you owe them?  I think that's diabolical.  It might just (but only just) be acceptable if you could depend on HMRC always being right in their calculations and judgement, but as (a) an ex-Civil Servant, and (b) one who has in the past had cause to question their figures, I have no confidence that they will not make (possibly quite genuine) mistakes.  It's a case of acting as both judge and jury, and indeed executioner, isn't it - and I thought that Magna Carta was supposed to have done away with that.

Got a light, mate?

So the government is to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes - which isn't plain packaging at all (see post dated 1/12/13).  It is suggested that this will discourage new would-be smokers, particularly kids.  I've had my say on this (see the same post) but it now occurs to me that there's a marketing opportunity here for some clever entrepreneur - old-style cigarette cases - I've still got one.   This way you can buy your cigarettes, transfer them to the case, and throw the disgusting packet away. Remember who came up with the idea when you've made your fortune!

Grand National

So Teaforthree got to the chair, and decided to have a sit down!  Ah well, there's always next year - and if you were on our winner in 2011 you're still quids in.

Gotta go, gotta go!

Have you ever peed in the swimming pool?  Of course you have - don't lie!  Well, here's a fact that may make you think twice before doing it again - urine can combine with chlorine to produce toxic chemicals.  Fortunately only in very small amounts, but if it's a very small pool, or everybody decides to relieve themselves simultaneously...  well you get the idea - so best tie a knot in it!

Fancy a flutter?

As is traditional, I give you my silly system's pick for tomorrow's Grand National.  So the chicken's entrails this time have come up with Teaforthree.  Each way I would suggest.

Personal

It seems that Monday's post was seen by some as homophobic and anti same-sex marriage.  If you look back through my previous posts on the subject (just put "same-sex" into the search box above) you will see that I have nothing against the idea of same-sex couples formalising their relationship - I just don't think we've gone about it the right way.  So - in what I hope will be my last post on the subject - here's where I stand -

1. I don't think it is a right and proper use of legislation to change the long, long, long, long-standing definition of words.  "Marriage", "husband" and "wife" have definitions going back hundreds, even thousands of years.  Many words have changed meaning over the years, but they have done so through usage - I don't think you could or should seek to impose a change of meaning through legislation.
2. I don't understand what those agitating for same-sex marriage are seeking to achieve.  You already have civil partnerships which have all the rights and responsibilities of marriage.  What will marriage give you that you haven't already got?
3. I've a feeling that what is behind all this has little to do with marriage as such, but is more a matter of status.  I think that in the majority of cases what these couples want is to be able to officially describe themselves as married. When they come across an official form which asks for marital status, they want to be able to tick the box that says "married".  When they are asked, officially or informally whether they are married, they want to be able to unequivocally say "yes".
4. If I'm right about this, it seems to me that we've used the proverbial sledgehammer to crack the nut.  We could have achieved the result set out in 3 above without the need to mangle the language and upset the traditionalists.  All that was needed was an official pronouncement (suggest it could have been done by Statutory Instrument under the authority of the Civil Partnership Act 2004) stating that for all administrative and bureaucratic purposes the expression "married" includes those in a civil partnership - and there you are!

Sorry for such a long post, but I feel I need to set out exactly where I stand on this matter.  Absolutely nothing against civil partnerships, but don't like the idea of same-sex marriages for the reasons given.

OMG!!

So you're putting some chocolate digestive biscuits on a plate to offer to your guests,  How do you do it - you put them chocolate side up, right?  WRONG!!! Believe it or not, the process by which they are made passes the "naked" biscuits over a reservoir of chocolate, so the chocolate is actually applied to the bottom.  So we've all been doing it wrong all these years!

Music Man

I've mentioned John Cage in passing before - he's a very, very avant-garde American composer who is best known for his piano piece 4'33" - I use the word "piano" because that's the way he described it, but in fact it involves the pianist sitting at the keyboard for four minutes and thirty-three seconds doing absolutely nothing. But if you think that's weird, consider another of his compositions Organ²/ASLSP.  It is indeed a piece for organ, and the ASLSP stands for As Slow As Possible.  Well because an organ note does not die away, but goes on for as long as the key is held down, there really is no limit on just how slow it can be played.  In what is known as the Halberstadt Performance an organ in a church there started playing the piece in 2001 and it is due to be finished in 2640!!