Salt and vinegar?

What a brilliant idea!  An Australian firm has come up with a vending machine which vends... freshly cooked chips.  They're prepared par-cooked and frozen, and the machine heats them up and finishes them off in just two minutes.  The only question is - how much?

Press enter to continue...

A Commons committee has suggested that for the general election after this one (2020 or thereabouts) you should have the option of voting online.  The immediate response has concentrated on the possibility of such a site being hacked or manipulated and on the potential insecurity of personal data, and certainly the government has a pretty deplorable track-record when it comes to running internet sites.  But I have another concern and it has nothing to do with the security or otherwise of doing things online. I've commented before on what I see as the dangers involved in relaxing the rules surrounding postal voting and I see this as a further step down the same bad road.  I think if you wish to be taken seriously, you should have to make a conscious effort to vote.  If you are incapable for whatever reason of getting to the polling station on the day, then you should be allowed a postal vote, as you always were, but other than that if you can't be bothered to get off your backside then I think your opinion - assuming you have one - should be ignored.  By all means change voting day to a Sunday, or make voting day a public holiday, but at least require would-be voters to have to do more than exercise their finger.

Here we go again..

Every few years some serious consideration is given to a plan to simplify English spelling.  And the fact is that English spelling is a mess.  If you hear a word you've never heard before chances are you will not be sure how it is spelled, and equally if you see a word in print you've not come across before, it's quite probable that you will be unsure how it is pronounced.  And as for "ough" - three distinct ways to pronounce it - "ow" or "oh" as in bough or although, "off" or "uff" as in cough or enough, and "oo" as in through.  Problem is, as has been mentioned before, if you're going for a "spell as pronounced" system, whose pronunciation do you use?  Big differences between the way some words are pronounced down south and up north!

Up the Saddlers!

Apparently. up to a couple of days ago there were only four teams in the football league who had never played at Wembley - old or new.  Pretty remarkable when you consider how many teams that is (can't do the maths, but I think best part of 100).  But now that's down to three, because Walsall - not a million miles from where I live - have made it through to the final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy (used to be the Football League Trophy) and will play there on March 22nd.  Well done lads!

Cometh the hour...

Because it's fifty years since his death and funeral, it seems it's open season on Winston Churchill. People are queueing up to highlight his faults and generally denigrate him.  Well, he was human, and yes, he was no saint, but as one who remembers the war I will gladly accept all his failings for the inspirational and dogged leadership he showed during those terrible years.  I have little doubt that without him we would have ended up as part of a Greater Germany.  I owe him my freedom, and that is a debt I can never fully repay.  So, say all you like about him, for me he was and still is my hero.

Pass me that pen...

The Royal Mint has come in for some stick by portraying King John on a new coin with Magna Carta in one hand and a quill pen in the other - the inference being that he signed the document.  This has been described as "a schoolboy error" because as "everybody knows" back then monarchs did not sign documents, they authenticated them by affixing their seal.  So Magna Carta was not signed - it was sealed.  But is it that simple?  We'll never know for sure of course, because we weren't there, but what is certain is that the documents that we have today (several copies were made, of which four still survive) were not created on that day in that tent at Runnymede, but were the much later work of scribes, with each copy being authenticated by seal. What actually happened on the day we don't know, but clearly someone must have been taking notes and it is not beyond the bounds of probability that those there - including the king - would have scribbled their names or made their marks to show they agreed with what had been written.  So signed? Possibly.

Och Jimmy!

So we could have the nightmare scenario of the SNP not only governing Scotland, but also holding the balance of power in Westminster.  Will we all end up having to eat porridge for breakfast, haggis for dinner and spend the evening dancing eightsome reels?  Talk about the tail wagging the dog!

Page 3

I feel I should say something about the Sun's decision (it would appear) to stop putting photos of topless girls on the inside page of the paper.  But I'm unsure of exactly what I should say.  Oh, sod it, let me put my cards on the table - I don't take the paper, I don't read the paper, but I think it's rather a pity that something which clearly gives some innocent (I would argue) pleasure to a great many people has been withdrawn.  As a man, I'm sure that my opinion will be ignored by many as irrelevant, and so be it, but the argument seems to me to have been very one-sided. Perhaps the question is not so much about whether topless photos are acceptable, but rather more about whether a daily (supposedly) news paper is the appropriate place for them.

P,S. Since writing this, it seems the Sun has had second thoughts on the matter and the nipples are back,  I imagine they are waiting to see what effect bare breasts versus bikinis has on sales before deciding what to do,

Do we not bleed...?

I have never understood antisemitism.  I can understand - if not approve of - those who dislike people whose skin is a different colour, those who dislike anyone who subscribes to radically different religious beliefs, even those who dislike others simply because of where they were born.  All these dislikes have a logic, however twisted. But Jews?  They look pretty much like the rest of us, they worship the same God, even if they don't accept Jesus as his son, and those who are here have almost certainly been here for long enough to be considered fixtures.  Indeed, unless they volunteer the information, or are dressed in the ultra-orthodox fashion, chances are you wouldn't be able to identify them.  So why?  I think we need to differentiate between dislike or disapproval of Israeli behaviour and antisemitism, much though the Israeli government would have us believe they are one and the same thing.  I can't see it, but perhaps antisemitism is the result of Judaism being seen as a "closed shop" - you are either one of us or you are not, sort of thing. But whether that is the result of Jews projecting that image, or of us choosing to perceive it that way is perhaps the question.

Not innocent enough?

The question has arisen again about the right to compensation for those who have been found guilty, imprisoned and later had that conviction quashed on appeal.  You would think it would be a no-brainer.  If the system has failed, then it should compensate you for that failure, surely?  And yet, as we have seen previously (26/1/13) it ain't necessarily so.  But it seems things have got even worse since then. The most recent case involves a man who was found guilty of attempted rape back in 1997 and jailed for life (that in itself raises concerns - attempted rape = LIFE??) and has spent 17 years inside.  He could have been released after 7 years (the minimum term imposed by the judge) but was consistently refused parole because he continued to maintain his innocence and in order to get parole you have, among other things, to "accept your guilt".  Now DNA evidence has shown that someone else was involved and his conviction has been quashed.  So - compensation, yes?  Well no, apparently. The Justice Secretary, in refusing his claim, has said although he accepted the "real possibility" that the DNA evidence indicated that someone else was responsible, it did not show his innocence "beyond reasonable doubt".  Which of course raises the question of whether, on that basis, anybody will ever qualify for compensation.

Hear ye, hear ye.

I have to say I feel rather uncomfortable at finding myself siding with Rupert Murdoch and Eric Pickles - two people who wouldn't exactly find themselves on my Christmas list.  Murdoch has been criticised for suggesting that Muslims should apologise for the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and Pickles has equally been criticised for circulating letters to mosques asking them to be more vocal in their condemnation of extremism.  But I can see where they are coming from - albeit they are approaching it from different directions.  As I see it, the problem is that Islam has nobody who can authoritatively speak for it. There is no Islamic equivalent of the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Chief Rabbi or the Dalai Lama.  So you have a problem if you are trying to address Islam, and end up having to address all Muslims (Murdoch) or all those who preach to Muslims (Pickles).  There's no solution to this, but an understanding of the problem might help.

R.I.P.

I haven't watched Coronation Street for yonks - but I did used to watch it way back, when it was more a comedy-drama and before it decided it had to compete with the misery-approach of Eastenders.  Anyway I have fond memories from back then of Deirdre Barlow.  So farewell and thanks to Anne Kirkbride - another taken well before her time.

We all move on...

So that's it - Foyle's War has finished.  I have to say that for me it's not been quite the same since the stories went into the post-war phase, but it's still streets ahead of the competition, and I shall miss it. Hopefully one of the nostalgia channels will pick it up and show it again from the beginning.  I shall look forward to that. Farewell Foyle, farewell Sam - thanks for the memory.

The clock is ticking...

Every now and again you find out something which perhaps you would rather not have known.  As a result of the NHS's decision to run pilot trials in various parts of the country (unfortunately not round here it seems) I now know that - other than in these pilot areas - those who answer 999 calls have just one minute to decide whether the call warrants dispatching an ambulance.  Yes, that's right - sixty seconds!  I am appalled!  Touch wood, I will never have occasion to use the service, but if I had to I would hope and expect that my call would be properly assessed and I would have assumed that the operator would have taken whatever time was necessary to do that. In the pilot areas, by the way, the time limit is being increased to three minutes - better, but is this really an appropriate area for any kind of arbitrary limit?

How do you eat yours?

Remember the ad?  Cadbury's Creme Eggs of course. Well the present answer seems to be "with some sadness and nostalgia".  For Cadbury (who are now of course Kraft) have moved the goalposts. A pack of Creme Eggs no longer contains six of them. but only five (still the same price of course!) and the outer shell is no longer Dairy Milk chocolate but a cheaper cocoa mix.  Well, you were warned! There were those of us who feared that Cadbury being taken over by Kraft would result in the brand being dragged downmarket, with profit being seen as more important than quality and tradition.  And sadly, it seems we were right.

More words.

Tuesday's post and Sky Sports' early match last Sunday reminded me that medieval Venice gave us another of our words.  Venice's power came - like that of our own early empire - from their domination of the sea, and so their dockyard was of major importance to them.  It can be said that they predated Henry Ford by the best part of a thousand years in inventing assembly line technique - they had specialist teams constructing individual parts of a ship, which could then be quickly assembled together.  At the height of their production, it was said that they could produce a ship every day. Anyway they called the area where all this work was carried out by a word derived from two Arabic words meaning "place of manufacture".  And that word was Arsenale which of course gives us our word arsenal, and the Arsenal were playing last Sunday.

Nice one, Brum!

Some idiot on Fox News in the US went on record as saying that Birmingham is a no-go city to non-Muslims.  Perhaps nothing better demonstrates the basic difference of approach between Muslims and the rest of us than the way Brummies have reacted - not with anger and outrage and thoughts of revenge, but with laughter and humour. They have taken to the social network sites in their droves to take the piss - not out of Fox or Islam - but out of themselves.  The pop group Duran Duran becomes Quran Quran, the BT tower becomes the minaret of the City Mosque, and the city will change its name to Birming - dropping the "ham", and so on. That's the way to do it!

Where do we go from here?

The "Je suis Charlie" movement in this country seems to have reached a sort of impasse.  The UK press and media have studiously avoided showing any of the cartoons which caused the problem in the first place.  The magazine's latest edition - the first since the shooting - has had its front page described ad nauseam but you have to be pretty devious to get a glimpse of it.  Whether this is due to a desire not to offend Muslims, or whether (more likely) it is due to a desire not to give any loonies the excuse to attempt a Charlie-style massacre over here is far from clear, but I think this business cannot be put to bed until these drawings are out there for all to see.  At present we have a situation somewhat akin to the children's party game of "pin the tail on the donkey" - we're trying to solve a problem while blindfolded.  Perhaps the cartoons could be published in brown paper wrappers - like porn used to be. If you want to see, you can, but if you feel you will be outraged, you don't have to. Where's "Private Eye" when you need it?

Words

Do you know the origin of the word quarantine?  It comes from the Italian quaranta meaning forty, and refers back to the time of the Black Death when vessels seeking to enter Venice (then a state in its own right) had to moor outside the city for forty days before being allowed in. It has since taken on the meaning of a state of enforced isolation for whatever reason

Where are the candles, Mabel?

Scotland is being lashed by gales - this is hardly unusual.  The default weather pattern for these islands, particularly at this time of year, is for deep depressions to come in over the Atlantic and create gales in Scotland and the North,  So?? Well, given that this is the position, isn't it rather mad to put power lines up in the air, where it is almost inevitable they will be brought down by the high winds, or by trees and such blowing on to them?  Thousands of people are without power up there, and chances are that even if supply is resumed, they will be without power again come the next storm. I assume it is more expensive to put power cables underground, but has anybody actually done the maths and worked out how much it would save in the long run to do that, and not have to continually put repairmen's lives at risk - not to mention giving Joe Public the peace of mind of knowing his electricity supply is safe? A case of short term pain for long term gain?

Read the label !

Remember all the fuss about Cornish pasties and Melton Mobray pork pies, not to mention Stilton cheese that can't be made in Stilton?  It seems that all this nonsense may be consigned to the dustbin of history (and good riddance says I) as a result of a trade agreement being negotiated between the EU and the USA.  The suggestion is that the EU regulations which protect the names of certain brands would have no legal force in the US and that therefore there would be nothing to stop a firm in California, say, producing and marketing "Cumberland sausage", "Parma ham" and the like. Mind you, provided it is clearly marked with its place of origin, I see no problem with that.

Suis-je Charlie?

So, how do we see this massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris? Disgusting, indefensible, yes - no question.  I've gone on record more times than I care to remember saying that freedom of speech, if it is to mean anything, must include the right to offend, but I've equally gone on record to say that you have to take responsibility for your own actions.  And here, it seems to me, the two themes conflict.  The magazine - as I see it - didn't just offend.  It's whole raison d'être was to offend. It set out to offend - and not just to offend Islam.  It carried some scurrilous cartoons about the Catholic Church, among others.  So that leads us to the second string - if you set out deliberately to offend, do you have to accept that those offended against may seek to strike back - and their methods may be - shall we say, a little extreme? So, I'm Charlie - or am I?

Today is December the 32nd....

Remember all the fuss about the Y2K bug?  For those who don't, this was the theory that computers would not be able to cope with the changeover from the last day of 1999 to the first of January 2000 and would crash - with possible disasterous results. Bit of a storm in a teacup in the end, although what might have happened if nobody had thought about it is anybody's guess.  Anyway, this came to mind the other day when I learned that NASA steered clear of shuttle launches towards the end of a year, because the onboard computers didn't automatically recognise the change from one year to the next and might malfunction.  All those millions of dollars and they couldn't come up with a decent software calendar?

Villains??

Am I the only one to think that those who left this dog at a Scottish railway station tied up with a suitcase containing his possessions should be - if not applauded - then at the very least not demonised.  Yes, they could have dumped the dog outside the RSPA premises.  Yes. they could have 'phoned the authorities to arrange a pick up. But it seems to me that they took the course which was most likely to result in the dog being discovered quickly with maximum publicity, which would result in it being speedily found a good home.  Given that, for whatever reason, they felt unable to keep the dog themselves, I feel they did their best for it.

It's the paying punters that count.

The case of the convicted rapist footballer raises its head again (see post of 22/10/14).  His attempts to resume his career are being blocked by those who think he should never be allowed to play football again.  On the other side of the argument are those (including it would seem, the footballers' trade union) who take the view that he has paid his dues to society and should be allowed to get on with his life.  I think the problem is that, as a footballer, he is involved in the entertainment business, and that business - whether you are putting on a football match, or a pantomime, or an historical re-enactment or whatever - is all about putting bums on seats - or more precisely getting people to pay you for the privilege of putting their bum on a seat. And if, for whatever reason, people don't want to come and see what you are putting on then you are stuffed.  If he were an office clerk, or a van driver, the problem would not arise. So it's really not about justice, or fairness or giving somebody a second chance, or anything like that - it's a simple matter of economics.

How much???

Seen the advert for "Build Your Own Star Wars Millennium Falcon Scale Model"?  It comes, piece by piece, together with a glossy magazine.  And the price?  Well therein lies the rub - the advert tells you loudly and clearly that the first edition of the magazine is "in newsagents now" for £2.99.  What it doesn't tell you is that this is a one-off special price - future editions will cost £8.99 and there will be at least 100 of them before you have all the pieces to make the model.  So, £900+ for a model of the Millennium Falcon - good value for money?  You decide, but don't be taken in by the advert.

Remember "The Few"

In general I try to use this blog to comment on things I feel are worthy of comment and occasionally to ride a few hobby-horses of mine.  But for once, I am going to use it to implore you to support a cause.  I'm ex-RAF (National Service) and maybe that is why I feel so strongly, but surely everybody knows that, had it not been for the fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain, we would probably have lost the war - or at the very least had to sue for peace.  So - there's a chapel at Biggin Hill in Kent, where there was a Battle of Britain airfield.  It was built shortly after the war, and is dedicated to the pilots who fought - and died - in that conflict.  It was intended as a permanent memorial.  It costs apparently some £50,000 a year to maintain - chump change in the great scheme of things.  But it seems the Ministry of Defence considers this an "inappropriate use of resources" and is looking to close it down. There is a petition to keep it open on the Government's site at epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/73191. Please sign it.

Too loooong!

Funny how something which seemed so right at the time can turn out to have a really bad side.  I was very much in favour of the idea of fixed parliaments.  It always seemed so unfair that the Prime Minister of the day should be able to choose when to call a general election - obviously choosing the most propitious moment for himself and his party.  Much better to take it out of his hands, yes?  And yet, here's the other side of the coin - because everybody knows when the next general election will be (7th May for anybody unsure) we are now going to have to endure months of electioneering - indeed it's already underway.  Before, especially when the Prime Minister caught everybody on the hop, there would only be about a month between the dissolution of parliament and the election.  And I know which I would prefer!

Sweaty jocks?

I know nothing about Katie Hopkins, other than that she clearly makes a living out of being controversial - offensive even.  The question seems to be - how far can she go without falling foul of the law?  You might think (and I do think) that Twitter should be seen for what it is - idle chit-chat - and that the law should keep out of it.  But apparently there are those who not only take offense at what she says, but are demanding that the police take action.  Can't decide who is the sadder - Ms Hopkins or those who rise to her bait?

Still looking...

People don't become senior judges without having an incisive, analytical mind, so it's always worth listening to what they have to say.  Lady Butler-Sloss has made a very good point about the inquiry into historic child abuse of which, for a very short time, she was chairman.  She quit because she was seen as too "establishment" and too close to people who might have been involved.  But are we now in danger of swinging too far the other way?  The perceived problem is that if the inquiry is seen as being run by the establishment, the eventual report will be seen by many as saying what the establishment wants it to say. But isn't there an equal danger that if the inquiry is effectively "run" by the victims, in the same way the report will be seen as saying what the victims want it to say?  Either way, one side or the other is going to have no faith in the outcome.  Where you find an "honest broker" I don't know, but it has been suggested that you look outside these islands.

Tick, tock...

Lots of football matches over the Christmas period with lots of opportunities for managers to complain about the referees and specifically the amount of time they added on at the end of the game - or didn't as the case might be.  And yet there's an answer to this - an answer that's been around for as long as I can remember. The Game Clock.  This is a clock which stops every time the game stops - so you get an undisputed period of real play.  No arguments, no guesses.  Every time the ball goes out of play, the clock stops.  Every time the referee blows his whistle, the clock stops. The idea is so simple.  The only thing you would have to decide is - how long should a match last given that it represents real playing time with all the stoppages removed? Thirty minutes each way, perhaps?