Won't work unless...

We've had a few smiles in the past at the way the American public won't take a film seriously unless there's an American in a starring role (e.g. Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape") but it seems we here won't accept an adaptation of a classic book unless it's been (literally) sexed-up.  The BBC are to broadcast an adaptation of "War and Peace" and apparently the scriptwriter has included a non-existing incestuous relationship and some nudity just to attract more viewers.  When challenged, he said that he had "written one or two things that Tolstoy forgot to write".  Quite what this says about the great British viewing public, I'm not sure.

Water, water, everywhere...

So what do we do about the floods?  Well, too late to do anything about it now - just do all we can to help with coping with it, but what about trying to prevent it happening again?  First off, can we do anything?  It's accepted that this has been an unprecedented event and more or less by definition you can't plan for something which is unprecedented.  What we can do is imagine the worst that we think could happen and then plan for that.  My wife and I went on holiday to Maspalomas three times and stayed in the same hotel.  We were fascinated by a large (I do mean large) concrete channel just outside the hotel running down to the sea.  I reckon 30 or so meters wide and about 15 to 20 deep. And there it was - just a concrete channel, doing nothing, with weeds growing from cracks in the concrete.  Other than that it was called a "barranco" we couldn't work out what its purpose was. Second time we went there, just the same.  Then the third time we were there we heard it was seriously raining up in the mountains, and the next morning when we came down - the barranco was a raging torrent, full almost to the top with fast flowing water.  So that's what it's for!  Without it, the whole area would have flooded.  So there's a thought - dredge all the rivers and keep them dredged. Construct channels to take any excess.  Divert flood water onto open ground away from buildings.  It becomes a matter of money of course - it always is.  And we have to accept that whatever we do, nature may throw another unprecedented event at us, and the arguments will start all over again,

Post hoc, ergo...

...propter hoc.  Literally "after this, therefore because of this".  It's the assumption that because A happened, and then B happened, that A caused B.  Of course it may have done, but simply because the one followed the other does not prove it to be so. There must be many millions of people who say their prayers every day and many of them ask God, or the Virgin Mary, or whoever, for certain specific things.  And it is inevitable that every now and then, what they ask for will happen.  But the question is, is this proof that their prayers have been answered, or was the thing, whatever it is, going to happen anyway?  Mother Theresa is on her way to being made a saint, mainly on the basis that two people who prayed for her intervention have been apparently miraculously cured of what would otherwise have been fatal conditions. Now if people want to believe that, that's OK with me, but keep in mind that it is purely a question of belief - not proof.

What's done is done.

The thing about history is that it's - well, history. It happened.  We may like it - we may not.  We may be proud of it - we may not.  What we can't do is deny it.  Oh, there are those who have tried - just about every dictator, every totalitarian regime has sought to rewrite history for its own ends, and to air-brush out anybody and anything which does not fit with their view of how things should  be.  But sooner or later, the facts have a happy habit of reasserting themselves.  Cecil Rhodes was an imperialist and a colonialist.  Was he a racist?  Not so clear - very much depends on how you define the word.  But he existed, he lived, he did what he did.  You can't change that - and you shouldn't even try.

Where do you stand...

... on the Van Gaal question?  Not whether he should be sacked as manager of Manchester United, but whether he is being treated unfairly by the media.  He clearly thinks he is, and that the media are whipping up a "storm in a teacup" about him being replaced by Mourinho - and indeed some of the papers are claiming that this is a done deal, which must be unsettling for him and the players, and it would seem, his family.  But that's what the media do isn't it?  If there's no real story, they make one up.  Unfair - perhaps, but if you put your picture in the frame, you must accept that people will use it as a target.  Nobody put a gun to Van Gaal's head and forced him to take the job, and he must know that if the team are not playing well it is he who will come under scrutiny.  So he may - obviously does - feel cross about it, but I don't think he's doing himself any favours by sulking.

Site of the month

Long time since I've come up with one of these, but here's something to amuse and keep you busy on Boxing Day.  Remember our "word chains" game (see 14/9/08)? Well, have a look at thewikigame.com - same idea.

Merry Christmas

And God bless us, every one!

Zzzzzzzzzz...

As one who regularly starts to watch a film after tea, and then falls asleep in the chair and misses the end, I was fascinated to read about "Netflix socks" - these are socks with sensors which will detect if you nod off and send a signal to your TV which will pause the programme.  Genius!  Unfortunately they don't exist (yet) - they are a concept, an idea which Netflix has thrown out there to see if any manufacturer will take it up. Here's hoping...

For God's sake - make your minds up!

Are you as fed up as I am with the almost constant stream of contradictory reports on health matters? I've mentioned before how the advice on taking aspirin has changed almost annually  - first it was good for you, then it was bad for you, then it was good for you again, and so on and so on.  The latest example is the extent to which getting cancer is a matter of luck, or lifestyle.  Earlier this year a report from a reputable American university stated that around two out of every three cancers come about as a result of chance cell mutations that you can't do anything about. But then comes along a report from another reputable American university saying that nine out of ten cancers are a result of the way we live our lives - what we eat and drink, whether we smoke, whether we sunbathe, the quality of the air we breathe and so on.  I don't know about you, but I find the whole business enormously confusing and not a little stressful!

How come?

Much has been made of the closure of the country's last deep coal mine.  End of an era, and all that. But what struck me is why it is closing.  Not because it's run out of coal - quite the reverse. There are still millions of tons of the stuff down there.  No, it's closing simply because it's cheaper to buy coal from abroad. So we're still going to be using coal, but somehow it appears it's more expensive to dig it up in our own back yard, than it is to transport it thousands of miles from places like Russia or the US. And I think I am entitled to ask just why that is so.

Hand of glory

Are you familiar with the concept?  An old pub near where I live had long been reputed to be haunted and during renovation in the late 19th century a mummified hand and arm was discovered in a chimney.  And it created a lot of interest at the time because it was said to be a "hand of glory".  According to medieval folklore if you cut off the hand of a criminal who had been hanged on the gallows, and pickled it, it would have miraculous qualities, main among which was the ability to stupefy anybody who saw it. As such, such an object was prized by burglars who would use it to (hopefully) petrify the members of the house they were robbing.  The arm is now in the local museum - its provenance is still somewhat of a mystery, although it has been established that it had been injected with formalin, which suggests it was some sort of medical specimen.

R.I.P.

Jimmy Hill - although a Londoner, he is irrevocably associated in these parts with Coventry City, whose manager he was from 1961  to 1967, taking them from the old Division 3 to the then top flight Division 1 . He later became the club's chairman.  He was also a great innovator, giving Coventry the first all-seater stadium in England and also being instrumental in changing the points system so as to give three points for a win.  I do sometimes wonder if he ever regretted helping to get rid of the maximum wage cap, which, done with the best of intentions, has eventually led to the obscene amounts of money being paid to footballers today.

What do you think?

A primary school in Hull has been criticised for cancelling a Christmas sight-seeing trip to London for their Year 5 pupils because of the threat of terrorist activity.  It's the old argument - on the one hand by doing this we are playing into the terrorists' hands, doing exactly what they want us to do. On the other hand, the safety of the children must be paramount - and indeed several parents had already withdrawn their children from the trip before the decision was taken.  Clearly the school had to put the safety of the children first - it seems that criticism has mainly come from those not directly connected to the school.

Revolving door?

So Mourinho has got the boot again?  Chelsea have certainly had a bad start to the season, but this is essentially the same team under the same manager who won the Premiership last season with almost embarrassing ease, so what has gone wrong?  Or has in fact anything gone wrong - is this just an example of how much football at this level depends on confidence.  Once they had a bad start did that prey on their minds and become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy?  As the manager, Mourinho has to carry the can, but that's the name of the game as I'm sure he is aware.  Wonder who they have got lined up to replace him?

Oi! Marty McFly...!

Thinking of getting one of these hoverboards as a Christmas present - for yourself, or someone else? If so, you should be aware that, like the Segway, it is illegal to use them anywhere other than on private land with the landowner's permission.  Because they're powered, they're classed as a "carriage", so the Highways Act of 1835 prohibits their use on the pavement, and equally they can't be used on the road without them, and the person using them, being licensed and registered and complying with all the same regulations as those using cars, vans and lorries.  And before you ask, mobility scooters and invalid carriages are covered by separate legislation.  If you use them in a shopping mall or somesuch, then it's down to the owner of mall as to whether this is OK or not.  If their use becomes really widespread, it may be that the government will have to reconsider the current situation. Interestingly, many other countries take a rather more relaxed view of their use - treating them more like bicycles.

Ha ha

Define "bidet".
Answer - the day two days before D-Day.

Clever - made me smile.

Well, what did you expect?

One more for the Law of Blindingly Obvious Consequences.  A council (I won't embarrass them by naming them, but it begins with L) has made big cut-backs in its refuse-collecting services.  Quite apart from a serious amount of job losses this has resulted (surprise, surprise) in a significant increase in fly-tipping.  And of course the irony is that, unless they can identify the fly-tippers (most unlikely) it will be the council who will eventually have to find the money to clean up the mess!

In for a penny...

One of those "life-hacks" which appear now and then on the Net involves rescuing the remains of a bottle of wine which has gone "off" by using a penny.  Make sure it's nice and clean and drop it into the wine and stir for about a minute.  Remove the penny and, according to the website, lo and behold, your wine is drinkable again. The logic is that the reason the wine goes off is due to oxydisation, and the copper in the coin neutralises this.  Speaking for myself, I find it difficult to understand why anybody would ever have any left-over wine!

'Tis the season...

Think the BBC have missed a trick with their Christmas scheduling.  They're being criticised - and rightly in my opinion - for only showing eight hours of Christian-themed programmes during Christmas week.  Given their position as our national broadcaster and given that at Christmastime, a lot of people turn more to religion, and go to church who perhaps ordinarily wouldn't do so, and given that the role of the BBC and its place in the 21st century is coming under serious scrutiny, they could have done themselves some good by demonstrating that they are not just a ratings-chasing organisation and with four channels (at the time of writing) they could surely have found room for a lot more than eight hours (of which four are repeats by the way).  

I know my place.

Life used to be so simple - there was the upper class, the middle class and the working class. Because the middle class was such a broad church, it tended to be subdivided into upper middle, middle and lower middle.  But now?  According to the BBC and the LSE there are no less than seven different social classes.  In some cases it seems to be no more than coming up with new names - so Elite is just the old upper class, Established Middle Class is the old upper middle class. New Affluent Workers the old lower middle class, and Traditional Working Class is self-explanatory.  But the others - Technical Middle Class, Emergent Service Workers and Precariat - haven't a clue!

Brummie Scrooge!

As a Midlander I am ashamed to say this story comes from Birmingham.  A street trader who has a flower stall in the city centre has been threatened with court action by the council for playing Christmas carols.  They maintain that he is in breach of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, section 62(1)(b) of which prohibits the use of a loudspeaker in a street "for the purpose of advertising any entertainment, trade or business".  He's been doing this for 10 years by the way, with no problems. Is this some jumped-up jobsworth throwing his or her weight about or what?  I think it highly dubious that it could be said that he is advertising anything other than the fact it's Christmastime, and if that's illegal then (literally) God help us!

One for the road?

A Scotland Yard Commander with special responsibility for alcohol abuse has suggested that it should be an offence to buy a drink for someone who is already drunk.  Interesting idea, and made with the best of intentions, but completely impractical.  For starters, it takes no account of the fact that drunkenness is a cumulative process - you may be OK when  I buy you a drink, but that drink may be the one that tips you over the edge into drunkenness.  Have I committed an offence or not? Then - define drunk.  This is obviously aimed at the rowdy, fighting drunks, but not everybody is like that - for plenty of people alcohol makes them mellow and friendly - are they to be treated the same as the yobbos?  Like I say - impractical.  

Someone has to be to blame?

I remember when I studied law, many, many years ago, one of the strange things that cropped up was, if it snowed, to think twice before you cleared the pavement outside your house. Why?  Because if you didn't, and someone slipped and hurt themselves, that was their bad luck - an act of God.  But if you did try to clear the snow and then someone slipped and hurt themselves, you could be sued for not doing a good enough job. Thought about that when listening to those flooded out up north blaming the Government for not providing good enough flood defences.  Bit bizarre in any event to be holding the Government responsible for the weather, but would you have preferred that they had done nothing??

Interesting career opportunity?

HMRC (the taxman to you and me) is apparently setting up a task force to look into strip clubs and escort agencies to make sure that the owners, and those who work there, are paying their tax.  I have a feeling that they won't have too much of a struggle to find staff for that!

Formula 1

My usual round-up of the season.  Again this year I've struggled to work up any real enthusiasm.  Not sure what the answer is though.
Hamilton - dominant until the last few races - by which time the championship was won.  
Rosberg - disappointing until the last few races - by which time he'd lost his chance. Failed to turn enough pole positions into wins - 4 from 7 as against Hamilton's 7 from 11
Vettel - got the best out of an ever-improving Ferrari.  Have a feeling he might be the one to beat next season.

Ha ha

For the first time in a long time, my pensioner's magazine has come up with a half-decent joke -
A teacher is doing a lesson on self esteem and confidence.  "Right class" she says "I want anyone who thinks they're stupid to stand up".  The children all look at each other but everybody remains seated, until after a few minutes Little Larry stands up. "So, Larry" says the teacher "you think you're stupid?"  "No Miss" said Larry "but I didn't like seeing you standing there all by yourself!"

What's in a name?

So the PM has determined that we should call our enemy in Syria Daesh - which he pronounces Die-esh.  The Americans tend to pronounce it "Dash" - but then, they have a habit of always coming up with their own pronunciations  - Eye-raq for Iraq and so on.  But apart from that, just what should we call this would-be Middle-Eastern caliphate?  It started out life as the Islamic State, then it became the "so-called" Islamic Sate, then ISIS or ISIL and now apparently to be on-song we must go with Daesh.  Does it matter?  Apparently the terrorists themselves don't like the name, which is perhaps why we've decided to use it, but what we call them is surely a side-issue.  I am reminded of a John Le Carré story (was it "A Little Town In Germany"?) where more time was spent on discussing what code-name a spy operation should be given rather than how it should be run.  Now we've decided to go in, let's just get on with it, whatever we call them.

Syria - the final verdict?

So it's "bombs away"?  Found it rather awkward to be siding with Jeremy Corbyn (though not fully agreeing with his arguments) but on balance I think we've made the wrong decision, for reasons I gave the other week.  Apparently this makes me a "terrorist sympathiser" but there you go.  Not a clear-cut matter and no question there are serious points to be made on the other side, but perhaps the crunch question is - do I feel any safer now?  And the answer is a definite - no, quite the reverse.

She's behind you!

Speaking of pantomimes, have you seen that the Bristol Old Vic is putting on "Sleeping Beauty" this Christmas - but with a twist.  The main character is not to be a princess, but a prince - Prince Percy. It will be he who pricks his finger and falls into a deep sleep, to be awakened by a girl heroine.  Well I suppose in the interests of opposing gender stereotyping I could just about accept that, but Prince Percy???

I'm cross!

A pantomime in Norwich is having to change one of the costumes of the "Dame" because it features several red crosses on a white background ("she" is supposed to be a nurse) and they have been told that this infringes the rights of the British Red Cross, whose emblem that is.  But hang on a minute - red cross on white ground - isn't that the cross of St George?, and that belongs to us all and well predates its use on ambulances and such.  I'm sure the producers of the pantomime don't want to get into any legal shenanigans but I'd be inclined to tell the Red Cross where to get off.

Need any help with your packing?

A famous art forger who has done time as a result of his activities has written a book in which he claims that a chalk drawing generally attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci and valued at £100m is in fact his work and depicts a check-out girl with whom he used to work at a Co-op store in Bolton back in the 70s.  If this is proved - or even just accepted - to be true, the work becomes pretty well worthless. But we've been down this road before - it's the same drawing!  How can it be that one minute it's worth £100m and the next, nothing?  I've said it before - doesn't this just point up the ridiculous pretentiousness of the art world?