All depends on the wording...

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, may well quit the job and return to his native Canada it seems.  This is at least partly because of the criticism he has received over his "doom-laden" predictions in the run-up to the referendum as to what might happen if we voted to leave. Predictions which. according to one daily paper have been "repeatedly proven wrong".  Mind you, later in the same paper's report. it says that many of his gloomy predictions "are yet to materialise". Not quite the same thing?

Karma?

Ten years ago I posted about the Art Gallery in Walsall, which I consider one of the ugliest buildings around these parts.  Well now, as a result of the Council withdrawing, or at best severely restricting its funding, it seems it may have to close.  The contents certainly must be preserved, but I, for one, will shed no tears if the building disappears from view - although the most likely outcome of course is that it will simply be sold on and remain as the eyesore it is.

Ironic or what?

It appears that if Hillary Clinton becomes President of the United States, Bill Clinton, her husband, will take the title of First Gentleman.

Who he??

Remember Leveson?  Possibly not - it's been a few years now since the Lord Justice of that name was appointed as chairman of an inquiry into the behaviour of the press. His report suggested that newspapers should either sign up to a government controlled code of conduct or suffer heavily in costs if they are taken to court as a result of what they publish.  It seems to me that costs are indeed the fundamental problem here - the court costs in a defamation case can be so huge that they become a major determining factor in deciding whether to sue or whether to defend. I have always thought that in such cases the rule should be that each side bears thier own costs, whatever the outcome.  This puts each side in control of their own financial position and prevents one side being able to blackmail the other with the threat of an enormous bill of costs.  It seems to me that the only losers would be the lawyers - and I'm all for that!

Wadja say - part two.

As a follow up to yesterday's post, a misheard word or phrase is called a mondegreen. It most commonly occurs with song lyrics, but has its origin in the misheard line of a poem - the actual line was "...and laid him on the green" which was misheard, as a young girl, by the American writer Sylvia Wright as "...and Lady Mondegreen", and she coined the word mondegreen to describe such mistakes, there being, as she saw it, no suitable word in existence.  The word is now accepted by most of the major dictionaries.

Wadja say??

I think I've mentioned before that I have another string to my bow, internet-wise, in that I make piano arrangements of popular songs of the past and post them online (bottom link on the left).  Well I'm presently working on "The poor people of Paris" which, as a title, has a rather strange history.  It started life as a French song "La goualante de pauvre Jean" - the ballade of poor John - but when an American songwriter came to give it English lyrics, he misheard "pauvre Jean" as "pauvre gens" (poor people) and that's how it came to be "The poor people of Paris".

R.I.P.

Jimmy Perry.  When would-be writers ask for advice, the most common thing they are told is "write about what you know".  Well it certainly worked for Jimmy Perry. who used his experiences in the Home Guard, in the Army in Burma, and as a red-coat at Butlin's to come up with three of the most loved, most successful sit-coms ever - Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Hi-De-Hi.  And from what you can gather from those who knew him, he was a thoroughly nice bloke.  Once again, thanks to the nostalgia channels, his genius lives on.

Anything you can do...

In the 1950s an Italian tractor manufacturer went to Modena to talk to Enzio Ferrari, head of the famous car company.  He explained that he had owned several Ferraris, and although in general he found them attractive cars, he thought their clutches were sub-standard and he found the company's after-sales service left much to be desired. Ferrari, who was well-known as a proud man with a short temper, refused to listen to him and had him effectively thrown out.  So the tractor manufacturer decided to expand and start making cars himself.  And his name?  Ferruccio Lamborghini.

Ha ha.

Here's a wicked little one liner -
  - What do you get if you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic?
  - About half-way

What's in a name?

Back in the Middle Ages, in what is now referred to as the Caribbean, there was a island called San Juan, the capital of which was the town of Puerto Rico.  But in the middle of the 16th century, a map maker confused the name of the island with the name of its capital. and his mistake has never been corrected, so today we have the island of Puerto Rico with its capital San Juan.

Today I learned...

...that there is a legal requirement (canon law) for parish churches to hold morning and evening services on a Sunday.  In view of falling attendances and rising costs, the Church is currently looking at relaxing this rule, at least for "struggling rural parishes". Signs of the times??

Serendipity?

Yesterday's post concerned wine, and a few days ago I was talking about the British love of tea, so how about this - in India they've come up with wine made out of tea leaves!  Not surprisingly, they are planning on marketing it over here.  The idea is not in fact entirely new - I remember back in the 50s and 60s there was a lot of interest in home wine-making and all sorts of ingredients were suggested - parsnip, elderflower, various fruits, and including, as I recall, using the dregs from your tea-pot!

Salute!

Have you heard about the drinking fountain in the Italian town of Abruzzo which now dispenses red wine 24/7?  All I can say is - wow!!

This land is my land...

I own my home and the land it's built on - it's freehold, in legal jargon.  But do I own it?  Well, no, strictly I don't - it belongs, as does all the land in the United Kingdom, to the Queen.  The concept goes back to feudal times, but is still operational.  And it doesn't stop there  The Queen is also Queen of Australia, and therefore strictly speaking owns all of the land there.  And then, she's also Queen of Canada, New Zealand and various other Commonwealth countries.  In fact. she owns a hell of a lot of land - it's been estimated that she owns some 17% of all the land on earth.  I think the next biggest landowner is the King of Saudi Arabia followed by various other Middle Eastern rulers.  Of course her ownership is purely technical these days, but it's worth remembering...

I'm in the pink.

You may remeber the post about the colour orange (see 1/3/14) and that the name of the colour derived from the name of the fruit, rather than vice-versa.  Well it seems pink has the same sort of etymology - the colour pink gets its name from the flower of the dianthus family called a pink.

Members of the jury...

Where do you stand on this Ched Evans business?  To recap  - he is a professional footballer who, back in 2012 was convicted of rape and sentenced to five years in prison.  Having served half his sentence, and having kept his nose clean, he was released in 2014.  Meanwhile he had appealed against his conviction, and the Court of Appeal in April of this year quashed the conviction and ordered a new trial.  This has now taken place and resulted in his acquittal, mainly it would seem as a result of the previous sexual history of the girl he is accused of raping being given in court - which it wasn't at the original trial.  This has been condemned by various women's groups who say it may deter rape victims coming forward in the future.  So, should it have been allowed?  It isn't normally, but the circumstances here were considered exceptional enough to warrant relaxing the rule on this occasion. So, where do you stand? I fear I may be seen as simply a bloke siding with a bloke, but the way I see it is that, if it had not been for this new evidence being allowed, chances are he would have been found guilty again - as he was at the original trial.  So, what it comes down to is which is more important - that the girl's previous sexual behaviour should remain secret, or that the defendant should get a fair trial with a just verdict?

What do you fancy tonight?

I was aware that chicken tikka masala, although a staple of Indian cuisine here, does not exist in India itself - it is a purely British invention (Glasgow is usually cited as its birthplace), but I now learn, thanks to Italian chef Antonio Carluccio that spaghetti bolognese - the archetypal Italian dish - would equally not be seen on a menu in Italy. A pasta dish with bolognese sauce would traditionally be made with tagliatelle, never spaghetti. So you may feel cosmopolitan eating Indian or Italian but in fact you may just be eating British!

Love it or hate it...

Marmite of course.  People are up in arms because Unilever. who own Marmite, among many other products, intend to increase their prices to supermarkets and other outlets as a result of the value of the pound falling against the dollar.  Now there's no doubt that a weak pound will mean higher costs for imported goods and that. to a greater or lesser extent, this will be passed on to the consumer, but what I can't understand is that Marmite may well be owned by Unilever, but it's made up the road in Burton-on-Trent, so how has the cost of manufacture been affected by the exchange rate?

A nice cuppa...

We Brits like our tea.  Even today, when coffee us so prevalent, but even more so back in the 1930s and 40s.  Indeed, so important to the country's well-being was tea seen to be, that in the immediate run-up to the Second World War the government spent a large amount of money in purchasing all the tea stocks in the world so we wouldn't run out.  Of course, having bought them, they then had the problem of getting them to this country, and once the German U-boats starting wreaking havoc on our convoys tea had to be put on ration - 2oz per person per week.  And in fact it remained on ration until 1952.  I have vague memories of my Gran coming up with ingenious ways of making the tea ration stretch out as much as possible - we had a sort of precursor of the tea-bag - an small oval metal thing with holes in into which you put your tea and then dunked it in the teapot several times until you got the right strength.  And by adding more leaves you could keep it going for several days, until it just became too stewed and you were forced to throw it away and start again.  I'm more of a coffee drinker now, but I still enjoy a nice cup of tea,

What price privacy?

God knows I hold no brief for Donald Trump, but clearly what was said on that bus all those years ago was meant to be a private conversation.  So the question arises - (1) who recorded it and why? And (2) who put that recording into the public domain, and why?  Perhaps the second question is more easily answered, but the first is more crucial.  Was this yet another case of somebody being caught out by an open microphone, or was this a case of a private conversation being deliberately secretly recorded?  As I've said before, does this mean I need to sweep my house for hidden bugs before having friends round for a chat?

Ugh!

What a totally depressing day.  I have scoured the morning press in the hope of finding something to blog about, but the papers are full of nothing but the latest US presidential debate and brexit.  In order then- the Trump-Clinton fight firstly is strictly outside my remit, but as I've mentioned previously, who becomes the next President of the United States does impinge upon us, and indeed on the rest of the world, so I feel I am entitled to some comment.  Well - in a nutshell, the choice is an unattractive one between two people who I wouldn't trust any further than I could throw them.  If pushed for a decision, I would go for Clinton as marginally the less dangerous of the two.  And as for brexit - I'm fed up with people trying to second-guess what will happen.  Everybody's putting their penn'orth in to try and get what they want, and clearly however it turns out, there will be those who won't be happy, so it looks as if Europe will continue to be a festering sore for the disenchanted to pick at, and that the referendum didn't really settle anything.  Like I say, I am totally depressed.

50 years ago

Do you remember Aberfan?  I do.  I think it was the first disaster to be covered live on TV which made it all the more horrible.  Today with all the nasty things that are going on, daily it seems, in the world, I think we've become more desensitised but back then I remember just sitting there watching the TV and crying at the sight of those pathetic little bodies being pulled from the slime.  Not something I can ever forget.

As ye sow...

To what extent is Kim Kardashian the author of her own misfortune?  If you make a living out of putting yourself forward as super-rich and flashing the bling - well, you get the idea.  Doesn't in any way excuse the actions of those who robbed her but perhaps you can see where they got the impulse from.  

I look up to him...

It seems some people have been questioning why it is that Prince George always appears in public in short trousers.  And it has been suggested that it's all a matter of class - to be wearing long trousers before about the age of eight is apparently seen as "suburban", which it seems is code for middle-class.  And royalty would not wish to be seen as middle-class.  Well I don't know about that, but what I do remember from my childhood is that what today we refer to as primary school was then referred to as "infants and juniors" and the distinction was that you were in the infants for your first three years and then you went up to junior school.  And my recollection is certainly that infants had to wear short trousers whereas juniors could wear long ones.  Didn't realise we were class-conscious, but apparently we were!

When the wind blows...

So one of the worst hurricanes in memory is devastating the Caribbean and threatening the east coast of the US.  But I am confused - I can't remember where it came from, but stuck in my mind is a mnemonic about the hurricane season which goes -
June - too soon
July - stand by
August - come it must
September - remember
October - it's over
                                  So what's going  on??

Look at the price of that!

I have friends in Worcestershire and Herefordshire who are warning people to get ready for seasonal fruit and veg to get more expensive next year.  If farmers down there can no longer take on (mainly eastern European) migrants as casual labour to get their harvests in, they will have to pay significantly more to persuade British workers to do the work and that extra cost will be passed on to us, the consumers. So next year's asparagus crop will be the first test!

What price privacy?

In my youth, I fancied myself - as many young people do - as an author.  I quickly realised I was rubbish, but if I had succeeded, I was going to publish under a pseuonym.  Why?  Well, partly because I thought the romantic comedies I wanted to write would stand a better chance if the author was believed to be a woman, but mainly because I value my privacy and wanted to control if, when and how I revealed my true identity.  Why am I going on like this?  Because I have great sympathy for Elena Ferrante, a noted novelist, whose true identity has been "unmasked" by an Italian "investigative journalist".  He seems to have done it just for the sake of doing it, saying that she is a "public figure" and that her readers have "a right to know". Well, do they?  Did she not have the right to remain anonymous? Where do you stand on this?

Any spare change, Bud?

Some people have questioned whether the money being spent on replacing the old paper fiver with the new polymer one (and the tenner and twenty pound note to follow) is a waste as, in their view "cash has had its day".  But has it?  Will there ever come such a time?  There will always be the milkman to pay, or the gardener, or the window cleaner, or the need to pop into the corner shop for a packet of mints. And however technology advances, and may advance in the future, there will always be people, like me, who are behind the game.  I know "contactless payment" exists, but I don't know - and more to the point, don't want to know - how to use it. I'm sure the use of cash will decrease over the years, but I doubt it will ever disappear.

If you stare at the set hard enough...

A BBC presenter of some 18 years standing claims he has been sacked because he's white and the BBC are looking for "more diversity".  You may have views on whether this is a correct approach for the BBC to take or not, but what makes the story completely bizarre is that he's a RADIO presenter!

Really??

The Health Secretary wants to "name and shame" restaurants, pubs and cafes who put highly calorific desserts on their menus.  He partially justifies this approach by saying that going out for a meal is "no longer a treat" but something that "is a regular habit for many families".  Where the hell does he live?  I'm not particularly a pudding person, so I have no axe to grind, but I've just checked back through my diary for the last twelve months, and I've been out for a meal five times during that period.  Is this another "London" thing - where those who live in the capital assume everybody behaves like they do?

We won - sucks boo to you lot!

It's forever being pointed out that 17million-odd people voted to leave the EU.  Little is said about the 16milllion-odd who voted to stay in.  OK, the brexiteers won - that's how democracy works, but are the remainers to simply be ignored?  Particularly when it was such a close-run thing?  It's like the difference between your favourite football team completely dominating a game and running out 6-0 winners, and winning a tight fought match by a last minute goal in time added on.  They're both worth three points, but there the similarity ends.  I think the Government is right in pursuing a "softly-softly" approach to the problem. and we should let them get on with it.