Apology

When you've got it wrong, own up and say so.  Four years ago, I was scathing about the Bond song "Live and let die" because (as I heard it) it contained the line "...this ever changing world in which we live in..." which of course is grammatically horrible. But now one of my grandchildren has pointed me to a website of lyrics, and it seems the real line is "...this ever changing world in which we're living...".  Is my face red!!

The City of Caves

The city of Nottingham is built on sandstone, which is a soft stone, easily "worked" and so from time immemorial people have burrowed in to it to create caves - to live in, or store stuff in or for shelter and the like.  The caves are now a money-spinning tourist attraction and are protected as "scheduled monuments".  There is documentary evidence that in the Middle Ages some caves were used as tanneries, and in the last war, they came in very handy as air-raid shelters.  You can take a guided tour and learn all about them.

Don't blame me!

Us oldies are once again being pilloried for having done better financially over the last decade or so than the rest of the population.  Well, yes - I'm not going to argue.  In fact I've made the point myself before in these pages.  But I've also made the point that we are at the mercy of the Government.  We can't use uSwitch to find an alternative state pension - 'cause there ain't one.  We're stuck with what we're given - good or bad.  The fact that it's been good - or at least better than average - over the last few years isn't our "fault" any more than the fact that the good times are almost certainly going to come to an end with this Parliament is any sort of punishment.  It's just how things are.

R.I.P.

Fidel Castro - just because I didn't agree with his politics doesn't mean his death should pass without comment.  Apart from anything else. he was the great survivor - he lasted 50 years despite the best attempts of the CIA to assassinate him.  And however bad you might judge his presidency to be, it's worth remembering that he overthrew an arguably even worse one - the Batista regime.  There will be those who will rejoice at his death - there will be those who will grieve, but there will be few on whom it makes no impression at all.

Oi - you!

Please can we stop reporters rudely shouting out stupid questions at those who go in to and come out of addresses in Downing Street?  Do they really think they will get an answer - let alone a newsworthy one? Just what are they looking for?  It's simply bad manners in my book

Sheer stupidity?

Well things are getting really silly.  Despite accepting the idea back in 2011, FIFA are considering punishing England and Scotland for their teams wearing armbands with remembrance poppies on in their recent World Cup qualifying match (see post dated 2nd November).  But that is as nothing compared to their decision to open disciplinary proceedings against the Irish and Welsh football associations in respect of poppies being worn at their recent international matches by - it's scarcely credible - the fans in the stands!!  I don't know what to say, apart from - can they really be serious?

Oooh, my head!!

A survey has found that the most effective cure for a hangover is a full English breakfast - specifically one containing fried eggs.  The science seems to be that eggs contain cysteine, which counteracts acetaldehyde , the chemical produced by the body as it metabolises alcohol, and which is responsible for most of the unpleasant aspects of drinking too much.  It's not a miracle cure - but the survey suggests that it will get you over your hangover faster than just taking painkillers, or simply staying in bed, or going for the "hair of the dog" approach.  Mind you, you should know that the survey was carried out by - wait for it - British Lion Eggs!

You what???!!

I'm sorry, but when I heard the news that President-In-Waiting Donald Trump is proposing that Nigel Farage should be appointed as UK ambassador to the US, I just dissolved into a fit of the giggles.

My aching legs...

Nice to read that shops and town centres are beginning to realise that us crumblies sometimes need somewhere to sit down for a minute and catch our breath, and are looking to provide seats for this purpose. It would be even nicer of I thought that they were doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and in recognition of the problems that come with advancing age, but of course their motivation is purely financial - they want to attract us to said town centres and shops in the hope that we'll spend money there. Still, we must be thankful for small mercies. 

Times are hard...

We're used to the sneaky way some manufacturers reduce their pack sizes as a way of increasing their prices without actually...  well, increasing their prices.  So your bag of sweets, say, may cost you the same price as last week, but if you bother to read the package, you may find that whereas last week it weighed 120g, say, this week it's only 105g.  So I suppose we must give Toblerone some credit for transparency in that they have reduced the amount of chocolate in their bars, but done so by increasing the gaps between the "mountains" thus making it clear what they are doing.  They've still got slagged off for doing it, mind you.

Déjà vu?

So Trump may create a Muslim register?  Problem - how do you identify a Muslim? Easy enough if it's a woman wearing a hijab or a burka, or a man sporting a full flowing beard and dressed in a shalwar kameez, but many Muslims do not adhere to the traditional dress and may not even look obviously foreign.  So here's an idea - why not make them wear an identifying symbol on their clothing - a crescent say. And yellow is a nice colour which stands out.  But hang on - why does that ring a bell....??

Ha ha

Judas - You still on for Friday?
Jesus - Friday?
Judas - Yes, the last supper
Jesus - You what?
Judas - Er... supper, supper, just supper with the lads.

Word of the year.

And the word of this year is apparently "post-truth".  But what the hell does it mean? Well. not to put too fine a point on it, it means lying.  You know the old joke about how can you can tell when a politician is lying - it's when his mouth is moving? And post-truth is essentially political lying.  It's based on the idea that if you say something often enough and loud enough it becomes accepted as true.  But there's more to it than that - firstly it has to be something which people want to believe is true, and secondly, it has to be something which is based on something which is true - or at the very least, not obviously untrue.  A classic example is the constant assertion by the leave campaign in the recent referendum that membership of the EU "costs" the UK £350m a week.  Not sure why we need a new word for something which has been going on for centuries, mind you.

Me no likee...

It seems that "liberal" has become a dirty word.  And this bothers me, because I would certainly classify myself as liberal (small l).  What do I think I mean by that? Well, basically, live and let live. I accept that everyone is an individual with their own likes and dislikes and deserves to be respected as such.  I will not attempt to foist my views on you but equally I will not attempt to stop you speaking out for what you believe in.  But it now seems that this is wrong.  The brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump are both seen as examples of what could be called "anti-liberalism" - people with what might be categorised as extremist views taking over the agenda and sticking up two fingers to the rest of us.  So what do we liberals (I assume I'm not on my own here) do?  Fight back? But then we stop being liberal, don't we?  I'm confused and worried.

Err... you what??

Two headlines on the same webpage of a daily paper -
1. A pint a day keeps the doctor away.  Regular drinking preserves "good cholesterol" levels.
2. Drinking just one pint of beer a day raises the risk of contracting prostrate cancer by more than a fifth.
Talk about conflicting messages!

Ha ha - American style.

A millionaire, a misogynist and a racist walk in to a bar.  And the barman says "What can I get you, Mr Trump?"

Oh dear, oh dear!

What's with Nigel Farage?  Up until now, as far as I am concerned, he's been an amiable buffoon - good for a laugh with some way-out ideas, but essentially good-natured.  But now it seems he's turned into a Donald Trump Mini-Me.  His recent rant against Obama where he described him as "a loathsome individual" was most un-Farage-like.  So the question is - was he always like that beneath the surface, or is he simply seeking to hitch a lift on the Trump wagon?  I sincerely hope it's the latter and only temporary.

OMG!!

So, I've let the dust settle somewhat before blogging about the US presidential election.  Don't think the delay has really helped though - I'm still in shock.  The perceived wisdom is that, as with the brexit vote here, this was the result of a groundswell of opposition to the "establishment" rather than people really voting "for" anything.  There are indeed spooky similarities with the brexit vote, and just as we over here are seeing those who voted leave starting to become disillusioned and annoyed as they realise they may not get what they thought they were voting for, I wonder if the same thing might happen over there as Trunp - as he inevitably must - reins back on some of his more outlandish pronouncements. Have a feeling that there's still some mileage left in this whole business.

Brainteaser - solution.

Most people see this as a logic problem and concentrate on trying to make sense of the three statements, whereas what you need to focus on is - where is the car? 
We know it's in one of the boxes, so -
If it's in box 1, then the statements on boxes 1 and 2 are both true, and as we know only one statement can be true, it can't be in Box 1.
If it's in Box 3, then the statements on both Boxes 2 and 3 are true, so it can't be there.
So it must be in Box 2.  Does this work?  Yes, if that's where it is then the only true statement is the one on Box 3.
As is always the case - easy when you know how.

We will remember them...

Brainteaser

I liked this one, which involves a nice bit of misdirection -
You are presented with three boxes and told that one of them contains a car.  The car is yours if you can work out which box it's in.
Each box has a statement written on it.  You are told that only one of these statements is true,
The statement on Box 1 reads "The car is in this box"
The statement on Box 2 reads "The car is not in this box"
The statement on Box 3 reads "The car is not in Box 1"
Can you work out where the car is?  Solution  tomorrow.

What price privacy?

Difficult to know whether this statement made on behalf of Prince Harry concerning the press coverage of his girlfriend will make things better or worse. I certainly feel ashamed that the media are so desperate to sell more papers or generate more viewers that they are prepared to potentially ruin a relationship to do so.  But then, as has been said before, if we readers and viewers didn't want to read or look at this stuff, they wouldn't bother to publish it, so just who are the "baddies" here? And the other side of the coin is of course the situation which existed back in the 1930s when the rest of the world knew what was going on between Edward and Mrs Simpson, but the press here decided that we should be kept in the dark.  Not straightforward, is it?

You wouldn't believe it, but...

...if you are blind, you can get a TV licence for half price!

Help - I want out!

The recent furore about Brexit has led to the resignation of an MP.  Except that an MP cannot resign. Rules going back to the early 17th century dictate that the only way a sitting MP can lose his or her seat is by death, disqualification or expulsion. Another long-standing rule is that you cannot be an MP if you hold an office of the Crown, so various purely theoretical Crown offices have come into being to enable MPs to apply for them and thus disqualify themselves.  The most famous of these is the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern - more commonly referred to simply as "the Chiltern Hundreds".

Is there anybody there?

As ye sow, so shall ye reap, goes the old saying.  I've commented several times about the way the office of Lord Chancellor has been devalued and neutered over the last decade, and now the chickens have come home to roost.  One of the Lord Chancellor's prime functions is to protect the independence of the Judiciary, and yet when that independence has been called into question following the recent decision of the High Court concerning the conduct of the Brexit negotiations, where is the Lord Chancellor? Good question!

So, what's next??

Well, we talked about this back on 1st September. and now the courts have decided that the Government does need Parliamentary approval before proceeding with Article 50.  The irony is that those who, pre-referendum, were most vociferous in demanding that we take back our sovereignty are now those most loudly complaining about the fact that the courts have done just that, and affirmed that Parliament is sovereign and cannot be bypassed.  Hoist by your own whotsit??

Should we be sorry?

Apologies are in the news again.  We've spoken before about whether people should apologise - or be asked to apologise - for things in the past which were nothing to do with them directly.  Well, here we have the head of the Catholic church in England apologising for the way unmarried mothers back in the post-war years were pressured by the church into putting their children up for adoption.  But as I see it, it wasn't the church who were applying the pressure so much as society at large. Pregnancy outside marriage was seen back then as shameful by most people - not just churchgoers - and the pressure to put the child up for adoption usually came most strongly from the mother's own family. Adoption societies - whether church run or not - were merely providing the means - and a very important service it was as well. Consider what the situation would have been otherwise.  The Cardinal might well express disquiet at the way unmarried mothers were demonised at the time, and perhaps for the part the church's moral teachings contributed to that, but I think the church's provision of  adoption services was more a necessary concomitant of the time, and things would have been much worse without them.

Nostalgia

Scotland Yard is on the move again it seems.  Funny how the brain makes connections, isn't it?  When I read about the move, the first thing that popped into my head was WHITEHALL 1212, which was the Yard's old telephone number, which you were always told to ring if you had any information to give the police - this was in the days before the 999 system.  Although there is no longer any reason to 'phone Scotland Yard, I understand the number still ends in 1212.

The wheel turns...

The question of the wearing of remembrance poppies on football shirts in international games has raised its head again.  You may wish to refer back to my post of 10th November 2011, which was the last time it hit the headlines.  This time it's even more pertinent because it concerns a match between England and Scotland which will take place on Armistice Day itself - November 11th.  FIFA are still refusing to allow poppies to be displayed on shirts, maintaining, as they did before, that the poppy is a political symbol.  I seem to remember that back in 2011, a compromise was reached whereby players were allowed to wear armbands with the poppy symbol on, so we have a precedent, even though it's one which will probably not fully satisfy anybody.

The last shall be first?

The winner of the Tour de France of course gets great publicity and the opportunity to make a lot of money, but did you know that there is also considerable competition to finish last?  The rider who finishes in last place is known as the Lanterne rouge - the red lantern - and as a result also garners a fair amount of publicity and notoriety. So if you know that you are going to finish well down the field, it's well worth trying for last place!