Don't assume.

Tiger Woods says that his arrest for "driving under the influence" has nothing to do with alcohol, but was due to an "unexpected reaction" to medication he was taking. And  your immediate response (well, mine anyway) is - pull the other one.  You're in charge of your own body - you know what you're putting into it.  But do you??  It has come to light that poppy seeds - often used in posh artisan-style bread - can contain opium (which is morphine) and in sufficient quantity to show up in a drug test. So perhaps we should cut Tiger some slack?

Where was Moses...?

Funny business with BA - On Saturday there was a world-wide (it seems) shut down of their operations due to a reported "power outage".  Bank Holiday weekend of course so major chaos - and things are far from back to normal yet.  As ever, the main complaint from passengers is lack of information - it always is in situations like this.  The erks on the ground don't know what's going on, and middle management tend to "duck and cover" in case they say something which will harm their career. But top management usually come out with some sort of statement - even if it tends to be of the "we are wonderful and everything is under control" type.  But this time? The head of BA has not only refused to be interviewed, but has effectively gagged his staff from making any comment.  Like I say - strange business.

What a game!

Did you watch the Aviva Premiership Final between Wasps and Exeter on Saturday? If not, you missed a cracker.  It was a delight to see two teams who wanted to play open attacking rugby and the outcome could have gone either way.  What a contrast to the soulless biff-bang-bash of the Six Nations where it seems not losing is the main thing, and certainly takes precedence over providing any sort of spectacle.

What's one of them, then?

Helen Mirren says "everyone should be a feminist" - but what exactly is a feminist? It's one of those words which can mean different things to different people.  At the one end of the spectrum, it is somebody who believes that men and women are equal and should be treated as such, whereas at the other end it is someone who believes that women are inherently superior to men and are only held back from their rightful place by a male-dominated society.  And of course all points between,  So I think Dame Helen needs to define what she understands by the word.

Why??

One of the mysteries of the Manchester bombing is that there were firefighters on duty about half a mile away desperate to go and help, but for some reason were held back for some 90 minutes. Apparently many of them are now feeling "guilt, shame and anger" and Andy Burnham, the new "metro mayor" has promised that there will be "a full evaluation and briefing" in due course.  Certainly seems a strange business.

In vino veritas?

Overheard by a mate of mine in a pub on Tuesday - "If we want to stop them killing our kids perhaps we should stop killing theirs."

Everybody should have one!

A young girl was on the news - must have been under 11 as she was at primary school - and was talking about how she dealt with bad news, like the Manchester business.  She said she talked such things over with her Mum, but if her Mum wasn't there, or was asleep she had a teddy at the foot of her bed.  It was her worry teddy, she said, and she would write her problem down on a piece of paper and put into the teddy and zip it up.  How brilliant is that?

We are all with you.

Manchester City - United.  Well done everybody.

Quotes for life

Are you a devotee of Reddit?  I am.  If you want a site to get the little grey cells working, then this is one of the best I know.  Just use it as a springboard for your mind and your imagination.  Recently someone asked what quote from a book or film others had found most useful as a guide for life. Well, here's mine - it comes from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and I can't swear to the exact words, but it goes something like - Everything will be alright in the end - and if it is not yet all right, then it is not yet the end.  That has brought me comfort on more than one occasion.

Move on

We have an ongoing "pass the parcel" situation here in the West Mids with "travellers" who descend on some piece of land or other, are eventually evicted, and then move on to somewhere else, where the whole performance is repeated - in other words, the basic problem is never solved, just moved from place to place. Much the same thing, it seems to me, is going on in the Middle East with ISIS (or whatever we're calling them at present).  I was somewhat depressed to hear that Trump, who is currently in Saudi Arabia, intends to give a speech suggesting that leaders in the Middle East should "drive out" terrorists - which of course opens up the possibility that they will simply move somewhere else.  What we need is a solution, not just a relocation.

Other side of the coin

Actors worry about being type-cast, but I have the opposite problem - when for me an actor is so associated with a particular role, that I cannot see them without seeing them in that role.  Maxine Peake was on the box the other night in a very serious dramatic play, but all I could see was her as Twinkle in dinnerladies.

- What's the soup, Twink?

- Ministrone

- Why's it not on the board?

- Can't spell it!

Ha ha

Not really a joke (especially for the poor cameraman) but it made me smile -
While covering an outside election meeting a BBC cameraman's foot is run over by one of Corbyn's cars and injured.  It is now suggested that, in the interests of the BBC's impartiality he must allow himself to be run over by cars belonging to all the other candidates.  Like I say, not really a joke, more of a titter.

The Lazy Cook

Fake spanakopita

"Real" spanakopita is made with filo pastry, but come on folks - that's much too much like hard work!  So here's my quick and easy cheat -

You will need
2 sheets of ready-to-use puff pastry
2 eggs
Some baby spinach leaves
100g (about 4oz) feta cheese, crumbled
100g of some other creamy cheese (brie, ricotta, dolcelatte or similar) cut into small pieces

Lay one sheet of puff pastry onto a baking tray
In a bowl combine the spinach, eggs (retain a small amount of yolk) and cheese. Season well.
Pile the mixture onto the pastry sheet and cover with the second sheet.
Crimp the edges with a fork
Brush with the left-over yolk mixed with a little oil
Bake in the oven at 180C for about 30 minutes until golden

Enjoy!

Eenie, meenie....

Well, I think we've now had all the major parties' manifestos - so where does that leave me?  When I started this blog, I was knocking 70 - I'm now knocking 80 and, touch wood, still in reasonable control of my faculties, but clearly the possibility of having to be looked after does loom on the horizon.  I have a wonderful family, and I'm sure they will do their best, but should the worst come to the worst which party is offering the most attractive (or perhaps it's more the least unattractive) way forward. To the extent that you can trust anything they're saying, I find myself more and more swaying towards the LibDems.  I still feel I owe them a debt for being the only party to argue against going to war in Iraq all those years ago, and I certainly find their idea of putting 1p on the standard rate of income tax to fund social care the most equitable way of dealing with the problem.  Still undecided though.

Ummm....

I'm conflicted - I occasionally post to mark the passing of someone whose death I consider worthy of note. This is usually because they have lived an admirable/interesting/notorious life.  So what about Ian Brady who died on Monday? The name will not perhaps be that familiar to the younger generation but to anyone over about 60 it will be synonymous with Myra Hindley, Saddleworth Moor and the murder of five young children, the remains of one of whom has never been found.  So definitely not R.I.P. - in fact quite the reverse - but does that mean his death should pass without comment?  In fact of course I've answered my own question by posting this! Still conflicted though.

What's in a name - continued

I rather dashed off yesterday's post - there was much more I wanted to say, but the little grey cells wouldn't settle down.  So what's with this "Theresa May's Team"? I've had my say before about people who misuse their vote at a General Election to vote for the person they want to be Prime Minister rather than, as they should, the person they want to be their MP.  But this is far worse - here we have a political party playing the same game.  Look at it this way - I have nothing against Mrs May, but suppose she walks under a bus tomorrow?  Where then for "Theresa May's Team"?  If you were going to vote for her, what do you do now?  If you were going to vote Conservative, no problem - you see the distinction?

What's in a name?

So we no longer have a Conservative party?  Instead we now have "Theresa May's Team"??

Statistically sound?

The author Ian McEwan has come in for some stick for suggesting that, if there were to be a second rererendum on membership of the EU in a couple of years' time, the result might be different.  His premise is that in the last vote it seems the younger you were the more likely you were to vote Remain, and the older, the more likely to vote Brexit.  So in two years time there will be "... 2.5 million over-18-year olds, freshly franchised and mostly Remainers [and] 1.5 million oldsters, mostly Brexiters, freshly in their graves".  And this, he reckons, would be enough to swing the result the other way.  He may be right, but I am constantly surprised to find that my generation mostly voted Leave.  I make no bones about it - I voted Remain, and did so on the basis of "better the Devil you know" - I was not prepared to tale a leap into the dark, and I was and still am amazed that others in my age-group clearly did not feel the same

Open Sesame...

Within a matter of weeks,i it seems, you will need to log on, using a password, to access the BBC's iPlayer. So this service, which has been available freely and openly for getting on for ten years will now only be available to those who are prepared to identify themselves.  Why?  Well of course it's all about money (isn't it always?). The original idea was that iPlayer was a catch-up service - you could watch repeats of past programmes.  And because you were not watching "live" TV you didn't need a licence to do so.  But at some point - not quite sure when - iPlayer started streaming its channels as they were being broadcast, and now, technically, you did need a licence to watch this output.  But of course, a lot of people soon realised that using iPlayer, they could watch live TV for free.  So this is BBC's response - they deny that they are seeking to identify licence evaders but openly accept that they "will now use this [information] alongside our existing enforcement techniques to help identify people who are watching licence fee-funded content without a licence.”  Spot the difference?

Back to the future??

Apropos of Wednesday's post, having seen the (leaked) Labour manifesto, I am more than ever convinced that we have time-slipped back to the 60s!

Uhh???

I'm getting really confused by references to non-standard sexual classifications these days. Northamptonshire police are ditching the traditional bobby's helmet in favour of American-style baseball caps in the hope, apparently, of attracting more recruits from the "non-binary transgender community".  Who the hell are they??

Déjà vu?

I checked the calendar, and yes, this is the year of our Lord 2017.  Why was I confused?  Because I had just been listening to Jeremy Corbyn's speech launching his party's election campaign.  The one where he talked about "taking our wealth back" from the "tax cheats, the rip-off bosses and the greedy bankers", and I thought I was back in the 60s listening to Harold Wilson and his gang.  Nothing much changes it seems.

En marche??

In the coming weeks and months, it will be interesting to see just how many people voted FOR Macron, and how many were simply voting AGAINST Le Pen.

Facebook to the rescue??

Big full-page spread in the paper today giving tips on how to spot "fake news".  All very worthy, but it seems to me that it pre-supposes that people want to find out whether what they read is genuine or not.  And I would suggest that the average Joe (or Jane) in he street isn't that bothered - what matters to them is whether what they read supports their views or not.  We all look for positive reinforcement. We don't like being told we are wrong.  This is why we read the newspapers we do - because we get the comfort of knowing that their articles and reports will tend to mirror our own thoughts and beliefs, and that therefore we must be right.  Facts - who gives a toss?

£79,999 p.a.- bliss! 80,001 p.a. - disaster!

I imagine there will be people waking up this morning and reading the news who will be surprised to find that their "comfortable but not excessive" lifestyle now means they are part of the "rich" who are fair game (in the eyes of the Labour party at least) to be hit by tax increases.  The party has made it clear that it sees an income of £80,000 a year as the dividing line between the rich and the rest of us.  Oh, if it were only that simple...!

Yawn...

Well, what a bore when the opinion polls get it right!  In Thursday's local elections, the Conservatives were predicted to do very well - and they did.  Labour were predicted to do very badly - and they did. UKIP were predicted to be more or less wiped out - and they were.  The LibDems were predicted to just about hang on to what they already had - and they did.  What can I say - boring!!

Such is life

"Congratulations to Prince Phillip on retiring in financial security at a time of his choosing from a job he enjoys"  Do you find that offensive? Do you think the man himself finds that offensive?  Certainly the Labour front-bench spokesman who is responsible for that quote is being criticised for what is being described as a "shameful" comment and being called upon to apologise for it.  Can't see it myself - it seems to me a perfectly reasonable comparison to draw between the Prince's position and that of the millions who find themselves in a totally different situation. Just whether those millions would welcome the idea of working until they are 95, and whether he really "enjoys" his job are perhaps questionable issues, but the fact is that we all have to play the cards life deals us - prince or pauper.

No thank you

So the day has dawned - see post of 19/11/15.  Today is polling day for the so-called West Midkands "metro mayor".  You will not be surprised to learn that I shall not be voting.

Behind the eight-ball

So, having disposed of snooker yesterday, how about pool - the dominant potting game in America. Played on a smaller table with bigger pockets and slightly bigger, numbered balls, it comes in various flavours, each with its own rule book.  The most popular variants and eight-ball and nine-ball. Although these games only go back to the 1920s, the expression  "pool" goes back to the earliest days of billiards when players would ante-up into a pool which would be taken by the winner.

Pot as many balls as you can...

Watching the snooker at The Crucible over the weekend, I wondered where the name came from.  I knew the game was a derivative of billiards, and originated with the British Army in India in the late 19th century, but the name itself was a mystery.  Bit of a surprise then to find that the name has nothing directly to do with the game, and was originally a slang expression for an inexperienced newcomer (what we in the RAF would have called a "sprog"). and by extension, an inept performance as a result  of such inexperience.  Still can't see the connection, mind you.