Sod off!!

Well I suggested some three years ago that, rather than trying to stop them going, we should concentrate on stopping those who have gone to Syria to join ISIS from coming back into this country.  And it seems the powers-that-be have finally caught on to the idea - it is reported that some 150 British "jihadists" have been stripped of their citizenship, which means that they no longer have the right to return here.  But apparently we can only do this if they have dual citizenship with some other country. It seems it is illegal to make a person stateless - though for the life of me, I can't see why that should be so.  Still - it's a start.

Beware!

I hadn't the first idea that cherry stones contained cyanide.  A man from the north-west of the country found out the hard way when he crunched up a few and ended up in hospital having, according to the hospital, consumed a potentially lethal dose of the poison.  And it's not just cherry stones it seems - the stones of apricots, peaches and some other fruits are similarly poisonous if chewed.  Why anybody would want to, mind you, is another question.

Charlie Gard

Now the poor mite has finally passed away, can I say that in my opinion,the only person to have come out of this sorry mess with any real credit is Mr Justice Francis. He alone, it seems to me, has kept his eye on the ball and consistently put the welfare of the child front and centre.  Everyone else - however much they might have believed they were acting in Charlie's interests - had their own agendas, and it was he alone who kept cutting through the crap and holding everybody's feet to the fire.  Well done Judge, and rest in peace, little one.

Are you one?

So what exactly is "transgender"?  Donald Trump has said that transgender people cannot serve in any capacity in the U.S. military, but my (perhaps imperfect) understanding is that transgender people are those who feel their physical body does not reflect their true gender.  In other words it is those who feel they are trapped in the wrong sort of body, sex-wise.  The point I make is that this is essentially a mental thing - so how are you going to identify them, if they don't wish to be identified?

Food, glorious food.

As it's the start of the six-week summer holiday, here's something I have never understood - if it is Government policy that children whose parents are in receipt of certain benefits should get a free meal every school day, then this is presumably done on the basis that these children are deemed by the Government to need the nutritional benefits of such meals, and it is accepted that, for whatever reason, their parents may not be in a position to provide it.  So what about school holidays? What about weekends?   What about other days when, for whatever reason, the school is closed?  The need, if in fact it exists, does not stop because the school is shut.  Logic suggests that either such a meal should be provided for them every day or not at all.

Read it before you sign!

As I see it, these people who are complaining about the practical effects of having purchased a leasehold property are either stupid - in which case they have only themselves to blame - or they have been badly advised, in which case they should consider suing the solicitor and estate agent who acted for them in the sale. Perhaps it was more common in my day, but leasehold is a perfectly straightforward concept - you buy the house but not the land it stands on.  As such, the house should cost less, but you will have to pay rent to the owner of the land, and your rights and responsibilities in this respect will be set out in the lease you sign with them. So, if you've read it, you will know exactly where you stand and how much you will have to shell out and what increases there might be in the future.  And if you haven't read it, then more fool you.  Of course, you might have relied on your solicitor to do that for you, and if he/she didn't make things clear, then your beef is with them. The lease can only be altered by mutual agreement, so if the original landowner sells it on to someone else, the terms remain the same.  The hard-luck stories making the news all seem to be based on the house owner not being fully aware of the terms of the lease. The question is - whose fault is that?

What's the point?

I had little time for Princess Di while she was alive, and now it's coming up to the twentieth anniversary of her untimely death, we are being bombarded with retrospectives of her life.  Princes William and Harry are queuing up to tell us stories about her and the effect her death had on them. Not sure this really helps.  Most mothers are wonderful in the eyes of their children, and I don't think the Princes telling us how wonderful their mother was really adds anything to the sum of human knowledge.  Just let her rest in peace.

I am X!

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I find it difficult to get my head round this concept of being able to choose what gender you wish to be - and now it seems you will be able to change gender by simply filling in a form!  And what the hell is "non-binary"? I think I've said before that I can just about relate to someone who feels they are a woman trapped in a man's body, or vice versa, but not knowing what you are?? Seems to me we are simply pandering to the egocentrics and narcissists who just want to feel important and have their "five minutes of fame".  "Look at me - I'm different" sort of thing.  Like I say, I come from a generation where such concepts were unknown - question is, were they there but not talked about or did they simply not exist?  I have this theory that once you put a label on something (like "non-binary") it becomes a "thing" and takes on a life of its own.  So in my day, the words did not exist and so the concepts did not exist.  And I think I preferred it that way!

Told you!!

So now the BBC is scrambling around trying to justify the salaries it is paying to its top earners (see last Friday's post).  What a mess!  A little surprisingly perhaps, the main problem has turned out to be the disparity between what they are paying their top men and what they are paying their top women.  Now if you are working a machine which churns out widgets or whatever, then clearly you should be paid for what you produce, irrespective of gender, but I'm not sure that such a simplistic system applies to TV presenters. Should Gary Lineker and Clare Balding, for example, be paid the same because they both introduce and host sport programmes?  Not so simple - and that's not to suggest Lineker should be paid more - perhaps Balding should be paid more - but I don't think you can necessarily equate what they both do. Lineker is Lineker and Balding is Balding.  The labourer is worthy of his or her hire. As I said last Friday, knowing what other people are earning is simply a recipe for friction and discord.

If you wait long enough...

A Department of Transport document setting out strategy concepts for air travel for the next 30-odd years has come up with the idea of passengers' luggage being collected from their homes, or some local pick-up point, rather than having to be checked in at the airport,  Well, it must be getting on for fifteen years ago, my wife and I went on holiday to Gran Canaria and stayed at a hotel where precisely this system operated.  On the morning of the day of departure, you took your cases down to the hotel basement where staff from the airport were waiting to check it in and give you your boarding passes.  So when you got to the airport, you walked straight through to the departure lounge, and the next time you saw your luggage was when it came off the carousel at Birmingham.  And we thought at the time - why can't everybody do this?  Of course, Gran Canaria airport is a relatively small one.  I suppose the bigger the airport, the more complex the procedure becomes, and the greater the chance that your luggage will get lost or end up in Timbuktu or wherever.

Stupidity??

Whose idiotic idea was it to make the BBC publish a list of who earned what?  It was foolhardy on so many levels and can do nothing except foment envy and bad feeling, not to mention providing priceless information to the opposition. What on earth did they think it would achieve?  Is this an attempt to bring the BBC to its knees? Difficult to understand it any other way.

Cloth ears!

Regular readers of this blog (Hello?  Is there anyone out there?) will know that I live close to the town of Walsall here in the West Midlands.  Big excitement on local social media recently suggesting that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be visiting the town with their children - several people having "heard it on the news". What's happened is that Walsall in the local Black Country dialect is pronounced "Worsull" and this is easily confused with Warsaw, the capital of Poland, which is where said Royals are actually visiting. Put your union flags away, folks!

It's my ball and I'm going home!

Apparently President Trump has said that he still wants to come on an official visit to this country.but not until he is assured of a "better reception".  He has asked the Prime Minister to prepare a "warm welcome" before he will agree to set a date.  Well, as it's unlikely that the British people's feelings towards him will change in the foreseeable, that means there's a fair chance he will never come.  Result!!

Compare and contrast.

Ironic that we are at one and the same time discussing the case of Charlie Gard, a small child suffering from a catastrophic terminal condition only kept alive by machines, where the state have determined that the kindest thing is that he should be allowed to die, and Noel Conway, a 67-year-old man who is suffering from motor neurone disease with only months to live, and who wants to die at a time of his own choosing, but the state has determined he should live until the disease eventually kills him.  Don't know about you, but I find it difficult to reconcile those two approaches.

Doctor Who

Well it's happened, and now it has, despite what I've said in the past, I'm not sure how I feel about a female Doctor.  But I'll give it a shot and we'll see.

The "lippie index"

Well we all know about the theory that there is a relationship between women's skirt length and the health of the economy - and maybe a similar relationship with the height of their heels (see 23/3/13).  But a new one on me is the idea that when the economy is in trouble, women tend to buy more lipstick.  It seems women like their beauty products, but when times are tough, they will look for the "maximum bangs for their buck" as it were, and lipstick gives them that.  John Lewis are reporting significantly increased sales and this is being seen as a sign of tighter economic times ahead.

Ladies and Gentlemen....

....and those who aren't sure or can't make up their minds.  Anybody else fed up with the way these minority groups are setting the agenda for the rest of us? Transport for London have decreed that public announcements should no longer start "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen" (for example) but should now be "Good morning, everybody".  Nothing wrong with that wording, but the reasoning behind it rankles.  I like to think I am still a gentleman, and my wife was definitely a lady and I object to us and those like us being sidelined by strange folk who for whatever reason don't want to conform.

Wimbledon

So it's back to normality - we've been spoiled lately what with Andy Murray winning last year and Johanna Konta giving us a good run for our money this year.  Mind you, I'm still trying to understand how someone born in Australia of Hungarian parents ends up being British.  But like I say, it's all water under the bridge now - they're both out and we're back to our familiar "plucky loser" status.  We're used to that - we know our place!

Ha ha

So - a final joke from my latest pensioners' magazine.  It's a bit lengthy, but well worth persevering to the end, I think.

The boss wondered why one of his most valued employees was absent, but hadn't 'phoned in sick,  So he dialled the employee's home 'phone number and was greeted with a child's whisper "Hello?"
"Is your daddy home?"
"Yes, he's out in the garden" whispered the small voice.
"May I talk with him?"
"No"
So the boss asked "Well, is your mummy there?"
"Yes, she's out in the garden too"
"May I talk with her?"
Again the small voice whispered "No"
Hoping there was someone with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked "Is there anyone else there?"
"Yes" whispered the child "there's a policeman"
Wondering what the police would be doing at his employee's home, he asked "May I speak with the policeman?"
"No, he's busy"whispered the child
"Busy doing what?"
"Talking to daddy and mummy and the police dog men"
Growing more worried, he heard a loud noise in the background and asked "What is that noise?"
"It's a helicopter" answered the whispering voice
"What is going on there?" he demanded, now truly apprehensive
"The search team just landed a helicopter"
"A search team?" said the boss "What are they searching for?"
Still whispering. the young voice replied with a muffled giggle
"Me!!"

Oh dear, oh dear...

...some Conservative MP is in hot water for using the expression "nigger in the woodpile" in a speech she gave to a private meeting the other day.  It used to be a perfectly acceptable term for something important but not generally appreciated - a bit like "elephant in the room" except that that is generally used for something obvious but ignored rather than something that's not talked about because it doesn't readily occur to people's minds  Of course, it contains the infamous "n-word" and is therefore offensive to those who look to take offense wherever they can.  I would imagine that most of those taking offense are probably white - as has been mentioned before, the word is common currency among the black community.

Not free from...

The Vatican have decreed that communion wafers - which are made of bread and, according to Catholic dogma, change into the body of Christ as they are consumed - cannot be gluten-free.  Quite where this leaves coeliac Catholics, I don't know.

G&T.

Funny how drinks have a sort of social life.  Gin, which back in my youth was very much "auntie's drink" - associated with aged female relatives, - is now apparently the drink of choice for many youngsters, of both sexes.  Of course, they tend to drink it with tonic water, not perhaps realising that this combination basically started out life as medicine.  Quinine, made from the bark of the cinchona tree, is particularly efficacious against the  symptoms of malaria, but has a very bitter taste.  Malaria was rife among the colonials in India so they would take quinine but to mask the taste they would dilute it with sugar water and mix it with gin,  Tonic water today still contains quinine in small quantities and this is what gives gin-and-tonic its distinctive flavour.

Remember?

So it looks like Rooney will be going back to Everton.  Will he dare kiss the badge?

You what???!

Weird headline - "Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai graduates high school...". You may remember that this was the young girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan for daring to campaign for education for girls.  She was brought over here - to Birmingham - for treatment, and then stayed on here to go to school. She is presently awaiting her A-level results and has been offered a place at Oxford. So... we don't have high schools - they are secondary schools - and we only "graduate" from University.  Whether the headline was written by, or for, the American market I don't know, but to us it makes no sense.

Balance...

Is the BBC biased?  Certainly there are those who think it is - Liam Fox (the International Trade Secretary) for one.  He has slammed the Corporation for what he sees as anti-Brexit reporting, saying that it seems "elements of the media" appear to want Britain to fail.  And of course there was Andrea Leadsom the other day suggesting that the BBC might be "a bit patriotic" when dealing with the Brexit negotiations.  Well I was (and to the extent that it still matters, am) a Remainer, so perhaps I don't see it, and it would in any case be naïve to suggest that BBC presenters do not have their own thoughts about contentious matters and it must be difficult not to allow these to colour, however slightly, what they say.  I still maintain that the BBC gives the most balanced coverage of any of the major news outlets.

Consideration?

The idea that parents should be fined if their children are late for school has raised its head again.  Of course, you need to take any newspaper report with a pinch of salt - it may be that the question of a fine only arises in the case of persistent lateness - but, particularly perhaps in the case of persistent lateness, surely the question of why arises?  There may be good reasons why a parent finds it difficult - if not impossible - to get their child to the school on time.  So should the school make allowances in such cases?  When I was a kid, and due to circumstances outside my, or my mother's control, I had to change from being a boarder to being a day-boy I was faced with a three bus journey to get to school, and the school were good enough to allow me to miss morning prayers and get there for first lesson - ten minutes late.  They could have been arsey, but weren't.  I don't know what their attitude would have been today but I was grateful that they were prepared to meet me halfway.  Give and take, eh??

Magic money tree?

I'm sure I've been down this road before - the Government has no money!!  The government controls a certain amount of money, but this is either money which it has taken from us - you and me  - through taxation or other revenue raising methods, or money which it has borrowed, and will eventually have to be repaid (by us!).    So....? Well, when we discuss whether and on what the Government should spend money, let's keep to the forefront of our minds that this is our money we're talking about, and if it involves extra money, then it's us who will have to find it.  By the way, I use Government (capital G) to refer to the current administration, and government (small g) to refer to the concept generally. 

Ha ha

A pensioner rings up his doctor -
"Doctor, these new tablets you prescribed for me..."
"Yes?" replied the doctor
"I seem to remember you saying I'd have to take them for the rest of my life"
"Yes, I'm afraid so" said the doctor "is there a problem?"
"Well" said the pensioner "I'm concerned - you've only given me a month's supply"

Do the maths!

Much is being made of the fact that the Government was able to find £1bn to "buy" the support of the DUP while keeping a 1% cap on public sector pay.  There are some 5 million public sector workers, so if that money had been given to them, they would each have got a one-off payment of around £200.  Better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper, as the saying goes, but hardly the game-changer it's being made out to be.

Democracy??

Apparently Jeremy Corbyn intends to lead a march demanding that Theresa May step aside and allow him to become Prime Minister.   Really - this is not a wind-up.  It seems that the fact that the Labour party lost the last general election (quite badly really) doesn't count.  His ability to rally thousands of supporters onto the streets is, in his view and the view of those who support him, sufficient reason. If ever there was evidence that he should never be Prime Minister, this is it. This is the politics of mob rule.  The worrying thing is, I really think he believes he's in the right.

A vote is a vote??

I've had my say before about what I see as the danger to the electoral process of allowing people to have a postal vote without having to give a good reason for so doing,  What has now come to light is that university students can register to vote both at their home address and also at their university address, and having done so, can then vote twice, once at each address.  Indeed, many students are openly boasting on social media about having done so.  Whether this behaviour was widespread enough to significantly affect the outcome of any particular vote can never be known, but I think the whole system badly needs looking at.