I believe...

To hold a point of view is a good thing - it shows and open mind.  To try and force that point of view on others is a bad thing - it shows a closed mind.

Well, hi there!

Remember my post about cousins?  I was suggesting that, if you take any two people at random from the whole world. and go back far enough, you will find that they share a common ancestor and are therefore cousins of some sort.  So although the papers have latched on to the story, I was not at all surprised to find that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are "long lost cousins" thanks to a common 15th century ancestor.  You read it here first!

Apocalypse update.

Thought you'd heard the end of  Nibiru?  Having failed to bring about the end of the world back in September, it's having another go - the new end of the world  date is November 19th.  Hang on to your hats!

Blow or grow?

The Royal British Legion have decided to launch this year's poppy appeal by printing out John McCrae's famous poem "In Flanders Fields" in poppies at various sites around the country.  Except that they have chosen to use the version which starts "In Flanders fields the poppies blow....".  I was always taught that it should be "In Flanders fields the poppies grow...."  and indeed we have the poem written out by the man himself which quite clearly uses the word "grow".  So where did "blow" come from?  There are various theories but, given that the poet himself wrote it as "grow" surely that should be the definitive version?  Further, I think it gives the poem a nice symmetry - first line "In Flanders fields the poppies grow..." and the final line "though poppies grow in Flanders fields".

Phew...!

It seems my jaw was not the only one to hit the floor - see last Sunday's post.  The World Health Organisation has apparently withdrawn its intention of making Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador.  So the only thing outstanding is - which idiot thought of the idea in the first place?

Well, fancy that!

There has always been this theory, particularly amongst Jewish mothers, that the best home treatment for colds and 'flu is chicken soup - to the extent that such soup is generally known as "Jewish penicillin".  But now modern science has established that there is some basis for this and that it can be shown that chicken soup can significantly reduce upper respiratory tract inflammation.  Listen to your Mama!

Look for the silver lining.

Go back five years and you will find a post about the Church Of Scientology planning to make its UK Headquarters in Birmingham.  Well, it opened the other day with what has been described as "secretive razzamatazz".  Which means that there were lots of (Scientology) bigwigs present, many speeches and the building was dressed in blue ribbons, but no outsiders were allowed to attend, and certainly no reporters.  As I mentioned all those years ago, the one positive aspect of all this is that they have renovated the old Pitmaston building, which otherwise would almost certainly have been demolished and the site sold for housing.

Play it again Sam...

...which, by the way is one of those false quotes - it was never said.  But, fascinating fact - watch the film (Casablanca) and you will never see Dooley Wilson's (Sam's) fingers on the keyboard - why?  Because Wilson couldn't play!  This most iconic scene was faked - the piano playing was all done off-screen by one Elliot Carpenter.  Does this in any way devalue the film?  No way!!

Do you remember...?

So Wimpy is looking to make a come-back?  The once ubiquitous fast food chain was more or less put out of business by the rise of those American invaders McDonald's and Burger King.  But they never went completely out of business and still have some 80 stores scattered  around the country.  And now they've got expansion plans.  Will they succeed?  Can they succeed?  The fast food market is pretty crowded - I think they will have to do something more than play the nostalgia card.  I wish them well, though.

Oh, come on....!

Trump has his "fake news" stories - I have my "jaw-dropping" news stories.  You know the sort of thing - you read them once and think "that can't be right", so you read them again, and again with mounting incredulity - but they don't change.  Here's one - the World Health Organisation has named Robert Mugabe a goodwill ambassador.  I rest my case.

What's sauce for the goose...

I don't entirely agree with the principle, but given that it seems the done thing lately to talk about revoking honours given to individuals who have since done something considered incompatible with that honour, should we be thinking about whether to revoke Malta's George Cross?

Ha ha

Bloke dies and goes to heaven.  St Peter says  OK, we've had a look at your file, and frankly you haven't done anything particularly good, nor anything particularly bad,  Not sure what to do with you.  Can you tell me anything you've done which might help me make up my mind?  Well, said the bloke, I saw a bunch of yobs grabbing this old lady and trying to steal her handbag, and I went up to them and told them to stop it, or they'd have me to deal with.  Gosh, said St Peter, that was quite something.  When did this happen?  Oh, about a couple of minutes ago, said the bloke,

Ummm...

Statement on the news the other day - "Three out of five hate crimes go unreported". Well, if they're unreported, how do they know?

Erm...would you mind telling me...

So the next time I go to the doctor's, he's likely to enquire about my sexual orientation?  It seems this is no idle curiosity on his part, he is now required to do this.  Difficult to see the relevance.  Other than the possibility of HIV, it's hard to see any connection between my love life (assuming I had any) and my general health.  More likely to be a source of embarrassment all round, I would think.

Well, fancy that.

It was four years ago - almost to the day - that I posted about my embarrassment on finding that I had been mispronouncing quinoa.  Well here's another one - chipotle, which I've always tended to pronounce to rhyme with "bottle" whereas (and I should have known this, as it's Spanish, which is a language I am reasonably conversant with) it should be chip-ot-lay.  But what I've only recently found out is that it's not a chilli pepper in its own right - it is in fact a jalapeño pepper which has been smoked and dried.  No knowledge is ever wasted, as my Gran used to say.

Will there still be a Fat Controller?

So now it's to be Thomasina the Tank Engine?  In the interests of diversity - or political correctness, depending on your point of view -  The Rev. Awdry's creation is to be re-written for the 21st century,  introducing female and ethnic engines, and sending Thomas abroad to have adventures in foreign lands.  Even the Liverpudlian narration is to go - which of course raises the question - will it still really be Thomas the Tank Engine?

Spooky!

Are you superstitious?  Last Friday was the 13th which on its own was probably enough to make many people think twice about doing anything risky.  But if you felt like spitting in the face of fate, you could have taken it further..  The airline code for Helsinki airport is HEL and a Finnair flight from Copenhagen to Helsinki last Friday had the flight number 666.  So you could have flown on flight 666 to HEL on Friday the 13th - I wonder how many people did, or perhaps more to the point how many people were going to, but then saw the signs, and didn't?

Girls to the left, boys to the right - or is it the other way round?

A sort of "so what" story has arisen in Birmingham where a Muslim school which completely segregates boys and girls from the age of about 10 is guilty of unlawful discrimination.  And very right too, I hear you say, so why "so what"?  Well because the judgment makes it clear that it is only because this is a mixed-sex school that makes what they are doing illegal.  So all that have to do is to split the school into two separate schools - a boys school and a girls school (which is the reality anyway) and they are no longer flouting the law.  Time and money wasted?  And by the way, this is not specifically a Muslim thing - some Orthodox Jewish schools do the same thing, and even, it seems, some Christian schools, and the ruling applies equally to them.  

Here we go again??

Anybody caught sight of Nibiru yet (see post of 15th September)?  No??  Another one bites the dust?

Poly or Uni?

Back in the 1970s I studied at what was then Wolverhampton Polytechnic.  In the 90s - along with many other polytechnics, it was granted University status.  At the time, I seem to remember that it was suggested that the idea behind this was for the government of the day to be able to boast of a large increase in the number of students going on to University.  Now it is being suggested that this change was a mistake and should be reversed.  The argument is that, as Universities, they can (and do) charge University fees without necessarily giving University quality teaching, and also that, wheres as polytechnics, their teaching tended to be part theory, part practical, now they feel as Universities they must be more erudite, and have tended to drop the "hands-on" aspect of their teaching, and this is seen as A Bad Thing for the country as a whole.  Watch this space?

Hold the front page!

I'm a bit worried about this Harvey Weinstein business - yes I know this is a US matter but I have an uncomfortable feeling that, had he been British, much the same things would be happening over here.  For those who haven't been following the news, Mr Weinstein is a film producer who has been fired from his own company - the company he founded - and Hollywood stars are lining up to dump on him. Why?  Well, there's the problem.  Certain allegations of sexual harassment have been made against him.  Note that word - allegations - and at the moment that's all they are They may be true - they may not.  They may be partly true, or a matter of misunderstanding or exaggeration.  There are plenty of them - but quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality.  So what we have here is simply trial by media - they've decided he's guilty and that's that.  And like I say, I can imagine the same thing happening over here.  And that makes me feel uncomfortable.

Here we go again...

The "round pound" coin is being withdrawn from circulation next Sunday - so does that mean if you have any left they become worthless after that?  No.  Once again the concept of "legal tender" is being misunderstood.  You may want to read my posts dated 4/12/05 and 17/5/12 before you go any further.  So after next Sunday they cease to be legal tender, but that's all.  As far as using them to pay for stuff, it's down to the shopkeeper or whoever you're dealing with - they can choose to accept them if they want to.  And you can always pay them into a bank - the Bank Of England if all else fails,

Continued...

It seems that yesterday's post, far from clarifying matters, just confused people, so let's see whether we can make things clearer.  Let's suppose.for the sake of argument, that the dollar and the pound are trading at parity - so a dollar buys a pound, and a pound buys a dollar - OK?  Now let's suppose that you are a company trading on the FTSE working in dollars and this week you have made a profit of $100,000.  The FTSE record this as a profit of £100,000.  With me so far?  Now supposing next week you tread water - so once again you make a profit of $100,000.  But in the interim, the pound has weakened against the dollar. It's now only worth 98 cents - which means that a dollar is now worth £1.02 (I'm rounding and ignoring commission and such).  So as far as the FTSE is concerned, your profit this week is £100,200 - 2% better than last week even though as far as you are concerned it's exactly the same.  All down to a change in the exchange rate.  You see how it works?

Did you know...?

Don't know whether I've posted about this before - apologies if I have, but I've just had one of those "join the dots" moments.  Why, when the pound falls against the dollar, does the FTSE tend to do well, and vice versa?  Well, the majority of the companies which make up the FTSE tend to be multinationals and do their accounting in US dollars.  The FTSE on the other hand does its accounting in pounds sterling.  So company profits or losses (in dollars) have to be converted into pounds for FTSE purposes,  And if the pound weakens against the dollar - meaning your dollar buys more pounds - any profit is exaggerated on conversion into pounds and any loss reduced.  And there you have it.

To what purpose?

Is there any point in investigating an accusation against someone who is dead?  We're talking about Ted Heath of course.  A great deal of police time and money has been expended in looking into allegations of child abuse involving him going back decades.  But to what end?  The man is long dead - even if he did these things, so what?  He can't be punished - or depending on your beliefs, he is already suffering eternal punishment.  But what about the "victims"?  Isn't this all about justice for them?  Well, this supposes that they're telling the truth - the whole truth and nothing but....  Just because they've convinced a policemen who maybe was looking to be convinced in the first place doesn't really help us.  So, like I say, what's the point? Or is this all about compensation???

What a shame!

I'm sorry that Monarch Airlines has folded. We only flew with them once but my recollection is that the in-flight meal was the nicest I ever had.  What I think is questionable, is that the rad flags have been flying for several weeks, and you have to ask whether in those circumstances, the company should have been allowed to continue selling flights  - at least without telling people of the risks.  And of course a lot of people are now out of a job.

And on we go...

So now it's the Conservative conference - and all I said last week about the Labour conference goes in spades for this one.  Main difference is that last week everybody was singing from the same hymn-sheet (or else!) whereas this time you have to look for all the sub-texts - I know what he/she said but what did he/she mean, sort of thing.  Of those I have seen, I thought Hammond's speech was the best - but then again I took it on face value, and was that a mistake?

MH370

Seems pretty unbelievable in this day and age that a jumbo jet can simply disappear into thin air.  And yet, that is exactly what seem to have happened to Flight MH370 which took off three and a half years ago from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.  As best we can tell, and for reasons which we may never know, it veered off course and then vanished.  We think - think - that it most likely lies on the sea-bed somewhere in the Indian Ocean to the west of Australia - but where, and perhaps more importantly, why - we haven't a clue despite three and a half year's intensive work.  The Australian authorities, on winding up their enquiries,  have accepted that the failure to solve the mystery "is almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable".  

Volem votar!

Well, the Scottish independence referendum was a fractious affair but at least it went no further than angry words and insults.  And even if the Westminster government had declared it illegal, I would hope it would not have deteriorated into open violence.  So the pictures and stories coming out of Spain are all the more shocking.  Here the Madrid government have sent in the police to actively disrupt the attempt by the Catalonian government to hold a referendum on independence - blockading polling stations and seizing ballot boxes.  Compare and contrast, eh?

With friends like that....!

Why should we pay any attention to what Boris Johnson has to say about Brexit?  One of the most annoying aspects of the debate as far as I am concerned, is the way those who campaigned most vociferously to leave (Johnson, Duncan Smith, Gove, etc) all ran for the hills when they were faced with the possibility of actually having to put Brexit into practice, and left Theresa May, who was a remainer, to try and sort it out.  And now they are constantly sniping at her from the side-lines.  So no - you had your chance and chickened out, and now if you can't say anything helpful, just shut up!

Ah so!

I think I would like to live in Japan - they know how to treat their old people,  The latest example is their attitude to older drivers.  Unlike most other countries, which seek to get old people off he roads (I have to renew my driving licence every three years and swear on a stack of bibles that I am still physically, mentally and psychologically fit to drive) the Japanese take the view that driving keeps old people mentally alert, and getting out and about is good for their morale and social skills, so they are encouraged to keep going.