Z is for... we'll never know

I don't read as much as I used to, but when I did I was a big fan of the Alphabet series of books starring a Californian private detective called Kinsey Millhone, so it is with sadness that I learned of the death of Sue Grafton who wrote them.  She started back in 1982 with "A is for Alibi" and had just published her latest book "Y is for Yesterday".  So, no Z, which in some strange way - to me at least - seems somehow very appropriate.

Unexpected item....

Hardly surprising that the supermarkets report that their self-service checkouts are a magnet for shoplifters. Even over 20% of those who use them admit to not paying for items they have taken through, although not all have done so intentionally.  I suppose from the supermarket's point of view it's a simple calculation - which costs them more, the amount they lose through shoplifting at the self-service checkouts, or the amount they would have to pay to employ real people to man the same number of traditional checkouts?  I reckon that the fact that the self-service ones are still there - indeed in my experience they are increasing in number, means that they have made their choice.

Get 'em while they're fresh!

Apparently Easter eggs are already in the shops!

Colonialism.

I know I've been down this road before, but feel pride in our nation's history, or feel ashamed of it - both positions are acceptable - but please don't try to pretend it never happened, or to re-write it.

Wait and see?

Big hoo-haa about changing the colour of our passports.  All very symbolic and all that, but from what I can see judging by the pictures in the papers, they've got the colour all wrong.  I still have my old passports, and they were a very, very dark blue - almost black.  Nothing like the various shades of blue being suggested.

It's the subtext, silly.

So it's the first day of the twelve days of Christmas (see 6/1/06), and according to the rhyme, you should give your true love a partridge in a pear tree.  Bit why on earth?  Doesn't make sense.  Indeed, the more you look at The Twelve Days Of Christmas, the less sense it makes, and you are driven to the conclusion that it is in fact just a nonsense rhyme.  But why?  Well, for the best part of 300 years from the middle of the 16th century, it was dangerous, if not actually illegal, for Roman Catholics to practice their faith in this country.  To keep their beliefs alive they devised various seemingly innocent ways of passing them on to their children, and this was one such.  The Twelve Days become twelve important facts for children to remember - one for the one God, two for the Old and New Testaments, three for faith, hope and charity, four for the four gospels, and so on.  So forget the partridge - unless you're having one for dinner - yummy!

Compliments of the season...

...to one and all.

Christmas Eve Box

For those with young children, a good idea which seems to have arisen over the last few years, and which, for once, does not seem to have originated in the US as a money-making exercise.  Although you can buy then ready-filled, they are much more appropriate if custom filled by you.  The idea is to give the kids something to do on this, the most difficult day of the Christmas period, when all they want to do is to see the day out waiting for tomorrow.

Christmas Trivia (3)

I'm sure you've all received your Christmas cards by now, and I would be very surprised if at least some of them did not feature a robin.  But what is the association between Christmas cards and robins?  Well it goes back to Edwardian/Victorian times when postmen wore red coats (it was, and still is, the Royal Mail and red was considered a royal colour) and because of that they got the nickname of "robins".  As Christmas - more perhaps back then than today - was a time when you eagerly watched out for the postman to bring cards and presents the idea of the robin as a Christmas bird was born.

Christmas Trivia (2)

We know that Santa Claus is based on St Nicholas - a real 4th centuary bishop.  Given our modern version of him as a jolly gift-giving person, it may come as somewhat of a nasty surprise to find that he was - and presumably officially still is - the patron saint of bankers, pawnbrokers, pirates and thieves.

Christmas Trivia

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...  four calling birds, right?  Well no - originally it was four colly birds.  Colly is an old English word meaning black (hence colliery) so they were blackbirds.  Just when or why they changed to calling birds is not clear but it was probably around the time when the word colly fell out of use,

Sub rosa

What's it mean?  Well, literally "under the rose" but it has taken on the meaning of "in secret".  The idea goes back to the medieval custom of hanging a rose from the ceiling of a room where a meeting was to take place, as a sign that anything said or done there was not to be spoken of outside that room.  You may well see a rose carved above the confessional booth in a church, indicating the secrecy of the confessional.

Little green monsters?

Brussels sprouts - the Marmite of the vegetable world.  People either like them or loathe them.  But if you like them, how many should you have?  Many as you want?  I ask because Leicestershire County Council have sent out a tweet to its residents saying that they should have no more then six each.  The stated intention is to prevent waste, but of course it has produced everything from cries of outrage and nanny-state-ism to witty replies.  I particularly liked the idea that there should be an amnesty for those who have overbought with the provision to post your excess sprouts through the Council's letter-box.

Racist bells?

A Boston University professor has claimed that "Jingle Bells" has racist roots because it was first performed in "black face".  For sure it's an American song, which originally had no association with Christmas, and as far as can be ascertained was first performed in 1857 as part of a minstrel show in Boston.  A minstrel show back then would almost certainly have been performed totally in black face.  So does that justify the professor's assertion?  Seems to me a bit like saying that "Three Little Maids From School" is racist because it comes from "The Mikado" which is traditionally performed in what might be called "yellow face".  I rather liked a tweet commenting on the professor's statement which ended "What the hell happened to the America I grew up in where people didn't wake up every day trying to find something to be offended by?"  Well said.

Where's me day orff?

It seems that Prince Harry and Thingy arranging their wedding for Cup Final day has upset some people.  Can't see the problem myself - wedding will be in the morning and the Cup Final is tea-time.  So what's the beef?  I've a feeling that this is more about the disappointment that we won't be getting an extra public holiday for the wedding, as perhaps was expected.

Nice soft hands? Please step this way.

If you're flying, you may wish to consider your use of hand cream.  Apparently much hand cream - especially the more expensive brands - contain significant amounts of glycerine, which is first cousin to nitroglycerine, which is a constituent of explosives and may well set off the alerts at airports and involve you in - at the very least - embarrassment .

Donner and chips please...

Kebab eaters relax - the European Parliament has blocked the Commission's attempt to outlaw the use of phosphates in cooked meats - see post dated 2nd of this month.  Phew!

Oh look, there's a space...oh, it's gone.

It's a situation all drivers are familiar with - especially at this time of year - you enter a car park and it's heaving, with cars circling round looking for spaces.  It takes you maybe 10 minutes or more to find a space.  This car park charges you for parking by the hour.  Question - when should you start being charged?  When you entered the car park, or when you eventually found a parking space?  The answer seems so obvious, and until recently there was no problem - you parked and then went to the machine and got a ticket, and that was the point at which you started paying,  So what's changed?  These Automated Number Plate Recognition cameras that's what.  They are invariably positioned at the entrance and exit of the car park and record your time of arrival and departure.  And that very often is considered to be your length of stay and for which you will be charged.  Rip-off?  You bet!  One brave motorist has recently challenged a penalty notice he received for overstaying his hour's parking saying that his stay had been calculated from time of arrival to time of departure, rather than from time of parking to time of return, and won his case.  Would like to think this will set a precedent, but am not holding my breath!

Oh, Doctor Beeching!

Story about rail passengers being sold tickets for trains which the rail companies know will not run over the Christmas period due to engineering works brought to mind an experience my Mum and I had back in the 60s.  I think I've mentioned before that my Mum had a schoolfriend who married a Welshman and they lived in Wales and every now and then we used to go and visit them.  We would catch the train and get off at a small one-man-and-his-dog station called Moat Lane Junction.  Well this one time we were there, sitting on the train, and suddenly realised it had gone straight through Moat Lane Junction without stopping.  So we found the guard (trains had on-board guards back then) and kicked up a fuss, only to be told that Moat Lane Junction had been closed down about six months previously as part of the Beeching cuts and we should never have been sold tickets to there.  We had to get off at the next station, which was Machynlleth, and my post dated 20-3-12 mentions what happened there!

Who needs Bake-Off?

Big argument chez Random the other day when we'd all gathered for a communal meal and it came to the dessert.  It was definitely a plum something, made with pastry but what? And I remembered my Mum telling me way back - a pie has a pastry top and bottom - a tart only has pastry on the bottom.  So I was able to definitively state that we were eating plum tart,  A quiche, by the way is a tart with an egg custard based filling.

Gorra pencil?

We refer to "lead" pencils, but in fact they have never contained lead.  Their core is graphite, which back in the 16th century when it was first discovered, was thought to be a type of lead.  The word "pencil" by the way, comes from the Latin and means "little brush", and has the same root as the word "penis".

Oooh, you can't watch that!

My post of 26th November seems to have taken on a life of its own  Students at Cambridge University have picked up on the idea and come up with a list of films which they consider contain examples of non-consensual sexual interactions.  Many are pretty obvious - Last Tango In Paris for example - but also included are some films which have always been considered "family films".  It's A Wonderful Life, anyone??

So-o-o?

I'm with Richard Hammond (the hamster) in wondering why some people make such a big thing out of coming out, or others coming out as gay.  Why are we so hung up about a person's sexual preferences?  I have many friends (believe it or not) and for the most part, there's plenty of things I don't know about them - I don't know their heritage, or their religious persuasion for instance, and I wouldn't think they would see any need to tell me these things.  So why would they see the need to tell me that they're straight, gay, bi or whatever?  Is it because knowing where a person stands on the sexual spectrum can avoid awkward social misunderstandings - or rather not knowing can involve you in such misunderstandings? Only reason I can think of.

Our Father...

I imagine that most people have a working knowledge of The Lord's Prayer, whether they class themselves as religious or not.  So it comes as something of a surprise to find that the Pope wants to change the wording.  The bit he's worried about is the part that says "lead us not into temptation".  Now the basic concept of this, like any prayer, is that we are talking to God - so we are asking God not to lead us into temptation - and it can be argued that the inference is that - unless we ask him not to - God will lead us into temptation. which of course goes completely against the basic Christian belief in a benevolent God.  The Pope would rather we copied the French, and changed the wording to "do not let us fall into temptation" which makes it clear that it is us who are in danger of falling into temptation, rather than it is God who might lead us there.

Compare and contrast

Started writing my Christmas cards this week.  Food for thought - cost of a card 10p (£3 for a box of 30)  Cost of a second class stamp to post it - 56p

R.I.P.

Christine Keeler and THAT photo of her sitting astride THAT chair.  Feel I've lost part of my personal history.  

Here we go again!

Throughout my life, the one constant fly in the ointment has been Ireland.  And obviously this is a sequence not meant to be broken.  Here we are, on the cusp of an agreement with the EU which will enable the Brexit talks to progress and guess who's intent on throwing a spanner in the works?  Of course it's all our fault - we created the Ireland "problem" and it's only fair really that it keeps tripping us up.

How much???

I wonder what those who were swayed by the big red bus with its implied promise that leaving the EU would free up £300-odd million a week to potentially spend on the NHS, now feel about the prospect of leaving, far from bringing money in, will cost us something like £60 billion, and maybe more.

Hush, hush, whisper who dares...

Really??  Did an Anglican minister really suggest that people should pray that Prince George - who remember is only four years old - is gay?  This seems wrong and inappropriate on so many levels - not least that if there is in fact such a thing as the power of prayer, this surely devalues it.

You want chilli sauce with that?

If you're a fan of the doner kebab better look away now, or hope that we get a lightning Brexit.  Why - well, it's all to do with phosphates apparently.  These are additives which keep cooked meat moist and flavoursome, but have also been associated with cardiovascular disease, so the EU are considering banning their use.  But only for kebab meat it seems - which has produced howls of outrage from the Turks, who see it as a deliberate attempt to disadvantage Turkish-owned businesses.  And what are we supposed to eat at 1.30 in the morning when we're kicked out of the pub??

And the moon is made of green cheese

It appears there are still those who believe the earth is flat.  Hard to believe now we have pictures from satellites showing a very round earth.  But you don't have to go into space to prove it - the ancient Greeks realised that simply observing approaching ships as they appeared over the horizon - top of the mast first - could only be explained if the ship was travelling uphill relative to the observer. And as this phenomenon was observable irrespective of where the observer was and which direction he was facing, the only possible explanation was that the earth was a sphere.