True confessions

Maybe it's time to talk about it - maybe, I'm not sure, but it's been more than two months now, so maybe. Why did I go "off air" for a few weeks? Because my wife died, that's why. My wife - my love, my life, my whole being - was taken from me by a particularly aggressive cancer which took less than ten weeks to progress from first vague indications to the final act. How do you cope with that? Well in my case, you don't. You go to pieces. You weep, you rage, you see other couples and hate them for being couples. You look for a light at the end of the tunnel and realise that there is no light - the tunnel goes on for ever. And yet in many ways I'm more fortunate than many - I have family who live close, and are keeping an eye on me. I see my grandchildren regularly throughout the week (I do the school run) and that keeps me geed up. So I'm surviving - but no more than that. Just going through the motions. I hope you don't mind if I occasionally use this blog as a form of catharsis to get my thoughts out in the open.

The Humpty Dumpty approach

The death of a young Asian prisoner at the hands of his psychopathic cell-mate was surely a terrible thing, but the inquiry into it has once again focused attention on the expression "institutional racism". Am I alone in finding this an unacceptably sloppy use of the language? An institution is an organization created for a specific purpose. An organization is by definition organized - in other words it functions by a set of rules, written or unwritten. For an institution to be racist therefore, its rules have to be racist. A classic example would be the old apartheid government of South Africa, or certain Gentlemen's Clubs back in the early part of the last century, both of whom had rules specifying different treatment for different races. But the Police or the Prison Service don't have racism written into their rules and so to my way of thinking cannot be institutionally racist. If what you mean is that racism is rife within an institution, then there are plenty or words you can use - endemic, pervasive, systemic, widespread, general, rampant, sweeping, and so on and so on. So why use an inappropriate expression?

Down the drain.

You may have seen the story in the papers of the woman who was sent to prison for refusing to pay her Council Tax. Her beef was that her local authority had allowed her street to degenerate into a no-go area where drug dealers and yobs proliferated. The council's response was to say that they had put more than £750,000 into improvements in the street. A bit reminiscent of the Government's answer to recent criticisms of the NHS, pointing to all the extra millions they had put into the Health Service. Why is there this assumption that money equals improvement? As one who was involved, on a very small scale, with Civil Service finance, I can assure you that there is no such connection. What matters is not how much money is directed at a problem, but how that money is managed. A well managed small sum can work miracles - a badly managed large sum will make no difference. It may even make matters worse!

Seeing red.

I've suggested before that perhaps we need to reconsider the penalty kick, but what about red cards? Particularly red cards as a result of two yellows. Clearly transgressions need to be punished, but being reduced to ten men in the last five minutes of a game is a different kettle of fish from being down to ten men after half an hour. Is it time to take a leaf from Rugby and introduce the sin bin? Sending a man off for ten or fifteen minutes would seem to be a far more equitable solution. After all, it is now accepted that football is a spectacle as much as, if not more than a sport, so surely you have to look at things from a spectator point of view, and there's little doubt that sending a man off, particularly in the early stages of a game, more often than not ruins it as a spectacle. And people who have paid good money to watch a match - money which the game relies upon for its continued survival - surely deserve more consideration?

Flags

Interesting programme on the other night about the Union Flag, and whether it has any relevance these days. With its connections with conquest and colonialism, it's disliked, if not actively hated by many. The Scots and Welsh see themselves as Scottish and Welsh rather than British, and the only people who actively embrace the Union Flag are the BNP and the more extreme Ulster protestants - neither of whom come close to representing the views of the man on the Clapham Omnibus. I have always certainly seen myself as English first and British second, and yet if I had a flagpole, I would - except perhaps on St. George's Day, or when England were involved in some sporting competition - probably fly the Union Flag rather than the flag of St. George. Complicated, isn't it?

Ing-er-land

The media would have you believe that we are among the favourites, but am I alone in thinking we have little or no chance in this World Cup? We're not rubbish by any means, but we're so predictable and one-dimensional in attack. High balls into the box in the hope that Crouch or somebody can get on the end of them, and shots from distance - that's more or less the sum total of it. No real penetration - no guile. I hope I'm wrong, but frankly I can't see us getting past the quarter-finals.

The number of the beast.

So we've survived June 6th without any apocalyptic events - apart from the opening of a rather unnecessary remake of the film "The Omen". Of course, there are those who believe that the true demonic number is not 666 at all, but 616. Doesn't have quite the same ring though, does it? Of course, this whole numerology thing is complete tosh, because, even if you accept the basic premise, there is no agreement on what the relationship is between numbers and letters - or more to the point, you can use whatever system you wish. Which of course means that you can come up with whatever answer suits your fancy. A politician's dream!!

2 + 2 = 5? You've passed!

The news that GCSE examiners are being encouraged to ignore mistakes when marking papers will inevitably lead to accusations that exam results just don't mean anything any more. So are exams easier than when I took mine, some 50-odd years ago? They're certainly different, but what's even more different is the method of teaching. In my day, you were taught the subject, and the exam was a test of how well, or badly, you had understood what you had been taught. Today you are taught to pass the exam, and your exam result is more a measure of how well the teacher has performed, rather than any indication of your understanding of the subject.

Braveheart...?

The Scottish First Minister has come in for some stick for publicly saying that he would not be supporting England in the World Cup. But why should he? There has always been a healthy rivalry between Scotland and England where football is concerned, just as there has equally been between Wales and England in the case of Rugby (Union). Apparently a best-selling T-shirt in Scotland is one which says: "I only support 2 teams - Scotland and any team that England plays". I'm sure if Scotland had qualified the majority of English supporters would be rooting for their opponents. That's the way it is and always has been. Unfortunately, there's always an idiot minority who take things too far, and apparently an Englishman living in Scotland has had his windows put in for displaying the flag of St. George, and has been publicly abused in the street for wearing an England shirt. Mind you, you have to wonder whether it was a terribly sensible thing to do. Shall we all just grow up?

Own goal?

Incandescent fury in the media at the sentence handed out to a paedophile who abducted and abused a three-year-old girl. Even the Home Secretary has weighed in to criticise it. Much is made of the fact that the man concerned could be released in just under six years. Of course, the important word here, which has mainly been ignored, is "could". This is simply the earliest point at which he could be considered for parole - there is absolutely no guarantee that he would get it. But let's look further into this. The judge's basic sentence was "life", but the judge is then bound to set a tariff - essentially the maximum the prisoner will serve - this he set at 18 years. You may argue whether or not that is long enough, but it's certainly a long time. However, the judge is then bound to give a discount for the fact that the accused pleaded guilty at the earliest possible moment. This is one-third, reducing the term to twelve years. He then has to reflect the fact that, subject to good behaviour, all prisoners (other than true "lifers") are considered for parole after serving 50% of their sentence - hence the six years which has caused the outrage. But as you will see, the judge was simply following the rules. And who makes the rules? A body called the Sentencing Guidelines Council. And who appoints the members to that council? The Lord Chancellor, and (you've guessed it) the Home Secretary!!