Oh, who is that young sinner...

...is the title of a poem by A. E. Housman, which contains the line "they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair".  Came to mind when I saw the story of a young Scotsman who maintains he was arrested and spent a month in gaol simply because he had red hair, and a shoplifting offence had been reported as being committed by a red-haired lad.  He had an alibi, but the colour of his hair was enough to get him banged up.  Fact stranger than fiction?

Murderball? It's murder all right!

Why on earth is wheelchair rugby called that?  OK, they're in wheelchairs, but rugby??  It's not rugby, it's basketball without the hoops!  They don't use a rugby ball, and they ignore the basic rule which makes rugby what it is - that the ball cannot be passed forwards.  As far as I can see, the only similarity with rugby is that, in order to score a point, you must carry the ball into your opponent's end zone.  I feel like complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority!

It's not alright, it's not ok...

What's happening to "New Tricks"?  Jack Halford (James Bolam) has gone - DI Pullman (Amanda Redman) and Brian Lane (Alun Armstrong) are apparently on their way out. I'll put my cards on the table - I love New Tricks - it's one of the few BBC programmes I watch these days.  And it appears that there are some 7 to 8 million other viewers who feel the same.  It's the television equivalent of a comfort blanket. And I, for one, feel let down by those who have left or are leaving.  Do they not feel any loyalty to their dedicated viewers?  It's not as though they are young actors seeking to make a career for themselves - quite the reverse.  I feel very disappointed.

Ha ha.

Here's one that made me smile - and before anyone starts on about racialism and stereotyping, the person who told it was a Jew -
A devout Orthodox Jew was walking along a cliff path, when he slipped and fell over the edge.  Frantically thrashing about, he managed to grab hold of a branch sticking out of the cliff face.  As he dangled there, he looked up to Heaven and prayed  "Please God, help me.  Help me - is there anybody there?"  And he heard a voice "This is the Lord, thy God.  Let go of the branch.  Trust me, let go of the branch. Hear the word of the Lord, let go of the branch".  And the man looked down at a drop of some hundreds of feet onto some very unpleasant looking rocks, and looking up to Heaven once again he said "Is there anybody else there?"

...you saw me standing alone...

Blue moon, of course.  But what's the origin of the expression?  There are several explanations.  The "official" definition of a blue moon is the second of two full moons which appear in the same month (it's just happened in August), or the third of four which appear in the same season.  Because the moon's cycle is slightly shorter than a calendar month, this two-in-a-month or four-in-a-season event will only occur every two-and-a-bit years, which is seldom enough for it to be worthy of comment, hence the expression "once in a blue moon" for an unusual event.  But why blue? No-one knows, but there is a 16th century poem poking fun at the Church's insistence that it had all the answers, which includes the line "If they say the moon is blue, we must believe it is true".

Well I never!

I'm always reading about the result of some research or other - often on the most surprising or baffling things.  Here's one for the list - apparently if you're a beer drinker, the shape of your glass affects how quickly or slowly you will down your pint.  It seems that you will drink more slowly out of a straight-sided glass than a curved one.  Various explanations have been put forward for this, but the real mystery is that this only applies to beer - for those drinking a soft drink it makes no difference.  Work that one out if you can!

I've got a little list...

Worrying story which broke over the weekend (although it actually took place a few months back) of an Australian lawyer who was initially prevented from boarding a flight from Heathrow to Sydney because, she was told, she was on an "inhibited person list" which meant she needed special clearance before she could leave the country.  So is there such a list, and if so, what's it all about?  Nobody has been prepared to comment, but the only reason I can think of why there should be such a list, is that it consists of people who are on the point of being arrested for some serious offence, and it is to prevent them from fleeing the jurisdiction.  But this was somebody who, as far as is known, had never done anything controversial, and certainly nothing remotely criminal, seeking to travel back to her own country.  Our government, the US government and the Australian government have all denied operating such a list, so like I say, worrying.

You can't see his lips move!

The death on Saturday of Max Bygraves brought to mind what must be one of the most bizarre entertainment programmes ever produced.  He initially made his name (as did many other well known comedians) on a radio programme called "Educating Archie" - Archie being Archie Andrews, a ventriloquist's dummy worked by Peter Brough.  The act had been playing the music halls for some years, but a ventriloquist act on radio??  It was enormously successful, so obviously people didn't see the absurdity.  RIP Max.

Oh, get a move on.....!

Always fascinating when you come across a personal experience and suddenly realise that it is proving some theory you have read about.  Coming back through Arrecife airport the other week, there was (most unusually for that airport) a long queue to get through security.  So we joined the end and for some time nothing moved, then we moved on for a bit, then stopped again, and so on and so on.  And I suddenly realised that when I wasn't moving I was feeling tetchy and cross, but when I was moving, even though we were only moving slowly, and I knew we would probably stop again, I suddenly felt much better.  And I remembered an article I had read about the psychology of queueing, which said that research had found that, provided the queue is moving, however slowly, those queueing will be content, whereas what people find infuriating is "dead time" when nothing is (or appears to be) happening.  It's the same idea behind variable speed limits on motorways - people are much happier crawling at 25 mph than stuck in a stationary tail-back.

History is bunk - Henry Ford.

It's a truism that history is written by the victors, and you need to bear that in mind when judging what you read about what has happened in the past.  I thought of this recently when the story broke about the site of Richard III's grave being sought underneath a car park in Leicester.  There is now considerable doubt whether Richard was really the hunchback monster he was portrayed as by his Tudor conquerors - and Shakespeare.  And then there is the story of a two thousand or so year old poem which has been discovered and recently translated which suggests that the Roman emperor Nero and his wife Poppaea may not have been as black as history has painted them.  So always keep that pinch of salt handy.