Here we go again!

One of those ever-recurring themes in this blog is that of school terms and family holidays. Apparently things are much stricter since the beginning if the current academic year.  Prior to that, parents were able to apply to take their children out of school for ten days to go on holiday, and unless you came up against a particularly arsey head teacher, permission was usually granted.  Since last September however, heads have been told to refuse permission except in exceptional circumstances - whatever those are.  A couple where the father is unable to take leave during the six week summer break have been fined getting on for £1000 for none-the-less taking their children away from school on holiday to Rhodes last autumn.  So who's in the right?  Is anybody in the right?  Is this just a stupid rule that doesn't take any account of what real people living real lives have to cope with?  Everybody is taking an entrenched "holier than thou" position, but surely there must be something wrong with a rule that potentially means that there will be couples who can never again (at least while their kids are at school) have a family holiday all together without breaking the law?  Interestingly, the couple in question say that, from a purely economic point of view, they came out on top - their fine was less than the money they saved by taking the holiday in term-time!

You - no, you - no, you.....

Following the recent storms, a tree on property A has been blown over and landed on property B causing damage.  Who is responsible?  Common sense and my (admittedly old and possibly out-dated) legal knowledge says the owner of property A.  But they - or more to the point, their insurers - say that as all the damage is to property B, it is for them (or their insurers) to sort out.  Meanwhile the occupant of property B has to put up with the fact that they have a tree poking through their kitchen ceiling or wherever.  Make you sort of wonder why we bother with insurance, doesn't it?

R.I.P. - and more

Roger Lloyd-Pack - who brought us the sublime character of Trigger in "Only Fools and Horses".  He may have gone, but Trigger will always be with us, thanks to the nostalgia channels.  One of Trigger's famous boasts (he was a roadsweeper) is that he had used the same broom for 20 years - "it's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles". Which isn't as daft as you might think - some 2,000 years ago the philosopher Plutarch was discussing whether a ship which over the years had had, one by one, every bit of its parts replaced, remained the same ship.  The (very philosophical) question of course is what do we mean or understand by "the same"? As an extreme example, consider a river.  Is it the same river today as yesterday? The water's different.  Hmmm.

Where???

As a kid I could never understand why Americans referred to "Paris, France" until I realised that there are many towns and cities in the US named Paris, so they have to be specific about which they are referring to.  This came to mind the other day when I read a story about a local couple who booked a flight from Birmingham to Trinidad only to find when they got to Birmingham International Airport that their tickets were for a flight to Trinidad from Birmingham, Alabama!

Time for a change?

Anybody think Labour should appoint Chuka Umunna as their leader - like yesterday? He's personable, articulate and persuasive. Of course, if he were appointed leader whether he would be able to retain those characteristics is debatable, but it would surely be worth a try, and an improvement on what they've got at the moment.

Where's our Jimmy?

Fascinating article I read the other day which suggested that one of the most important sociological changes of the last century or so was the introduction of domestic central heating. The idea is that prior to that there would be one room in the house where there would be a fire and in the winter, and even for the most part at other times of year this would be the room where the family would gather and interact. Central heating meant for the first time that individual members of the family could spread themselves throughout the house and do their own thing in their own space. And this, according to the author of the article, was the beginning of the breakdown of the common extended nuclear family.  Interesting?

Smart move??

Am I being cynical in thinking that the reason this policeman who claimed to have heard the alleged "plebs" exchange between the government Chief Whip and policemen at the gates of Downing Street is now pleading guilty to having lied is so that he will not have to give evidence and be subject to cross-examination?  This way, we will never know why he lied, which might have been very interesting.

Nothing surprises me anymore!

Did you know that you can buy taxidermy kits for mice over the internet?  Yes, really!  It seems that there's a bit of a craze for gutting and stuffing dead mice and then arranging then in "cute" poses.  And where is this going on?  London, would you believe?

I'll have the beef stew...

A restaurant in Leeds which has been there for over 30 years, and which has made a name for itself as the place to go for steak tartare, has shut because the council have decreed that it cannot serve its signature dish unless the beef mince is pre-cooked, and raw egg is not used.  The council maintains that it has not banned the restaurant from putting steak tartare on the menu, but merely insisted that it not be prepared in the traditional way.  Which seems to me to entirely miss the point - if it's not prepared in the traditional way, then it's bloody well not steak tartare, is it?

Benefits Street

Did you watch it?  I didn't, so what brings me posting about it?  Well, it's sort of my neck of the woods - Winson Green, Birmingham - and it seems to have stirred up a lot of controversy concerning the extent to which it does, or does not represent the area and what goes on there.  So like I say I didn't watch the programme and other than having driven through it a few times I have no personal knowledge of the area, but I do know a man who knows a man who lives a couple of streets away from the road which was featured and who says - his words - it was "absolutely true to life".  So I pass that on for what it's worth.