Hay anchoas?

Tapas - don't you love them? One of my regrets at not travelling abroad any more is that I miss going into a Spanish bar and ordering a drink together with a pincho (couple of mouthfuls) or a ración (decent sized portion) of jamon serrano, patatas bravas, chipirones and so on. You do get tapas bars in this country, but frankly they're not the same - perhaps it's not just the food, but the Spanish climate and laid-back atmosphere that you also need. Apparently in Spain tapas consumption is used as a measure of economic confidence - a bit like champagne is here.

Well, fancy that!

"One in three 11-16 year-olds say they are upset, depressed, angry or stressed most of the time, according to an NSPCC poll". Another example of stating the obvious - the moody stroppy teenager has always been a fact of life. I'm only surprised that the figure is as low as one in three.

Why??

I hope there will be an inquiry into the decision by the police to close a large section of the M5 following an accident in which a car left the motorway and collided with a power pylon. This resulted in motorists being gridlocked for some five hours. It may be that the police action was justified, but at first glance it seems to have been a massive over-reaction. Hence the need for an independent inquiry. There have certainly been suggestions that the police acted as they did simply "because they could", and I would have thought the police themselves would want the full facts brought out for public scrutiny.

Ha ha.

Here's the joke which has been rated as the funniest of all time -

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend has collapsed - I think he's dead! What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

Music Man

The recent death of Ian Wallace brought to mind that marvellous pairing of Flanders and Swann, who were responsible for a whole raft of comic songs of the highest quality. I remember going to see their show "At the drop of a hat" in London in the 60s I think it must have been. Even if these names mean nothing to you, I'm sure you've heard of "The Hippopotamus Song" - you know, "Mud, mud, glorious mud"? And then there is "The Gnu Song" with that priceless line - "I'm a gnu, agnother gnu..." But my particular favourite of theirs is "A Transport of Delight" extolling the virtues of "that big six-wheeler scarlet-painted London transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower omnibus." Hold very tight please.

Tweet, tweet.

There's some good in everything you see. I've never been able to understand Twitter, or see why anybody would be bothered to make use of it. But now it appears that the twitterati, as they are called, have struck a blow for the freedom of the press. It seems that, at the behest of a certain company, the courts issued an injunction forbidding the Guardian newspaper from publishing a certain Parliamentary question, or of any details which might be used to identify it. The Guardian instead ran the story of the ban, and apparently within minutes, tweets were appearing identifying the question and the company involved. As a result, the company are not proceeding further with their injunction. What I can't understand is how the injunction came to be issued in the first place - surely the reporting of Parliamentary business is privileged?

Showing too much leg(g)?

I'm sure we're all finding a great deal of amusement - and maybe for some of us, quiet satisfaction - at the way MPs are once again being hounded about their expenses. But has Sir Thomas Legg gone too far? He was asked to consider all claims by MPs for expenses over the last five years "against the rules and standards in force at the time". Those words are crucial, because he quite deliberately and blatantly has not done that. He has ignored the rules and standards in force back when the claims were made, and instead has imposed his own rules and standards and judged the claims against those. It is as though some aspect of your behaviour in the past were being judged, not on whether it was right and proper at the time, but on whether it conforms with the personal views of some individual today. I can well understand MPs taking a dim view of this.

Things ain't what they used to be.

I've been watching re-runs of "Steptoe and Son" on one of those channels which specialise in nostalgia, and the though occurred to me the other day - if somebody came up with the idea for Steptoe and Son today, would anybody dare make it? After all, it breaches just about every aspect of the code of conduct to which modern TV programmes are suppose to adhere. And what about "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" or "Faulty Towers" not to mention "Till Death Us Do Part"? Indeed, could you get away with "Round the Horne" on the radio today? So what's changed? Have we all become more sensitive to others' feelings, or is it simply that those "others" have become more strident in asserting what they consider to be their "rights"? Whatever, they certainly don't make sit-coms like they used to - and I for one think that's a shame.

Global warming?

Interesting (or to use Al Gore's word - inconvenient) fact. Average global temperatures have not in fact increased since 1998.

'Twas ever thus...

I hold no particular brief for Sharon Shoesmith, nor for the social services department of Haringey council but I've seen enough sacrificial lambs go to slaughter to protect the reputations of the great and good to suspect that there may be something in what she is saying.