Do as I say, not...

I mentioned the Costa Concordia the other day.  It's captain is on trial for manslaughter, and is accused, among other things, of taking to a lifeboat while the majority of the passengers were still on board struggling to survive.  Not sure whether this is a criminal offence, either in Italy or here, but it certainly goes against the long-held convention that in circumstances like this, the captain is the last person to leave the ship.  So it somewhat beggars belief that he has recently been engaged to give a lecture at a University on - wait for it - "managing panic"!!

Naughty, naughty - smacked wrist!

The P M has "utterly condemned" the actions of ISIS (which we must now apparently call the Islamic State) in Iraq.  Well, blow me - I bet that has them shaking in their shoes.  The US President on the other hand has ordered food drops to those Iraqis who have taken to the hills to avoid being slaughtered and has given the go-ahead for air strikes to defend them and American interests elsewhere.  So, he's doing something whereas we're just talking.  As is often the case, the world is looking to America for action.  But is it right that the US should have to shoulder all the responsibility for policing the world?  Of course not, that is what the UN was created to do, but doesn't.  Why not?  Because the "big five" (Ourselves, France, Russia, the US and China) have the right to veto any UN resolution they don't like, irrespective of what support it might have in the UN as a whole.  Which means, I'm afraid, that the UN is about as much use as my father-in-law's famous chocolate teapot.  So step forward America - you're the only hope for these poor unfortunates.  And us - we'll continue to wag our fingers and speak to them sternly. 
          P.S.  Since writing the above, it has been announced that we will in fact assist with the food drops - perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone, and send them the food which Russia is going to ban us exporting to them.  Let's hope the Iraqis like sage derby cheese!

Connections

What have Rambo and Dixon of Dock Green got in common?  You've probably got to be of a certain age to know the answer to that one - after all it's nearly forty years since P C Dixon (memorably played by Jack Warner - evenin' all) last appeared on our television screens, and over sixty since he made his first appearance in the film "The Blue Lamp". And therein lies the clue to the answer, because in the film P C Dixon was shot and killed (by Dirk Bogarde no less).  And if you've read the book "First Blood" by David Morrell which first introduced Rambo (the opening line is "His name was Rambo...") you will know that at the end of that book, he too dies.  So both are resurrected characters, brought back to live again - and far more famously -  in a different medium.

Back to normal?

Commonwealth Games - I have to say that I was somewhat underwhelmed - don't know whether the fault was with the Games themselves, or BBC's coverage, but I found it difficult to work up any enthusiasm - even for the athletics, which usually has me hooked.  Nice to see England top the medals table, but perhaps that says it all - the Commonwealth Games are sort of the international equivalent of the egg and spoon race at the school sports - a chance for "the others" to have their moment of glory.  And for me there was far too much show-boating and triumphalism - whatever happened to the old-fashioned idea that you won with grace and lost with dignity?  I regret having to say it, but I'm glad it's over.

What's the time?

You know me - if I see a nit I have to pick it.  The WWI centenary commemoration in Westminster Abbey on Monday was nicely done, but as I understood it, the final candle by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was supposed to be extinguished at 11.00 - this being the time (but see below) when we declared war on Germany in 1914.  But in fact it was nearer five-past when this happened.  And that surprised me - we are usually so good at this sort of thing, and I'm sure there would have been plenty of run-throughs with stop-watches, so I wonder what went wrong, and where those few minutes were lost?  But that's not my main nit-pick.  I had this feeling that there was something wrong with the timing, and was glad to see it confirmed by a recent letter to one of the papers.  We had allowed for the fact that Germany was and is an hour ahead of us, and therefore their midnight would be our 11.00 p.m., but we hadn't factored in that back in 1914 the idea of putting the clocks forward in summer hadn't been thought of, and so the whole thing was an hour too late!  End of nit-pick.

Cherry picking?

If a couple have a disabled child, it's tragic, but it happens.  The idea of refusing to raise your child or accept any responsibility for it because it is disabled is legally and morally indefensible.  So what if you are incapable of carrying a child yourself, and choose to use a surrogate mother - which means that your fertilised egg is implanted in another woman's womb to be carried to term?  No difference surely? And yet we have a situation where an Australian couple have used a surrogate mother to carry on their behalf what turned out to be twins - a boy and a girl.  The boy was found to have Down's syndrome and a heart defect.  The couple have taken the girl but refused to accept the boy. Their argument seems to be that had the real mother been carrying the children she would have had an abortion on learning of the boy's disabilities, but the surrogate mother who is a Buddhist refused to have one as being against her religion.  Not an easy case, but surrogacy is fraught with potential problems and the phrase which pops unbiddened into my mind is "take one, take 'em all".

'Nuff said.

As today we commemorate the centenary of the start of the Great War, I can do no better than quote a cartoon which appeared in a daily paper the other day.  A small group of soldiers are "going over the top" stepping through the barbed wire with shells bursting around them.  One turns to another and says "At least in a hundred years there'll be no more slaughter, Carrurthers...".

Gorra fag?

Think the powers-that-be (whoever they are) need to get their act together over the use of e-cigarettes.  There are those who want to ban them - or at least to the same extent that real cigarettes are banned, and then the tobacco companies seem to have woken up to the potential market opportunity they present and are pushing them.  Many people take the line that we should fear the unknown and err on the side of caution by restricting their supply and use - at least until more is known. The most sensible approach so far seems to me to have come from researchers at a university in London who say that, although e-cigarettes may prove in the long run to have health issues, there is already ample evidence that they are significantly less harmful than real cigarettes, and therefore smokers should be encouraged to switch to vaping (by the way, is it vayping or vapping?).  I think we badly need an authoritative lead on the subject.

We've got time to watch a movie!

I've had my grouses in the past about Birmingham International - my local airport - and I remember one occasion when we had to wait for just under two hours for our luggage to appear after a flight back from Majorca I think it was.  But perhaps I should thank my stars that my local airport is not Gatwick where apparently a two-hour delay would be pretty good.  Last weekend many people had to wait up to five hours to reclaim their luggage - and some in fact had to go home or fly off and leave their bags behind.  So what's the opposite to the saying "the grass is always greener..."? Whatever it is, it would be appropriate.

Stupid plod!

You would think that, in view of all their recent bad press, the police would think twice before doing anything to add to their woes, but no apparently.  A newly-wed couple in Dorset chose to be driven to their reception in a replica of the Dodge car used in the old US TV series "The Dukes of Hazard".  As the car passed some waving well-wishers, the driver sounded the Dixie air-horn for which the original car was famous.  A little further down the road, the car was pulled over by the police. Despite the fact that it was clear that this was a wedding couple on the way to their reception, the police issued the driver with a ticket, and he will be summoned to attend court,  It seems the horn is illegal (why??) but surely this was a case where common sense demanded that they use their discretion and let them go on their way with a warning (and good wishes would have been nice). But then, the words common-sense and police are sort of mutually exclusive, aren't they?