So....?

I've been down this road before more than once, but I am unable to understand why inconsequential and peripheral matters are allowed to affect the assessment of a person's ability to do a job. This time it's John Terry and the captaincy of the England football team. The publication of allegations of marital misconduct is said to be putting his captaincy at risk. Why? Surely if he's the right man for the job in footballing terms, he's the right man for the job and his behaviour in his private life is immaterial. Why should the fact that you're captain of England carry with it any expectation that you are of impeccable character - and let's face it, even before the current shenanigans his reputation was hardly snow-white. Surely all that is required is that you are a good footballer, a good communicator, a good motivator, and a leader of men.

Music Man.

Enigma Variations - Elgar, yes? And yet that's not what he called it - the proper title is "Variations on an Original Theme". So where does the "enigma" come from? Well the piece starts out with a statement of the "original theme", and in his hand-written score, Elgar wrote "Enigma" over the top of this. Explaining this, Elgar said that the theme was itself a variation on another well-known piece of music, but he always refused to say what it was. About the only definite statement he made on the subject was that it was not the National Anthem, and he several times expressed surprise that nobody had guessed it. He took the secret to the grave with him, but that hasn't stopped people speculating. "Auld Lang Syne" has been mentioned more than once, and the other day I read an article which makes a good case for "Rule Britannia". Myself, I would incline towards the slow movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique" sonata. We'll never know of course, and that is part of the mystique of this ever-popular piece of music.

Value for money.

Well, hooray for Aldi and Lidl (which I've always pronounced with a short "i", but apparently should be pronounced "Leedle" - don't like it). Perhaps the recession has a lot to do with it, but they have beaten the "big four" in a survey on customer satisfaction run by Which? magazine. I can't say I'm surprised - I can only repeat what I've said before - their stores are unpretentious, but they sell quality stuff at good low prices. And with money being tight, I'm sure more people have discovered them. I'm still a Morrisons shopper, but I regularly pop into both Aldi and Lidl and invariably come out with a basketful of stuff for under a tenner - it's great!

Might is right?

Lots of discussion over the last few days about the legality, or otherwise, of wars. Given that war is the antithesis of the rule of law, I would have thought that the expression "a legal war" must be an oxymoron. You can certainly have an illegal war, but I think the best you can hope for on the other side of the coin is a non-illegal war. Given that the difference, it appears, can be no more than the interpretation of "two or three words" in a UN resolution, I have to say that that doesn't make me feel terribly safe.

L'argent fait la loi.

Calais is in the South of England?? No, this isn't us seeking to re-establish our historic claim to the city which we held for some 200 years in the Middle Ages - this is Calais itself (or to be more accurate the whole region of Pas de Calais) which is looking to persuade competitors and spectators at the London Olympics that it's just as easy to commute from there to the Olympics site via the Channel Tunnel as it would be from the other side of London. To this end the Head of the Regional Council has declared "I consider that we are the south of England...". Queen Mary (the first, that is) must be having a quiet smile.

Keep the law out of it.

There are suggestions that this country should follow the lead of France, and seek to ban the wearing of full-face veils in public places. I've mentioned before that I find the wearing of the burqa disturbing, and given my reasons. But a Muslim friend mentioned the other day that many of his faith find the wearing of mini-skirts and low-cut tops equally disturbing and distasteful, so at the end of the day it's just a matter of rubbing along with each other isn't it, and I don't think legislation would be at all helpful.

Rien ne va plus - still more.

We've looked at this situation so far from the point of view of gambling, but it goes further than that. It underpins the Government's tax and benefits strategy. And this isn't a party political matter - governments of whichever colour know that without some intervention on their part money will naturally gravitate away from those with a little towards those with a lot - in other words, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. And this is not the result of any sharp practice by the rich or stupidity on the part of the poor - it's just our card game played out on a larger scale. It's inevitable, and this is why governments all subscribe, to a greater or lesser extent, to the principle of the redistribution of wealth.

Rien ne va plus - continued.

We've seen that the big bank will invariably beat the smaller bank, and this is why the individual punter is well advised to keep his money in his pocket. But now look at it the other way round - the casino has a much bigger bank than you, but the casino isn't just playing against you. In fact, the casino is playing against the public at large, and the public at large has an infinitely big bank, which means that the casino's bank is doomed to be broken sooner or later, and this is why casinos put a limit on the size of bets they are prepared to accept. At first glance this seems to be a paradox - the public have no chance of beating the casino, but the casino (unless it imposes limits) has no chance of beating the public. But think of the Lottery - you know your chance of winning the Lottery (top prize, that is) is millions to one against, and yet every week (well pretty well every week) somebody does win. And the situation here is the same - your chance of beating the casino is virtually nil, but (in the absence of limits) the chance that someone, sometime will do so is pretty well assured.

Rien ne va plus.

Here's a simple game - we take a well shuffled pack of cards, and turn them over one by one. If the turned-over card is red, I give you £1 - if it's black, you give me £1. This is as fair a game as could be - there are an equal number of red and black cards, so by the time we've been through the pack, we should be back where we started. And yet, it is virtually inevitable that I will take all your money and you will end up with nothing - how come? The answer is that you start with a bank of £5, whereas I start with a bank of £10. The game is fair, but there are bound to be runs of red cards and runs of black cards, and because I have a bigger bank than you, I am better placed to survive a series of unfavourable runs. You will almost certainly run out of money well before we've been through the pack. This is why anybody who hopes to make serious money betting at a casino is doomed to failure. Even if the games are fair (which they're not - the casino always has an edge) the fact that the casino's bank is so much bigger than yours means your chances of success are slim to none.

Ha ha.

Here's an oldie but goodie -

Jake was getting fed up. He lived in a small village and his father was well known for - how can I say this - putting it about. Every time he got interested in a girl, his father would take him on one side, and explain with embarrassment that he couldn't let the relationship develop, because the girl was his half-sister. This had happened several times, and Jake was getting really depressed. His mother had noticed his bad moods, and asked him what was wrong. Eventually he plucked up the courage to tell her. To his surprise, she burst out laughing. "Oh, don't worry about that" she said "you see, he's not your father".