How to count without...well, counting.

Imagine you are throwing a party.  You have hired the local community hall and round the walls are stacked a load of fold-up chairs.  As more and more people arrive you start to worry about whether there are enough chairs for everybody. What to do? Well, you could try counting the number of people there - difficult if they're all moving round, which they probably are - and then counting the number of chairs, but an easier solution is to get everybody's attention and then ask everybody to get a chair and sit on it.  If you are left with people still standing you know you've got more people than chairs, if everybody is seated and there are still chairs unused you know you've got more chairs than people, and if everybody is sitting down and there are no chairs left you know you've got the same number of chairs and people,  But the point is that you haven't counted - you still don't know how many people are there or how many chairs. Have a feeling this could be the start of a series of posts.

How can we use this to our advantage?

I am getting seriously pissed-off (technical expression) with the way people twist what other people say for their own ends.  Defence Secretary Philip Hammond was invited to a discussion with a group of students and the subject of same-sex marriage - to which he is known to be opposed - was raised.  He was asked what right the state has to tell two people who are in love that they can't get married. His reply - well we don't allow siblings to get married.  Well, we don't, do we?  But what's in all the papers?  "Philip Hammond accused of likening gay marriage to incest".  No he didn't!!  He simply pointed out that there were indeed circumstances where the law forbade two people to marry. Just grow up!!

A boy named Sue?

It's a funny old world - apparently in Iceland you can't just call your child whatever you want.  Believe it or not, there is a list of allowable names and you have to choose from that list.  A mother who called her daughter by a name not on that list has had to live for the past 15 years with the fact that her daughter is officially known only as "Girl".  They (mother and daughter) are hoping that Iceland's main court will rule in their favour and allow the daughter to adopt the name her mother gave her.  Surprisingly, there are other countries that also have lists of "approved" names.  Mind you, given some of the crazy names some celebrities here and in the US have given their children, perhaps it's not such a bad idea?

...or are you just pleased to see me?

We're all familiar with the funny story of the man with a gun in his pocket who accidentally shoots himself in the foot, but how about this - a security guard in Trinidad and Tobago was carrying a gun in his pocket when it went off accidentally and shot him - there's no delicate way of saying this - in the penis.  Lots of comments along the lines of "going off half-cocked" and such-like, but the one that really amused me was "well at least he proved he wasn't shooting blanks".

Cutting it fine?

When is a foot (as in 12 inches) not a foot?  When it's a Subway sandwich apparently.  Somebody posted a picture of one of their "footlong" subs, together with a tape measure showing that it only measured 11 inches.  Now a couple of men in the US are planning to sue Subway claiming that both have been sold subs of less than 12 inches.  Bit reminiscent of when the penalty for selling underweight bread in this country was so severe that bakers would err on the side of caution and add an extra bun, loaf or whatever to an order to make sure they gave too much rather than too little.  This of course is where the definition of a "baker's dozen" as 13 comes from.  Subway are trying to make out that "footlong" is merely a description rather than a guarantee of length, but I don't think that will fly and they may have to do something similar and ensure that their large subs are always more than a foot, in which case we may find the definition of a "Subway foot" as say 12½ inches entering the dictionary.

Not guilty - we think.

A couple of years ago I posted about a decision to refuse compensation to a man who had spent six years in gaol for a murder in respect of which he was originally convicted but then had that conviction quashed and two subsequent new trials failed to reach a verdict, and I questioned whether the adage "innocent until proven guilty" actually meant anything.  Now we have the case of Barry George, who was convicted and later acquitted of the murder of Jill Dando, and who also has been refused compensation for the eight years he spent inside.  Same considerations apply as in the earlier case - indeed even more so, as he was specifically found not guilty at the retrial, but his case raises an even more worrying concept, because, if I read it right, the court's decision was based on the fact that, in the court's opinion, there was sufficient evidence at the retrial on which a jury could have reasonably found him guilty.  But the fact is they didn't!  So does that mean that trial by jury - the cornerstone of our system - isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and that their decision can be ignored if it doesn't suit?

Sign of the times?

An acquaintance of mine always used to shop in Waitrose.  As far as I know her circumstances have not materially changed, but at the beginning of last year she confessed that she had mainly transferred her allegiance to Sainsburys.  And then just after Christmas I saw her with a full trolley in Aldi!  Says it all, I think.

Well...er....um..

Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin has been criticised for saying that the Government has no idea how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come to this country when they get the right to do so next year, and will not know until after they come.  Well, that's obvious isn't it?  Short of asking every citizen of those countries what their intentions are, there is no way of knowing.  We can make a guess, but that's all it would be.  Once again somebody being pilloried for telling an obvious truth.  No wonder people in the public eye are becoming more and more unwilling to to make any sort of definitive statement.  Safer to dissemble.

It's in the job description!

Headline in most of the papers yesterday was of Prince Harry's statement that he had "killed Taliban".    So??  As co-pilot gunner in an Apache attack helicopter in Afghanistan, isn't that exactly what he's supposed to do?

Yessss!

Well thank goodness.  We have been bombarded lately with stories about how eating this or that is bad for you, how obesity has become the "new cancer", how you should cut down on alcohol and fatty foods and so on and so on.  And now we have a study from an American University who have followed the fortunes of some 450 pensioners for five years and concluded that once you reach 75, what you eat or drink has no noticeable effect on your future health or life expectancy.  And I'm 75 so that was just what I wanted to hear!