New Year’s Eve

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So 2009 finally disappears in a puff of smoke, like Cinderella's chariot, at the stroke of midnight and we all start looking forward to the New Year.

I have no New Year resolutions to make or to break. It’s safer that way rather than risk the sniggers of those who know my promises will come to nothing.

Maybe I’ll try to be less irascible, give up smoking and make a start on the novel that lurks in the deepest recesses of my mind.

But don’t hold your breath!
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'Hi Ya, Sharon!'

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German computer scientists have spent the last five months cracking the algorithm used to encrypt the calls of four billion mobile phone users. Their published work allows anyone to eavesdrop on private mobile phone conversations.

There is, of course, a worry that criminals might be able to use this work, though it appears that only government agencies and ‘well funded’ criminals have access to the necessary technology.

I can’t say that I can get too worked up about this news. Imagine the number of banal and utterly worthless conversations that a crook might have to listen to before he found one of any interest.
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‘Good Riddance’ Day

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New Yorkers have found a neat way of ridding themselves of things reminding them of unpleasant experiences.

In the third annual event of its kind, ‘Good Riddance’ Day enabled New Yorkers to bring their letters, summons, divorce and other papers, newspaper articles and other reminders of the bad things that happened in 2009 to Times Square. Here these items could be shredded, smashed or pulverised and placed into a waste container.

It’s a nice idea, but if only it were that easy!
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Oh Really?

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I debated with myself whether or not to mention it, but finally succumbed to the sexist trivial.

A new shopping centre in Shijiazhuang city, in China's Hebei Province, has been provided with a women-only car park, painted in pink and light purple to appeal to female tastes and fitted with special signs. Female parking attendants have been trained to help guide women drivers into their parking spaces. The bays also have extra lighting.

What interested me most was not the colours, the special signs or the female attendants.

No, it was the fact that the parking bays are three feet wider than normal spaces.

‘Nuff said!
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The New Year

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So here we are. After weeks of preparation and expectation, Christmas has come and gone in a flash.

The conversation is about Auntie Caroline getting tiddly and talkative on Christmas Day, what young Peter said to upset his mother and how Grampa Grumpy spent most of Boxing Day afternoon snoring away contentedly in in his armchair. The shops are full of folk spending money in the seasonal sales in advance of the increase in VAT. The rubbish tips are filling up with the leftover food, wrapping paper and unwanted cardboard.

One definite sign that Christmas is over and that the New Year is rushing up upon us is the weekend’s newspapers and television programmes which are full of boring and repetitive reviews of 2009. I don’t want to know any more about 2009. It was not a notable year as we all know and I will not trouble to include a mini review myself.

I would prefer to look forward to the New Year which, in any event, is the time to look forward, make resolutions and be generally positive about things.

So, maybe 2010 will be the year that we have a new grandson, the year that my family will all stay healthy, the year that we come up on the lottery and the year that we can make a trip, first class of course, to Japan to see the cherry blossom.

Maybe, just maybe, it will also be the year we get some proper government and that our savings and pensions will actually be worth something - though, perhaps, that is asking too much!
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Forecasting Cherry-Blossom Time

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One of my ambitions is to visit Japan again and, if at all possible, to go there in time for the Cherry-Blossom Festival in March. It is, alas, an ambition unlikely to be fulfilled unless our lottery numbers come up - though I live in hopes.

Cherry blossom time in Japan is something which exercises the attention of the entire Japanese nation. Millions will take to their cars and clog up country roads in the hope of seeing the cherry trees in their full splendour. Aficionados will admire the different types of blossom, their arrangement on the trees and also their setting.

For fifty years the Japanese Weather Agency has been forecasting where and when the trees will bloom and, more often than not, they have been proved wrong and forced to apologise for their error.

There’s not much difference then between the abilities of the Japanese Weather Agency and our own beloved Met Office!
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Dreams

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In his traditional Christmas sermon Pope Benedict XVI focused on the needy around the world, praising the work of the Church to help relieve suffering.

The Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas sermon focused on present society which forces children to grow up too soon.

Both are right, of course.

Inspiring as these homilies were, I warmed to the sentiments of the Bishop of Exeter who felt folk should try to live out their dreams for Christmas 2009 and into 2010 rather than merely wish for things they didn’t think would happen.

It’s an interesting thought. Not just to dream but to take action to bring them about.

Which, is what I think the Pope and the Archbishop were also saying in their own way.
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Happy Christmas!

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One of my all-time favourite films at this time of the year is the 1947 film, ‘Miracle on 34th Street’.

A departmental store’s Santa, who believes himself to be the real Santa Claus, is subjected to a court hearing to test his sanity. The defence attorney gets the prosecutor to agree that the US Federal Government, as embodied in the Postal Service, recognises Santa Claus to be real. The postmen then bring in dozens of sacks of mail addressed to Santa and deliver them to the man in the dock. Ergo, the man in the dock is the real Santa!

It’s a lovely film and one I enjoy every year.

So it is interesting that North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa for over 50 years, and this year will be no different. According to NORAD, the system works because Rudolph the reindeer's famous red nose gives off an infrared signature similar to a missile launch. Children can follow Santa’s progress across the globe as he passes 24 ‘Santa cams’ starting at 1100 GMT on 24 December.

There you go. If NORAD can track Santa, then he must exist!

Happy Christmas!
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In Memorium

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An old friend for more than twenty years died suddenly yesterday morning in hospital. A week ago he was hail and hearty and looking forward to a number of projects he was involved in and about which he enthusiastically spoke.

A sudden and unexpected death is always sad, the moreso when it occurs just prior to what should be the happiest and most family-orientated time of the year. The shock to family and friends is not to be underestimated and we share in their sadness and sorrow at what has suddenly become a terrible and shocking time.

There is little of any real comfort one can say to someone who has been so unexpectedly bereaved and though, doubtless, the immediate family will gather round and extend their love and assistance, mere words cannot help.

Nonetheless, I pay tribute to my old chum, my knowledgeable and talkative chum, Albert Novelli, who many will know from his days in the merchant service and, more latterly, British Airways as a Cabin Services Director. Others will know of him from his hobby of photographing ships and aircraft.

God bless and keep you Albert, and extend his warmth and comfort to Ruth.
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The ‘Bug’

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I’ve said it before. As someone whose working life was bound up with ships, I get a little fed-up when the media reports cases of Novovirus occurring on board cruise ships, as they did yesterday when a few passengers suffered from it during a cruise on Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines ‘Boudicca’.

Having just recently disembarked from Olsen’s ‘Balmoral’ I can confirm that the hygiene precautions and standards on board, like all the other Olsen ships, were exemplary and, as someone who once worked for the company, I know this to be the case.

The Novovirus, known also as the winter vomiting virus, is the second most common virus next to the Common Cold and occurs regularly every winter throughout northern latitudes. It is an unpleasant illness though, fortunately, short-lived.

The problem is that ships, and other forms of closed communities such as hospitals, schools, hotels and others, do not themselves usually harbour viruses. People do. So, inevitably, when a virus of any sort is taken into such communities by folk, they are bound to spread.

What doesn’t get the same amount of publicity is when schools, hotels and even hospital wards are struck by the Novovirus. Such as the five wards in Bedford Hospital which were closed just this week to new admissions and patient transfers because of it. Or the two wards closed yesterday at Broomfield Hospital for the same reason.
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A Walk?

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Obsessed with telling the public what they already know and mainly ignore, the Department of Health is, in conjunction with the Ramblers charity, advising everyone to take a good walk on Christmas Day to burn off some of the calories consumed during the traditional Christmas lunch.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but Yours Truly intends to have his traditional Christmas lunch followed by his traditional Christmas snooze!

The walk can wait until the morning.
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Groan - It’s Started!

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It’s official. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are to appear in three 90-minute head-to-head televised debates.

Anyone expecting anything other than pure party politicking will be sadly disappointed.

George Orwell in ‘1984’ says ‘Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.’

He got that right!
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We’re Hard-up - Let’s Shoplift!

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An Anglican priest in North Yorkshire has advised his parishioners to shoplift if they find themselves in financial trouble. He recommends that folk steal from the big chains rather than small businesses and comments that society’s attitude to those in need ‘leaves some people little option but crime.’

In response to media interest in the story the Archdeacon of York says, ‘The Church of England does not advise anyone to shoplift’.

But not a word about firing a priest who seems to have forgotten the seventh Commandment!
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The Symbol Recovered

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I remember as a schoolboy watching those dreadful newsreel pictures of the terrible scenes found by Allied troops when they liberated the Nazi concentration camps. Even now I feel very uncomfortable when some of those shots show up on television.

Yet, despite these feelings of revulsion, I’ve always wanted to visit the Auschwitz camp in Poland and, in my own quiet way, pay homage to the millions of people who were treated like vermin by what one assumes were at some point in their personal histories ‘ordinary’, normal people.

The death camps, their origins and their incomprehensible function are a mystery and, perhaps, just perhaps, a visit to Auschwitz might provide some answers. I don’t know, but the urge to visit the shrine is a strong one.

The camps were incomprehensible. And so too was the theft a few days ago of the sign above the main gate to Auschwitz, ‘Arbeit macht frei’. But, fortunately, the Polish police have recovered the sign and arrested five people in connection with its theft.

The sign, ‘Work makes free’, is unquestionably the symbol of Auschwitz and all that happened in that hellhole, and it is good that it is to be replaced where it has stood all these years.

Maybe one day I’ll get to see it for myself, but whether it and the museum that now lays behind it will give me any answers to the many questions I have remains to be seen.
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I Wonder?

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Scientists have at last been able to map the Gamburtsev Mountains which are hidden under miles of ice in Antarctica.

The mountains were discovered by a Soviet team during the International Geophysical Year in 1957-8. Their detection was a surprise because the rock bed in the middle of the Antarctic continent was assumed to be relatively flat.

But now an international team have spent two months in 2008/9 surveying the Gamburtsevs which are totally buried under the ice cap. The survey revealed a very rugged landscape with high peaks and deeply incised valleys which have been worked in the past by both river and ice processes.

I’ve often wondered whether, if global warming were ever to melt the polar ice caps (though God forbid) scientists would discover the remains of human habitation.

But I won’t know in my lifetime.
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Trapped!

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We arrived home yesterday morning from a very enjoyable one-week’s cruise on Fred. Olsen’s Balmoral to find that four Eurostar trains had failed inside the Channel Tunnel trapping 2,000 passengers on them. We saw also for ourselves the tremendous gridlock along the eastern end of the M20 caused by the closure of the Channel Tunnel and the suspension of all ferry services due to bad weather.

There is nothing one can do about bad weather and, perhaps, even the best of contingency plans could not have coped with the snow storms encountered in the last couple of days.

I listened to Eurostar’s pr lady on television last night explaining that the trains became cold in the cold weather and then hit warm, moist air in the Tunnel which affected their electrics. Maybe, that is the true explanation.

But I paused to wonder why, if this was really the case, hi-speed trains throughout Europe and those also in places like Japan, all manage in cold weather to go in and out of tunnels without conking out.

At least it wasn’t because of leaves on the lines or the wrong sort of snow!
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Some Good News

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In the midst of pre-budget woes, more anger over MPs expenses, bankers’ bonuses and the general negative ‘flavour’ of the UK at the moment, is good to see a couple of heart-warming stories for a change in the run-up to Christmas.

The first is the news that fake clothes having a street value of more than one million pounds are being ‘rebranded’ instead of being destroyed and will be distributed to homeless people in Paisley, Renfrew and Glasgow. It is an action which other councils would do well to follow as it does something useful with the fakes which would otherwise be heading for the incinerator. Full marks to Renfrewshire Council!

The second tale relates to Rosie, an 11-year-old rescue dog, owned by the headmistress of a school in Exminster, Devon. Little Rosie is allowed to come into the school from time to time, but the busybodies in Ofsted took official notice of this and demanded that a ‘risk assessment’ be carried out as to whether she posed a risk to the children. I will not pass comment on the silliness of Ofsted noting that a small friendly dog might pose a risk, but I am glad to report that a follow-up inspection of the school concluded, ‘This elderly small dog appears well socialised and pupils respond to it readily when it ventures away from the head teacher's office.’ Woof! woof!
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Snouts Still In The Trough!

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I doubt that anyone was surprised when the latest batch of MPs expenses were published last night.

Covering the last year, we find that MPs have charged, or attempted to charge, for garlic peelers, an air bed, a mothtrap, a hamburger machine, a toaster, televisions, curtains, a stove, logs and even .55p for a cup of Horlicks. One claim that has raised eyebrows is that from the Defence Minister who has denied trying to claim on expenses the £20,700 cost of rebuilding a bell tower.

Perhaps the claim that has made the most headlines this morning is one from the MP who had previously claimed for a duck house who had his recent claim for £10,526 reduced to £299.16.

Snouts in the trough continue. Is anyone surprised at this?
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Dangerous Drivers

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The Transport Research Laboratory has found that more drivers are using hand-held mobile phones than before tougher penalties were bought in two years ago and that phone-using drivers are four times more likely to crash.

This is more news that didn’t come as a surprise, for I guess most of us have seen drivers of cars and trucks negotiating their way through heavy traffic or round corners with a phone clamped to their ear in one hand. Not only is this highly dangerous, but it is very irritating to see drivers getting away with it.

I believe that the police now automatically check the use of mobile phones when investigating traffic accidents and I’m all for that. One assumes also that drivers caught using their mobiles lose their insurance cover when they cause accidents.

The thing that I find very curious is that, while hand-held mobiles and DVD players are forbidden to drivers, the use of GPS receivers is not. So many cars these days seem to be fitted with one and you often see drivers fiddling with their glowing screens.

Are not these as distracting to drivers as mobile phones and other gadgets?
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Well I Never!

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You learn something every day.

Such as: the anti-inflammatory drugs I take are often given to Indian livestock, and that the residue of these remaining in their carcasses is killing off some species of Asian vulture to the point of extinction.

Boy! They must be good!
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Skegness Is SO Silly!

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Just about everyone in England can bring to mind the ‘Jolly Fisherman’ poster which proclaims ‘Skegness is SO Bracing’. It was designed in 1908 as an advertisement for the resort by John Hassall.

The copyright to the poster is owned by Skegness Town Council, which has now told local tattoo parlours that they must pay a copyright fee of £10 to use the image.

The charge has come to public notice after a taxi driver complained that he had to pay to use the image on his taxi and argued the same charge should also apply to tattooists. One of the local tattoo artists called the charge ‘silly’.

He is right there! It must cost more than £10 for the local burocrats to process the one or two applications they get each year.

And, as another said, ‘It's good publicity for the town’.
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A Distraction

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Trying to concentrate on what Chancellor Alistair Darling had to say in the Commons this afternoon about his pre-Budget report, I was constantly distracted by Harriet Harman, Leader of the House, who was continually nodding at what he had to say.

It was like having your attention drawn to one of those irritating nodding model dogs that you sometimes see in the back of cars.

Whether or not Ms Harman actually agreed with what Darling had to say or whether this was some sort of front-bench tactic to distract the opposition seniors, I do not know.

But it was about as irritating and utterly meaningless as those wretched nodding dogs!
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Miscarriage Of Justice?

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English law is a bit ‘sniffy’ I feel sometimes.

Take Dr. Hawley Crippen for example. One of his distant relatives recently applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to have the case referred to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that he had not, in fact, murdered his wife Cora.

After Cora disappeared in 1919, a search of the house ultimately found human remains under the brick floor of the basement in Crippen’s house. By then he and his lover Ethel Le Neve (disguised as a boy) had fled to Canada on board Montrose. The case achieved some notoriety because this was the first time that a suspected criminal had been apprehended following a wireless report from a ship at sea after the pair had been identified by the ship’s captain. The pair were bought back to face trial in England by a Scotland Yard detective who had gone out to meet them on a faster ship. Though Le Neve was acquitted, Crippen was found guilty and hanged in Pentonville Prison in November 1911.

At the time of the trial, forensic medicine was in its infancy, but Sir Bernard Spilsbury found a piece of skin with what he claimed was an abdominal scar consistent with Cora Crippen’s medical history. However, in 2007 forensic scientists from Michigan State University showed that mitochondrial DNA evidence proved that the remains found beneath the cellar floor were not that of Cora Crippen.

And on that basis a relative of Crippen, James Crippen of Dayton, Ohio, asked for the case to be reviewed.

However, the Commission found that he was not a ‘properly interested person’ in the case and that there was no real possibility the Court of Appeal would hear it. They further stated that the ‘person should be the widow or widower, ‘personal representative’, or a relative who has a ‘substantial financial or other interest’ in the appeal.’

I don’t know whether there are any other avenues open to Mr Crippen to clear his famous relative’s name, but it looks as if a miscarriage of justice was carried out, and it seems wrong to me that it cannot be corrected even at this late stage.
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Not So Quick Please

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At a time when officers from the UK Border Agency found cocaine worth £1.7 million inside an HGV trailer coming into Harwich from Holland, I’m not sure I’d be too quick to criticise those members of the UKBAs staff who received bonuses totalling £295,000 last year.

As well as finding illegal immigrants stowed away in lorries and trucks, the UKBA people that work our ports and airports do sterling work and we often hear of the huge drugs and other illegal hauls they detect.

Sure, the immigration side of the UKBA is in disarray but, as I understand it, their staff can be posted to ports and airports to detect illegal hauls as well as to desks to sort through immigration issues or check passports, etc.

I, for one, wouldn’t want to work for the UKBA. Not unless a bonus was guaranteed!
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Turner Versus Turnip

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For me, art is like poetry. I like to understand it.

So this year’s Turner Prize for art, worth £25,000, goes to a young man who, with four assistants, has made a huge mural covered in gold leaf. Unusually, it will be destroyed after the current exhibition ends.

Explaining this, the artist said, ‘I am interested in placing painting in the situation where it collides with the world; the fragility of that existence. Being here for a short period of time, I feel, heightens the experience of it being here.’

Yeah, right.

Others will disagree with me, but my view of the Turner Prize is that it encourages tosh done up in the name of art. Other works submitted included a melted passenger jet engine, an untitled steel frame filled with cows' brains and pictures of unclothed dolls.

I think on balance, I prefer the unpretentious Turnip Prize, organised by the villagers of Wedmore in Somerset where they compete for the prize of ... a turnip.

This year’s prize went to a lady who pinned a pair of old underpants to a bar room door and titled it ‘Manhole Cover’. Clearly it was a winner!

Other entries included a fence panel entitled ‘Don't Take A Fence’ and a bunch of naked Barbie dolls in an old birdcage entitled ‘Knickerless Cage’.

Ah, yes. The Turnip Prize is by far the better competition!
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Less Than Helpful?

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Despite what I say from time to time about the behaviour of some of our MPs, I am a firm supporter of Parliament and some of its privileges.

I believe that the Houses of Parliament are set aside in various ways from normal life. I’m not bothered about MPs cheap meals and some of their other perks of office, but I would exclude policemen from clod-hopping all over the place without a warrant or special approval.

In the case of their utterly fruitless and pointless search of the office of MP Damien Green in November of last year, they didn’t have a warrant but were given permission to search by the Serjeant At Arms, Jill Pay, who had not been long in her job.

Miss Pay has now apologised for giving permission for the MP’s office to be searched by police without first asking if they had a warrant. In her defence she said that she was put under considerable pressure by the police and was given to understand that she could not refuse their request.

Nonetheless, one cannot help thinking that some of Miss Pay’s seniors were less than helpful to her at the time!
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A Long Slog

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It seems that the Labour Party, by which I mean the government, has withdrawn its pops against Tory MPs who were privately educated since it was disclosed that many of their own MPs were so privileged.

Among the leading Labourites who were privately educated are: Ed Balls, Hilary Benn, Stephen Byers, Alistair Darling, Quentin Davies, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman, Geoff Hoon, Tessa Jowell, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Michael Meacher, Nick Raynsford, Geoffrey Robinson, Keith Vaz and a whole bunch of others.

It’s going to be a long slog to the General Election but, thankfully, at least one subject has been ruled out of further discussion.
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Why Bother?

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This morning’s papers carry stories as to how ‘Bronco’ Brown proposes to save £12 billion over the next four years. The plans include ‘streamlining central government’ (whatever that means), cutting the civil service, getting rid of some quangos, etc., etc.

Having had these cuts announced in the papers, Brown then ‘announces’ them to at audience at the Royal Society.

Three questions arise in my mind.

Firstly, why has he bothered to make announcements to the good folk of the Royal Society? After all, we had only to look at our morning papers for this news.

Secondly, why doesn’t he tell Parliament what he proposes first rather than let his press department hand it out in advance?

Thirdly, and more important, why hasn’t he implemented these proposals years ago?
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Good On Yer!

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I have to support the New South Wales Police who have summoned the winner of ‘I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here’ after they killed and ate a rat.

An Australian RSPCA official said, ‘The killing of a rat for a performance is not acceptable. The concern is this was done purely for the cameras.’ I would agree with him. Though this is not a programme I watch, there are also far too many advertisements for programmes in which animals kill other animals.

OK. Maybe Nature is cruel. But we don’t have to see it. And, certainly, we don’t need to see people killing animals, however loathsome they may be to some propole.

Good on yer, Ossies!
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What Is The Point?

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Apart from being sentenced by an Italian court to 26 years in jail for her part in the murder of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox has to pay damages of one million euros to Miss Kercher's mother and the same amount to her father.

In addition, her siblings will each receive 800,000 euros. If that wasn’t enough, she must also pay 40,000 euros compensation to local barman Patrick Lumumba, for falsely accusing him of the murder.

Where does the court expect this young women to get this money?
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Climate Change

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A new poll suggests that 50% of people in the UK are unconvinced about climate change and, if pressed, I’d probably side with them.

Like most other people, I know very little about the things that affect climate change, but it occurs to me that shipping hundreds of politicians and their entourages, along with a variety of so-called experts, to the Summit to be held in Copenhagen next week doesn’t seem to be very climate-friendly.

Among many other things, we are told to switch off unnecessary lights in our houses. Does my switching off a few lights help to compensate for shipping all these people to Copenhagen by first and club classes and then putting them up in expensive hotels? Does my using less electricity or gas help to compensate for the damage to the climate done by President Obama, worthy man though he is, who will use a couple of 747s to get there and be accompanied by hundreds of his own people as well as the presidential car?

I very much doubt it.
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Archie

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I used to give a lift to the City a former army officer who, after he retired from the military, took a job in the civil service.

During the hour-long run up to town, he would regale me with his various tales of life in the military and one day the subject of spiders came up, though I no longer recall why. It seems that he saw service in Uganda and was posted from there to Germany and, when he moved, his furniture went with him.

One evening he had some friends round for supper and they were relaxing afterwards with a drink when a terrified women guest jumped out of her chair and shouted that she had just seen a large hairy spider shoot across the room and dart back underneath the sofa on which her husband was sitting. It seemed that the arachnid in question was a wolf spider and it became seen so often around the living room that my chum and his wife came to regard it almost as a family pet. Indeed, they called it Archie.

From time to time, Archie with his eight eyes would shoot off into a corner of the room, grab another spider or a fly, and run back into his home underneath the sofa. And, much later when the couple moved back to England, Archie came with them and was seen now and again keeping the place free of other insects.

Some time after this conversation my wife and I were invited round for supper, but it was an invitation I declined on some pretext or another. The simple reason was that I just don’t like spiders since an unexpected encounter with a large hairy one as a child.

My chum, and his ‘pet’ wolf spider Archie, came to mind this morning when I read that a colony of cave spiders which had been ‘squatting’ in a disused building in the Yorkshire Dales had been returned to the nearby cave from which they had escaped ten years ago.

It seems that a team of archaeologists surveying their cave habitat near Chapel Fell managed to bring some of the insects back in their equipment. And from there the creatures made their home in this disused building.

They were lucky. Had I seen them, they were likely to have been squished!
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Another Cover-Up?

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The Ministry of Defence has moved to another job the man who ran its UFO Unit which has now been closed down.

After fifty years of collecting public sightings of UFOs, the Ministry say that none of them yielded any proof of extraterrestrial life. They say that in future, ‘Any legitimate threat to the UK's airspace will spotted by our 24/7 radar checks and dealt with by RAF fighter aircraft’.

They may well be right, but what’s the betting that others will say that closure of the unit is part of some sort of cover-up?

Me? I don’t have an opinion - even though I’m sure I’ve seen a UFO. Oh, and so has my wife who was with one of our sons at the time!
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Time To Change The Criminal Law

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A fundamental tenet of English law is that a defendant in a criminal court is presumed innocent until he or she has been found guilty, and I wouldn’t want to suggest that anyone tamper with this in the slightest.

Against this, some recent criminal trials seem to suggest to me that defendants often enter an innocent plea even though they may appear demonstrably guilty at the outset.

But I do think we could introduce one fundamental change in the criminal law which wouldn’t interfere with this basic tenet or with any appeals process.

The issue that arises in my mind is the sheer waste of time, effort and money that goes into some criminal trials which, if a guilty defendant had simply pleaded guilty at the beginning, could have been saved. Thus, such trials would be speedier since they would need only to consider the severity of the offences and the consequent sentences imposed.

The problem that arises is how to persuade a guilty defendant to plead guilty in the preliminary proceedings rather than waste everyone’s time in proving that a plea of innocence was untruthful.

The simple answer that comes into my mind is to disallow remission of sentences to all defendants who by pleading not guilty have thereby wasted the time of the courts and everyone else concerned.

Loss of remission in such cases might focus the minds of some guilty criminals while they still sit in police cells.
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Get A Life!

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We’ve had the Bishop who tells us that some Christmas carols contain nonsense, that we should be embarrassed singing them and that we’ve made something akin to fairy tales from the Christmas story. We’ve had the council who replaced their annual Christmas fir tree with a much more expensive artificial one that has since been vandalised. We’ve had other councils who have elected not to put up street decorations on the spurious grounds of health and safety.

Now we’ve heard from an outfit funded by the government - that means you and me! - who tell us not to eat our traditional Christmas puddings because the ingredients they use up damage the environment. They seriously expect us to eat more sprouts, cheese and cobnuts.

These people should get get a life and leave our Christmases alone!
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Bilingualism

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As anyone who has visited Canada will know, their signs are all bilingual; English and French. This might, just possibly might, make some sense in the predominantly French-speaking areas, but they seem wholly out of place in the others. On my visits to the west coast of Canada it always seemed a nonsense to me that official signage there was bilingual.

In our own country, signage in Wales has become bilingual even though the majority of residents there speak only English, and already bilingual signs are creeping in across Scotland even though only a minority speak Gaelic.

It is one thing to protect a language, but it is quite another to force it on the majority who don’t speak it. The cost of making bilingual signage and, in some cases official documents, must be phenomenal and is something that the Canadians found out years ago. Not only is the cost of bilingual signage expensive, it is often very confusing; the bilingual road signs in Wales are a good example of this.

Because the majority of folk don’t speak the language that is being forced on them, cock-ups can occur and they often take months to discover. Take the sign in Swansea which should have read, ‘No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.’ The man responsible for making signs misread the email order he got for it and made a sign which said in Welsh, ‘I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.’

So I can’t say I have much sympathy for the Cornish folk, admirable people they may be, who have demanded the right to classify themselves as being of Cornish nationality on the 2011 census return. Those pressing for the change will be disappointed that MPs yesterday rejected the proposal. Which may dampen for a while any thought that signage in Cornwall should be bilingual.

It is a case, in my view at any rate, of permissum voluntas increbresco or, for those who don’t want their signs to be set out in Latin as well as English, ‘Let sense prevail’!
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How Sad

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The saddest news of the day is that of the death of a four-year-old boy in Liverpool who was mauled in his grandmother’s house by a dog which is now said to have been a ‘pitbull terrier-type’, a breed banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

The police are now investigating reports that they ignored a telephone call as long ago as February that dog breeding was being conducted at the house in question. Whether that is true will doubtless emerge in due course.

No amount of police investigation will return this little boy to his parents who, along with other members of the family, including the grandmother who was herself injured, must be suffering untold agonies and I deeply sympathise with them.

I do not join the debate as to the rights and wrongs of people owning what the law says are dangerous dogs, for this family have learned a lesson in the most terrible and tragic way.
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Right On!

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There is something quintessentially English and eccentric about the villagers in Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset who have turned a traditional red phone box into the country’s smallest lending library.

The recent closure of the phone box service may not have caused any problems to villagers in these days of mobile phones, but when they lost the services of the mobile library one villager thought of the idea of purchasing the phone box and turning it in into a lending library.

Villagers simply stock it with books they have read and take away another one. A parish councillor said, ‘This facility has turned a piece of street furniture into a community service in constant use.’

In other villages around the country have turned red phone boxes into art installations, a shower and even a public toilet.

Right on Westbury-sub-Mendip!
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Muddled Thinking

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In a referendum forced by Switzerland’s opposition party, and against the advice of the government, 57% of the voters have voted against the construction of any further minarets in the country.

Were it a question that minarets would spoil the characteristic skylines of this pretty country that would be one thing for there are four of them already. But, perhaps, voters were concerned more about rising immigration than the country’s building codes.

Either way, one can’t help but think that this is bad news for a country renowned both for its neutrality and for its freedom of religion.
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Wife Trouble?

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I was sitting in my car outside a supermarket last evening waiting for my wife who was inside doing some shopping.

A car screeched to a halt alongside me and the driver got out shouting loudly to his partner, ‘This is not the moment to discuss this!’ He slammed the door shut and walked away. Then he returned to the car, whereupon the couple began a most furious and violent argument which went on for five or six minutes.

I couldn’t hear what this couple were arguing about but I heard the woman twice shout those words we men sometimes hear from our partners, ‘Will you stop and listen to me for once!’ The argument finished when the man got out of the car, slammed the door and walked way into the distance. As he left, the woman got into the driving seat and shouted after him, ‘I’m going to take your car and smash it!’

As she drove away I never found out whether she did smash the man’s car, but I thought of the incident this morning when the television news reported that Tiger Woods was found semiconscious in his car yesterday after smashing into a fire hydrant and a tree. The police, who are still waiting to interview him, said that his wife smashed the rear window of the car with a golf club to help get him out.

Hmmm.
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Not More Targets?

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Gordon Brown has announced that the Afghan President will be set targets for training Afghanistani military and police forces and for tackling corruption.

Targets? In Afghanistan?

He is surely joking!

Oh Dear!

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Those who have been fortunate to visit Vanuatu will know what a beautiful place this South Pacific archipelago of islands is. Yet, with a population of less than 50,000, they are extraordinarily well organised.

Take, for example, their parliamentary code. Under Vanuatu law members of Parliament who miss three consecutive sittings without submitting written explanations for their absence forfeit their seats.

Prime Minister Edward Natapei forgot all about this rule and found this week while attending the Commonwealth Summit that he had not only been stripped of his parliamentary seat but his position as Prime Minister.

He has gone rushing back to Vanuatu and will now have to face a by-election to be re-elected member of Parliament and be voted back in again as Prime Minister.

What a shame we don’t have the same rule in Britain!
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It’s Your Fault!

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Some daft paper-pusher in Poole Borough Council decided that the erection of a Christmas tree in the town centre would be dangerous to the public if it toppled over in the wind.

So, instead of coming up with ways of making sure it didn’t topple, he or she came up with the idea of commissioning a 33-foot tall, green ‘traffic cone’ weighed down by two tons of ballast. At a cost of £14,000 instead of £500 for a fir tree.

We probably have idiots like this in our own local council. But, remember, it is we who voted them in.

So, for the people of Poole, it’s your fault!

[The fake tree was subsequently vandalised and replaced by a real one!]
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Big - But Is It Safe?

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I’m probably repeating myself somewhere, but I have grave misgivings about the largest cruise ship in the world which will go into service next month.

It can carry over 6,000 passengers and 2,100 crew. That’s an awful lot of people.

I just can’t imagine, despite anything the owners might say, that in an emergency situation any ship’s system can disgorge over 8,000 people ashore or into lifeboats safely and quickly.

I don’t wish to be a doom-sayer, but these huge ships are, in my view at any rate, just accidents waiting to happen. No matter how efficient and safety-conscious the crew of such ships are, there are always idiots around who take risks and in doing so become dangers to others. And when you are talking about ships that can take many miles to come to a stop or may not have much room to manoeuvre in inland waters and harbour entrances, then the dangers in terms of passenger numbers are magnified.

When there is the inevitable accident, government agencies and classification societies world-wide will take another look at these behemoths and write a whole new set of regulations for them. As always concerning maritime and similar matters, lessons are always to be learned. One just hopes that the lessons in respect of this size of ship have already been learned.

I wish the new ship well, for one benefit of its introduction will be to add many thousands more berths into the cruise market and help to keep prices competitive.

But for me, the smaller ships are more intimate and, in my opinion, safer.
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Television Advertising

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I wrote yesterday about do-gooders in government and other agencies who tinker with people’s minds and lives.

Perhaps I was too quick to criticise, though possibly not in some cases.

The thought came to me this morning when I realised there has been a tremendous increase in the number of television advertisements publicising online gambling sites and others inviting people to sell their unwanted gold and jewellery.

All these advertisements show smiling, happy people waving their bingo winnings or the wads of cash they have received for their jewellery.

They do not show the misery suffered by some of the poor souls who have logged on to gambling sites and lost their housekeeping money, or the folk who realise to their great regret that they have parted with treasured jewellery in return for a short-term gain at possibly less than the true value of the items sold.

While I am against the sort of ‘nannying’ this government has indulged in since it came into power, perhaps we do need to be protected from ourselves sometimes. And these sort of advertisements are a case in point where, like cigarettes and alcohol, maybe they ought to be accompanied by appropriate warnings.
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Too Much Interference!

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It frightens me sometimes how so many do-gooders in government and other agencies interfere and tinker with people’s minds and lives.

The news today is that children as young as five are to have lessons in ‘gender equality’ as part of a so-called national strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. The poor little mites are also to be taught not to bully transsexuals.

It must be admitted that children see far too much violence on television and that the war games they play on their X-Boxes and other gizmos may encourage violence and incorrect behaviour.

But at the age of five? Can’t they be left to be just children for a few more years?

And can’t teachers be left to do what they have been doing for generations - to teach children right from wrong?
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Has Mikulas Had The Jab?

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Bored with reading and hearing about all the dire things going on in the world this morning, I cast around for something to lift the spirits.

I failed dismally.

The best I could find to raise an eyebrow was the news that in Hungary Santa Claus, known there as Mikulas, is being told to get a flu jab to minimise the risk of spreading infection. He has also been told not to kiss the children he meets or to hold their hands.

If some busybody in our government cottons on to this idea, there won’t be any Santas around this year. Especially if some of them fail their CRB checks!
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‘Who Is To Judge The Judges?’

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I may be wrong but I think it was Juvenal who asked, ‘Who is to judge the judges’, and the question is as relevant now as it was 2,000 years ago.

The question arises in my mind following this morning’s revelation that another member of the Commons Standards Committee is being accused of making the most out of his expenses in recent years by claiming on a second home even though he lives only ten miles from Parliament and then ‘flipping’ this.

Only last week did the Chairman of the committee step down while an inquiry was held into his expenses in recent years.

If we can’t trust the folk on the Commons Standards Committee, who can we trust?

As the man said, ‘Who is to judge the judges?’
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Getting Closer? Doubtful!

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Some Anglicans are getting concerned about the Church’s attitude to gay or women bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions. At the same time the Catholic Church is considering allowing Anglicans to convert, which would allow them to enter full communion with them but preserving some elements of Anglican traditions.

The ‘smells and bells’ section of the Anglican Church are usually drawn to Catholicism while the ‘happy-clappy’ section may look to the Evangelicals. Could a schism be in sight I wonder?

Archbishop Williams has discussed the issue with Pope Benedict. It would have been an interesting discussion but I doubt we will hear much about what was really said.

I’d love to have been a fly on the wall that day!
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How Very Sad!

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For some years as part of fundraising efforts for my local service club, I used to write personalised letters to children who sent their Christmas wishes to Santa Claus. A number of service clubs still do this, and the letters received from innocent children are an absolute delight to read.

But, alas, the dark shadow of paedophilia has fallen across the town of North Pole in Alaska, for the US Postal Service are no longer sending them mail addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole.

Why? Because a registered sex offender was found to have been working on the programme last year. and, as a result, the US Postal Service now prohibits volunteers from having access to children;s names and addresses.

Volunteers in North Pole used to ensure each child got a reply signed by a Santa elf and bearing the crucial North Pole postmark. But no longer.

The town’s Mayor has agreed that caution is necessary, but has compared the action of the US Postal Service as akin to the Grinch trying to steal Christmas.

How right he is. And how very sad!
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Care For The Elderly

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I’m not sure what to make of Gordon Brown’s promise outlined in the Queen’s Speech to end means testing for care at home for the most vulnerable. On the face of it, the scheme is long overdue and, certainly, Brown calls it a ‘breakthrough’.

On the other hand, Labour peer Lord Lipsey says that the announcement was a gimmick which has bypassed proposals set out in a Green paper earlier this year.

The Tories say that the government will have to cut some disability benefits to fund the proposals and the government have yet to confirm or deny this.

As always with government, this one or another, the waters are muddied and only time will tell.
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The EU President

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So ‘Teflon’ Blair is not to be President of the European Council.

That’s a relief!
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More Stupidity!

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A Smethic lady was feeding the ducks in a park last week when she was approached by a warden and given a £75 on-the-spot littering fine. This jobsmith then told the lady that her young son could carry on feeding the ducks as he was too young to be fined!

Here again we have a council that first backed stupidity and, bowing to pressure, changed their minds on the basis that it was now taking a ‘commonsense’ approach.

The Deputy Leader of Sandwell Council grandly announced, ‘New signs will make it abundantly clear that feeding of waterfowl is not allowed at all in this park and that anyone observed feeding the geese and any other birds will receive a fixed penalty notice’.

Whoever heard of a park with a pond, geese and ducks where you couldn’t take your children and let them throw the birds a bit of stale bread?

But, if you are looking for one, head straight for Smethwick Hall Park, in Smethwick, West Midlands!
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Hooray For The Territorials!

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On Sunday, Rifleman Andrew Fentiman was shot dead in Helmand Province just two weeks after arriving in Afghanistan.

One’s heart goes out to the family of Rifleman Fentiman and also to the families of the other soldiers killed or maimed in recent conflicts.

Mr Fentiman’s death carries a special significance. For he was in the Territorial Army whose members agree to serve their country by committing at least 27 training days a year, including a fortnight of continuous training or attachment to a regular serving unit.

The Territorial Army, it must be borne in mind, is the same band of young men whose funding Gordon Brown announced last month would be cut by £20 millions with all future training suspended. Until, of course, another of his spectacular U-turns!

While politicians play politics and tinker with budgets, men are being killed. Including men of the Territorial Army whose worth to this country should not be undervalued.
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Shluurp!

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The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust plans to unearth and examine two crates of Scotch whisky buried under a hut built by the Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton during his unsuccessful South Pole expedition between 1907 and 1909.

The ice-encased crates of McKinlay and Co whisky was discovered three years ago, and the Trust plans to use special cutting tools to remove the crates from the ice so that conservation work can be carried out before the hut is restored to its original condition.

I have no idea how you can ‘conserve’ bottles of whisky which have lain in ice for a century and cannot imagine how anyone can expect people to bury them in the ice again without first having an almighty great slurp of what must by now be a very fine whisky indeed!
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Give Her The Day Off!

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Until it was pointed out by Nick Clegg, I hadn’t realised that there was a State Opening of Parliament occurring on Wednesday when her Majesty will have to read out the Government’s latest plans for the forthcoming year.

Only, as Mr Clegg rightly points out, there won’t be a forthcoming year for this government as there will have to be a General Election within that period. He suggests that the Queen’s Speech should be cancelled and replaced with a statement about the reforms about to be implemented to ‘clean up politics’.

I think they should give the Queen the day off. And we would be saved what will essentially be a party political broadcast.
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Where Else?

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The newly-repaired clock above the Nat West bank in Manningtree, Essex, has caused a stir because the repairer mixed up the 7 and the 8 during renovations paid for by the local Rotary Club.

The club reckons that the mix-up will be fixed in the spring. However, I wouldn’t bother for the odd-looking clock may attract some visitors to the town.

Just as the clock above the church bell tower in Whitgift in Yorkshire attracts visitors. Here, the signwriter long ago had his brain in neutral and, after writing XI, wrote XIII, and the church elders wisely left well alone

Where else can you see 8pm before 7pm except in Manningtree, and 13 o’clock after 11 o’clock except in Whitgift?

Answers on a postcard to ...
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Cissbury Ring

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Faced with strong opposition from various local groups, Worthing Council has decided not to go ahead with the sale of land containing an Iron Age hill fort.

In a nice piece of bureaucratic-speak, a Council spokesman said, ‘Because the decision was made a year ago and because of public concern, we feel it right to review the decision made over a year ago in order to make sure we take everything into account before a final decision is made.’

In other words, they made the wrong decision, were found out and changed their minds!
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Clever Lady!

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One of my favourite television programmes in the late 60s was the adaptation of A. P. Herbert’s ‘Misleading Cases in Common Law’ where the arch-litigant Albert Haddock frequently appeared in court to defend some improbable cause and won because he was usually in the right.

Herbert’s satirical and entertaining stories were all loosely based on legal fact so, in one example, Haddock wrote out a ‘cheque’ to the Inland Revenue for £57.10s on the back of a cow which he took to the bank. The Revenue declined to take the ‘payment’ and took Haddock to court which found that he had in fact attempted to make payment and that there was no case to answer.

The basic point behind the stories and the later television adaptation was not only the occasional absurdities in English law but that the common man, in the person of Albert Haddock, could represent himself in court, defend himself against the assembled lawyers and barristers and win his case.

This was bought to mind yesterday when a young Essex woman, Georgina Blackwell, faced up in the High Court against a team of lawyers paid by a house building firm and not only won her case but was awarded £75,000 in damages.

Miss Blackwell clashed with the building firm over access to her land in Essex next to which the firm wanted to build. At an earlier court hearing, she had lost her case and she subsequently met to agree a compromise solution to the problem which she thought had been reached. However, the building firm withdrew their offer and claimed that no binding agreement had been made. The case went to the High Court which found in Miss Blackwell’s favour.

One can well understand that, as she later said, the experience was a terrifying one. However, Miss Blackwell carefully researched the law and stood up against highly paid counsel in court and made her arguments so well that she was complemented by the judge for her handling of the case.

Good for her, especially as she is now considering a law career. And one up for the common man, or in this case an uncommon woman!
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It’s A Start

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We have complained for years that the Blair and Brown governments have not been paying attention to public views. That was certainly the case with a referendum over the EU Treaty.

But there are signs that, doubtless due to a pending General Election, the government, or at least Gordon Brown, is paying attention.

Take immigration, for instance. Brown has announced that he is ‘tightening’ immigration rules by reducing the number of professions which can recruit from outside Europe. OK, that’s a start.

He has also announced that he will ‘examine’ the bonuses paid to civil servants in the Ministry of Defence after it was revealed that these amounted to £47 millions so far this year.

One can’t say that Brown has reacted much to public and press opinion so far, but it’s a start.
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More Tosh!

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Many years ago, more than I care to think about, the company I was working for decided to produce a manual on how to answer the telephone. I remember well that it started out with the priceless words, ‘First pick up the handset’.

Of course the manual was treated with widespread derision and was quickly trashed, much to the surprise of the ‘expert’ who had somehow or other persuaded senior management that the staff were mostly idiots that needed basic education in communication skills and that such a manual was just the thing they needed.

Over the years I have seen many such manuals and it seemed to me that their wordy and largely useless contents were mainly designed to show off how good the experts were in compiling them. The vast majority of them ended up either in wastebaskets or on shelves gathering dust and never to be seen again.

So I read with some amusement in this morning’s newspaper that the Association of Chief Police Officers had produced a draft of a 93-page, two-volume booklet giving guidance to police officers on how to balance, brake and avoid obstacles in the road when riding their cycles.

Once the news of this tosh was released to the public, ACPO announced sniffily that the work was neither requested nor drawn up by them and that they were not proceeding with it.

What a surprise!
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Is It Something In The Water?

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A Wearside woman has lost her appeal against her conviction for breaching a noise abatement notice and faces three more counts of breaching an ASBO for the same offence.

The Newcastle Crown Court heard that the level of noise emitting from the woman’s house could be heard not only in adjacent properties but in the streets in front and back of her house. Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise and the result was the woman’s conviction in November 2007.

And what was this noise? Merely the sounds of the 48-year old woman screaming in ecstasy when making love with her husband!

To prove the point, a ten-minute recording of the couple having sex was played in court which heard that Sunderland City Council had recorded sound levels of up 47 decibels.

In rejecting the woman’s appeal against conviction, the Recorder said, ‘It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.’ ‘It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.’

Blimey!

What surprises me is not necessarily the noise that the woman made when making love, but the stamina the husband appears to have. Maybe, it has something to do with the water up there in Wearside.

One thing is for certain. A television career can’t be far off!
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In Defence Of Gordon Brown

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I am not a fan of Gordon Brown but I have some sympathy for him following an outburst of bad press concerning the letter of condolence he sent to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan in which he spelled his surname incorrectly.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the war in Afghanistan, it seems to me that the mistake was unfortunate but hardly ‘disrespectful’ or an ‘insult’ as described by his grieving mother. It was a mistake for heavens sake.

Brown has to be given credit for taking the time out of what must be an horrifically busy schedule to sit and write by hand such letters as this.

So, maybe, he could be forgiven for making a mistake now and again.
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Every Day Something New

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You learn something every day. Like, for instance, that there is an Act of Parliament called the Outer Space Act 1986. Wow!

The Act’s preamble explains its purpose: ‘An Act to confer licensing and other powers ... to ensure compliance with the international obligations of the United Kingdom with respect to the launching and operation of space objects and the carrying out of other activities in outer space by persons connected with this country.’ Wow again!

I had no idea that there was such an Act or that it would be so all-encompassing. Thinking of launching your own spacecraft from the wilds of the Yorkshire Moors? Think again - you need permission! Or maybe you’re thinking of accepting an invitation from that friendly Martian that walked through your wall on Saturday night and asked if you’d like to go for a ride on Tuesday? Forget it - you need permission!

Why am I burbling on about outer space?

It’s because the head of Virgin Galactic is thinking about launching his commercial space flights out of a spaceport based in Scotland’s Lossiemouth. But a change in the law - in the Outer Space Act 1986 - is needed to allow him to do it.

Groan! Is there no aspect of modern life that the government hasn’t got its bureaucratic fingers on?
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The High Cost Of Living

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It’s not only this side of the pond that some old folk are unable to manage on their pensions in these troubled economic times.

Take Michael Jackson’s father, for instance.

It has been disclosed that he is unable to manage on his State social security payments of $1,700 a month. This is a tad over £1,000 a month. What would our pensioners give to receive that?

But this is not enough to keep Mr Jackson going, for in documents submitted to the Los Angeles Superior Court, he says he needs an additional £20,000 a month to live on. Yes folks, that’s another £12,000 a month! Which is more than most of our pensioners get in a year.

It is said that Michael Jackson used to make payments to his father via his mother but, despite this, Mr Jackson senior was not mentioned in Michael’s will and Mr Jackson senior now seeks an income from Michael’s estate.

A lawyer for the administrators of the pop star's estate, said it was, ‘quite surprising to learn of the request’.

You can understand why!
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And Now For Some Light Relief

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Among the items on sale at the ‘Exceptional Auction of China Sport Collection’ on 29 November in Beijing are 5,000 condoms left over from the 100,000 distributed free to competitors of the Olympic Games there.

The stock of condoms, bearing the motto of the Beijing Games - 'Faster, Higher, Stronger' - in English and Chinese, has a starting price of the equivalent of eight pence each.

I was tempted to ask how much of the motto was seen by the average chap - but, in the interests of good taste, thought better of it!
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Earthquakes And Aftershocks

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Scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois and the University of Missouri believe that recent earthquakes may have been the aftershocks of earthquakes that occurred hundreds of years ago.

In the journal, Nature, they explain that a new pattern in the frequency of aftershocks could explain some major quakes after finding that echoes of past earthquakes can continue for several hundred years. They hope that further study will help them and other scientists to look for places where the earth is ‘storing up energy for a large future earthquake’.

Californians will be hoping that this is so for they anxiously await the arrival of ‘the big one’ which, despite recent major quakes in that State, has yet to materialise. I do hope so, for I was involved in the January 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles and it was a very unpleasant experience indeed, especially as for weeks afterwards one was waiting for the next aftershock in case it was a fresh earthquake.

Some time afterwards, I lived in the San Gabriel Mountains away from the rush, noise and pollution of LA. Just a couple of miles away from my house was the San Andreas Fault, a great gash in the ground, and I used to take visitors down there to see it.

Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. But looking more closely at the frequency of quakes might be.
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‘Lest We Forget’

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I had to go up to London yesterday and was saddened to see how few people were wearing poppies.

Maybe some people feel that the poppies represent just another charity and, to some extent, that is true for every week someone seems to be clanking a collecting tin as we emerge from a station or a supermarket. Every so often we also get personally-addressed appeals in the mail from charities reminding us of the need to support various folk or animals around the world. So I have some understanding of what is now called ‘charity fatigue’.

On the other hand, the annual display of poppies in the run-up to Remembrance Day has become a national symbol as well as a memorial and tribute to all those who have fallen in conflict and who may have been injured in or affected by them.

It’s not only the last two World Wars that we need to remember, but all the various conflicts since then. And, of course, the conflicts that exist right now, and Lord knows there are plenty of them.

More importantly, Poppy Day is a reminder - one sadly forgotten or ignored by many young people these days - that those who have fallen in conflict have done so to protect the freedom that we enjoy now. And that is definitely something that should not be forgotten.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
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Sold Out!

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The oldest parliamentary system in the world will have been sold out to the European Union when the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect later this year. And this despite the checks and balances we believed we had in this country on Parliament and the promise by ‘Teflon’ Blair of a referendum on the EU.

David Cameron, who I assume will be our next Prime Minister - Oh, Lord, let there please be a new Prime Minister! - finds himself betwixt the devil and the deep-blue sea. But the damage is done and there is nothing that can undo what has happened.

Cameron has promised a referendum on certain aspects of EU law and it remains to be seen whether his promise, like that of his predecessors in power, have any real meaning or whether it is as meaningful as a cupful of cold water in a storm. Only time will tell.

The tragedy is that the consequences of what has happened will fall on the Tories rather than on the people in power at this moment.

The wrangling and the arguments will probably go on for a lot longer than we can possibly tell.
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I Can Do Thursday If You Can Do Friday ...

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You’d imagine that an airline pilot would be pretty busy during a flight, checking his or her instruments, ensuring that the automatic pilot is working properly and doing all the other things a pilot should do and about which I know nothing.

One imagines that in those times when the automatic pilot has taken over, that pilots would be drinking their coffee, eating their meals, picking their noses and otherwise generally taking it easy while keeping an eye on things.

However, it has now emerged that the reason why a Northwest Airlines plane which overshot its destination by 150 miles was because the pilots were tinkering with their working schedules on their laptops! Good grief!

Now a US Senator is planning to introduce an Aviation Bill banning pilots from using laptops (except for those containing navigational tools), DVD or MP3 players and other personal electronic devices in flight. Like him, I am surprised that the regulations do not already prohibit this sort of thing.

For passengers in cattle class, flying is stressful in itself. But I’d rather be on a plane knowing that the pilot was fully concentrating on flying the wretched thing and not playing with his X-Box!
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He’s Referring It

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Yesterday the Deputy Speaker interrupted a Conservative MP in the middle of a speech when he spotted the MP looking at a Blackberry-type device when reading out the text of a letter he was referring to.

MPs are allowed to check and send emails from electronic devices in the Commons chamber, and are allowed to give speeches from written notes. But it seems that the Deputy Speaker felt that reading from an electronic device during a speech was to be ‘discouraged’. He allowed the MP to continue but said he would refer to it, another way of saying he would think about it afterwards.

In one respect, I have sympathy with the Deputy Speaker for the proliferation of Blackberries and those mobile phones which are also mini computers are a nuisance and a distraction.

On the other hand, reading a letter from a Blackberry doesn’t seem any different from reading from the letter itself.
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How Many?

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I don’t have a vintage car but I’d love to join the annual London to Brighton Rally which is held on the first Sunday of each November.

First held in 1896 to celebrate the Locomotives on the Highway Act, which raised the national speed limit from four miles per hour to fourteen miles an hour (Wow!), the rally attracts entries from all over Europe.

Over 400 cars were entered in yesterday’s rally, which is not strictly a race but more an endurance test to see if cars built before January 1905 can go the distance. If they do, they get a bronze medal.

I wonder how many of today’s cars, many of which require a computer programmer to repair, will be in the race in a hundred years time?
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Sales Time Is Every Time!

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I’ve said for some time that the many furniture sales advertised on television are often just a scam.

Ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t give house room to much of the bulky furniture being sold at so-called ‘Sale’ prices, the frequency of the television adverts suggests that the sale price is the ‘real’ price.

Labour MP David Taylor has now told that Commons that it is virtually impossible to find sofas and armchairs at the full selling price and that shoppers are being misled by the television and newspaper advertisements. I’m not sure I agree entirely on this last point, but I agree that something needs to be done.

The Advertising Standards Authority have twice upheld complaints in the last year against DFS’s half-price claims in TV adverts, ruling that they were misleading, and Mr Taylor comments that, ‘there is no way of knowing whether the discounted price represents a real saving for the potential consumer or just whether it is a cynical, deceitful come-on’.

New pricing practices guidelines are set out in the Consumer White Paper and are supposed to tighten things up. This remains to be seen.

In the meantime, it would be good to see fewer of these wretched furniture sales advertisements on television.
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Bonkers!

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A demonstration of how how hidebound with regulations Britain has become, along with a fear of breaking them, can be found with the redundancy notice sent to a 13-year old paperboy in Bedfordshire.

The lad was sent a redundancy notice along with a cheque for ‘one week's pay in lieu of notice, which equates to £6.53 (subject to tax and NI)’. The boy said when asked by reporters, ‘I felt annoyed and upset.’ I can understand his feelings.

What surprises me is, not the redundancy notice or the apparant lack of prior consultatation, but the absence of confirmation that the lad had a Criminal Records Check before he was allowed to put newspapers into people’s letterboxes, or that he wore the correct headgear when riding his cycle which had also been checked over for Health & Safety breaches and that he only went out with a dozen newspapers at a time to prevent him from getting a hernia lifting them or ...

See what I mean? I’m at it now!
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Groan!

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Oh dear just when we thought we had got rid of him, ‘Bronco’ Brown announces that 'Teflon Tone’ Blair would be an ‘excellent candidate’ for the first President of the European Council.

The Lisbon Treaty has yet to be ratified, of course, and it ought not to be forgotten that the British people have so far not been able to express their opinion in the referendum that Blair promised us but has so far been withheld. In this respect, William Hague is spot on when he says, ‘It leaves people feeling they have not been dealt with honestly and plainly.’

I’m no pollster, but I doubt the majority of the British people would now vote for the Lisbon Treaty given the opportunity.

And I’d bet that even fewer of us would want to see ‘Teflon Tone’ as President!
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They Just Haven’t Got It!

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The saga of MPs expenses rumbles on with one former minister being made to apologise to Parliament about his expense account and another being told to repay over £63,000. Wow!

In a sense, these instances are just a diversion from the main message which seems to be coming out of Parliament. This is that MPs are said to be objecting to new expense rules being imposed on them without their being able to vote on them.

Ignoring the fact that no employee in the normal world gets the opportunity to ‘vote’ on what their pay and expenses should be, it seems to me that MPs just haven’t got the message that we in the real world think that too many of them have had their snouts in the trough and, in any event, have access to far too many expenses.

MPs should get real and join the real world that the rest of us live in!
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Peace & Quiet

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We've been away for a few days in northern France and away from 'Bronco' Brown and his crew, government plans that suggest every one of us should have a criminal records check, the dire financial situation, the possibility that the EU may introduce a European income tax and all the other nonsenses going on at the moment.

We've been staying in a gîte in the little village of Beussent, around thirty miles south of Calais and tucked away in a lovely tree-lined valley not far from the walled town of Montreuil, and so situated that you might think you were a world away from the hustle and bustle of our usual lives. Which is how it should be when one is on holiday.

One of the things that I enjoy most of all is peace and quiet, and that is exactly what we can expect from our favourite gîte (see www.clubhousegites.com) which is tucked away in a lane just around the corner from the old mill through which races the local river in which can occasionally be seen cranes and herons. A short distance away is the village church and the bar with its most excellent gourmet restaurant, ‘Restaurant Lignier’.

So why am I telling you this and making what seems to be a blatant advertisement? It is because of what happened this morning.

What happened this morning? The answer is absolutely nothing.

Therein lies the beauty of life in Beussent and, as the Americans are fond of saying, I'd like to share it with you.

The gîtes have a no-smoking policy (which is fair enough) and, because I like my reviving cup of coffee and a cigarette first thing in the morning, I take them outside the apartment and settle for a while in total tranquillity and away from the light and noise pollution of where we live.

Until the street lights flicker into life at six-thirty, the outside world is completely dark and the only light is that of a light dimly shining a quarter of a mile away by the village church. Above, the stars shine brightly in a cloudless sky, and a satellite and the strobe lights of a passing, soundless plane can be seen among them.

Over the way, up and behind the church, in a forest ablaze with its russet fall colours where boar are said to roam among the fallen chestnuts and walnuts can be heard the owls gently hooting to each other. Except for the owls the world at that time is completely soundless, unlike where we live in Essex where the background noise is most often the wailing of emergency vehicles tearing along the nearby main road.

But, here in Beussent in the early morning, all is deafeningly quiet until a manic cockerel begins to proclaim the pending dawn and is joined by its competitors nearby. Not for a while yet do the other birds start chattering and the crows arguing, to be joined by the quacking of the ducks on the river. As dawn breaks I can see the cows in the field opposite the gîte busily and miraculously turning water and lush, green grass into milk.

The church bell tolling at six o'clock for morning mass seems to announce the start of the working day though, except for a passing car or the occasional tractor and trailer loaded with sugar beet, the world of Beussent remains a quiet and tranquil one. And, as I said before, that is just how I like it.

So I thought, as the Americans are fond of saying, I'd like to share this with you. If you want some peace and quiet in a place not too far removed from the various sights and sites of northern France, head for Beussent!

What a shame that just a few hours later I find myself back in noisy civilisation!
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Animal Cruelty

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One of the joys in walking our two dogs twice a day is meeting up with other dog-walkers and saying ‘hello’ to their dogs. Most often we meet the same people and the same dogs, many of which will run towards us with their tails wagging in expectation of a bit of fussing. And why not? There is always time to pet a dog!

Not everyone likes dogs and one has to respect that, but I have nothing but utter contempt for those who abuse dogs or other animals.

Three cases were highlighted just yesterday.

The first was a Northants breeder of St. Bernard’s who took herself on holiday and abandoned 99 - yes, 99! - puppies to their fate. No less than sixteen of these beautiful animals died or had to be put to sleep when their suffering was discovered. For causing this suffering to so many dogs the woman was rightly sent to prison, but for just eighteen weeks. Not enough in my book.

The second case concerned a woman from Fletching, near Uckfield, who stuffed four puppies into two suitcases which were found locked in a cupboard in the house. Though she failed to appear at Lewes Magistrates' Court, she was convicted of causing unnecessary suffering and neglect and an arrest warrant without bail has been issued with a warning that she also faces jail. In this case, it appears that last year RSPCA inspectors found sixteen adult dogs and ten puppies in a double garage with limited natural light and ventilation and hazardous conditions. At that time the woman gave up ownership of ten puppies and six dogs, leaving her with ten collie dogs, which were taken away at a later visit. So much suffering to defenceless animals!

And then, finally, a pit bull-type dog off its lead attacked a four-year old boy in a Birmingham park, causing minor head injuries to the lad. In this case, the male owner of the dog appeared to strangle it in front of the child and others, and was then seen on CCTV leaving the park dragging the apparently dead dog behind him. Such an act is hard to imagine even though the dog had injured a child.

There is no excuse of any sort for cruelty to animals and I have absolutely no sympathy for those who do so and who deserve the punishment the Courts hand down to them.
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Bigotry & Racism

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Among the pages of this morning’s newspapers this morning are stories of murders, child abuse, a child who died of Swineflu, strikes both actual and threatened, severe food shortages in north Korea, yet more suicide bombers killing people in Pakistan, soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, damage to Samoa caused by the recent tsunami, forest fires in Australia and many others involving death and destruction around the world.

Yet all these stories have been pushed to the back pages as this morning’s front pages virtually all feature Nick Griffin, the Leader of the odious British National Party, who was invited by the BBC to appear in last night’s ‘Question Time’ and despite the hundreds of protesters outside the studio.

Facing jeers and boos from the audience, Griffin made a poor showing and never really answered any of the questions put to him. He refused to confirm that he had denied the Holocaust, defended the Ku Klux Klan and attacked homosexuals and Muslims. Referring to the ‘indigenous people’ who he said felt shut out in their own country, he went on to say, ‘We are the aborigines here.’

Though pushed mainly on the extremist views of his party, Griffin had little time to develop what, if any, other policies the BNP had. Indeed, if they had any on the present economic condition, the health service, postal strikes, etc., etc., we didn’t hear them.

All in all, it was a sad showing and, despite the criticism of the BBC for allowing this man to take part in the programme, it did have one benefit.

The majority of viewers would most probably have been switched off by this smug person representing an odious party with no real answers or policies except that of bigotry and racism..

Wind Farms

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It’s not often that I agree with the things that former Deputy Prime Minister John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott has to say, but his comments at the annual conference of the British Wind Energy Association is spot on in my view.

He said, ‘It is absolutely scandalous that three-quarters of planning applications for onshore wind turbines are turned down. We cannot let the vocal minority stop our move to a low-carbon economy.’ He went on to call for local authorities to be required to assign suitable sites in their areas for wind farms.

The problem, as he rightly pointed out, is that there are too many ‘not in my back yard’ folk, that block planning applications for wind farms.

Wind farms can be seen all over Europe and have become part of the scenery in many places around the world. Certainly, one has to agree that their appearance can alter the appearance of a particular scene but then so did houses and other buildings over the centuries.

If we are to do something about reducing our carbon emissions then wind farms would seem to be at least one way forward and, instead of bitching about them, they ought to be encouraged.
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Oh My Gosh!

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Leeds University is spending £50 million over the next five years looking at solutions to the problem of ageing.

They reckon that half of the babies being born in the UK will reach the age of 100 thanks to higher living standards, and so they believe that in the future most of the body parts that falter with ageing can be upgraded in various ways.

I’m not one of those who hail this development for it raises a number of issues, not the least of which is: ‘Who is going to pay for upgrading failing body parts?’. I just don’t see the NHS lashing out on such work and, if this is the case, then only the wealthy will benefit from something that might equally benefit the poor.

Consider also the scenario of a wealthy person of 100 who has upgraded his or her body parts to that of a 50 year-old. The thought that you might have thousands of people with Alzheimers rushing around asking people where they’ve come from or where they supposed to be going to is just too disturbing for words!
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Surprise?

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Watching the news coverage of the ‘flying saucer’ balloon that was supposed to have been accidentally blown away in Colorado with a small boy inside it, the thought crossed my mind that it was most likely to have been some sort of publicity stunt. And, according to the Colorado police, so it was.

I am no prophet but the whole story at the time seemed bizarre to say the least, especially when the son appeared from out of his parents’ loft.

The couple who reported the balloon’s loss to the police, and who immersed themselves and one of their sons in the resulting media frenzy, have not yet been charged with any offence though, according to the Colorado Sheriff, charges do seem likely.

If this turns out to be a publicity stunt then, although it may have achieved what the couple wanted, there may well be a heavy price for them to pay. Not only are the local police considering various charges, but the federal authorities are looking at the incident following the temporary closure of Denver Airport. In addition, child protection agencies may also have an interest in what occurred.

The possibility of jail, fines, law suits to compensate various agencies for the cost of wasted time, as well as inquiries into the couple’s child care, are potentially heavy penalties if a hoax is proven.

But, I wonder, if the couple’s actions are proved to be a hoax, may they yet still profit?
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What Did They Expect?

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Television news and newspapers all report that the Communication Workers Union are angry at Royal Mail’s decision to hire up to 30,000 temporary workers to help clear the backlogs caused by recent walkouts, and to help with the Christmas rush.

It is the CWU that have called a strike. What did they expect Royal Mail to do; sit on their hands and do nothing?
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The Effectiveness Of 'Meerkat' Advertising

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Relaxing in front of the idiot-box last night, two things struck me.

The first was that many satellite channels seem to be showing more and more trailers for upcoming features in their commercial breaks. This, I assume, is due to the recession and a fall in advertising.

The second was that how many advertisements are wholly ineffective. Your eyes glaze over the pretty young women extolling the virtue of this or that and the many strange advertisements that don’t seem to relate much to the product being advertised. Indeed in many cases once the advert has finished, you are left wondering what it was all about.

Can you remember what the opera singer who floats up into the air is supposed to be selling? Or the woman wandering the park with her dog? Or the television sets that spring to life and move around town? There are many such instances where the advertising agencies have persuaded companies to invest in expensive adverts that achieve, in my view at any rate, nothing at all.

Contrast these with the ‘classic’ advertisements such as, for example, the Hovis bread boy or the ‘Bisto Kids’.

Or, much more recently, the hilarious meerkats fighting to protect their website from being invaded by people looking for cheap car insurance. How many people I wonder actually look up comparethemeerkat.com before moving on to buy insurance?

This latter shows how television advertisements can be both amusing and highly successful. And, sadly, often more entertaining than the programmes themselves!
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The Monks Of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Ramsgate, Kent

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I sometimes think I was a monk in a past life (a contradiction in terms when you think about it) for I seem attracted somehow to the monastic life. Indeed, as a teenager, I once spent a week in a Carmelite monastery observing what happened there.

This came to mind recently when I read that the eleven Benedictine monks of St. Augustine’s in Ramsgate, Kent, are to vacate the 148 year-old abbey which was built to accommodate forty men. It seems that the fall in the number of vocations and the rising cost of maintaining the abbey, designed by Pugin’s son, have led to a rethink about the community’s future.

The abbey’s website - http://www.ramsgatebenedictines.com - is an interesting one for the monastic life is summarised by the Abbot, Dom Paulinus Greenwood OSB.

‘We are united in our search for a new site which will enable us to live an authentic, balanced, monastic life of prayer, work, and study, according to the spirit of the sixth-century Rule of St Benedict, and to share that way of life with others who feel truly called to it. This is traditionally characterised by the daily celebration of Mass and the seven liturgical hours of the Divine Office, the reception of guests, manual work, and various intellectual pursuits.’

Perhaps for me the core of monastic life is in the seven liturgical hours of the Divine Office. They are Matins and Lauds, the first two Offices of the day; Terce, the third hour; Sext, the sixth hour; None, the ninth hour; Vespers, the evening Office; and Compline, Night Prayers.

Curiously, the old mediaeval monastic systems, with their prescribed activities for every hour of the day, was derived from the working routines of the old Roman military - so ensuring that Roman working customs continue hundreds of years after the fall of the Roman Empire. The monastic system gave a routine to the daily lives of the monks and a sense of order.

The monks of St. Augustine’s follow some of these old routines. They rise at 0530, and Matins follows twenty minutes later with Lauds after that at 0700. Breakfast is at 0740 and then Terce at 0840 and Sext at 0900. Lunch is at 1230 which is followed by None. Vespers is at 1800, supper at 0900 and Compline at 2030.

Giving some idea of the work done in between times, Abbot Greenwood says, ‘A new Abbey will need adequate provision for a church, land for market gardening, and other dedicated work areas, especially for producing the Community’s successful range of ‘Sanctuary’ products (honey, beeswax furniture polish, organic lip-balms and skin creams), and a shop in which to display and sell them. There is also a pressing need for a practical, user-friendly structure in which to house the Community’s large monastic library.’

The Abbot hopes that whoever acquires the Abbey property will show sensitivity to its historical and architectural significance. The abbey is certainly beautiful and one hopes that its principal buildings will remain accessible to the public to admire the work of Edward Pugin son of the more famous Augustus Pugin.

The Abbey will shortly be launching an appeal to help raise the funds needed for the move, and I wish them well in this.
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Mucky Fingers!

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Last night I watched one of those cookery competitions where various would-be chefs try to outdo others with their culinary skills. In each case, the contestants sweated their way through producing their own meals to be tasted and evaluated by a number of judges.

There are two things that always strike me with these type of programmes and, hence, modern cookery.

The first is that the food is always, but always, extensively manhandled by the chefs’ fingers to the point where it quite puts me off, regardless as to how attractive the meals may look when finally presented. Indeed, I have stopped using those restaurants where I suspect the chef’s fingers have been used to prepare mine and other people’s meals without having once been washed throughout the evening. While a meal may look attractive when presented at the table, you sometimes have to wonder what those fingers have been doing back there in the kitchen.

My mind goes back to the days of Fanny Craddock and Philip Harben and even, more recently, the much beloved Keith Floyd. Though many might criticise these chefs, the fact is that they mainly used utensils to plate up their food and not their fingers. Contrast their method of delivery with one young chef, now a so-called celebrity chef, who is, quite frankly, mucky in all of his cooking endeavours and a definite put-off to me when seen on television, especially when nasty things such as salmonella, novovirus and swineflu are around.

The second thought is how pretentious the judges are, even when they are chefs themselves. For goodness sake, food is to be eaten and, though there is obvious merit in presenting a tasty meal which looks good on the plate, it is just food after all. I don’t subscribe to the theory that cookery is an art form and the tosh dished out by some of the judges in these type of programmes is just dreadful. Words such as ‘vibrant’ about three pieces of fish, for example, which is piled on top of one another with a few julienned vegetables thrown on top of that with a dribble of sauce around the plate just seem so out of place; the food is dead remember!

For heavens sake, bring back chefs that can prepare meals without their unhygienic, mucky fingers having been over every single item. And also food that can be simply described as tasty, wholesome and just plain good, without all the pretentious nonsense that accompanies much of it these days!
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Poo Into Pellets

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Now and again one comes across one of those stories that just grabs your attention.

So it was when I read that United Utilities have been successful in turning human waste into odourless fertiliser pellets. The technique was developed in Ellesmere Port’s waste water treatment works and is being used to boost maize and rape-seed crop yields.

The serious side of the project is hailed as an environmentally-friendly way to dispose of human waste. And rightly so.

There are any number of wisecracks one could use about this story but, for once, I’ve let the opportunity pass even though I was sorely tempted.
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Reason Enough?

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The first Speaker of the House of Commons to be removed in modern times, Michael Martin, has taken up his seat in the House of Lords as Lord Martin of Springburn.

If that isn’t a reason enough to remove all peers and replace them with a totally elected upper house, I don’t know what else is!
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