Four Of Them?

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I didn’t know until now that South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, an ethnic Zulu, has three wives and that polygamy is common in parts of Kwa-Zulu Natal, though only the first wife is legally recognised.

We now have this information because it has been announced that a 44-year old South African businessman is marrying four women, aged between 22 and 35, later today. It seems he has paid ten cows for one wife, eight cows for two others and seven cows for the fourth.

What fascinates me is not that a man can keep four wives and, presumably, make them happy but that the bride-prices were different.

Who sets the price? And how do the seven-cow wives feel about being worth less than the other two?

These are good questions!
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Suspicious

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I’m afraid I laughed at the comments by Kent Police after a dog-walker discovered a body in a suitcase in a dried-up pond on farmland.

A police spokesman described the death as ‘suspicious’.

Yes, that’s what I thought too!
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Great 'Stuff'!

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What a wonderful job that metal detectorist did in discovering and uncovering an amazing hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver items in a field in Staffordshire. Already, thousands of people have queued to see just a small part of the treasure on display in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Many of us may have a hankering to be out and about with a metal detector and be the discoverer of something like this. Of course, the government made it easier for metal detectorists to declare their finds and get a proper reward for them, and the man that discovered this lot, along with the landowner, will certainly benefit hugely. That is as it should be, of course.

I am not one of those who decry the efforts of the discoverer of this unique hoard or of the activities of other legitimate metal detector enthusiasts. Were it not for one man’s persistence in scouring every inch of that field in Staffordshire, this treasure may never have been uncovered and exposed to public view.

More importantly, perhaps, is that the beautiful 1,300-odd items recovered are going to keep the archaeologists, conservationists and historians occupied for a long time yet. And the public has yet to see and admire a lot more of it.
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Ridiculous!

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We always knew that public money is wasted on useless projects, and confirmation comes with the news that a cabinet minister wasted £6 million on research that he was warned could not evaluate anything at all.

As a Home Office minister in 2002, Bob Ainsworth, now the Defence Secretary, put his signature to a study to research a drugs prevention programme in schools. It now transpires that academic advisers tried to block the project before it began since it ‘was not sufficiently robust to allow an evaluation of impact and outcomes’.

Despite this, the project went ahead, and the result is that the report, published earlier this month, found it was unable to draw any conclusions.

Six million quid wasted. Wonderful!
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A Watching Eye?

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There is a very interesting development with CCTV security systems which Queens University Belfast say could soon spot a crime before it happens.

Though the research is still in the theoretical stage, the software being developed is reckoned to be capable of looking for suspicious behaviour associated with crime.

I wonder if the software could be modified to keep an eye on our MPs in future?
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Topsy-Turvy

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It’s often a topsy-turvy world we live in.

A County Court Judge who has twice been arrested on suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol recently has resigned his position. His Honour has, it could be said, done the honourable thing.

On the other hand, the Attorney General, the government's chief law officer, who has been fined £5,000 for employing a housekeeper who was not legally allowed to work in the UK, remains in post.

Very odd!
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Commonsense At Last?

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If Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, is to be believed, Britain will not be forced to take migrants from the ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais which French police have cleared.

Commonsense has also been sounded by Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, who has said that Britain's immigration policy was part of the problem. ‘Britain is regarded as a soft touch,’ he has correctly said.

More commonsense has come from Richard Ashworth, Conservative MEP for South East England, who said that, ‘It is now incumbent on the French government to deal with illegal immigration at the point of entry into France, and not simply funnel them through creating this sorry bottleneck along the Pas de Calais and Normandy coasts’.

But will commonsense prevail? We will have to wait and see.
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Different Planet?

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You wonder sometimes what planet our politicians live on.

‘Prezza’ Prescott has told radio listeners that ‘Bronco’ Brown is a ‘global giant’ who can win the next election.

Any questions?
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What A Thought!

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According to the World Health Organisation, nearly one-fifth of Japanese men, and one-quarter of Japanese women are aged 65 or over.

What struck me about the report was not that the shrinking ratio of workers in the population, and presumably around much of the world also, will face a higher tax burden in future as healthcare and pension costs rise.

No. It’s the fact that I’m now officially regarded by the bureaucrats as being ‘elderly’!
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Are They OK?

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A report from King's College London suggests that there will be 35 million people worldwide suffering with dementia by next year. This is, apparently, fuelled by increasing life expectancies in countries around the world.

The report also suggests that the proportion of older people who have dementia is higher than previously thought.

My thoughts immediately turn to the senior members of our present government.

Are they all OK do you think?
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Two Billion?

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After stubbornly refusing to discuss the issue, ‘Bronco’ Brown has now admitted that government spending cuts will have to be made in order to help ease the current economic crisis. So it was no surprise then that Alisdair Darling followed suit with unspecified mumblings of spending cuts.

And then up pops Ed Balls, Schools Secretary, who discloses that he can save £2 billion on education spending.

Strewth! Why didn’t he make these savings before now?

And what are the other government ministers proposing, and when?
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To Hell with the Health & Safety Executive!

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It’s Sunday, and among the joys of living in England is to hear the church bells ringing and to look up at the tower clock to check the time.

Most English church tower clocks are quite old and the one at St. Michael’s church in Helston was installed in the 18th century. Doubtless, the church elders are very proud of their clock, They must be because three times a week a man climbs the tower and an eight-foot ladder to wind the clock mechanism, something which has been done since 1793.

But the civil servants in the Health and Safety Executive, who have likely not done anything more risky than putting their mouths to hot cups of tea paid for by the taxpayers, have advised that the job could be dangerous.

And so the diocese of Truro is forced to stop the clock temporarily and are now trying to raise £5,500 for an automatic clock-winder to replace the man who has been doing the job.

I reckon that since 1793 someone has climbed that tower and a similar ladder around 34,000 times. Does that indicate a dangerous practice? I don’t think so!

To Hell with the Health & Safety Executive!
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Sorrow On The Bosom Of The Earth

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I was interested to learn that recently Westminster City Council threatened legal action against the distributors of free newspapers after it was found that they created four tons of waste a day. It seems that two of the publishers then agreed to meet some of the costs of recycling.

Our weekend papers now come with all sorts of supplements and inserts, most of which are discarded immediately. Perhaps I am one of the few that only read the news and, sometimes, the travel and book supplements, but all the rest are uninteresting rubbish to be put out with all the other stuff for recycling along with the two free newspapers we receive each week.

When you sit and think about it, we are inundated with paper we do not need and haven’t asked for every day. It’s not only the free newspapers, supplements and inserts but all the stuff we get by hand through the letterbox. We regularly get flyers from the local traders, supermarkets, Indian and Chinese restaurants and pizza parlours to name but a few, all of which go straight into the recycling bin without being read.

Royal Mail do their bit also to help our bulging recycling sacks, for they have for some time now been delivering flyers and commercial announcements along with the morning mail. And if you attempt to block these unwanted items you are told that this will also block unaddressed, and possibly important, notifications from the police and from the local council as well.

You have only to sit on a commuter or London Underground train after the morning rush hour to see the shambolic effect that all this free ‘stuff’ has on the carriages, for it all has to be collected up and taken away in rubbish sacks and dealt with.

So the stand of Westminster Council is a good one in my view. It is a move that other councils could follow suit and demand a contribution towards their waste collection and disposal. That would reduce unwanted paper and so help the environment that the government and others bang on about each day.

And couldn’t people that read all of the weekend papers along with their supplements and inserts from cover to cover pay more for the privilege? Or, better still, could I pay less for receiving less?

If the sacks of paper that my household put out each week is anything to go by, the sheer amount of unwanted paper being produced around the country - and the trees and other materials used to produce them - must be phenomenal.

Maybe, it’s time to do something about it and, in the process, help the environment.

As Shakespeare warns us in Richard II, act 3: ‘Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes, write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.’
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Is This A Solution?

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French authorities have announced plans to close ‘The Jungle’, an unsanitary and illegal makeshift camp in Calais which houses around 1,500 migrants all desperate to get into Britain.

Many of these unfortunate people have paid people traffickers extortionate amounts to get there from their home countries, and their sad, and often dangerous, attempts to get into Britain are often featured in the media.

Curiously, the move to close this camp is said to send a strong message that people traffickers can no longer use Calais as their base. Note that the move seems not to be meant to refer to France as a base for illegal migrants - just Calais.

The French seem to have ambivalent views about illegals trying to get into Britain and appear not to do very much about the problem.

There would seem to me to be two ways of curtailing illegal immigration generally now that EU borders are open.

The first is for the French to take a much stronger line with illegals and either deal with them themselves or send them back either to the country from which they entered France or, if they wish, back to their home countries.

The second is for Britain to immediately stop welfare payments to all illegals other than those demonstrably escaping oppressive regimes and seeking genuine asylum.

But something needs to be done and not just the closure of one migrant camp which will merely be moved elsewhere.
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Barmy!

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I wonder sometimes whether there is a group of civil servants whose sole job is to sit and dream about introducing cockamamy laws. The new Vetting and Barring Scheme is a case in point where a thoroughly useless law is introduced requiring yet more civil servants to administer it.

So I’d like to know who dreamed up the latest wheeze from this wretched, wretched government who now to propose that all cars must be insured regardless as to whether or not they are being used or even stored on private property. The maximum fine for this latest ‘crime’ will be £1,000.

I can think of some new laws: restricting governments to a maximum of four years before calling a General Election, making ministers accountable in law for unfulfilled promises, barring unelected people from holding a ministerial position, restricting MPs expenses ... oh I could go on for a long time.

But one law I’d bring in would be to get rid of the civil servants who keep dreaming up these ridiculous laws!
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Blimey!

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The Crown Court in Isleworth has been hearing the case of a 36-year old British woman who, on a flight from Bangalore to Heathrow, is alleged to have stripped off to her panties and allowed a fellow passenger to kiss and fondle her.

Blimey! In all my years of travelling, it never happened to me!
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Promises, Promises!

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It’s party conference time and we can expect all sorts of promises to be made by the politicians in the next few days and, even before the first conference gets under way, Labour is the first to kick off with its promises.

First we have the Commons Leader, Harriet Harman, telling us that MPs who made expenses claims in breach of parliamentary rules must repay the money in full in a move to ‘rebuild public confidence in Parliament and democracy’.

Hmm. They’re going to have to do more than that!

Then Children's Secretary, Ed Balls, pops up, doubtless in response to the latest storm of criticism about it, to tell us that the government is going to take another look at the Vetting and Barring Scheme.

He said that it was ‘tremendously important’ to define ‘frequent or intensive’ contact correctly and has asked the chair of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority to review the situation which some sources say will affect a quarter of the population and stop normal and harmless behaviour such as giving lifts to school and sports clubs.

We will have to see but, possibly, commonsense will enter this particular arena. What a shame it didn’t enter it in the first place.

In the meantime, we have to wait with bated breath to see what new promises are to be handed out in anticipation of the next General Election.

Whether any of them will keep their promises is entirely another issue!
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Too Comfortable?

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Just four stories, among many others in the Sunday papers, make you wonder what our bit of the world is coming to:

Five men aged between 16 and 19 are injured in a single gun and knife fight.

A 17-year old is charged with a fatal stabbing.

A 17-year old is stabbed to death.

A 19-year old is arrested after two men are taken to hospital with serious facial injuries.

I don’t profess to know why the youths of today seem to be so violent, but among the many theories posited are a lack of respect and discipline, the absence of National Service, the influence of television, violent films and so-called war games, drugs and alcohol, readily available weapons, cash handouts to those who don’t want to work, etc., etc. You can doubtless add many others.

Have so many aspects of everyday life become too easy for those who do not want to work or who are just plain violent? Including prison?

Just a week ago, a Telegraph writer expressed the views stated by a long-term prisoner. He was most happy to be in prison. He was looked after in all respects, was well-fed, had access to a variety of recreational facilities, was secure and had no responsibilities. Yes, he was very happy in prison and was also prepared to commit further crimes to make sure he was returned there.

Maybe there is a lesson here. Don’t make prison quite so comfortable for some offenders. Whatever happened to the much-trumpeted boot camps for young offenders?
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I'm Sorry!

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The WWII code-breaker, Alan Turing, was said by Winston Churchill to have made the single biggest contribution to the war effort in working out the secrets of the German Enigma code machine.

The brilliant mathematician was gay in what were unquestionably homophobic times and, to avoid a prison sentence after being found guilty of gross indecency, he agreed to undergo experimental hormone therapy and chemical castration. Two years later in 1954 the poor man committed suicide.

Responding to a petition asking for a posthumous apology for the way in which Turing was treated, Gordon Brown has indeed apologised. He said, ‘On behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.’ He was right, of course.

There seems to me to be a growing trend for officials around the world to issue apologies for all sorts of things; indeed there are millions of them posted on the internet.

The Anglican Church of Australia apologising for the removal and relocation of Aboriginal children, the Japanese prime minister for his country’s aggression in WWII and Tony Blair for Parliament’s failure to respond effectively to the Irish Potato Famine are just three that come to mind.

Does an apology, decades or even centuries after the event, count for anything? I personally doubt it.

But if it makes anyone feel any better, then I am all for it.
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Another ‘Crackpot’ Scheme

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Under the new Vetting and Barring Scheme which from next month aims to limit the activities of paedophiles, parents who regularly drive children for sports or social clubs, or host foreign exchange students, will have to be vetted or face fines of up to £5,000.

Though it seems that ‘informal arrangements between parents’ will not be covered by the scheme, anyone taking part in activities involving frequent or intensive contact with children or vulnerable adults three times in a month, every month, or once overnight, must register.

While it is true that unpaid volunteers will be exempt from the £64 charge, the new law is nonetheless a direct attack on the army of volunteers that do unsung and sterling work around the UK. Many of them will simply not bother to go through a registration procedure they may feel is overbearing, and so their efforts will be lost to the country.

While I absolutely agree that the safety of children and vulnerable adults must be safeguarded, I think I concur with Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne who said that the government was ‘in danger of creating a world in which we think every adult who approaches children means to do them harm’.

We are also creating a world where our every move is increasingly subject to license and scrutiny. And that I do think is sinister.
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9/11 Remembered

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On this day, a Tuesday, in 2001, the full horror of what became known as the 9/11 attacks slowly unfolded before a shocked world.

I watched much of the television coverage myself and wrote at the time of that terrible day: ‘Nothing anyone can say can sum up the horror of these incidents and the thousands upon thousands of lives that must have been lost. And there is nothing anyone can say, in the name of religion, politics or anything else, to justify such a barbarous and wanton act of cruelty and callousness.’

Since then, video footage of the Twin Tower attacks, of the burning Pentagon and of the crashed fourth plane in rural Pennsylvania, of people jumping to their certain deaths rather than risk being burned alive, of buildings collapsing and spreading a deadly and suffocating cloud of ashes and other particles, has now been shown so many times that the initial shock has worn off somewhat. Among the very many distressing sounds of that day, we have since heard some of the recorded conversations of rescue workers trying to do their best for other people, and of the last, heart-breaking agonising conversations some passengers had with their families.

At the time, we questioned whether we were watching an impossible reality or some sort of warped fantasy. Were these real planes, explosions, smoke and flames, jumpers, people running from danger, corpses laid out on stretchers on the grass, over-stretched rescue teams risking their lives in impossibly dangerous conditions and people quietly helping or queuing to donate blood - or were they all scenes and props from a movie?

But it wasn’t fantasy. It was all horribly true, and it was impossible not to weep and pray for all of those who had been touched and affected by that monstrous act and to extend a hand of compassion and the warmth of love to them.

As, in remembrance, we do today.
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Ridiculous!

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The political correctness commissars of Flintshire Council have decided that the pudding ‘Spotted Dick’ is to be renamed ‘Spotted Richard’ to cut back on crude jokes at school mealtimes.

Wouldn’t you have thought that the council would have had better things to think about?

Quite ridiculous!
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Surprise, Surprise!

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An independent poll by Ipsos Mori commissioned by the BBC Trust has found that around half of television license payers would want the charge to be smaller if given the option.

What a surprise!

How about scrapping the fee altogether?
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Thrilling Rides!

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Ought we to be alarmed that a health trust is handing out chlamydia tests at an Essex funfair as a means of targeting young people? Could this not be yet another way of actually encouraging sexual activity among the young?

Maybe I’m a bit old-fashioned, but it seems to me that sexual education has entirely failed in this country where over 9,000 pregnancies in the under-16s were reported in 2007. Maybe, teenager magazines and television programmes don’t help either.

The representative for NHS North East Essex said that, ‘We are hoping young visitors will fit us in between some of the more thrilling rides.’

It’s the more thrilling rides that have caused the problem!
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Those ‘Experts’ Again!

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The ‘experts’ have been at it again and the British Science Festival has been told that couples suffer 50% more sleep disturbance if they share a bed.

Snoring, talking in one’s sleep, chattering, pulling the duvet to one side, reading with the light on, etc., etc. Well, we knew all that didn’t we?

But what about our sleep disturbance when our Jack Russell, Ollie, decides it’s cold outside and wants to warm himself up alongside my back or when our Yorkie, Mickey, asks to be let out for an early-morning widdle?

Now that’s real sleep disturbance!
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Stop Nannying Us!

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The antismoking lobby has succeeded in banning smoking in public places and, though our bit of the world may be a slightly healthier place to live in, unemployment from the resulting closure of bars and clubs due to the refusal of the EU to consider separate smoking areas and the low cost of drinks in supermarkets just adds to our general economic woes.

Now the BMA wants a total ban on alcohol advertising and an increase in drinks prices. The impact on this on a variety of industries and occupations could be extremely serious indeed.

Whatever happened to the word ‘choice’ in the vocabulary of those in responsible positions, or is it just me that thinks it was replaced with the word ‘forbidden’?

Stop ‘nannying’ us!
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One For The Little Man!

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In Malaysia, the American fast-food giant McDonald’s has for eight years been trying to stop a restaurant owner from calling his little curry house McCurry.

McDonald’s won their case in the High Court in 2006, but McCurry’s won when the Court of Appeal overturned the previous ruling. McDonald’s then took the case to the Federal Court which has now finally ruled in favour of McCurry’s saying that there was no evidence to show McCurry was trying to pass itself off as part of the McDonald’s empire.

I should think so too. The thought of a chicken tikka masala for breakfast fair turns the stomach.

Though one would be nice at suppertime!
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Aaah!

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Did you know that Kate Pong recently gave birth to quintuplets? No, I didn’t think so.

But the good people of Newport in Shropshire thrilled to an announcement in Births section of The Times on 1 September announcing the birth of Beyonce, Tyra, Bobbi, Barrack and Earl. The story was picked up by local newspapers as well as a couple of the nationals all curious about the infant’s strange names.

But once you know that the quintuplets were born to a chocolate Labrador, the names don’t seem quite so strange. A fact that was innocently omitted from the newspaper entry.

Nonetheless, it is good news for a change. Congratulations Kate!
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Go!

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We’ve been away for a few days, but not much has changed has it?

There are still tales of what ‘Bronco’ Brown did or did not say or write to Col Gaddafi. There are still reports about what Jack Straw and ‘Mandy’ Mandelson did or did not say about either the Pan-Am bomber affair or the state of the economy.

Though one hardly dares to say ‘Bring back Teflon Tone and his gang of PR consultants’ one has to say that this present crew is a pretty dismal lot with indecision, wrong decision, muddled thinking and general negativity by comparison.

There is only one answer. Call a General Election!
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All Aboard - Not!

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What a wonderful world we live in.

London Midland won the franchise to operate around 1,200 services with trains calling at 149 stations between London, the Midlands and the North West. In submitting its application to operate these trains one assumes that certain commitments were made - like to operate trains every day.

It transpires that it relies on its drivers to volunteer to run trains on Sundays, and that today most of them have decided to put their feet up and remain at home. The result is that London Midland have cancelled all but one of its routes because of a lack of drivers.

So thousands of people face chaos today just because London Midland’s employment agreements are ridiculous to say the least, and expecting staff to work an essential service on a voluntary basis is an astonishing state of affairs.

The General Secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union helpfully said, ‘Their contracts of employment say they haven't got to work on a Sunday. It’s their choice.’

Fair enough. But the government ought to look a bit more closely at this franchise and the silly way it is organised.
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