Rest In Peace

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In a poignant ceremony yesterday, an unidentified soldier killed in the Battle of Fromelles on 19 July 1916 in northern France was reburied with full military honours in a new military cemetery nearby.

The bodies of 250 men were buried by German forces in mass graves and were excavated in 2008. Since then, DNA samples have been taken to try to identify as many soldiers as possible.

A ceremony to bury the last of the soldiers and mark the 94th anniversary of the battle is expected to take place on 19 July.

The Commonwealth Graves Commission does a superb job in honouring fallen troops. These cemeteries remind us of the futility of war and the sheer waste and sacrifice of the men involved.

May these rest in peace.
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Ouch!

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An MP has complained about folk who give bone-crushing, eye-watering handshakes to prove the strength of their personalities and reckons they should be ‘summoned for assault’.

He shouldn’t worry. Are there many folk these days who want to be seen shaking the hands of an MP?
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Heard At The Iraq Inquiry

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I suppose I’m a naive sort of bloke in some respects.

Foe example, I always thought that MPs were our government, that the Cabinet and Ministers were the Executive Branch of it, with the Prime Minister being in overall charge.

But I was disabused of this idea yesterday listening to ‘Teflon’ Blair answer questions at the Iraq Inquiry. Most of what I heard was prefaced by ‘I’ and ‘me’.

I was reminded of those powerful words from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in which he refers to government as being, ‘... of the people, by the people, for the people ...’.

No mention in that of ‘I’ or ‘me’!
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More Silliness

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Let’s see. Your car is stopped at a set of traffic lights in Ayr with the gears in neutral and the hand brake on and you take the opportunity to blow your nose. Then PC Plod walks over and gives you a fixed penalty notice for not being in proper control of your car.

This happened to an Ayrshire man who has refused to pay the £60 fine and awaits his day in court.

Alas, the man is unlikely to have his day in court for surely the Procurator Fiscal will chuck it out rather than allow the lawyers to have fun with it. And rightly so for it would not only waste the court’s time but bring yet more odium on Strathclyde Police for taking heavy-handed action in such silly circumstances.
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Pyjamas?

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They seem to be some odd folk around in Cardiff these days, for a Tesco store there has found it necessary to put up a sign at its entrance advising customers that ‘Footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted’.

You’d have thought that any normal person would go shopping in normal daytime clothes and that they would be wearing something normal on their feet. But some do not, apparently.

One woman, wearing her ‘best pyjamas’ with bears and penguins on them, has surfaced to complain about the ban which she says is ridiculous. ‘I think it's stupid really not being allowed in the supermarket with pyjamas on,’ she is reported as having said.

Yes, maybe. But who in their right mind would want to?
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Tragedy, Sadness & Compassion

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There is much tragedy and sadness in this morning’s papers.

A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murdering her two children under five years of age. A father has been jailed for twelve years for killing his eight year-old son and two teenage stepchildren in an arson attack. These are not the first of these sort of stories.

What induces anyone to take the lives of innocent children is beyond comprehension. All one can say is that their minds must have been so powerfully and terribly overtaken by emotion that all rationality ceased to exist.

One thing is for certain and that is they, as well as their families, will live for ever with the terrible memories of what was done. All deserve our compassion.
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What?

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The most bizarre story of the day has to be that of the 58 year-old German reptile collector who attempted to board a plane in New Zealand with more than forty geckos and skinks in a package concealed in his underwear.

Convicted of trading in exploited species without a permit, the man was jailed for fourteen weeks, fined NZ$5,000 and ordered to be deported on his release.

The reports don’t indicate how it was that the man came to be arrested by wildlife officials at Christchurch Airport last December.

But one might speculate as to the shocked reaction of the official monitoring an airport body scanner if one of those had been used!
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Resurrected!

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Folk in County Durham can rest easy (no pun intended) now that the local college have reinstated a course in grave digging after burying it four years ago (I couldn’t resist that one!).

Students are taught soil types, coffin sizes, grave preparation, care and maintenance and the various health and safety issues involved. Even the local Co-op has helped out by donating a coffin.

More than thirty people, including some already working for local authorities, have enrolled on the four-day course.

I wish them well. Grave digging may not be the most exciting job in the world but it is a vital one.
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The Day Draws Nearer!

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The Infinite Monkey Theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.

That day draws nearer, for the BBC are about to broadcast a film shot entirely by chimpanzees using a specially designed chimp-proof camera.

It’s bound to be better than some of the stuff we see on television these days!
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Raise The Retirement Age? No Thanks!

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The Equality and Human Rights Commission has said that the over-65s should be allowed to carry on working.

They say that with the state pension age set to rise to 66 in 2024 and 67 a decade later, it feels the retirement law is outdated and that employers should extend flexible working.

For those who wish to carry on working after the age of 65, the proposed changes will certainly be welcome. However, being the cynical sort of chap I am, I do wonder if this isn’t some sort of underhand plot to raise the age at which people must retire so that savings can be made on their pensions.
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Burns Night

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Today is the 251st anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s greatest poet and sex and alcohol addict. I refer, of course, to the Immortal Bard, Robert Burns, who millions of Scots around the world will celebrate tonight with the Scots national dish, haggis.

Haggis, a dish that either delights or repels, consists of sheep offal mixed with onion, oatmeal, suet and spices traditionally, but not often these days, wrapped in the animal’s stomach, and served with ‘bashed neaps’ (mashed swede), and ‘champit tatties’ (mashed potatoes) and often made more palatable with a hefty glass of Scotch whisky.

OK, I agree it doesn’t sound so good on paper, but those of us in Chateau MacDonald will be celebrating the Bard in the usual way this evening for, as it happens, we love haggis and need very little excuse to enjoy it with our friends.

In a traditional Burns Night Supper, the evening commences with the Selkirk Grace. The haggis is then paraded into the room accompanied by the bagpipes, and one of the party declaims Burn’s lengthy, theatrical and largely incomprehensible Address to the Haggis in which the poet extols the many virtues of the dish. Only then do the guests get to settle down and eat. The evening is usually accompanied by numerous toasts and often a reading from some of Burns’ poetry or other writings.

That is the traditional way, but we are not purists and the meal will be served and devoured without all the usual accompanying fuss though it is certain that there will be some hilarity and good humour involved. It also goes without saying that our meal will be accompanied by wines, whisky and malts and, possibly, for those who are still standing, a glass or two of Drambui, that Scotch liqueur that was once my favourite tipple until diabetes raised its its head.

So, to those of you enjoying Burns Night with the Scots’ traditional dish (the best haggis are unquestionably those from McSween) along with a dram or two of the Scots’ traditional liquor - Slàinte mhath - Cheers, Good Health!

Burns Night

Who is this chappie, Robbie Burns,
We have to celebrate with haggis?
A man who writes and loves and yearns
And, at a mouse, blows kisses!
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Links To The Polar Past

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In 1912 Robert Falcon Scott, the polar explorer, along with four companions successfully reached the South Pole only to find that they had been beaten by the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. Burdened by heavy equipment, much of which they discarded in favour of sled-dogs, Scott and his party were bitterly disappointed to find that Amundsen had beaten them by just over a month. Sadly, Scott and his party perished on their return journey from exhaustion, hunger and cold.

In contrast, Amundsen had previously spent three winters icebound near King William Island, Canada, where he learned Arctic survival skills from the local Nattilik people. Among many other things, Amundsen learned to wear animal skins instead of the heavy, woollen parkas that were worn by polar explorers at that time. He learned also to use sled dogs and to travel light and fast. No wonder then that later, Amundsen and his four companions not only beat Scott to the South Pole but lived to tell the tale.

It was, of course, the sled dogs that enabled both explorers to travel across the frozen wilderness of two continents and they have been used in snowbound environments ever since. Possibly, the most notable of sled-dog achievements occurred in 1925 when a relay of dogs forged their way through the interior of Alaska to take urgently-needed medical supplies from Anchorage to Nome; an event commemorated annually by the famous Iditarod Trail Race. Thus, has emerged the sport of sled-dog racing and enthusiasts race in many places around the world.

The Husky dogs are wonderful to see when they are harnessed to a sled or cart. Their impatience to be ‘off’ is something I’ve seen in Alaska and on Spitsbergen. Their raw energy when they are working is an amazing thing to see; their sheer enthusiasm is clear from the way that they urge each other on, their tails wagging like windmill vanes in a gale.

Of course, you don’t have to go to the polar regions to see sled-dogs working as teams of them can be seen in places around the country pulling wheeled rigs. I’ve seen them, for example, racing through the New Forest.

Once a year there is the Highland Dog Sled Rally held in the Cairngorms, and this year’s rally took place at the weekend when, watched by over 2,000 spectators, 200 competitors and 1,000 Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes and Canadian Eskimo dogs raced round a four mile track pulling sledges instead of wheeled rigs. This was the first time in fifteen years that there was enough snow for sledges to be used in this event and, from what I saw on television, the dogs as well as their owners had a great time.

For the dog-lover there can hardly be a more interesting and exhilarating spectacle than to see sled-dogs in action and pulling as part of a team. You see immediately their enthusiasm and energy and get some idea of their speed and endurance.

Few of us get the chance to travel to the frozen wastelands of the Poles but perhaps the sled-dogs we see around our own country are a link to the great polar explorers and the sled-dogs they relied on all those years ago.
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‘Snowflake’ Bentley

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I suppose I vaguely knew that every snowflake was unique but really thought nothing of it until yesterday when I read that a couple of pioneering photographs of snowflakes are up for sale in New York.

Captured by a US farmer, Wilson Alwyn ‘Snowflake’ Bentley, they are among the first images of single snowflakes. From 1885, he produced over 5,000 photographs of them and proved that each was unique. ‘Every crystal was a masterpiece of design, and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost,’ he said.

The images were so good that no-one else bothered to photograph a snowflake for over 100 years. Sadly, Bentley caught pneumonia in 1931 when out in a blizzard and died as a result.

In an idle moment, I googled the word ‘snowflake’ and was surprised to find that there are over 5,000,000 entries on it. The idle moment turned into an extremely interesting and relaxing hour and a half as I explored the world of the snowflake and the beauty of them.

There are websites devoted to snowflakes in their various forms, thousands of essays on the subject, dozens of books about them, photos and sketches of them, discussions about the merits or otherwise of the various types of them ... the variety of sites is seemingly endless.

Scrolling through some of these websites, what captured my imagination more than anything were the photographs of snowflakes. For one thing it seems amazing that anyone could actually capture a snowflake long enough to take a photograph before it melted.

For another, it is the sheer inexpressible beauty and wonderment of the multiplicity of snowflakes, starting with the very first ones taken by ‘Snowflake’ Bentley all those years ago.

And, if you don’t believe me, take a look for yourself. But be prepared to be enchanted as well as trapped for a while.
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A ‘Broken Society’?

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Speaking in Kent yesterday, David Cameron talked about Britain’s ‘social recession’.

His point followed the trial of two brothers, then aged ten and eleven, who subjected two other boys, aged nine and eleven, to what was described as a ‘sadistic’ attack and who have been sentenced to an indefinite period of detention.

In some respects, this morning’s papers may give some backing to what Cameron said:

A woman has been jailed for three years after subjecting her son to ‘enduring’ cruelty by pretending he was severely ill so as to gain publicity and financial rewards; a mother and her brother have been jailed for life for the murder of a man they tortured to death; and the man behind one of the biggest gun smuggling operations in the UK has been jailed for thirty years.

None of these, plus other similar stories in today’s newspapers, make for easy reading, but I don’t think they point to a ‘broken society’ as inferred by David Cameron.

If that were so, people wouldn’t offer themselves as foster parents, volunteer to help those who are disadvantaged or do any of the other things that aim to help others. More importantly, people wouldn’t feel the revulsion that is so apparent from their reaction to such stories.

While people do these charitable things and react with such generosity to disasters such as the one that has engulfed Haiti, British society is not yet broken.
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Those MPs Again!

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The MPs expenses scandal rumbles on with the news that the Tory shadow chancellor has been ordered by the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges Committee to repay monies claimed which were unintentional and ‘relatively minor’.

It’s not the sum to be repaid that caught my attention, for it was only £1,936. It was the size of the man’s £450,000 mortgage.

One of the many things that have angered people about MPs expenses, and the news that so many of them had their fingers in the till, have been the revelations about some of their life styles.

Most of us have a vague idea that the MPs representing us are honest local folk with more or less average lives as, indeed, I expect the majority are. But those living in houses worth £450,000 or more, have moats, bell towers and duck houses - some of whom have been caught out enriching themselves at the public’s expense - not only seem to be living in a different world, but are.

My father-in-law stopped voting Labour when he learned many years ago what was left in the will of a Labour politician. He had no faith from that moment on that any Labour MP with that amount of cash and property had any links with ordinary folk.

And he was spot on in my view about all such MPs regardless of their party!
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Simply Shocking!

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With gold prices soaring, television viewers are positively assailed by the number of advertisements encouraging people to sell their unwanted gold.

Many of these advertisements show people popping their unwanted jewellery into envelopes and later holding fistfuls of bank notes they have obtained in exchange. No wonder then that the advertisements have drawn the attention of Which?, the consumer magazine.

Researchers for Which? bought three pieces of new jewellery for £729 and were offered just £38.57 by one company. And the lowest price offered for a £215 gold bangle was a scandalous £14.57.

The Chief Executive of Which? said that the low prices paid for people’s gold was ‘simply shocking’ and correctly pointed out that the magazine’s investigation raised serious concerns about the fair treatment of consumers.

I agree. These advertisements imply that large sums of money are paid for unwanted gold whereas, in fact, the average price paid by television gold buyers was merely six percent of the retail price for gold.

Many people are under pressure in the current economic times and may be enticed into parting with valuable items for a fraction of their real value. Which? have done an excellent job in highlighting this trade which preys on people’s susceptibilities.

The government would do consumers a favour by not only regulating the television gold buyers but the content of the advertisements themselves.

[The Office of Fair Trading announced later today that it is going to carry out its own investigation into this trade to check that customers are being treated fairly. ]
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What A Great Idea

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Inmates of prisons in Madhya Pradesh, in central India, can gain earlier releases if they agree to undergo a three-month course in yoga, the art of exercise and meditation.

Indian prison authorities believe that yoga will not only improve inmates’ fitness and physical and mental discipline, but make them calmer, less violent and more positive when they are finally released.

What a great idea! The government wants to have less prisoners in British jails so, perhaps, courses in yoga might help ease the problem.
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A Fine Line

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I lived in California for a while where the law concerning a householders’ right to react with violence to intruders is well known. One often saw notices on house lawns warning intruders that they could expect an ‘armed response’.

I don’t advocate such measures in this country, but British law seems a little fuzzy in some cases. Take for instance the Buckinghamshire man who chased intruders who had attacked him and his family. He hit one of the intruders with a cricket bat causing him permanent brain damage, and was charged with grievous bodily harm. Last December he was found guilty and sentenced by Reading Crown Court to thirty months imprisonment.

Yesterday the Court of Appeal reduced his sentence to twelve months suspended for two years. The Lord Chief Justice said that the ‘case was ‘exceptional’, and that the ‘call for mercy’ had to be answered’.

While the law protects people who use reasonable force to protect themselves against intruders, it gives no protection to those who set upon a fleeing criminal or who lie in wait to attack them. So in this particular case, it would seem that the Appeal judges acted mercifully.

As it happens, it was also yesterday that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner announced that those who put themselves in danger to tackle criminals should be celebrated as heroes.

Hmm. It seems to me that there is a very fine line to be drawn between being a hero and a criminal.
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Alcohol Abuse

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I think my views on ‘Nanny’ governments are fairly well known, but I think for once I agree with the Home Secretary’s plans to outlaw ‘all-you-can-drink’ promotions and speed-drinking competitions and to tighten regulations concerning alcohol abuse.

We frequently see the results of teenagers’ and young folks’ drinking sessions on television and sometimes also locally where the bottles and cans strewn on pavements near pubs and bars and even at isolated beauty spots show that a drinking spree has taken place.

I’m not sure that these measures will entirely deal with the problem of alcohol abuse. Education and discipline come to mind but I can’t see any government trying to sort these two out. Nor will raising the unit price of alcohol as has been suggested.

What I do think might help the situation is to take another look at the price-cutting that goes on in supermarkets, for they effectively are in competition with the pubs and bars. The problem here is that any controls over supermarkets will hit consumers generally.

Nonetheless, the proposed measures should surely help.
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Airline Woes

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It is reported that one of the best airlines in the world, Japan Airlines, is to file for bankruptcy protection. How very sad that this fine airline has come to this pass but it, and other airlines, have been affected by the state of the world economy and decreasing passenger numbers.

My travelling days are over but I have very fond memories of travelling with JAL. The courtesy of their cabin crew and level of service were beyond anything I experienced with other airlines and, since I love Japanese food, I was perhaps spoiled.

It is to be hoped that the airline’s restructuring will enable it to rebuild and once again stand as one of the world’s best airlines.

Meanwhile, British Airways which is also suffering from increased costs and a downturn in passenger numbers now faces another strike vote by cabin crew unhappy about the airline’s cost-cutting measures.

I know little about the grievances of the cabin crew but, given the state of many airlines at this time, have some sympathy for BA, which lost over £400 millions last year, which said that they would not allow the union to ruin the airline.
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Get A Room!

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A court in Bergamo in Italy has ordered a father to continue to pay his 32-year-old daughter's living expenses even though she left university eight years ago

The reports are unclear as to the legal background to this odd judgement, but it has so angered Italy's Minister for Public Administration that he is suggesting a new law to force grown-up children, known in Italy as bamboccioni or ‘big babies’, to leave the parental home when they reach eighteen.

It’s an interesting idea given that figures show that the average age of home-leavers in Italy is one of the highest in Europe. How he proposes to manage this little trick though is a mystery given that we are in the midst of a recession and that young people are finding it harder to fund places of their own.

However, the idea may please many parents if the bold minister can pull it off!
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Bully For Him!

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A 69-year-old man was attacked by two young thugs in Newark, Nottinghamshire, who got more than they bargained for when he retaliated using cans of soup in his defence, hitting one of them on the head.

What they didn’t know was that the gentleman was a former professional all-in wrestler.

I hope he inflicted more damage on the thugs than they did on him!
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Body Scanners

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Concerned that body scanners to be introduced into UK airports will breach human rights, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the Home Secretary and asked for the justification for bringing in the new security measure.

Personally, I would have thought the reason for the scanners was obvious.

Maybe folk like body-enhanced movie stars might have a concern that their innermost secrets will be revealed, but I can’t get too worked up about the scanners since my naked body is unlikely to interest anyone.

In any event, pity the poor devils who will have to spend their working days looking at naked bodies. Groan! After you’ve seen a dozen or so, you’ve seen the lot!
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The Tragedy Of Haiti

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Words are futile when it comes to the tragedy of Haiti, a country that for the last couple of hundred years has fallen victim to colonialisation, coups, take-overs, superstition, gang violence and obscene levels of corruption. Clearly the country doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with a fraction of what happened a week ago, and thank heavens that the international community has rallied round and is doing their best in difficult circumstances to sort things out. Thank heavens also for the millions of ordinary people who are making donations to the various relief funds.

Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and are camped outside in makeshift and unsanitary conditions. Many, if not most, lost members of their families along with their livelihoods in just seconds. At this time, around a third of the population is desperate for water, food and shelter and already mob violence and looting has emerged as desperate people try to survive in what is still a living hell in parts of the country.

The number of reporters that seem to be on the ground at the moment is somewhat surprising. You have only to scan the news channels and newspapers to get idea of their numbers, and I have heard one commentator say that, while their presence brings the plight of Haiti into the public eye, there does seems to be a lot of them. Where are these reporters staying and who provides their food and drink?

Another surprise is that just sixty miles away from the centre of this disaster, cruise ships berth at Labadee, a privately and heavily guarded resort owned by a cruise line, where passengers enjoyed watersports, barbecues, and shopping for trinkets at a craft market. Even though the cruise line has pledged $1 million dollars to relief efforts as well as giving water, canned and other foods, you have to wonder whether such calls are appropriate at a time when bodies lie in the streets not far away and where the country is on the brink of anarchy.

But, given the immensity of this disaster, which the UN says is far worse than that of the tsunami, these questions may be trivial by comparison. The important thing is to help the poor people of Haiti get water, food and shelter and some stability.
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RIP, ‘Mack The Knife’

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I’ve never been to the Bolton Aquarium but their star attraction, ‘Mack the Knife’, a Giant Green Knifefish has died.

In truth, I’ve never heard of a Giant Green Knifefish but it seems that they are usually found in Venezuela. This one, was four feet long and was reckoned to be about 13 years of age when it passed away having been with the aquarium for ten years.

Mourning the loss of the fish which apparently was the only one in captivity in the UK, a spokesman for Bolton Council, the impressively titled Executive Member for Adult and Community Services, said it ‘was a great asset to the aquarium and will be missed by the public and staff alike’.

I wonder what they will replace it with?
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A Water Buffalo?

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A junior school in East Sussex has introduced a water buffalo into its grounds to help the pupils understand a Bronze Age settlement that once was there.

Lucky kids. My junior school only had a couple of moth-eaten guinea pigs!
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If Only ...

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One lucky UK ticket-holder of the Euromillions lottery has just scooped £26.1 millions, an unimaginable amount of money.

My sister and I have often discussed what we would do if we were lucky enough to win such a sum, and our idea would be to create a charitable trust from which we could donate money to worthwhile causes.

We get some interest from discussing which causes might benefit from such a Trust. Of course, we would donate to the relief of the people of Haiti, and I would like to do something for the Dogs Trust who are always under pressure of funds. I would also like to do something for the Benedictine monks of St. Augustine’s Abbey in Ramsgate, Kent, who are unable to afford the upkeep of their abbey and, absent a benefactor, are looking to sell their abbey and relocate to a place that is less expensive to maintain.

Alas, this is sheer speculation for we haven’t won a lottery prize. Yet!
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Beware of Fraudsters!

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I suppose that in any situation where there is the possibility of a quick buck being made, the fraudsters crawl out of their grubby holes.

So it is more than sad that a number of agencies have felt it necessary to warn people about the emergence of false websites and fake charities claiming to organise or to fund relief efforts in Haiti where hundreds of thousands of people are in desperate need of help and where the death roll is now reckoned to be as much as 200,000.

The advice has to be to donate only to known organisations and not to respond to appeals from unknown sources and especially those received by email.

It is sound advice which should not deter anyone from doing their bit, however small, to help the unhappy and very needy people of Haiti.
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Spoilsports!

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The advent of mobile phones that can take photographs and videos can sometimes be a perishing nuisance since they record things that are trivial as well as those that are important.

Take, for example, the man who filmed a couple of police officers having a bit of harmless fun by sledging down a snow-covered hill in Oxford on their riot shields. This fellow then posted his video on YouTube with the result that over 20,000 people viewed this inoffensive diversion [over 160,000 as at 17 January].

Then, inevitably, the officers were identified and spoken to by their area commander who ‘reminded them in no uncertain terms that tobogganing on duty, on police equipment and at taxpayers' expense is a very bad idea should they wish to progress under my command.’

Do us a favour! I’d rather see coppers using their riot shields as sledges than applying them in riots!
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‘Changing the Channel’

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Policy Exchange, described by The New Statesman as David Cameron's 'favourite think tank', has produced a report, ‘Changing the Channel’, on public service broadcasting which it says needs to be radically overhauled if it is to survive in the new digital age.

It calls for the BBC to place quality before ratings, and stop spending huge resources on big-name presenters, imported US television shows, sports rights, programmes for 16 to 35 year olds and popular entertainment which other channels would deliver anyway.

The report certainly makes one think. The BBC gets £3.5 billion (£3.5 billion!) a year from licence fees, a huge amount of money when you consider some of the tripe that is broadcast, let alone the high fees paid to some big-name presenters most of whom simply do not warrant them.

The television license fee is surely fast becoming an anachronism. Television programmes can now be picked up by so many pocket devices as well as computers, that television sets are in danger of becoming an endangered species.

So I would suggest that the licence fee be scrapped altogether. If the BBC were obliged to go ‘commercial’ then we would all be saved a lot of money, especially as we’d also get rid of the BBC Trust, another recommendation of the Policy Exchange.

Better still, we might actually get better programmes!
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Walkies!

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The RSPCA centre in Oldham took in a collie dog called Cent they thought was deaf since he failed to respond to basic commands.

But someone checked his records and found that he came from a Polish family. Once the staff at the centre learned a little Polish, they found that Cent did respond and, four months later, the dog is now bilingual and awaiting rehoming to a family that does not need to speak Polish.

I don’t know how my two dogs would get on in this situation. If they are in the mood, they sometimes react to ‘Come’ or ‘Sit’ but little else. That is unless, ‘Biscuit’ or ‘Walkies!’ are mentioned!
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They Can’t Get Any Wetter

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I’ve often pondered on why swimmers get out of the water when it rains. I’ve observed this many times when sitting on beaches and on board ship. When it starts to rain, swimmers invariably get out of the water. It’s one of the mysteries of life.

Why do I mention this?

It is because the BBC News website carries a photograph of a number of Indian devotees, gathered for the start of the Hindu Kumbh Mela festival in Haridwar, India, sheltering from the rain. And the reason they are there is to take a dip in the Ganges.

A mystery indeed.
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Hell On Earth

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As one who was once involved but unscathed in an earthquake, my heart goes out to the victims of the one that hit Haiti this morning.

An earthquake, certainly one of magnitude 7, is hell on earth and especially when it hits during darkness. There is the initial quake, toppling buildings in an instant and killing hundreds of people. Strong aftershocks then follow, again causing more damage to weakened buildings and killing yet more.

The power goes out and, with it, all light and communications. Frightened people cannot see properly to find survivors, chaos will reign for a while and there will be a strong instinct to stay out in the open for days on end while the aftershocks continue. Shops and stores, such as they are in that troubled country, will have been demolished and food and water difficult to get. What resources are available will be quickly grabbed. Hospitals will be overwhelmed.

Once daylight appears, I expect the various relief forces will quickly appear and some semblance of order will follow. But order in this hell on earth cannot help those whose relatives and friends have been killed or maimed or whose properties have been demolished. It cannot help, in the short-term at any rate, those whose livelihoods have suddenly been destroyed.

And it cannot help frightened people get used to the thousands of aftershocks and tremors that will follow for weeks on end in which gut instinct will suggest that another earthquake is upon them. That feeling of insecurity, overwhelming at times, is not to be underestimated and nothing can be done to soften it until the tremors disappear.

We are so far away from this latest tragedy, and there is little we can do at this distance to help except make donations to the relief funds that will surely be set up.

But we can try to understand the plight of the people of Haiti at this time and sympathise with them with all our hearts. It must surely be hell on earth.
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Sound Familiar?

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A Dutch Committee of Inquiry on Iraq has said that UN Security Council resolutions did not ‘constitute a mandate for ... intervention in 2003’.

The report accuses Dutch ministers of a selective use of intelligence reports, and says that the Prime Minister ‘gave little or no leadership to debates over the Iraq question’. Reports suggest that the Dutch parliament is likely to consider whether the Prime Minister misled parliament, and whether to launch a formal parliamentary inquiry.

Hmm. Sound familiar?
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What’s Inside Your Lunchbox?

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The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reports that only 1% of primary schoolchildren's packed lunches meet the nutritional standards set for school meals in England.

Half of UK children eat a packed lunch and, despite the government’s drive to make children’s lunchboxes healthier, the Journal found that that crisps, sweets, and sugary drinks still dominate over fruit and veg.

What a surprise!

I’m off to a couple of meetings today and will be taking my own packed lunch of a sandwich, a bag of crisps and a chocolate biscuit. To hell with fruit and veg!
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What About The Lecturers?

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A study by technology firm Olympus has found that university students have average attention spans of just ten minutes and that 13% admitted to missing up to five hours of lectures a week, sometimes because of the need to work.

As someone whose attention span in meetings is around fifteen minutes before I start to nod, I have much sympathy for the students.

However as most people will attest, attention span is not necessarily linked to one’s own capabilities but those of the speaker. Lengthy monotone speeches will put anyone to sleep whatever the subject may be, but a lively speaker encouraging interaction with the audience is more likely to keep its attention.

I did well at my history lessons at school because the master had excellent presentation skills and I’ve had a great interest in history ever since. On the other hand, the maths master spoke in a monotone and was himself a victim of narcolepsy and would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. It was no surprise that I failed maths in every exam I took!

Perhaps a study of university lecturer’s capabilities might be revealing?
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Ice Tragedies

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The snow turned the world into a winter wonderland, but the ice has turned it into a death-trap for some.

We have already heard of young people who have tragically lost their lives falling through ice into the icy water of ponds and lakes after having, foolishly perhaps, thought the ice was stronger than it was.

Youngsters tend to feel they are immortal and some take risks that older people would not. In most cases this is part of the growing up and learning process. In some cases, it is sheer stupidity.

Take, for example, the CCTV footage of children foolishly crossing the frozen Oxford Canal. The police report that some of them, standing on the ice, were even trying to break it by bashing it with their feet! What luck they didn’t succeed.

Just last weekend when walking the dogs, we witnessed a car being repeatedly driven at speed by youths along an ice-covered back lane while other traffic was using the same road, Driving at speed was bad enough, but the car was towing another youth sitting on a plastic sled and this was careering wildly from side to side of the road. The lad could easily have been killed or maimed if the sled had moved in front of an oncoming car, and it was a miracle this didn’t happen.

And then another couple of youths were having a great deal of fun using the same stretch of icy road as a skid-pan and were having a rare old time braking and spinning their van in circles. They were having a great deal of fun, but they were also having it in the path of oncoming traffic.

While other children and youths have been having fun in various ways in the snow, some of those that took risks have tragically paid for it with their lives. One’s heart goes out to their families and friends, but that is little comfort to them now.
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Questions

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My wife says that I take things too literally and she is probably right. Nonetheless, there are some things that need answers.

Like: what happens to the tiny firemen that soothe the mouth of the lady in the Gaviscom advert? Do they get swallowed and so die? What a tragic end after helping solve the lady’s heartburn.

Similarly, what happens to the little men that clean the teeth of the other lady in the Listerine advert? Are they to die in her digestive tract also? Poor little things!

And why do Homebase go to the bother of building a kitchen in the bottom of an empty swimming pool? Is the pool to be covered over with a roof and the kitchen extended to make some sort of underground house?

Then there’s the tidy Thomson Holiday representative. Do they really bother to pick out the leaves in hotel swimming pools?

Some of these questions are unanswerable. Yet one advert that settled a question in my mind, though raised others, is the compare the meerkat advert. There really is a comparethemeerkat.com website with amusing talkative meerkats.

What I haven’t discovered yet is why they appear to be of Russian descent and how it came about that they could talk!
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Brrrr!

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It might be cold out but can you believe that a crowd of Scouts are out there right now and living under canvas?

It seems that this is the time for the Annual Winter Camp near Chingford in Essex when 2,500 Scouts pitch their tents and enjoy a weekend of seventy various activities including climbing, abseiling, quad biking, trampolining and rope-climbing. They’ve even had the traditional camp fire sing-along.

You’ve got to hand it to these kids. Their either brave or totally off their rockers in this weather!

But good luck to them. Me? I’m staying indoors in the warm!
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Say Again?

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I can’t say I lay any blame on the government, despite David Cameron’s posturing to the contrary, for the shortage of salt for the nation’s roads during what is clearly an unexpectedly prolonged bout of snow.

Nor, for the most part, do I blame the government for taking control of salt and grit distribution since I imagine, naively perhaps, that there is a master plan somewhere laying out which roads and which areas must be prioritised for these essential items.

In the same spirit, I accept that my part of Essex had to go without salt or grit for the last two days and that, as a result, many bus services had to be suspended because of the treacherous road conditions and folk advised to stay indoors.

But I exclude from this amiable spirit of acceptance the babble of an official from the Local Government Association who announced that, ‘At the moment we have done everything we can do. We are in partnership with the government and we are dealing with the problem of grit shortages.’

What does that mean I wonder?
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Thanks!

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Our council collects kitchen waste one week and everything the following week. In the alternate weeks they collect the kitchen waste as well as pink sacks containing recyclables as well as emptying a yellow box containing bottles and glass. For some months in the year they also collect garden green waste. It is a very efficient system.

Yesterday was our rubbish collection day and, given that the road we live in was covered in ice and snow along with parked cars, we had doubts that the ‘bin men’ would come by.

But they did, and so kitchen waste and the mounting collection of sacks that had been stored in the garage for a few weeks along with the box containing the evidence of Christmas and New Year good cheer were all cleared away.

So I give credit to the unsung trash collectors of Castle Point Borough Council for a job very well done in difficult conditions. Thanks!
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Benefit Fraud v Tax Evasion

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One of my correspondents has responded to one of my blogs and, since he makes a very good point, I quote it in full:

A small fortune is spent by the government in trying to stop the illegal practice of benefit fraud (you've all seen the TV ads!).

According to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, benefit fraud last year cost the public purse £800 million.

By comparison, HM Revenue & Customs announced that for 2008/9 it was unable to collect £40 billion due to tax evasion, fraud and flaws in the system. This was perpetrated by people who are the complete opposite to the genuine & desperate needy who rely on benefits.

£800 million against £40 billion - it makes you think, doesn't it?

I wonder when we will see TV ads to stop this greedy pilfering?
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Bad Weather. Bad Attitude?

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The country’s obsession with the weather continues with the news that last night was the coldest so far this winter with temperatures in the Highlands plummeting to minus 21 degrees. As usual, schools and businesses have been closed, flights cancelled, trains late, roads not all gritted, people and villages cut off by snow drifts and the whole place at a standstill.

It is said that this spell of cold weather is the worst since 1981, for that also affected much of Europe. This is certainly true for it was this month in that year I saw it at first hand.

I was standing by a ship being refitted in drydock in Bremerhaven where, at the time, it was said by the German weather agency that it had been the coldest winter since the war. There was no doubt of that in my mind because the ships bottom had to be heated by braziers set up in the base of the drydock so as to keep the ship’s plumbing warm; an unusual and awesome sight. Since there was limited heating on board, conditions were also pretty grim.

What impressed me, however, was the way in which the Germans just got on with life. All of the roads were gritted and even the cycle paths and pavements as well. Schools and businesses kept open, trains and buses ran regardless and only Frankfurt airport closed down for a while.

I wanted to get home that particular weekend and took a taxi from Frankfurt Airport to the railway station where I stood on a crowded train that took me to Dusseldorf. Here I caught a flight to my local airport and was back in the comfort of my home not long afterwards.

The apparent ease with the way northern and Scandinavian countries get on with life in poor weather conditions is well known and, over the years, I’ve witnessed this many times as well as in the Californian mountains and in Alaska. Of course, it has to be borne in mind that poor weather is an annual factor in northern climes. Yet, at the same time, we also have this same problem every year.

The experience in 1981 confirmed what my father had told me years before, which was that you can do pretty much anything if you put your mind to it. So, for example, I can’t remember my school closing because of bad weather for masters and pupils did what they had to do to get in. I expect working folk did the same. Indeed, on the few occasions that smog bought London’s transport system to a standstill, my father and I walked to and from work.

Many of the schools in my area closed yesterday and many parents were forced to stay at home to look after their children. The local radio reported that some folk couldn’t get to work and, maybe, there were good reasons for this in many cases. However, I do wonder whether we have bred a generation of people that simply can’t be bothered to get to work or school if a walk of more than a couple of hundred yards in poor weather is involved.

But please don’t trouble to send me your thoughts as I think I already know the answer!
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An Interesting Question

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Is This Useful?

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Stories about the latest attempt to unseat ‘Bronco’ Brown in a new Labour leadership election, the folk stranded in the snow that has blanketed the country and bought it to a standstill and even the record-breaking tuna weighing 232 kilos that was sold in the Tokyo fish market for the equivalent of £109,000 have not interested me as much as one other jaw-breaking piece of news.

The story that grabbed my attention was that of the computer scientist who has computed the value of pi to nearly 2.7 trillion digits, beating the previous record by 123 billion digits. Wow!

I have no idea what value this piece of research is to the world at large, other than a possible entry in the Guinness Book of Records, but it seems to have taken a total of 131 days to compute and then check the result.

As a further piece of useless information, it has also been calculated that to recite the formula at the rate of one number a second would take more than 85,000 years. Wow again!

I wonder if this scientist could kindly turn his attention to the state of the economy, the cost of living, MPs expenses, the price of petrol and other fuels, etc., etc. Now that would be useful!
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Bananas!

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A shelf-stacker in a Lidl’s supermarket in Madrid found a brick of cocaine under a bunch of bananas on Saturday. The police were called and 25 more such cocaine bricks were found in banana boxes sent to other Lidl shops and worth, apparently, several million euros.

The fruit came from Ecuador and the Ivory Coast and is not the first time cocaine has been found in boxes of bananas.

What is surprising about the story is not that the drug smugglers appear to have made a mistake in failing to recover the cocaine before it was shipped to supermarkets, but that Spanish police last year seized more than 14 tons of cocaine, that had been smuggled into the country in stuffed animals, nappies, seafood and even a picture of the Sacred Heart.

Fourteen tons! And that is in just one country. The mind boggles as to the weight of cocaine that is actually shipped world-wide and, alas, handled by unscrupulous middlemen to be distributed to vulnerable drug addicts..

How Stupid Can You Be?

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In order to test their security protocols, officials in Bratislava Airport planted a piece of contraband explosives in the luggage of eight unsuspecting travellers.

Seven of the 90g packages of explosive, unconnected to any detonators, were detected by airport security but one man’s baggage eluded scrutiny. The man concerned was allowed to travel to Dublin where, after Slovakian police alerted Irish police of the problem, his flat was cordoned off while bomb disposal experts removed the explosives. He was initially arrested but released after the Slovakians made a full explanation.

I suppose it is correct to test airport security, but an innocent man was probably scared to death, or at least seriously inconvenienced, by the ineptitude of the Bratislava authorities for allowing him to travel with explosives.

Utterly stupid is the least of what could be said about this situation which could well have had a fatal ending if police in any country other than Ireland had got trigger-happy.
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What A Hoot!

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An unknown hacker has hijacked the EU Presidency website and replaced the image of Spain’s Prime Minister with that of bumbling Mr Bean with the message, ‘Hi There!’

It seems that Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero bears an uncanny resemblance to Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean, a resemblance that is a long-standing joke in Spain.

I don’t know anything about hacking into other people's websites, but I wonder what characters would replace those of Brown, Cameron and Clegg?

It would be fun to see.
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It’s Started!

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It’s started! The run-up to the General Election I mean.

David Cameron kicked off proceedings yesterday morning with a not-too convincing speech telling us that the NHS will be his number one priority, pledging also maternity reforms ‘to meet mothers’ needs’ whatever that means. All this while tackling the government’s budget deficit.

Then we had the monotone Chancellor Alistair Darling who launched an attack on the Tories’ spending plans, claiming that they had a credibility gap of £34 billions, an easy accusation to make since none us understand it or can check it.

Not to be outdone, Nick Clegg has told us that the Labour and Tory parties were ‘increasingly alike’. I’m not sure I agree with him here unless he was referring to the general shouting match that has now erupted.

We haven’t heard from the other parties but, doubtless, we will in time.

Commentators believe that the General Election will be called for 6 May. If that is right, we will have four months of this nonsense to endure.

Groan!
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What’s It All About, Archie?

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Most folk go back to work today after the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Many will be sitting at their desks and machines and wondering why they are there. I can tell them.

They are there to help support the idle many who live on state benefits and do little or nothing to help themselves or anyone else. Like the family who, according to the Taxpayers Alliance, are being paid £2,875 a week in housing benefit for a seven-bedroom house in the London borough of Brent.

Strewth! That certainly makes you think!
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Questions

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In order to get last night’s lottery results, I watched the tail-end of a rather boring quiz show which was obviously pre-recorded with slots in which the lottery results could be inserted.

When the results were finally shown, my ambition to take a trip - first class, of course - to Japan and then on to Australia were dashed for another week. That’s OK, I can wait.

The lottery does produce some questions in my mind.

Firstly, why does the dolly bird have to press the big red button to get things going when the Drawmaster then presses the button to get the actual machine to work? What’s the point of the big red button?

Secondly, what qualifications do you have to have to become a Drawmaster?

Answers on a postcard ...
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Look - It’s Behind You!

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Part of my family went off to see our local pantomime, Cinderella, last evening.

Pantomimes are a constant source of puzzlement to overseas visitors and it is difficult to explain quite what a pantomime is. Here, in ludicrous settings, men dress up as women and women dress up as men in a tradition dating well back into Victorian times. They act out impossible scenarios, making themselves appear foolish in the process. Usually, the good guy wins in the end.

The thought occurred to me sitting in the peace and quiet of the house once everyone had gone off yesterday, how much like the doings of this government a pantomime is. Or should I say how much like the doings of a pantomime this government is?

I’m not sure whether there are any cross-dressers in government, though I would guess there must be a couple at least, but some of its antics are certainly pantomime-like material.

Take for example, last week’s advice from the Department of Health recommending that everyone take a good walk on Christmas Day to burn off some of the calories consumed during the traditional Christmas lunch. Rhubarb to that - I had my traditional snooze after my traditional lunch!

Or the news a couple of days ago from the Public Health Minister that the tots of spirits we serve ourselves at home are larger than those served in pubs and restaurants. We didn’t need her to tell us this as we already knew it. And the advice that we ought to be careful when pouring drinks over New Year was not only self-evident but totally unwelcome as the whole point in having a drink at home is that you are able to treat yourself to a ‘proper’ tot!

Then the latest silliness is that the Justice Minister plans to add £15 to every fine paid by motorists caught speeding, using a mobile phone while driving, not wearing a seat belt or flouting parking restrictions. You might think that this £15 levy is going to help build new roads or repair existing ones. But no, they will raise money for support services for crime victims.

Say that again? If you are convicted of a motoring offence, £15 will be added to your fine and this will help pay for something entirely unconnected with motoring.

Only this sort of government could come up with these sort of silly schemes and spend money on telling people what they already know.

As I said before, just like a pantomime!

But it remains to be seen whether there is any hero in an incoming government that will save us from this type of nonsense.
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Flying? No Thanks!

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I spent a good part of my working life flying from one place to another and since I retired miss not a moment of it. Flying is far too much hassle these days.

There was a time, decades ago now, when there was an excitement in flying. It was fun. We didn’t pay a great deal of attention to baggage weights, we put on decent clothes and often looked forward to the meals and free drinks the airlines served. You pitched up at the airport an hour before departure and were soon sitting in the departure lounge waiting for the flight to be called. Flight crews had the time to point out places of interest as we flew over them and pilots would often take a stroll through the cabin to chat with the passengers. Small boys would often be invited up to the cockpit for a visit and have the controls explained to them.

But slowly, imperceptibly, all that changed. Check-in times lengthened along with the long and tiring queues that were involved. Seat spaces got smaller, meals became virtually inedible and free drinks all but disappeared. The number of cabin crews were cut and those who remained barely had the time to perform all their normal duties plus sell duty-frees, let alone provide the service to passengers that they used to give.

Security scares inevitably arose and security tightened with them. ‘What was the purpose of your travel to Pakistan?’ I used to get asked regularly and was glad that a new passport carried no entry stamps of any sort. US immigration inspectors would sometimes ask me the date of my last leaving the US as if a wrong answer might indicate some sort of irregularity.

Then baggage rules were tightened. As I lived for a while in California, I was one of the lucky ones that often travelled with just a briefcase for I had clothes both in the States and the UK. Boy!, did that sometimes cause confusion at airports!

And then 911 occurred and everything went from bad to worse. For all the best reasons, of course, and I would be the first to say that anything that made flying safer is a good thing.

But, alas, all those things that make flying safer also make it a lot more irksome and stressful. This is particularly the case after the failed bomb attack on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day when a man tried to ignite explosives hidden in his underpants. As a result of this, security has become tighter.

And so, to repeat what I said before, flying is no longer any fun. The queues and check-in times have just got longer and the whole business is becoming too much trouble.

There is now talk of introducing pat-down searches, full-body scanners and advanced X-ray technology. I’m all for it, but can you imagine the queues that will form when little old ladies, people who are partially disabled and cantankerous children try to understand what is required of them as they pass through some of these devices?

For the last hour of a flight, at least on those to the States, passengers will have to stay in their seats for the last hour and will not be allowed access to their possessions during that period. What if I urgently need to take a widdle or suddenly need my inhaler?

Flying? No thanks. I think I will stick to coaches, trains and ships!
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Apophis, The God Of Darkness And Chaos

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From time to time we wonder at the meteors that pass us by in the heavens and which sometimes give us spectacular sights at night. Yet we give little or no thought to the chances of a meteorite crashing into earth even though this does occasionally happen.

It seems that one asteroid, Apophis, named after an Ancient Egyptian god of evil, will be passing around 30,000 km from the Earth in 2029. So that should be a good sight.

However, the same asteroid will be passing us by again in 2036, and this time the US Space Agency reckon that there is a one-in-250,000 chance of it colliding with the Earth with a large loss of life resulting.

But not to worry, for the Russian space agency, ROSCOSMOS, has come up with an international plan to divert Apophis without the use of nuclear weapons.

I shan’t be around in 2036 to know whether the plan comes to fruition, but I wish it well for two reasons.

Firstly, anything which prevents the loss of human life is to be welcomed.

Secondly, because this is the best New Year Resolution I’ve heard so far!
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