That’s The Way To Do It!

.
In this country, a 25-year-old unemployed man who produced 15 children by 14 women has cost the taxpayer at least £1.5 million in benefits, a sum that is ongoing.

In America, a 44-year-old Michigan man has fathered 23 children by 14 women and owes £337,000 in unpaid child support payments.

The difference between these two men is that the American one has just been jailed for four years after a Kent County Judge told him: ‘Animals procreate, human beings are supposed to nurture their children. When you create a human being, I think you have a fundamental responsibility to provide for that child with necessities like food, clothing and shelter.’

Absolutely right!
.

Commonsense Prevails

.
A group of louts urinated on the front door of a Cambridgeshire apartment house, hurled eggs at windows, vandalised its gates and screamed and shouted at the occupants. Fed up with calling the police who rarely responded to the calls and who never arrested any of the 15-20 louts who were frequently causing a disturbance, one resident tried to scare them away by firing a catapult loaded with ball-bearings at them.

It was a mistake, for he later pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm after slightly injuring three of the youths. They then took him to court, claiming damages of £1,200 each for their injuries.

However a judge at Cambridge Crown Court, while criticising the resident for taking matters into his own hands, threw the case out. He said, ‘I think it wholly inappropriate that I should make a compensation order given that they brought this very much upon themselves.’

Commonsense prevails!
.

Why Not?

.
The Book of Exodus recounts that the waters of the Red Sea parted and allowed the Israelites to flee the Pharaoh's pursuing chariot army which was then engulfed.

Now American scientists have created a computer simulation showing that it was possible for the wind to have opened up a muddy land bridge at one location.

I suppose the simulation is possible but it does not, however, explain how the Israelites happened upon that exact spot at the exact time.

Why can’t some miracles be explained as being ... well, just miracles?
.

Monkey Business

.
The Ancient Egyptians trained baboons to collect fruit and palm nuts, macaques have been used to harvest coconuts, capuchin monkeys are used in the US to help disabled people and I seem to recall that, during the time of the Raj, some remote Indian railway signal points were manned by trained monkeys, though I forget now which sort.

Doubtless, monkeys can be trained in a variety of tasks, and I was reminded of this by the news this morning that langur monkeys are being used by the organisers of the Commonwealth Games to prevent wild animals from entering games sites. It seems that langur monkeys are noted for their intelligence and are highly effective in deterring other animals and snakes from entering the areas they patrol.

I don’t sneer at the employment of trained monkeys; far from it. Anyone who, in their travels around the world, has seen their wild cousins will attest to their agility, cunning and, when upset, their aggression.

And I for one wouldn’t want to mess with one!
.

Why The Tears?

.
Some of the morning papers report that David Miliband’s wife reacted with tears and ‘absolute fury’ at the ‘betrayal’ by those whose votes resulted in Ed Miliband becoming Leader of the Labour Party. Speculation is also rife as to what David Miliband will or will not do now that he has lost the leadership election.

No election, or very few of them, is a foregone certainty so one of the Miliband brothers was bound to be disappointed at not being elected Leader, and it follows that the wife of the loser would also be disappointed.

It was a guaranteed cast-iron certainty that one of the brothers was going to lose, so why the disappointment and tears? Or is it because the loser thought his election was in the bag?
.

There Are Limits!

.
I think that if I were a competitor in the upcoming Commonwealth Games, I’d put up with a few inconveniences assuming that the rooms provided were reasonably clean and habitable. But there are limits.

Such as occurred to a South African competitor who discovered a cobra snake in his room.

Over the years, I’ve shared hotel rooms with fleas, spiders, cockroaches, small birds and, once, a gecko. But I think I’d definitely draw a line at a perishing cobra!
.

You Pays Your Money ...

.
The newspapers are dominated by Ed Miliband’s election as Leader of the Labour Party, and it’s interesting to see how they vary in their treatment of the story.

The papers seem to agree that New Labour is dead but, while some say that Ed will tilt the party to the Left, others say the opposite. Some say that he is in thrall to the unions while others say he will resist them.

We will have to wait and see what happens but, like Cameron and Clegg in these times of economic woe, Miliband may have been given the poisoned chalice for he will have to deal with the dinosaurs of the union movement which threaten to bring Britain to a standstill this winter.

As they say, you pays your money and you takes your choice!
.

Too Late For Me

.
I’ve sometimes - OK, OK, frequently! - commented on my love of peace and quiet, and how much I enjoyed my visits to the mainly empty mountains around Los Angeles. I’d add to my list of favoured quiet places the Mojave Desert, the Australian Bush, Norway and a number of others including the emptier parts of Scotland.

So I was interested to read that a restored three-bedroomed cottage on the island of Canna, the MacIssacs Cottage, is looking for a family to occupy it. More accurately, it is the National Trust for Scotland which have owned the island since 1981 that seek new tenants.

I’d only vaguely heard of Canna. It is just 7 kilometres long by 1.5 kilometres wide and is the westernmost of the four Small Isles, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. Ferries call regularly at the island whose nearest neighbour is the island of Sanday to which it is connected by a bridge. There are ten working crofts and a current population of twenty-one. Since 1938 the island has been a bird sanctuary, and 157 different species of birds have been monitored annually in recent years. It has links to the Neolithic, Columban and Viking eras and has nine scheduled monuments on it.

There is a telephone link, a red phone box, but the island does have broadband connections even though there is no mobile phone reception. Unsurprisingly, the crime rate is low and, if you need medical help, there is a doctor on the neighbouring island of Eigg. As it is privately-owned, the island is a road tax-free zone. Electricity, produced by a generator, is available between 0600 and midnight.

The downside of this invitation is that whoever takes the cottage will either have to bring their work with them or, alternatively, create a role for themselves in ‘the arts, crafts, tourism or fishing industries’.

It is very tempting. What could be better? Peace and quiet even if it might be hard work!

But I am now too old and, even supposing I was a younger person and had children, could they manage without fast-food outlets and all the paraphernalia that children seem to want these days? Alas, probably not!
.

An Edible Prize

.
Personally, I can’t stand karaoke, that noisy pastime that ruins the peace of many bars so that you can’t hear yourself speak let alone hear what your companion might want to say. But I accept that there are millions of aficionados of the singing competition that first surfaced in Japan and spread to the rest of the world.

Russian organisers in Moscow have just held a three-day international karaoke competition in which amateur singers from sixteen countries took part. It was won by a gentleman from New Mexico who performed his version of Usher's Got Us Fallin' In Love.

You’d think that the prize for such a competition would be something quite amazing. And so it was. The prize was one million little Siberian dumplings or ‘pelmeni’. Wow!

I hope this fellow has a decent-sized deep-freeze or a lot of friends. Organisers have said that if the winner eats one hundred dumplings a day, they will last for 27 years!
.

The Whole Shop!

.
This was quite a momentous day in 1953, for it was the day that sugar came off ‘the book’ after almost fourteen years of rationing.

Food rationing was introduced on 8 January 1940 just four months after the outbreak of war, and limits were imposed on the sale of bacon, sugar and butter. Three months later all meat was rationed and gradually tea, jam, biscuits, cereals, cheese, eggs, milk and canned fruit were rationed also along with petrol, coal, soap and clothing as well as other items including paper.

Though there were additional allowances for pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers and vegetarians, the introduction of rationing led to higher prices, wholesale queuing and the development of a widespread black market. Restaurants were exempt, although strict price controls were implemented which largely had the effect of limiting any potential excesses.

Britain’s favourite dish, fish and chips, was not on ration though the price of fish rose considerably as the war progressed. The government allowed this as fishermen had to be paid extra if they were to be encouraged to put to sea while enemy submarines were about.

Due to the need to help feed people around Europe, bread was rationed in 1946 and potatoes the following year through to 1948. Though the rationing of flour was lifted in 1948, clothes in 1949 and then petrol and many other things in 1950, the rationing of bacon and meats, the last to go, was not lifted until July 1954.

It was the removal of sugar and sweet rationing today in 1953 that may have had the most impact since people needn’t then worry about having it in their drinks or housewives rationing it in their cooking. Certainly, I as a lad of nine remember being able to go to the sweet shop and have the entire contents at my disposal.

Being able to go into a sweetshop and look at all those jars full of different types of sweets, many not available now, and being able to buy a couple of ounces of this and two more of that .. aah, those were the days!
.

A Moan About Toyota

.
I feel like having a moan this morning. Not about the government, taxes, quangos, Teflon Blair or any of the other issues that have occupied the papers for the last few days.

No, I want to have a moan about Toyota. Or, more accurately, about their car keys and not their cars.

I drive a Toyota car and I’m very pleased with it. It is the eighth one I have owned and I have been very happy with all of them and none have ever given me a moment’s trouble. This current one is the best I have yet driven.

The problem is with the plastic-encased keys for my particular model. In short, they fall apart. I’ve now had two of them fall apart from what clearly seems to me to be a design fault.

So I called the dealer who sold me the car and asked them to fix me up with a new key. No problem sir, just pop in with your log book and driving license and pay us £118 and we’ll fix you up with a new key in two or three days. We’ll call you to bring your car in, we’ll take it to our service bay and programme the new key and, hey presto!, an hour later you are fit to go.

They sold me the car, so I now have to produce the log book and my driving licence when the man who sold it to me could be dragged out to identify me? They sold me a car for many thousands of pounds and now they want to charge me £118 for a new key to replace two that were obviously defective - and make me wait an hour to do it?

I wouldn’t want to sit and calculate how much money Toyota (or their dealers) have had from my cars. But it has made me cross to think that when something is so obviously wrong, they want to make a hefty charge to put it right.

Writing this blog and expressing my anger at what is, I admit a fairly trivial matter in the general scheme of things, is supposed to have made me feel better.

But it hasn’t!
.

Quangos & Council Spies

.
Most of us have views about the official busybodies working in the background that seem to do very little but cost a fortune to run. I refer, of course, to the huge number of quangos - quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations - we have in this country. It turns out that there are over 530 of these bodies.

The good news is that The Telegraph this morning announces the government are about to scrap no less than 177 quangos with another 94 being considered for scrapping. Some will be merged and others will be privatised. Though there will be some job losses, billions of pounds each year will be saved. The extent of the cuts will surprise many, though when one works through the detailed list of these quangos, one wonders why some of them were set up in the first place.

Other newspapers report the good news that the government is not only to rule out a council tax revaluation until at least 2015, but curtail the powers of council tax inspectors who under Labour’s rule have been allowed to snoop on householders and assemble an extraordinary database of the 25 million homes in England and Wales.

This database logs the numbers of bedrooms, bathrooms, conservatories, swimming pools, balconies, etc. Even whether the homes have sea or other views.

Some quangos and council spies we can all do without, so full marks to the coalition for carrying out their promise to deal with them!
.

Yes, But What Are They Going To Do About It?

.
‘Stop the Rot’ is a report by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Denis O’Connor, who says that keeping the peace has been relegated to a ‘second-order consideration’ and that the removal of officers from streets has fuelled antisocial behaviour. I think that many of us have realised this for some time.

Sir Denis is our top police watchdog and so his views need to be taken very seriously by the Home Office and every police authority around the country. In what he calls a 30-year ‘retreat from the streets’, millions of acts of drunken loutishness and vandalism have gone unreported as they have become ‘normalised’.

In an HMIC report last July, it was disclosed that just eleven percent of officers were visible and available to the public at any one time. In this report, Sir Denis repeats his fear that front-line officers would be the first to go if spending cuts bit into police budgets, and reminds the government that what the public want is ‘boots on the ground’.

The new Home Secretary said: ‘This report, yet again, shows that for too long this problem has been sidelined and victims, especially those who are vulnerable, have been let down.’

What she hasn’t said is what the government are going to do about the situation.
.

Plausible

.
Having worked in the shipping industry all my life, I’m always interested when a story about ships come to light.

As is the case this morning when a new book claims that an order given to the helmsman of Titanic was misunderstood with the result that the ship was steered towards the fatal iceberg instead of away from it. The author, the granddaughter of Second Officer Charles Lightoller, says that at the time, different steering systems were used for steam ships and sailing ships and that this caused confusion when the order was given to turn the ship to starboard.

The book also reveals that, the ship having struck the iceberg, Lord Ismay, Chairman of White Star Line, persuaded the Captain to continue sailing and that for ten minutes Titanic continued at ‘Slow Ahead’, so adding to the pressure of water flooding through the breach in her hull.

These revelations stem from the previously unpublished record of Titanic’s sinking written by Mr Lightoller who, it should be noted, was not on duty at the time of the incident.

I’m not at all sure about a mistake by the helmsman who was most likely well experienced in steamship systems and among those hand-picked for that job on what was the ship’s maiden voyage in April 1912. Any incorrect course steered would also surely have been countermanded once noticed, in which case both the incorrect course and the countermand ought to have been noticed and reported to the official Inquiries in both New York and London. All seven of the lookouts survived the sinking as well as 21 of the 29 seamen and four of the eight officers; surely one of these would have noticed or heard about and commented upon an incorrect course.

Whether or not Bruce Ismay interfered with the operation of the ship at a time of acute crisis is impossible to determine at this point in time. It is difficult to believe that the Captain at such a time would have paid much attention to a man, who though his boss, was not in command. If Ismay did interfere, then he had the blood of many passengers and crew on his hands since, if the report is true, water was forced into the ship so speeding up its sinking.

There are various theories about the sinking of Titanic and, doubtless, more will arise in time. Though I have doubts about the ones reported this morning I have to say that they are nonetheless both interesting and plausible.
.

They’ve Arrived!

.
There is no question that autumn is here and that winter is about to burst upon us. How do I know this?

It’s not because the leaves, acorns and horse chestnuts are falling in our local woods or because mushrooms and toadstools are bursting out everywhere. Or because the paths in it are covered with the feathers that the birds are discarding in favour of their winter plumage. Or because the ant hills are beginning to shrink under the weight of the material the ants have placed over them in the summer months. Nor even that the trees and bushes are loaded with berries, though the brambles are dying back.

It’s because the first flock of Brent Geese have flown in from their summer months in Siberia and are argumentatively and very noisily setting up home in the salt marsh off Two Tree Island in Essex. More flocks will shortly be joining them and the noise will in a few days be indescribable. These birds will vacation here for the winter, feeding on the eel-grass, before returning to Siberia in the spring.

Normally these birds arrive mid-October and they are early this year. Does this, and the amount of berries on the holly tree in our garden, suggest a hard winter this year? We will have to wait and see.
.

Oops!

.
Monday was Respect For The Elderly Day in Japan, a festival honouring the aged who have helped to build the country and a festival this country might do well to copy.

However, Japanese authorities have been forced to admit that they have ‘lost’ around two hundred people aged 100 or more. They include eighteen ‘super-centenarians, including one 125-year-old woman whose last known address was turned into a park in 1981. Pension fraud, of course, is suspected and the authorities are now investigating the whereabouts of over 800 people over the age of 85. Japan is renowned for its efficiency though the problem is being blamed on antiquated record-keeping, strict privacy laws and weakening family and community ties.

Japanese citizens who turn 100 receive a silver chalice and a congratulatory letter from the Prime Minister. They are fortunate. In this country, they are more likely to receive a demand for underpaid taxes!
.

An Oxymoron?

.
It is widely reported that the North Korean leader will at a Workers' Party Conference next week announce that his youngest son will be appointed to a senior government position, so paving the way for his possible succession.

Hereditary communism - it’s an interesting concept isn’t it?

But an oxymoron also?
.

Other Words Aplenty

.
In a new book, Carla and the Ambitious, it is claimed that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni were ‘impressed and inspired’ by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's ballooning wealth since he left office.

I think we’ve all been impressed by 'Teflon' Blair’s ballooning wealth, though there are other adjectives that could better be used to describe the fortunes of the one-time leader of the Labour Party!
.

I Have My Doubts

.
Some years ago we went to a local concert by a virtually unknown singer, a young woman who charmed the hearts of all who went to see her and who was more than happy to sit for an hour afterwards and sign autographs without charge.

Now many years later we learn that that the same singer has become so much a diva that, among other things, she demands two bars of chocolate, two bottles of wine, twelve bottles of Coke, a jar of manuka honey, two scented candles, a toaster, fourteen small bottles of water, a selection of herbal teas, a loaf of brown bread, an electric juicer and a whole pineapple. And, if all that were not enough, she requires a a large bouquet of flowers to be presented to her at the end of her act.

I wonder if she still sits and signs autographs for free for an hour after each performance? I doubt it somehow.
.

A Disgrace!

.
It is widely reported this morning that there are over 9,000 public servants who are paid more than the Prime Minister’s £142,400.

Whether the civil servants are worth the salaries they receive is open to debate, but what must be clear, as I’ve said before, is that the salary of the Prime Minister of this great country is pitiful.

In relation to what others are paid in both the public and private sectors, it is also a disgrace.
.

An Ecstatic Reception

.
It’s interesting to note how the media has changed its tune about the Pope’s visit to Britain.

Before his arrival, they were dismissive of its purpose and critical about its cost. Given the warm, crowded and rapturous welcome he has been given everywhere he has been, the media now applauds not only his visit but many of the things he has had to say.

It was fascinating to see the Pope praying with Archbishop Williams, amidst clouds of incense, at the tomb and shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey on Friday evening. At times, the panoply of the Church of England seemed to be more ‘High Church’ than that of Rome. Nonetheless, it was an uplifting occasion, and the spontaneous round of applause that greeted the Pope as he left the Abbey was wonderful to behold and also told much about the public’s view of his visit.

And who could fail to have been uplifted by the joyous and enthusiastic welcome given by over two thousand of Britain’s children to the Pope after he left Westminster Cathedral yesterday. Representing every parish in the country, the Pope was most obviously delighted by those children as they cheered and clapped him - children and young people that put the lie to what many may see as the present ‘yoof’ culture.

This Pope may not have the outward personality of his predecessor, but he makes his words count, as for example something that particularly rang with me: ‘There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.’

Today his Holiness will hold a Mass in Birmingham, attended by thousands of Catholics, in which he will beatify Cardinal John Newman which will take him one step closer to becoming a saint. Cardinal Newman, who died in 1890, was an Anglican academic and priest who converted to Catholicism. His beatification follows a proven miracle attributed to him and, if another is proved later on, he will become England's first non-martyred saint since before the Reformation.

The Pope’s visit has shown very clearly that there are still people who follow a creed and who are prepared to turn out and be counted as its supporters.
.

Stop ‘Tinkering’!

.
As well as dipping into some of the newspapers online each morning, I generally watch snippets from the main television programmes to catch up on the daily news.

I used to enjoy the newsy magazine show of Penny Smith and John Stapleton for an hour from 6am. They’ve gone, along with most of the other GMTV presenters, who were axed in favour of an expensive revamp. Now people I’ve never heard of stagger along with a dire programme called Daybreak which, apparently, cost ITV a staggering £10 millions to formulate and equip in new studios. The result was an immediate 20% drop in viewers in just the first week. An ITV official said optimistically, ‘Daybreak has made a strong start in a very competitive breakfast television market’.

Not only ITV have been ‘tinkering’. Someone in the BBC decided to revamp their website and the result has been a disaster. When once you could scan the main stories at a glance, now you have to hunt around to find them. Even worse, they adopted the same format with all their regional websites. And now the latest version of their iPlayer, a useful computerised ‘catch-up’ service which enables you to watch programmes you’ve missed, is now so full of bugs that using it is made extremely difficult. A BBC official said sniffly, ‘New products sometimes have technical issues’. He got that right.

We like some things left as they are: predictable, comfortable and friendly. So why people in the television business feel that by scrapping some things completely, rather than attempting to revitalise them is beyond me. Especially when the changes are so dreadfully expensive.

Bring back GMTVs Penny Smith and John Stapleton, along with the ‘old’ versions of the BBC website and iPlayer is what I say.

But, of course, no-one will be listening!
.

Good News

.
There is good news of sorts following the announcement that Lincolnshire County Council Trading Standards Department are taking Sainsbury’s to court for using too much packaging. They said that the packaging for a beef roasting joint was ‘not limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptance’.

If convicted, Sainsbury’s face a fine of between £500 and £3,000 which will not impact on them at all, though it might if such an action were to be repeated around the country. But it is a wake-up call for them and other supermarkets that regularly over-package some goods.

Lincolnshire Council puts the case very clearly. ‘Excessive packaging on goods can cause unnecessary damage to the environment and increase costs associated with recycling and landfill.’

They are absolutely right. Excessive packaging is not only a waste of resources and in some cases a perishing nuisance when, as for example, one has to buy four peaches which sit in a polystyrene base which is then covered with cling film when one could just as easily put four peaches in a bag.

We have very good rubbish collections in our area, but recyclable waste is collected every two weeks. In that time, it is surprising how much packaging the three people in our household can produce. And it is much the same story right along our road when we see piles of pink sacks heaped on the pavements outside people’s houses.

More power then to Trading Standards officials around the country for ridding us of excessive and unwanted packaging.
.

The Two Extremes

.
Two things at yesterday’s TUC Annual Conference grabbed my attention.

The first occurred as the Governor of the Bank of England rose to speak. This prompted the RMT delegation to walk out of the room and, instead of listening to what he might or might not have had to say, they went off to watch, or so it is reported, children’s television.

The second was the speech given by Merseyside’s Chief Fire Officer who pointed out that the public services were riddled with ‘bone idle people’ and that bosses needed to show ‘muscle, sack some people’.

There you have it in a nutshell. Common sense at one extreme and pointless childishness at the other.
.

A New Definition Needed

.
The OED tells us that the term ‘the chattering classes’, first coined by journalist Frank Johnson in 1980, is a derogatory one directed at ‘a politically active, socially concerned and highly educated section of the ‘metropolitan middle class,’ especially those with political, media, and academic connections.

I’m not sure that this definition is true any more. You only have to see the number of emailers, bloggers, texters, Twitters, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other social-networking fanatics chattering and burbling away online to give credence to the need for a new definition to be drawn up for the term.

As I had the misfortune to travel up to London yesterday, I’d add to any new definition, the people who seem always to be chattering away on their mobile phones. There is no escape from them - you see and hear them on the train (even in the ‘Quiet Zone’), on the Tube, walking the streets ... just about everywhere. What marks them out is not the fact that their conversations are usually banal, but that they all seem to be shouting into their phones as if the people on the other end are deaf. They are often also not looking where they are going.

If all that doesn’t demonstrate the need for a redefinition of the term’ the chattering classes’, I don’t know what will!
.

I Want To Hear

.
We’ve had one union urging supporters into civil disobedience and other unions urging concerted strike action against government cuts, all of which have yet to be announced.

Now we have some BBC staff threatening to black out Cameron's keynote speech to the Conservative Party Conference and to disrupt coverage of Osborne's spending review.

Spending cuts - already promised by the last government without all the huffing and puffing that is going around at the moment - are no surprise, and we are all waiting to hear about where they will fall.

We understand why the cuts are needed and also that they will affect everyone in this country. So why one small section of the community is threatening to black out what will undoubtedly be important speeches is wholly unacceptable.

I want to hear what David Cameron and George Osborne have to say. I may not much like what they have to say but, nonetheless, I want to hear them.
.

Something Interesting

.
Oh dear, what sad reading this morning’s newspapers present. Talk of strikes, civil disobedience, child abuse, ‘Teflon’ Blair being presented with the American Liberty Medal and a pop star wearing a dress made of raw meat.

None of these subjects make for good reading, and I looked for something much more interesting.

I found it in the striking photograph of the Crosby Garrett Helmet, a Roman bronze helmet complete with face mask, dug up by a metal detectorist in Cumbria in May. Worn by an official of Christie’s, the auction house, the mask resembles those worn by the cybermen in a Doctor Who episode.

Frighteningly robotic in its blank stare, the mask, surmounted by a griffin crest, is said to have been worn by a Roman soldier, possibly with streamers attached to it. It is thought to have been worn during special field events with an elaborately painted shield, embroidered tunic, thigh-guards and greaves. Christie’s describe it as an 'extraordinary example of Roman metalwork at its zenith' and say it might fetch as much as £300,000 at auction.

One Roman commentator says that cavalrymen wore them as a mark of rank or excellence in horsemanship. Cavalry were divided into two teams taking turns to attack and defend during the events which accompanied religious festivals and which were also put on for the benefit of visiting officials.

If such masks were worn in combat, one can imagine the frightening aspect they must have presented to an enemy especially if coupled with the screaming ‘draco’ standards that some of them carried.

It is to be hoped that this amazing helmet and mask will be purchased by someone who can keep it in Britain for display.
.

The Dinosaurs Posturing

.
The dinosaurs of the trades union movements were out and about yesterday at the start of the TUC Conference posturing about fighting spending cuts and protecting their members’ jobs by means of what one of them called a campaign of civil disobedience. And this before anyone knows where the cuts will fall.

We will hear much about workers’ pay and conditions in the next few days, but nothing at all about those of the union leaders themselves. A report by the Taxpayers Alliance showed that 38 trade union General Secretaries and Chief Executives receive pay and benefits in excess of £100,000 per year. The top six men earn between £106,000 and £127,000.

What do these overpaid people know about the pay and conditions of their members?
.

Get Real!

.
The less-than-private life of a so-called football star will not go away and even now is being carried by the quality papers.

Here now are two prostitutes who received payment for their ‘services’ to this man and who over the weekend have offered up their apologies for what they have done. Since when have prostitutes been apologising for what they have done? Might it have something to do with the tempting fees paid by some of the newspapers?

Referring to her activities and the effect it had on the so-called footballer’s wife, one of these women is reported to have said, ‘If it was me I would be devastated. It would tear me apart’. The other one chirruped, ‘I'm sorry for all the hurt that you’ve been put through. It was a mistake. I can't apologise enough.’

Get real ladies. You got paid for what you did! And for telling the newspapers!
.

How Sensible

.
The independent think tank, The Policy Exchange, has come up with a suggestion that would make it tougher for unions to call strike action.

They suggest that 40% of union members should be required to vote for a strike in order for it to be valid, rather than a simple majority of voting union members as at present. They also suggest that employers should be allowed to use agency staff to cover strike action, and for the period of protection from dismissal during a strike to be reduced from twelve weeks to eight weeks.

Unsurprisingly, the CBI welcomed the report and the TUC claimed it was ‘a crude attack on workplace rights’.

To me at any rate, the think tank’s suggestions seem eminently sensible and, had they been in force now, the strikes by sections of BAs cabin staff and that of Tube workers would not have taken place.
.

An Overhaul Needed

.
There is an arrogance displayed by some civil servants, as witness the initial refusal by the Permanent Secretary for Tax at HM Revenue and Customs to apologise for the errors resulting in 1.4 million people facing demands for additional unpaid taxes.

He said, ‘I’ve read the papers, listened to the media and heard stories of HMRC blunder and IT failure – neither of those are true.’ How else can he explain the cock-up then? Since then this mandarin has been leant upon and he has apologised.

As further witness to how HMRC are divorced from the real world, we also learn that folk owing less than £300 will have the amounts waived. Those owing between £300 and £2,000 can repay the money in monthly instalments over one to three years.

However, those owing more than £2,000 will have no more than three months to return the cash; this on the basis that ‘they were likely to be the highest earners’. That may be true but, nonetheless, the mistake is not their fault and they also ought to be given time to pay.

An unknown number of people are owed money by the HMRC and it is also unknown how long they will have to wait for repayment.

One thing is for sure and that is that our tax system is due for a major overhaul. And it wouldn’t do any harm to overhaul its Permanent Secretary either!
.

Don’t Cut The Numbers

.
The Chairman of the Police Federation warns that if the 25% funding cuts proposed by the government go ahead the result could be up to 40,000 fewer police officers over the next four years and that it ‘can't but have a detrimental effect on the service’.

It remains to be seen where the cuts will fall and we will not know until the full review is made public in October. Hopefully, the government will see the need to maintain a full-strength police force in times of economic uncertainty and the possibility of increased crime levels, though already some forces have announced reductions in the number of officers.

One thing the Home Secretary could do is to get rid of the Police Community Support Officers, the so-called ‘plastic policemen’, who have very little powers, don’t carry handcuffs and have no powers of arrest, can’t conduct interviews or deal with prisoners. They appear regularly in the newspapers either for being unable or unwilling to do various things. Such as in the case of the headmaster of a school in Essex who has been told that the local PCSOs may not guide pupils cross the road because they haven’t been trained to do so.

The Home Secretary has an opportunity to review police expenditure and, while making the cuts that we all know are inevitable, make them in such a way as the policemen on the beat are actually benefited by it.

Getting rid of PCSOs or, alternatively, switching them to office work might help. Cutting the ridiculous amount of paperwork police officers are burdened with would certainly help. Putting coppers back on the streets and paying clerks to do the office work would be a major help, even if police have to do a bit more beat-work than at present.

But whatever she does, one hopes that it does not lead to a reduction in the numbers of police actively dealing with crime.
.

Change Of Mind

.
The so-called pastor of a small church in Florida has bowed to world-wide condemnation and announced that he will not be burning copies of the Koran today.

What surprises me most about this whole affair is why he was not immediately arrested on charges of inciting racial hatred and jailed pending trial.

That would have kept him safely out of the way today!
.

A Wet Fish!

.
A report by a private investigator commissioned by a Conservative MP on his relationship with his local party is said to have pulled no punches when it told him that senior members considered he: ‘works very hard not to give an opinion. He sits on the fence on every issue and nobody knows where he stands on anything. He is a wet fish and is constantly wriggling on the political issues of the day.’

In my working days I came across a similar personality to the MP in question. He was exasperating in the extreme and would express no views of his own, countering any direct question with another question. I often thought he was a sad character for, whatever was under discussion, he would carefully weigh up the consensus and then agree with it. There were, I must admit it, times when a group of his colleagues would deliver a consensus for him to agree before confusing him totally by going in the opposite direction.

I often wondered if this poor soul was the same out of the office but, as he finally saw the light and left, I never found out.
.

A New Tartan

.
Of interest to many Scots, a new tartan was unveiled yesterday to honour the Pope’s first visit to Scotland.

Called the St. Ninian’s Day Tartan, it was designed by Matthew Newsome of North Carolina. Its colours incorporate those of Scotland, the Vatican, Cardinal Newman’s crest and that of the lichens growing on stones at Whithorn in Galloway where St. Ninian first landed over 1,600 years ago.

His Holiness arrives in Scotland on 16 September, St. Ninian’s Day, where he will be received by the Queen in Edinburgh. He will be presented with the limited edition tartan that day by Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh.

The question is: Will the Pope ever be seen wearing the tartan and in what form?
.

One Of The Best London Museums

.
One of my favourite characters in history is Sir John Soane RA who was born today in 1753 in Goring-on-Thames in England.

The son of a bricklayer, Soane was educated in Reading and trained as an architect. He won the Royal Academy’s silver medal in 1772, its gold medal in 1776 and a travelling scholarship in 1777 which he spent in Italy. After unsuccessfully seeking work in Ireland, Soane returned to England in 1780 and established his own architectural practice.

His work remodelling and designing country homes in the neo-classical style for the rich turned out to be extremely lucrative. Among his most notable works are the dining rooms of Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street, the Dulwich Picture Gallery and, after being appointed architect to the Bank of England in 1788, its exterior (most of which was later rebuilt). His work for the Bank increased his success and in 1802 he became a Royal Academician and in 1806 Professor of Architecture there, a post which he held until his death, by then a widower, in 1837. In 1831 he was knighted.

It is for Soane’s London home that he is perhaps most remembered today for he turned it into a museum housing a vast collection of antiquities which he acquired over the years; a collection far exceeding anything by any other antiquarians of his time.

In 1792 Soane bought number 12 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Between 1794 and 1824 he remodelled and extended the house into the two adjacent properties so as to house his growing collection of antiquities. Over the years he bought the sarcophagus of Seti I, Roman bronzes from Pompeii, several Canalettos and a collection of paintings by Hogarth. Soane was happy to show friends and other visitors around his house which by the time of his death was extremely crowded. In 1833, he bequeathed the house and collection to the British nation as a museum of architecture, now the Sir John Soane's Museum.

The Soane Museum is surely one of the lesser known museums in London but it is the one I always recommend to overseas visitors. The amount of ‘stuff’ in this small museum has to be seen to be believed. In addition to a collection of sculptures, there are around 30,000 architectural drawings, architectural models, fifteen Piranesi sketches, three Canaletto’s and twelve original works by Hogarth - eight of A Rake’s Progress and four of his Humours of an Election.

For me, the most amazing item in the whole collection is the intrically-decorated alabaster sarcophagus of the Pharaoh Seti I which is housed in the basement in what Soane called the Sepulchral Chamber. Seti reigned around 1294 BC and his tomb was discovered by Belzoni in the Valley of the Kings in 1817. His empty sarcophagus was bought to London in 1824 and offered to the British Museum for £2,000. When they refused it, Soane acquired it and held a three-day party to celebrate its addition to his collection.

So next time you visit London, be sure to pay a visit to the Soane Museum!
.

Hazardous To Health

.
I’ve occasionally (though not often) thought about whether or not to rent an allotment and do the ‘Good Life’ thing and grow my own fruit and vegetables but, on balance, decided it could be hazardous to my health. I was right, for two stories about allotments have surfaced this morning.

The first concerns some thieves who had broken into nine allotment sheds in Bucknall, Staffordshire, stealing various items of gardening equipment.

They then had the misfortune to break into the tenth shed and in doing so accidentally disturbed a wasps nest resulting in the creatures immediately going in for the attack. Leaving some of the stolen tools behind, the thieves ran away from the swarm of wasps following them. Police are looking for an unknown number of men extensively covered in wasp stings.

The second tale concerns a lady who rented part of an allotment in Garston, Liverpool, from a man who stipulated that she should not dig too deep because his pet dog was buried somewhere in it.

As the lady and her daughter started to clear the weeds away and turn the earth over ready for planting, they unearthed a gun which they took to the police station. The police came back to the patch and discovered three more guns. Over the next four-weeks, a handgun, parts of guns, a stockpile of bullets and ammunition magazines, a flare gun, a shotgun-silencer along with unidentified chemicals were unearthed. Eventually, bomb disposal specialists were called in to ensure the allotment was clear and ready for potato planting. Merseyside Police have arrested a man on suspicion of possession of firearms.

See what I mean? Allotments can be hazardous to your health!
.

Unacceptable

.
I can’t think of anything more likely to cause offence to millions of people around the world and to stir up radical extremists than the proposed burning of the Koran by the members of a small evangelical church in Florida.

Referring to the events of 11 September 2001, the pastor said, ‘We want to ... make a statement to honour those murdered on that day’.

Burning the Koran honours no-one, and it needs to be remembered that people of all faiths died in those attacks.

It is to be hoped that the authorities will step in and deal firmly with an unacceptable situation that is likely to result in retaliatory action if it were allowed to go ahead.
.

Hooray For The Dabbahwallahs!

.
One of the most complex but highly organised and efficient food distribution systems is that operated by the tiffin-carriers, the Dabbahwallahs, who operate in Mumbai. Each day around 5,000 men collect nearly 200,000 metal tiffin-boxes from private homes and deliver them to the right customers at lunchtime.

It is most impressive to see these lunch-boxes, often two or three tins which fit one on top of the other, being bought to various collection points and then distributed to their hungry clients on time. The system has been the subject of a television documentary, the tiffin-carriers themselves have received international recognition for their supply-chain management and some even attended Prince Charles’ wedding in 2005.

But the 21st century has introduced a few problems to the dabbahwallahs, many of whom have only the most basic education and who may not speak English. So a university in Maharashtra has introduced a new course which teaches basic English and computer skills so that in future the graduate tiffin-carriers will be able to understand orders and addresses sent by email or text.

The distribution of tiffin-boxes is a tradition going back more than one hundred years and it would be good to see a new documentary about the dabbahwallahs and how they operate in the 21st century to bring lunches from the homes of hungry folk to their place of work each day.
.

How Much?

.
The alleged relationship (if it can be called that) between the so-called football star and the so-called escort girl will not go away and dominates the newspapers again this morning.

The latest revelations reminded me of an evening some years ago when I was regularly travelling backwards and forwards to Los Angeles.

I was staying in a very posh hotel in Beverly Hills and, though I am not a lone drinker, for some reason one evening I had need of a stiff drink and so went down to the bar in the basement for one. The place was empty except for a very attractive young woman who started to chat. Eventually she asked me what I did and I told her. I then asked her what she did and she replied in a very matter of fact way, ‘I’m a whore’. Seeing the look of astonishment on my face, she then said, ‘But don’t worry, I’m on my night off!’

We had two drinks while we chatted I remember. She turned out to be a very well-educated person with an interest in the history of art who was extremely articulate and interesting to talk with. At some point she asked me if I would like to go up to the restaurant for some supper but I declined as I had eaten earlier and, in any event, had some work to do.

A couple of days later I found myself again in need of a stiff drink following an extremely difficult day in the office, and I took myself back down to the bar.

The place was completely empty save for the barman who I chatted with for a short while. I couldn’t resist enquiring about the woman I’d seen a few days earlier. She was, apparently, a regular guest at the hotel and also at a couple of the others in the area. She was a model of discretion seemingly, never accosting anyone in the hotel and always arriving with her man who she brought into the bar for a short while before moving off, presumably to her room. She was also, he said extremely expensive.

I didn’t have the courage to ask the woman what she charged and the barman didn’t know. But I do know this morning that the so-called escort girl who is alleged to have had a relationship (if it can be called that) with a so-called football star charged him £1,200 for a few hours of her time.

I wonder if she bought him a drink and was able to chat about the history of art while she was with him?
.

Me Too!

.
I remembered to shave this morning, something I often forget to do for days on end until either reminded of it by my wife or spotting it myself in a mirror.

For around forty years I sported a naval ‘full-set’. I was working for an old-established shipping company and, in line with their tradition, was required to get permission to grow it. Since the reason for the request stemmed from my having developed psoriasis on my face and neck, permission was speedily granted.

The result was that, apart from giving the beard a neat trim now and again, I never had to shave again until the middle of 2008 when I had radiotherapy for a tumour in my head, with the result that all the hair on the left-hand side of my face was killed in the process. A habit of forty years is hard to kick but, when it looks as if one half of my face seems as if it is going to sport a beard of its own, then I am forced to shave.

Anyhoo, I had a shave this morning and so look decent enough to be seen in public.

To be honest, shaving is a pain in the proverbial and one wonders why men bother to do it. It’s so much easier to climb out of bed, get showered and dressed and you are ready for the day without the tiresome need to shave. So why do men bother?

The wearing of beards goes back to ancient times, possibly due to the lack of sharp razors. The ancient Egyptians wore beards, as did the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Indians, Peruvians .. and so on. In different countries or epochs, beards were worn either long and shaggy, or trimmed in various ways.

It appears that it was Alexander the Great who introduced shaving among his soldiers so as to eliminate the enemy’s opportunity to grab his men’s beards like handles - though beards later grew (no pun intended!) into fashion again. The Romans used to sport beards until one emperor brought a barber to Rome; after that anyone sporting a beard was regarded to be a Greek.

The beard was variously regarded as a symbol of wisdom, purity, virility, masculinity, age and style of living. They could also be worn as a sign of mourning or in protest against something. They could be seen as unclean or slovenly.

Beards came in and out of fashion over the ages. In the 17th-century, for example, Peter the Great ordered all Russian men to shave off their beards. Beards generally returned to fashion not long afterwards and possibly came to the fore in the 19th century when beards, moustaches and sideburns were widely worn.

Beards went out of fashion for different reasons during WWI when they were shaved off so that gas masks fitted closely to the face (this is also the reason why pilots remain clean shaven, so that oxygen masks will tightly fit their faces when needed). Removing facial hair at that time was also regarded as a sanitary measure since it would reduce the risk of disease and lice among recruits being gathered together.

After that, the world mainly seems to have been clean shaven except for those in religious sects or who were hippies, etc.

And since 2008, except for a silly little goatee, so have I!
.

So What?

.
I have never been interested in spectator sports. I don’t know why this is and, perhaps, someone out there will offer a view on what they may feel is a disability of some sort.

Cricket, especially, seems to me to be akin to watching the paint dry. I don’t understand the rules, the action is irritatingly slow and many of the so-called players stand around looking bored half the time. Similarly, I don’t quite understand all the fuss about the Pakistani players who are alleged to have rigged the game. Rigged what, for heavens sake?

Nonetheless, one’s attention constantly keeps being drawn to the subject of cricket and/or its players in the last few days. This morning brings news that the Pakistan one-day Captain has said that one of his team-mates, who recently gave a press interview, has a mental age of 15 or 16 even though he is in his thirties.

So what, I would ask? If six- and seven-year old boys can play cricket on the beach or the heath, why not a man with the mental age of fifteen?

In any event, the game is still akin to watching paint dry so far as I am concerned!
.

Devastated?

.
There are many serious things going on in the world this morning, and I suppose I’m not too surprised that some of the papers ignore these and feature the tale of the so-called football ‘star’ who is alleged to have had to admit to his wife that he has been messing about with a so-called escort girl.

The footballer is said to have been ‘devastated’ that news of his alleged infidelity has been made public by a newspaper.

But I’ll bet he was not as devastated by the news as his wife was!
.

On The Other Hand

.
London is braced for twenty-four hours of travel chaos after members of two London Underground unions went on strike last evening. Two more strikes follow in October and November.

I suppose that it must be right that workers can withdraw their labour in order to better their pay and conditions. On the other hand, is it right that the desires of the few should affect the lives of the many, and losing their employers millions of pounds in the process?

It is a difficult question but one which at some point needs to be addressed in these times of economic restraint.
.

They Missed!

.
‘Teflon’ Blair went to Dublin yesterday to sign copies of his new book for an hour.

Dubliners were shocked that the city’s main street was closed for four hours and a ‘ring of steel’ erected round the bookshop to protect the former prime minister. He was, one supposes, hoping to be welcomed as one of those involved in the Northern Ireland peace process. Instead of which he was met by a barrage of folk protesting about his role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One woman who announced she was making a citizen’s arrest was, apparently, swiftly removed by four security personnel

It is reported that eggs, plastic bottle and shoes were thrown at Mr Blair.

But, apparently, they all missed.
.

Surely A Joke?

.
Some of the newspapers have reported that the head of Ryanair is proposing to do away with co-pilots and replace them in emergencies with cabin staff trained to take over and land airplanes in emergencies.

Surely he is joshing? Trying to make additional income is one thing, but tinkering with flight safety is another!
.

In The National Arena

.
Today marks the election of the first Indian, Dadabhai Naoroji, to become a Member of Parliament in 1892.

Naoroji was born in South Gujarat in 1825 and was educated in Bombay at Elphonstone College, becoming professor of mathematics and natural philosophy there before turning his mind to politics and a career in commerce. In 1855 he travelled to London to join an Indian cotton trader but left four years later to found his own trading company. Later he became professor of Gujarati at University College, London.

Known as The Grand Old Man of India, Naoroji became Prime Minister of Baroda in 1874 and was one of the founding members of the Indian National Party, becoming President of it. He returned to London and got involved in British politics, eventually becoming the Member of Parliament for Central Finsbury. Being a Parsee he was permitted to take his oath of office with his hand on the Khordeh Avesta. Naoroji wrote extensively, arguing that India was too highly taxed and that its wealth was being drained away to England. He returned to India and was again elected President of the Indian National Party. A moderate, he was mentor both to Gopal Gokhale and Mohandas Gandhi. He died in 1917 aged 91.

Since Naoroji was elected MP, many others of different races and religions have entered Parliament and, as a free democracy, this is right and proper despite the various difficulties some of them have had in the process.

So it is interesting to note that it was only last Monday when the first Aborigine, Ken Wyatt, was elected to Australia's House of Representatives as a Liberal for Hasluck in Western Australia.

Ignoring the racist phone calls and emails he has received since his election, he said, ‘I have come from a life of poverty and through my own individual efforts I stand now within the national arena’.

Best wishes to Mr Wyatt, for he stands in the tradition of many people raising themselves up in life. He and Dadabhai Naoroji are just two of them.
.

What Were They Thinking?

.
A chap was gathering dead wood and twigs in a Buckinghamshire wood along with his wife and five-year-old twin girls a couple of days ago when he was challenged by a warden.

A row ensued and the warden called the police. Their response was to send a patrol car and a helicopter to find this heinous crook.

And the result of all this activity? No crime had been committed - except for wasting public money!
.

The Big Bang, The Universe And Everything

.
In Stephen Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design, he posits that the Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.

The Chief Rabbi believes that the mutual hostility between religion and science is one of ‘the curses of our age’. I think he also has it right when he says, ‘There is more to wisdom than science. It cannot tell us why we are here or how we should live. Science masquerading as religion is as unseemly as religion masquerading as science.’

There is a God after all!
.

Who Cares?

.
Yesterday the High Court refused to ban a book which would have revealed its author as ‘The Stig’ who, apparently, is the secret racer of a variety of cars featured on the Top Gear programme.

The BBC sought an injunction blocking publication of the man’s autobiography on the grounds that it breached a confidentiality agreement he had entered into when he took up the position of The Stig in 2003 and that revealing who he is would spoil viewers’ enjoyment of the programme. The publishers of the book argued that the BBC were preventing freedom of expression and that, in any event, the identity of the man was already in the public domain.

The High Court refused to grant a temporary injunction blocking publication of the biography, and the result is that every morning newspaper gives the man’s name and abundant publicity to his book which will be published in two week’s time.

Outside the court, the publishers queried why the BBC would want to spend taxpayers money on such an action and I agree with this view.

More importantly, does anyone really care who The Stig is?
.

No Surprises

.
It is ‘revealed’ that Brown lost Labour the election and drove Blair to drink, Princess Diana was manipulative, the fox hunting ban was a mistake, there is no apology over the Iraq war, Mrs Caplin was brilliant, Cherie couldn’t help herself sometimes, other politicians like Prescott (who could balance a cup of tea on his stomach) didn’t have enough self-control, the coalition is backed over the economy, etc., etc., etc.

No surprises there from Blair’s new book. So, even assuming I wanted to read its 700 pages, that’s twenty-five quid saved (but £12.50 if ordered from Amazon)!
.

Are They Sure?

.
I’m not at all sure about the latest idea dreamt up by the North Wales Criminal Justice Board who are displaying a mobile prison cell at events across north Wales so that the under-18s can see what life in a jail is like.

Funded by money confiscated from criminals and built by inmates of a Liverpool prison, the mobile cell is mounted on a trailer donated by a local company. Its purpose is meant to dissuade young people from a life of crime.

I’m not sure about this idea. Though nothing has been said about the three meals a day and access to education, a gym and other facilities that exist in prisons, the cell comes complete with a bunk, television, hand-basin and toilet.

That may be more comfort than some of those young kids have now!
.

A Subject Dear To My Heart!

.
Canadian scientists have discovered that smoking herbal cannabis, or ‘grass’, from a pipe can significantly reduce chronic pain in patients with certain types of problems. Apparently, it reduced pain, decreased anxiety and depression and aided sleep.

Their research is supported by a British pain specialist who said, ‘This trial adds to the trickle of evidence that cannabis may help some of the patients who are struggling at present.’

He is right of course as we suspected all along. Pain control is a subject dear to my heart, so the question is: where does one get some?
.