The Final 'Just A Thought'

It is with great sadness that I am writing to tell you that my father Brian died on the 17th February 2011.
He enjoyed writing this blog to the last, and we hope that you enjoyed it. Alasdair (his son)

And What Then?

It is reported that American bioarchaeologists are going to ask for royal approval to exhume the body of King Henry VIII in an attempt to prove that a rare disease caused his ferocious temper.

It seems that ‘Kell-positive’ blood coupled with McLeod’s Syndrome in later life causes muscle weakness and even schizophrenic behaviour and may explain why a much-loved prince became a murderous tyrant king.

King Henry VIII is buried in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle after he died in January 1547 at the age of 55. After a jousting accident in 1536 he became susceptible to an ulcerated leg injury, boils, violent mood swings and possibly untreated Type II diabetes.

Whether or not the researchers obtain royal approval for an exhumation of King Henry’s hair and bone DNA samples remains to be seen, though one feels it is unlikely the Queen will grant the request.

But what will it prove? That there is just another cause to the king’s behaviour? And if DNA samples prove that Kell-positive blood and McLeod’s Syndrome are involved in the case of Henry VIII? What then?

Will researchers be wanting to dig up every bad-tempered individual from the past to test them as well?

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Thar She Blows!

The classic American novel, Moby Dick, was written by Herman Melville after he read about the dramatic events of the Essex whaling ship which had been rammed by a sperm whale and sunk in 1821.

After the Essex sank, Captain George Pollard and his crew drifted at sea without food and water for three months and even resorted to cannibalism before they were rescued. Captain Pollard went on to command the Two Brothers which two years later struck a coral reef in shallow waters off Hawaii, but eventually gave up whaling and became a night watchman in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Now the remains of the Two Brothers are thought to have been discovered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about 600 miles north-west of Honolulu. Though the wooden frame of the ship has disintegrated in the warm waters, harpoons, hooks and cauldrons to turn blubber into oil have helped to identify the ship.

I love these maritime stories. We can send rockets and men to the moon, but finding things at the bottom of the oceans often seems much more daunting. But here, after much research and effort, a tangible link to an American maritime classic has been uncovered.

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Proud

Now and again Parliament does the right thing.

For they have now shown two fingers to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg who were insisting that British prisoners should have the vote.

It does not matter in this instance what MPs voted on and I can’t say that I have any sympathy for British prisoners who, in punishment for their crimes, have temporarily lost their freedom. The point is that our elected representatives have upheld Britain’s sovereign right to make its own decisions by defying demands from an unelected body consisting in some parts of people with no conception of our own ancient laws.

This may well be the ‘one small step’ to our Parliament paying more attention to what Strasbourg wants in comparison to what we as a sovereign nation wants. If so, what happened the other night is a very good thing.

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Blimey!

Let’s suppose you are a fisherman and that you are sailing close to a busy cross-Channel lane off Beachy Head, near Eastbourne in East Sussex and you spot something floating on the water’s surface. Blimey - it’s a torpedo!

This is what happened to fisherman Peter Storey earlier in the week who, not knowing whether the torpedo was live or not, bravely tied a rope round it and brought it ashore into shallow water. Later, the Royal Navy Bomb Disposal team comes along and finds that the erxplosive charge had corroded and that the torpedo posed no threat to shipping.

Mr Storey was a brave man for he had no knowledge of explosives and one hopes that there is some sort of reward for removing something that may have been dangerous in a busy shipping lane.

On the other hand, it would be interesting to know how this torpedo ended up where it did seeing that it was confirmed as a British Mk 9 device which had a stamp stating it was last checked and tested in 1955.

Wow! Last tested? What happened to it in the meantime?

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What A Good Idea!

An Indiana-based company called Little iApps has created the first application for the Apple iPhone giving guidance for Catholics who wish to return to the confessional.

The application, which has received its imprimatur from Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese, is not designed to be used in the confessional itself but gives a step-by-step guide to the sacrament to those who have been missing for a while. The app, costing just $1.99 in the Apple iTune Store gives password protected advice on performing the sacrament as well as a list of acts of contrition.

Unlike some of the things that come onto the market, this simple application seems to me to be an eminently good idea since anything that helps people along the path of spirituality is bound to be one.

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‘Ain’t Science Wonderful?

Last July divers exploring a Baltic Sea shipwreck believed to have sunk some time between 1800 and 1830 found 145 bottles of what is believed to be the world’s oldest champagne.

On arrival at the surface only one bottle burst open and this proved to be a bottle of beer which experts are trying to recreate if there is enough living yeast or other microbial cells present in the remains.

It’s many years since I drank alcohol, but it would be wonderful to try a beer made to an authentic 200-year-old recipe.

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Spooky, But Good For Business?

We may be living in the 21 century but the possible doings of the 7th century may still be affecting us.

That may be the case if we are likely to visit Thorpe Park, one of the UK's largest theme parks, who have had to move their ‘Storm Surge’ water ride away from what experts believe may have been an ancient burial ground or settlement. After a paranormal detection agency was called in following reports of various ghostly sightings, including that of a headless monk, managers of the park decided to relocate the ride to another area of the park.

And less anyone think that this may just be a case of getting some free publicity, Thorpe Park also called in a forensic geophysicist from Cranfield University who, using deep ground radar, picked up signatures similar to that of an ancient burial ground.

Spooky, eh?

Let’s Do It!

A report by the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange has shown that European judges had overruled British law on on 26 occasions since Labour passed the Human Rights Act a decade ago.

Policy Exchange say there is ‘strong evidence’ that withdrawing from the Strasbourg court’s jurisdiction would not affect Britain’s membership of the EU and that Britain should press for major reform of the Strasbourg court to rein it in. If negotiations are unsuccessful then the UK should withdraw from Strasbourg.

The report’s findings are backed by one of Britain’s retired judges, Lord Hoffman, who believes that in recent years ‘human rights have become, like health and safety, a byword for foolish decisions by courts and administrators’.

It seems like a good idea to me to pull out and restore our own justice system. But will the government be brave enough to do it?
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A French Upset?

The government is considering moving the May Bank Holiday to October, from the half-term break in 2013, which they think would help promote the tourism industry in the latter part of the year. The idea comes as tourism chiefs have called for a better spread of pubic holidays throughout the year and this one might be called UK Day or Trafalgar Day.

The whinging has already started and unions have accused the government of attacking International Workers Day on 1 May. This despite the May Day Bank Holiday often falling close to the Easter holidays. The General Secretary of the TUC has called for an extra bank holiday to be given instead.

Compared with other EU countries, Britain falls behind in the number of public holidays each year, so moving the holiday to October - or putting another one in place - would seem to me to be a great idea especially if it were to be called Trafalgar Day.

But I doubt the French would be pleased about that!
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Disgraced?

The wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons appeared in the Evening Standard supposedly wearing just a sheet in front of a hotel window with the Palace of Westminster in the background.

Subsequently she told a BBC Radio 5 Live interviewer that she was ‘probably stupid to do it’. She also confessed that because she is married to the Speaker, ‘... whatever I do is put in the media and used to get at him’.

The office of the Speaker is an ancient one and ranks in the order of precedence above all non-royal individuals except the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council along with some religious leaders.

Is it just possible that the Speaker’s wife disgraced this ancient office? I’d say there is no contest.
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Put A Sock In It!

Every now and again I chuck out all my socks and start again by purchasing a new stock. It’s an efficient arrangement except that I very often end up with one unused sock in my drawer.

How is it possible to end up with one unused sock after I gradually use up the dozen or so new pairs I bought? It’s a mystery and the only possible answer must be that I have been short-sold one sock.

Socks, of course, go missing for any number of reasons: they get lost in washing machines, get chewed by dogs, get thrown away accidentally or go walkabouts for a variety of other reasons. In my case, I’m sure that I’ve just been short-sold since there is no other plausible solution to the problem.

Coincidentally a study of 1,500 Britons has shown that 82% of young men will end up wearing mismatched socks at least once a week. It seems that northern men are most likely affected by the lost sock syndrome with 67% of those questioned reporting that they lost up to 15 socks a year. Black socks are also those most likely to go missing.

Socks are not expensive and so I can’t say I can get worked up too much when I find an odd one before I’ve had a chance to wear it. I just buy more when I need them.

There may be a mystery about where the other lost socks disappear to. But the bigger mystery to me is why all those young men don’t just go out and buy new ones!
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