Four Of Them?

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

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

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

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

These are good questions!
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Suspicious

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

A police spokesman described the death as ‘suspicious’.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Six million quid wasted. Wonderful!
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A Watching Eye?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very odd!
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Commonsense At Last?

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

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

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

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