Potentially Dangerous

It has long been established that some discretion is always needed when folk send emails to one another, and stories about the cock-ups when people accidentally get emails they oughtn’t to see are legion.

Most often these sort of cock-ups are caused when the writer of an email presses the wrong button and sends it to the very person who shouldn’t see it. Sometimes an email which criticises someone is maliciously circulated and recirculated, eventually ending up in the wrong hands.

So, bearing this in mind, discretion has to be the watchword when people send their emails which, when you consider it, are just another form of the written word and therefore capable of being reproduced. Exactly the same principles apply when sending cables.

WikiLeaks is a website run by an international non-profit organisation that aims to publish and comment on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct. It has been busy in recent months, but has latterly caused international controversy and embarrassment by publishing the first tranche of over 250,000 diplomatic emails and cables that an unknown source has passed on to them.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the leaking of some documents helps in some way to uncover corporate and governmental misdoings. On the other hand, to recklessly publish documents which have been unlawfully obtained and which create untold diplomatic difficulties is, in my view at any rate, irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
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Sensational

Today is the day on which in 1922 Howard Carter opened the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamun to the public.

The discovery of the tomb was an international sensation at the time and the various artefacts found, including the gold sarcophagi and face mask, are still quite sensational when viewed in person.

Tutankhamun was born around 1341 BC, the son of the ‘heretic’ king Akhenaten. He ascended to the throne at the age of nine but died ten years later. Scholars are still debating the cause of his death and theories range from murder by a blow to the head, the product of incest, malaria and infection following a fall which broke one of his legs.

The Pharaoh is one of the few Egyptian kings that still lie in their original tombs. Tutankhamun rests in a climate-controlled environment to prevent his body decomposing because of the humidity and warmth from the many tourists that enter the tomb.

Tutankhamun was revered in his lifetime, and he and the artefacts that were buried with him and which are now on view in the Cairo Museum, some of which are occasionally loaned to other museums, continue to amaze us thousands of years later.
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Why?

Everyone hopes that the strained relations between the two Koreas do not worsen into all-out war. However, a report in yesterday’s Independent suggests that North Korea are preparing for something, though what that something is has yet to be discovered.

The newspaper reports that North Korea sends thousands of workers to the Far East of Russia to earn money, most of which ends up in government hands. North Korean workers apparently left the town of Nakhodka en masse shortly after the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula earlier this week. ‘Traders have left the kiosks and markets, workers have abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have joined them and left,’ the Vladnews agency reported.

That doesn’t seem to bode well.
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Harsh!

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A 23-year-old Royal Bank of Scotland debt officer but off sick was telephoned at home by her boss who announced the Telford office where she worked was to be closed and telling her she would have to take redundancy or, alternatively, relocate to Birmingham.

She then posted three messages on her Facebook page boasting how lucky she was to be able to take redundancy and the £6,000 payoff that went with it.

But one of her so-called friends reported her messages to the bank who promptly suspended her and later fired her for breaching what they called the company’s ‘declaration of secrecy’.

The young woman was, of course, extremely foolish to make such boasts on her Facebook page. On the other hand the bank would appear to have acted extremely harshly in dealing with a junior employee.

Especially when RBS are soon likely to be paying senior executives bonuses of such a size that six grand would seem to be mere loose change!
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Are We Married?

There are reports that a million Church of England marriages over the last thirty years are technically invalid because the wrong form of words was used when clergy, using the latest Prayer Book, read the banns three times in the weeks prior the ceremonies.

At face value this is quite an alarming story and one that has quickly spread through the internet.

But, as is so often the case, you have to hear what the lawyers say and, in this case, common sense would seem to prevail.

Addressing the Church of England General Synod, one Church lawyer said: ‘... the 1949 Marriage Act contained ‘robust’ clauses to protect ‘a marriage that has been entered into in good faith by the parties’.’

And, if that were not clear enough, another lawyer put it more succinctly: ‘... the marriage legislation effectively says that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it is a duck. If both parties believe they are married, then they are protected.’

Thus dashing the hopes of many who might rather have wished that their marriages were now invalid!
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Different

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, the day on which most Americans are indoors with their families celebrating the start of the festive season and enjoying the traditional turkey lunch.

It is also the one day in the year when American shops are closed and the roads are free of traffic. Indeed, there was one year when, together with two of my colleagues, I drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas by way of the Mojave Desert. It was a wonderful drive for, until we got into Vegas, we encountered no traffic to speak of.

The day after Thanksgiving is quite another thing and is known as Black Friday. This is the day that the stores commence their Christmas sales. Some folk queue up to be the first into the malls and stores when they open, and stampedes resulting in injuries are frequently reported. In sharp contrast to the day before, the roads are jammed with traffic heading towards the shopping malls.

Except for those who have visited America, the term Black Friday is mainly unknown in this country. Yet this year a number of online sales companies have declared this week to be Black Friday Deals Week.

Of course, the difference is that traffic is unaffected and no-one is going to be injured doing their shopping online!
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What Makes Us Happy?

A chum of mine with a great sense of humour and who I unsuccessfully keep prompting to write his own blog, has sent me an email which I quote (nearly) in full. What he says is spot-on!

‘I hear that this government is going to spend £2,000,000 to find out ‘What makes people happy?’

Give the money to me ... that will make me very happy!

Does it make you feel a little uneasy when you read of this stupid waste of money, when most people are finding it difficult to make ends meet? Especially when he (Cameron that is) ‘ain't been governing for very long.

I could tell him for nothing that if you've got: food on the table, good health, good family around you, friends that don’t borrow money off you, beer in the cupboard, dosh to pay the rent and enough left over to pay off the last instalment on your inflatable doll ... you have got to be a happy man!’

Nuff said?
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