Sunday 29 March 2009

Even given the nature of the videos that were charged to the taxpayer via Jacqui Smith (although she must bear some responsibility since it was her expenses that were used) what puzzled me was that "entertainment" was considered to be an acceptable item for the taxpayer to pick up. Now I can understand news channels - although all of them are free-to-air I believe - but why the hell should the taxpayer pick up entertainment?

Of all kinds.

Saturday 28 March 2009

Heffer talk out of his backside

Simon Heffer in today's Telegraph makes a case for jailing Gordon Brown: "Simply losing the next general election is, frankly, not enough of a punishment for a man who has inflicted such damage on our country that people won't even buy government bonds any more. An example needs to be made of him. I want him behind bars."

Heffer is of course talking out of his backside if he thinks that what Labour has done is criminal. Stupid, crass, idiotic yes … criminal no.

Irrespective of how we feel about the numpties in power, the law of the land is clear. We must not resort to the court of public opinion.

oh hang on … where have I heard that before?

Monday 23 March 2009

Any man's death diminishes me

I am trying not to be a hypocrite when I write this, but John Donne's words came to mind during the last couple of days, when the news - especially the popular news - has been dominated by the death of Jade Goody.



I didn't like her when she was alive but, apart from the fact that I wouldn't wish a lingering death from cervical cancer upon any woman, I feel that most of her afflictions were not her fault. She was of the media, used the media and finally died with the media.



Her original fame was from being catapulted into Big Brother - no doubt she was cynically chosen by Endemol precisely because of those parts of her character that made her later notorious and, to be honest, a laughing stock - and afterwards she was manipulated, probably willingly (she earned an estimated £8m), by the media (as well as by Max Clifford) and, had she lived, would have probably carried on in the same way.

I am afraid to say that her only benefit to cervical cancer was to make the very salient point that you don't ignore warning letters that are sent to you.

She didn't deserve her fate but Pygmalion she wasn't.

Saturday 21 March 2009

Lovely comment on the rugby:

From the International Herald Tribune: "Gatland had also said that his players "disliked" Ireland more than any other Six Nations foe. Many in the Welsh media had publicly squirmed at the suggestion, which was certainly rather slighting to the English, who have spent 1,000 years working hard to ensure a monopoly of Welsh odium."

That was exciting

At its very best, rugby is one of the most nerve jangling sports in the world. After all of those matches, after all those hours of rugby it came down to the final kick of the match ... Shear sporting perfection.

Oh to be in Dublin tonight ......

Pecunia non olet

Apparently someone in the States is going round setting fire to portable toilets. A reward of $5,000 has been offered for the capture of the arse-onist.




The title? Vespasian imposed a tax on urine collected from the public loos in ancient Rome where it was collected and used for cleaning and dyeing togas. His son, Titus, complained about the source of the money. Vespasian took some money, sniffed it and said "pecunia non olet "

Money does not smell .....

Friday 20 March 2009

Harman and Harman - Update

John Crippen has discovered that the appalling Sarah Harman is ambulance chasing relatives and victims of the Stafford Hospital catastrophe.

Read here and attempt not to throw up.

This stupidity has to stop

There is an astonishing story over on the Telegraph's website and commented upon by Henry Porter about a student arrested for chalking a protest on a pavement. Apart from querying whether the police have lost all sense of proportion, the greatest irony is that the student was writing a protest about the loss of liberty!

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Sean Hodgson

Sean Hodgson has now been freed after serving 27 years for a crime that he didn't commit. A number of issues arise about this case:

  • I do hope that forensic samples from other crimes that were commited before the widespread and trusted use of DNA have been kept. I would suggest that ALL appropriate convictions that were obtained before that date are now checked using modern DNA techniques.
  • The dreaded parole Catch-22 has kicked in. Depite the Parole Board describing it as a "myth", it seems that the "you won't get parole unless/until you accept your guilt" is actually true. To serve 27 years - even for murder - is exceptional and parole is often given well before then. Michael Naughton of the University of Bristol has long argued that this is a gross injustice and frankly I agree with him. A very interesting article here demolishes theParole Board's "myth" view. Well worth a read.

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Crippen savages Harriet's sister

John Crippen has torn a new arsehole in Harriet Harman's sister Sarah here. The same Sarah Harman who was found guilty of contempt of court and ordered to pay £25,000 as a result
of passing confidential information to her sister who at the time of the offence was Solicitor General.

Lovely family.

Friday 13 March 2009

I despair of Labour

There are times when I really really despair of Labour's attitude at the moment. I came across this posting on the dreadful Labour list saying that "Yesterday was truly the day that the Tories said goodbye to women’s votes"

Why? Alan Duncan took the piss out of Harriet Harman by suggesting that her love of stilettos constitutes "preparation for her becoming Prime Minister".

Now it wasn't probably very funny but to suggest that because of that women won't vote for Tories is risible.

Women might well vote for the Tories for exactly the same reasons why men will vote for the Tories: to get us out of the deep deep shitter that this Government has got us into ....

Me me me me

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Thursday 12 March 2009

Tax chocolate

and the bill for PMT will go through the roof!

Monday 9 March 2009

On the stupidity of intelligent people

The Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday that all existing copies of Andrew Marr's book "A History Of Modern Britain" that are still for sale are being recalled for pulping "for legal reasons" since someone living has objected to a passage it.

This is stupidity beyond belief. Apart from the slight fact that the book has been published for about 3 years and that "only" 250,000 copies have been sold (including a copy to me), all that has happened is that attention has been drawn to the offending line in the book (and apparently it is just a single line) so that far far more people are now aware of the alledged libel that were ever before (the Daily Mail has a piece on it here ) and with the growth of the internet that alleged libel has already spread far and wide.

It would have been far far better to have done absolutely nothing: why did it take almost three years for this matter to be raised for instance? HAd anybody actually noticed before? I have read the offending line in my copy and frankly unless I actually was looking for it, it had passed me by.

The Internet makes a mockery of such heavy handed reactions to libels - even if WIkileaks isn't used.

Sunday 8 March 2009

Not a totally independant source

Today's Sunday Times has a report that the Government is considering lowering the national speed limit on most roads to 50 MPH.

In the middle of the report is this gem: "Speed Check Services, the company behind the [speed] cameras, claims the number of deaths or serious injuries at its sites has fallen on average by 60%. "

To alter Mandy Rice-Davies quip "Well, they would, wouldn't they ?"

Saturday 7 March 2009

On yer bike ...

Got the bike out for the first time since the operation today - and rode further in one day than I was able to for the whole of last year.

I went out once last year - and got less than a mile before the sheer pain caused me to stop and get my wife to pick me up. Today, I got the WD40 out and sprayed the chain and gears, squeezed the water out from the saddle (still got a wet bum though!) and of my sons and off we went ...

Didn't ride a huge distance - wasn't certain as to how the muscles in my leg would stand up (I still get pain on occaison) - but loved every minute of it.

Even better, the more exercise I did, the better did the leg feel until was feeling no discomfort at all ...

Do more tomorrow me thinks ...

Thursday 5 March 2009

The forgotten man

We are celebrating this year the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of "Origin of Species". What is frequently forgotten - even by professional biologists - is that there was a second man who came up with almost identical ideas as Darwin - at almost exactly the same time.

Alfred Wallace had worked in in the Malay archipelago especially Borneo, and had come to similar conclusion to Darwin; in fact he had been corresponding with Darwin and was fully aware that Darwin was writing a book on the subject. In 1858 Wallace wrote a paper called "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection" which he sent to Charles Lyell (often called "The Father of Geology") who then forwarded it to Darwin.

Darwin - not surprisingly was stunned, saying that if Wallace had seen Darwin's short manuscript of 1846 which laid out his basic ideas, then "he could not have made a better short abstract!"
To Darwin's eternal credit, he credited Wallace and agreed with Lyell (as well as Joseph Hooker a distinguished Botanist who was a close friend of Darwin) that papers from both naturalists would be read to the Linnean Society.

Sadly Darwin himself was unable to attend due to the death of his son from scarlet fever (Wallace was still in Borneo) so the two papers were read in their absence.

Afterwards, Wallace become a staunch defender of Darwin, and in 1889 published a book called "Darwinism" (note the title: Darwin's scientific and social influence was much higher as well as the fact that by publishing the "Origin of the species" Darwin was far far higher in the public view than Wallace ever was).

Wallace is almost forgotten now, although it is nice to note that he was awarded the OM in 1908.

Monday 2 March 2009

The new booze cruise

Would like to own an off-license in Carlisle or Berwick if this goes through ....

Contrast and compare ...

Jacqui Smith's refusal to acknowledge that she did anything wrong over her outrageous housing expenses claim which were "all cleared by the authorities" and Harriet Harman's comments about Fred Goodwin.

Slightly hypocritical methinks ....

Sunday 1 March 2009

A dangerous precedent

I, like pretty well everybody, am appalled by the size of Sir Fred Goodwin's pension but it was -and is - perfectly legal, agreed by the board and Sir Fred would without any doubt win any court case that the Government tried to take against him.

Now I gather that Harriet Harman is proposing to introduce an Act of Parliament, that would retrospectively change the law concerning the pension. This is incredibly dangerous. Retrospective legislation should be ONLY used in the rarest of cases - the last case I can think of was the War Crimes act, and even then I had my doubts - and there is no question that that issue is infinitely more serious than embarrassing the Government.

Where could this end? Retrospective leglislation to repeal the Highland Clearances? Labour doesn't like something that happened in the past? hey ... just make retrospective legislation ...

Harman - as her interview to the BBC makes abundantly clear - is playing a cynical, populist, vote grabbing card which has nothing to do with Fred Goodwin's pension but absolutely everything to so with saving Labour's arse.

The consequences of any such legislation are so enormous that they don't bear thinking about.

Mad and dangerous ....