The generals have said we will only be able to afford to bomb Libya for another three months, which must be a comfort to Gaddafi.They have given similar assurances to the Taliban.
Used we not to shoot traitors who passed vital information to the enemy? But we must not be unkind. They are fighting to the last job
Mind you,Sam Johnson and I are as one in our view of that earlier war in the Falklands Isles when we had bombs to spare.. He said of our invasion in 1771:
“... What have we acquired? What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island, thrown aside from human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island, which not even the southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of Siberia; of which the expense will be perpetual, and the use only occasional. “
My much more modest contribution was to point out we had used a navy we no longer owned, to occupy an island we had given to British Coalite, and to confirm the right to be British of a population whose passports we had withdrawn.
So I find it odd I should warm to the words of an admiral who marched into Number 10 dressed up like Sir Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore ”to stiffen Mrs Thatcher’s resolve to recapture the islands”, whilst pretending she was Elizabeth I.
Now the sandy admiral warns we would not be able to mount a force further than the other side of the Channel. That is fine by me. We know we can beat the French, who even lost the French Revolution, and I am all in favour of a ban on exporting our forces.
We won’t be happy until we stop pretending we are still Great Britain and enjoy the reality being little England, shorn even, thank the Lord, of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
We really must get out of the expensive habit of invasion. Look what it is costing the BBC to invade the North.
Alas, you cannot keep a bad idea down. The BBC borrowed £813m in a bond-deal to invade the North. Or, as they put it, ”finance a Broadcasting House redevelopment”. However you put it, they will have to pay it back with interest over the next 30 years. Or even longer. The renovation is already £20 million over budget and is running at least two years late, badgered by claims of lavish expenditure.
The BBC might not have had to borrow so much had it not sent 437 people to cover the Beijing Olympics – about 100 more than the number of British athletes taking part. Or spent £25,000 sending a remote-controlled model helicopter, equipped with a camera, flying over Broadcasting House for just two minutes. Part of a £3.9 million arts ‘celebration’ of the flagship. The BBC has also been criticised for spending millions on artwork - but you can’t keep a good overdraft down.
Or, as a BBC spokesman spun it: “The budget for the project was adjusted after the first phase of the redevelopment in 2006 to rebase the construction contract and incorporate changes in scope to accommodate new services like Arabic and Persian TV. The project is currently on schedule to be delivered within its approved budget.”
Relocation of the BBC’s regional headquarters includes the new £400 million base in Manchester and the £188 million construction of a new Scottish headquarters in Glasgow. The Salford base, which will house services such as Radio 5 Live and the sports department, involves the relocation of 1,500 staff from London.
Be prepared. The cost could spiral to £900 million.
Comfort is on hand. Caroline Thomson, the chief operating officer of the BBC has promised: “The days of mega-money are over. The BBC would never again sign contracts similar to the £18 million deal with Jonathan Ross.”
Except between themselves. Most of the suits in Mismanagement are paid far more than the Prime Minister.
And has anyone explained the reason for the move? It cannot be to bring jobs to the North. Departments are bringing their staffs up with them.
A THOUGHT- PROVOKING EMAIL FROM JOHN EDWARDS, COLUMNIST OF OUR PARISH
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people not computers and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why when the stars are out they are visible but when the lights are out they are invisible.
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE FUNNY FARM
In the U.S an enlghtened prison governor had an investigation of his prison population. Our M Poor as Ps are arguing about our prisoners. Perhaps they should read this:
" He found 75 percent [of the prisoners] were reading somewhere between the fourth- and sixth-grade levels. 90 percent never had a legal job. 90 percent were self-identified addicts. 80 percent were self-identified victims of sexual or physical violence as a child. 65 percent had been placed in a special-education class at some point. 75 percent were high school dropouts.
ALL’S WELL - ESPECIALLY WHEN IT ENDS
Tried the Dragon CD (see last week’s rant) on an old laptop and it worked perfectly. New laptop came with Norton anti spyware but as it was expiring I installed AVG. It found a tribe of nasties. I have a warranty with DELL on the laptop for a 4-year service. Tried all morning and got them at last at lunchtime. They said it will cost £65 to clean or £112 for a year. I said I have already paid but they said we are unable to find record of payment. Went to Dell Customer Support. Tried four times with no response. Rang AVG who sad it was a software error and they put me on to Virgin Digital Help. £100 a year. Bought in. They remotely accessed the computer, cleared some really heavy nasties and thoroughly examined the system. Took over an hour on remote control. Result bliss. And the charming young man who spent the afternoon in the innards of my computer was sitting at his desk – in the Philippines!
Summing up DELL isn’t the essence. Avoid. Their printers only take Dell cartridges so Dell can charge high prices for replacement cartridges.They also refuse to repay the costs of warranties
they don’t honour
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Saturday, 18 June 2011
silly clown valiant
Lets face it. Five books is a lot for one finger but it is the only way I can type and I have had five books commissioned, bubbling away in the little room above the eyebrows, begging to be let out.
.The Digital Voice Recorder seemed a gift from heaven. Speak your thoughts and watch them appear,as if by magic on your manuscript.
Simply a matter of slipping in the CD provided, following the instructions which will appear on your screen and its away dulled digit. Except that it wasn’t. The process defeated two highly trained computer mechanics when I failed.I took wider advice.Upgrade it I was advised. So I set aside Dragon Speaking 10,used my birthday gift certificate from my daughter and bought Dragon Speaking 11 .
That didn’t work either so I contacted Amazon for a refund. No can do, said Amazson. You have already opened the envelope.I wondered how I could have found out it was the wrong software without opening the envelope. I contacted Nuance who supply the software and a nice chap said what software have you got and I told him with quiet pride I not only had Software 10 I had also paid £40 for software 11 and he said well neither is any good. Olympus had given me the wrong software he said. But obliging chap that he was he offered to download software 10.1 which he said was the appropriate CD and he did.
I keyed it in and clicked where ordered. At first everything went as promised and then I was instructed to key in my customer number and it was rejected. I tried again and again. Again and again I was rejected.
At this point I must have lost my nerve because I went scurrying back to a nice lady at Nuance with whom by this time I was on Christian name terms. She very kindly tried the download herself and said it had worked for her. So I went back to the keyboard and this time a notice appeared saying it was a zip file and if I would press the download button all would be well. So I pressed the download button and got a notice saying if I would press another download button my problems would be over. At this point my typing finger objected. It said it was working harder than ever and I did say as how I was going to make things easier for it. I was in no mood for argument so I rapped its knuckle and it went on its weary way. This time pressing the button brought a notice from someone called Reg work, saying there were 165 errors on the machine and vey sportingly offering to clear things up with a free trial,. In the face of a noticeable shortage of gift horses I complied. That pressure on a button brought a bill for £34 which I thought might be my one finger getting its own b ack but I paid and got another button telling me that my life would be made easy if I backed up my files. By now I was too weak to demur and that cost me another ten quid. I forget what the next tempting offer was but I know that when I had accepted it I was down £100 over a five minute involuntary spending spree.So I emailed my friend Flora on Nuance in a craven bid for sympathy..
She obviously had summed up my degree of technical expertise bt this time because she said probably the best idea would be to ask Olympus who sold the recorder to send me a CD 10.1 which would get round the problem with ease.
There the matter ended and I awaited the next email with a nervous Cousteau like twitch..
I got an email from some one called trial Play telling me that my Winzip software was ready and if I would press the download below it would be delivered. I pressed the download and nothing happened. By this time I was whimpering noisily so I emailed Trial Play support and back came an email quick as a flash. It said thet would answer my eteemed enquiry in 48 hours..
At which point I broke into song, a reedy tenor with nervous gulps “I’ll join the Legion, that’s what I’ll do....and in some far distant region I’ll fight for the right .....” but the rest of that stirring aria from the Red Shadow was drowned in fitful
sobs........
.The Digital Voice Recorder seemed a gift from heaven. Speak your thoughts and watch them appear,as if by magic on your manuscript.
Simply a matter of slipping in the CD provided, following the instructions which will appear on your screen and its away dulled digit. Except that it wasn’t. The process defeated two highly trained computer mechanics when I failed.I took wider advice.Upgrade it I was advised. So I set aside Dragon Speaking 10,used my birthday gift certificate from my daughter and bought Dragon Speaking 11 .
That didn’t work either so I contacted Amazon for a refund. No can do, said Amazson. You have already opened the envelope.I wondered how I could have found out it was the wrong software without opening the envelope. I contacted Nuance who supply the software and a nice chap said what software have you got and I told him with quiet pride I not only had Software 10 I had also paid £40 for software 11 and he said well neither is any good. Olympus had given me the wrong software he said. But obliging chap that he was he offered to download software 10.1 which he said was the appropriate CD and he did.
I keyed it in and clicked where ordered. At first everything went as promised and then I was instructed to key in my customer number and it was rejected. I tried again and again. Again and again I was rejected.
At this point I must have lost my nerve because I went scurrying back to a nice lady at Nuance with whom by this time I was on Christian name terms. She very kindly tried the download herself and said it had worked for her. So I went back to the keyboard and this time a notice appeared saying it was a zip file and if I would press the download button all would be well. So I pressed the download button and got a notice saying if I would press another download button my problems would be over. At this point my typing finger objected. It said it was working harder than ever and I did say as how I was going to make things easier for it. I was in no mood for argument so I rapped its knuckle and it went on its weary way. This time pressing the button brought a notice from someone called Reg work, saying there were 165 errors on the machine and vey sportingly offering to clear things up with a free trial,. In the face of a noticeable shortage of gift horses I complied. That pressure on a button brought a bill for £34 which I thought might be my one finger getting its own b ack but I paid and got another button telling me that my life would be made easy if I backed up my files. By now I was too weak to demur and that cost me another ten quid. I forget what the next tempting offer was but I know that when I had accepted it I was down £100 over a five minute involuntary spending spree.So I emailed my friend Flora on Nuance in a craven bid for sympathy..
She obviously had summed up my degree of technical expertise bt this time because she said probably the best idea would be to ask Olympus who sold the recorder to send me a CD 10.1 which would get round the problem with ease.
There the matter ended and I awaited the next email with a nervous Cousteau like twitch..
I got an email from some one called trial Play telling me that my Winzip software was ready and if I would press the download below it would be delivered. I pressed the download and nothing happened. By this time I was whimpering noisily so I emailed Trial Play support and back came an email quick as a flash. It said thet would answer my eteemed enquiry in 48 hours..
At which point I broke into song, a reedy tenor with nervous gulps “I’ll join the Legion, that’s what I’ll do....and in some far distant region I’ll fight for the right .....” but the rest of that stirring aria from the Red Shadow was drowned in fitful
sobs........
Saturday, 11 June 2011
What fright from yonder window breaks......
Desert Island Discs is a funny place to have an epiphany. I had never heard of Alfie Boe despite his international success as an opera singer, a musical comedy idol and a pop star. To any other ignoramus on the planet, I should explain he was a clog-wearing factory worker, one of nine living in a council house in Fleetwood, who became an opera star. The epiphany was the revelation that he shares with Aled Jones a rare and extraordinary talent and charisma, combined with being an ordinary and likeable young man who liked being in opera but hated watching it.
Up to then it had been a Bloody Sunday. I had just read that regional accents are fading out and being replaced by a Jamaican patois, and there is to be a new production of Romeo and Juliet in which a 14-year-old Juliet strips and makes simulated love on stage, before an audience.
It is the idea of Julian Fellowes, whose wife is a Lady-in-Waiting and who, on the strength of an “Upstairs Downstairs” lookalike script, is wheeled out by the Media TV an as an arbiter of aristocratic behaviour.
One essential quality of the true aristocrat is an assumption of modesty. It is not one that this expert on the behaviour of butlers shares.
He says his script is faithful to Shakespeare’s intentions. It features “appropriate” actors who appear close to how Shakespeare originally envisaged his star-crossed lovers.
Since in Shakespeare’s day Juliet was played by a boy, I think that unlikely. There is some reason to suspect Shakespeare’s sexuality but I cannot see him staging a homosexual romp.
I am not sure the idea is even legal. Fourteen-year-old girls still have some tattered remains of protection. The Government is to ban suggestive posters near schools and the pornographic exploitation of young girls. They are worried that, despite sex education that involves putting condoms on bananas, we have the greatest number of schoolgirl mothers in Europe. They seek to reduce it. An under-age love-in would seem to miss that high expectation by a wide margin. I cannot believe that such performances chime with a society which frowns on smoking on stage.
Be at ease.
Mr Fellowes assures us he is writing a film script which is both sensual yet tasteful enough to avoid accusations of child exploitation. His version, he insists, “keeps pretty true to Shakespeare but is more accessible. We tell the story more economically too.”
I worry about his Thatcher- like use of the Royal “We” but I suppose when your missus is a monarch’s “Gopher” one slips into such usage. But be assure:
“It is now Fellowesian Shakespeare. I’ve kept all the famous scenes and what was said in them. So we have, for example, kept the lines about a rose by any other name.”
I am sure we, perhaps even Shakespeare too, bask in his magnanimity.
In the same Sunday newspaper I was treated to a whole page devoted to a girl’s love affair with Martin Amis. Would that be the would-be literary genius with the mouth of rancid teeth and concomitant halitosis?
I have been reading a manual on how to be a Stoic, because it seems to me that might be just what I need in this whirligig world. Little comfort so far. The author points out that in classic times philosophy was studied as an explanation of life. No longer. Today’s philosophers specialise in logic, metaphysics, politics, science, religion and ethics. There are studies in the philosophy of sport, feminism, even the philosophy of philosophies.
Clearly they have given up on life and who is to blame them?
FOR EXAMPLE
Research by the Centre of Social Justice has established that the Olympic Games, which will feature 26 sports, will not induce people to take up a sport. Previous Olympics, including Sydney 2000, failed to produce an increase in participation. It added that there was no evidence of a link between national sporting success and increased levels of sporting activity.
So far this International Sportsfest has left its host countries in debt. But there are benefits. Those remaining FIFA bosses who escape prison will enjoy a £1.3m junket, including five star hotels and tickets to events like the final of the 100 metres, denied to the rest of you.(I wouldn't go if they were staged in our front garden. Indeed I would draw the curtains) Sepp Blatter, its head, and his Secretary General have been given “all areas passes”, and will be ferried round in chauffeur driven BMWs. Other FIFA bigwigs have been awarded tickets in all prestige events, and 200 heavily discounted rooms in The Mayfair luxury hotel have been booked. We will pay FIFA technical staff £200 a night subsidies for the three weeks they will be here. FIFA will also be offered 2,000 Olympic tickets at face value. In fact the reason so many people were disappointed in the ticket ballot is that only 40 per cent of the tickets available were offered to the public because 60 per cent have gone in freebies.
Last year the Spectator published the complete, contractually binding and previously confidential set of demands made by the 115-member International Olympic Committee (IOC).
London is required to provide the IOC and the ‘Olympic Family’ with 40,000 hotel-room bookings for the entire duration of the Games. The city must control all billboard advertising, city transport advertising, airport advertising etc. for the duration of the Games and the month preceding it. Customs officers and police must ‘co-operate’ in taking action against unapproved Olympics advertising and enforce the confiscation of non-official goods. Brand protection teams will ‘conduct surveillance’. They must ‘attempt to confiscate any infringing material whether inside or outside the venue’.
Spectators at the Games ‘must not wear clothes or accessories with commercial messages other than the manufacturer’s brand name’. ’No athlete or other participant’ at the Games may wear any clothing on which the manufacturer’s name takes up more than 10 per cent of the surface area. No journalist covering the Games is allowed any ‘signage of any kind’, even for his or her own publication — on ‘camera bags, hats or other garments’.
The Olympics flag must be more prominent than the Union flag. There must be a royal reception on the day before the Games open, at which, ‘IOC members are presented to the Head of State’.
Billboards and pageantry throughout the city shall be in French as well as English.
The IOC is getting 250 miles of so-called ‘Zil’ lanes — named after the old Soviet limousines that enjoyed traffic-free passage. They will stretch from London to Weymouth, where the sailing games are being held. It now emerges that there will also be 500 air-conditioned limos, whose drivers must wear hats and uniforms. London must provide a ‘dance café’ in the £325 million Olympic Village. A flower shop is required, which the IOC insists ‘should provide a range of flowers and gifts for customers’.
A balloon rental service is optional, .but ‘it is recommended that the same housekeeping staff perform their duties for the same teams daily’, because this will ‘build relationships and trust’, ‘give confidence’ and ‘maintain standards’.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A letter to a friend
Dear Sarah,
Thank you for your kind concerns about our wounded dog. The other night when he could not sleep I sang him a lullaby. It seemed to soothe him, though once, when singing with the choir of The Big Pit at Blaenavon, I threw the entire choir out of tune and they begged me never to sing with them in public.
Last night - or more accurately at 4 am - the prisoner/dog wakened me demanding to perform his ablutions. He has to go everywhere on a lead, so, harnessed up, prisoner and escort marched into the garden where he instantly knocked me over and escaped. At my great weight, once over, I cannot right myself. I tried pulling myself up by a rose bush and pulled out the bush by the roots. I tried to climb up my walking stick and broke the stick. My floundering about roused the prisoner's curiosity and he abandoned what was clearly a carefully crafted escape plan and came back to find out what I was about. At that point my nerve broke and I fear I abused him. Oh well, his eyes said, if that is your attitude... and stalked off. When, after half an hour, I eventually stood upright and staggered into the room we had vacated, the prisoner was happily sleeping and scornfully snoring - in My Chair!
The whole thing was clearly a devilishly cunning plot. I expect he had heard that when a butterfly dies in Africa the effect is felt here. I see myself as an elderly, crippled, overweight butterfly. The stop press news is that he has been back to the vet and is mending nicely. I am not.
Much love,
Ian
kidmoresisland.blogspot.com
Up to then it had been a Bloody Sunday. I had just read that regional accents are fading out and being replaced by a Jamaican patois, and there is to be a new production of Romeo and Juliet in which a 14-year-old Juliet strips and makes simulated love on stage, before an audience.
It is the idea of Julian Fellowes, whose wife is a Lady-in-Waiting and who, on the strength of an “Upstairs Downstairs” lookalike script, is wheeled out by the Media TV an as an arbiter of aristocratic behaviour.
One essential quality of the true aristocrat is an assumption of modesty. It is not one that this expert on the behaviour of butlers shares.
He says his script is faithful to Shakespeare’s intentions. It features “appropriate” actors who appear close to how Shakespeare originally envisaged his star-crossed lovers.
Since in Shakespeare’s day Juliet was played by a boy, I think that unlikely. There is some reason to suspect Shakespeare’s sexuality but I cannot see him staging a homosexual romp.
I am not sure the idea is even legal. Fourteen-year-old girls still have some tattered remains of protection. The Government is to ban suggestive posters near schools and the pornographic exploitation of young girls. They are worried that, despite sex education that involves putting condoms on bananas, we have the greatest number of schoolgirl mothers in Europe. They seek to reduce it. An under-age love-in would seem to miss that high expectation by a wide margin. I cannot believe that such performances chime with a society which frowns on smoking on stage.
Be at ease.
Mr Fellowes assures us he is writing a film script which is both sensual yet tasteful enough to avoid accusations of child exploitation. His version, he insists, “keeps pretty true to Shakespeare but is more accessible. We tell the story more economically too.”
I worry about his Thatcher- like use of the Royal “We” but I suppose when your missus is a monarch’s “Gopher” one slips into such usage. But be assure:
“It is now Fellowesian Shakespeare. I’ve kept all the famous scenes and what was said in them. So we have, for example, kept the lines about a rose by any other name.”
I am sure we, perhaps even Shakespeare too, bask in his magnanimity.
In the same Sunday newspaper I was treated to a whole page devoted to a girl’s love affair with Martin Amis. Would that be the would-be literary genius with the mouth of rancid teeth and concomitant halitosis?
I have been reading a manual on how to be a Stoic, because it seems to me that might be just what I need in this whirligig world. Little comfort so far. The author points out that in classic times philosophy was studied as an explanation of life. No longer. Today’s philosophers specialise in logic, metaphysics, politics, science, religion and ethics. There are studies in the philosophy of sport, feminism, even the philosophy of philosophies.
Clearly they have given up on life and who is to blame them?
FOR EXAMPLE
Research by the Centre of Social Justice has established that the Olympic Games, which will feature 26 sports, will not induce people to take up a sport. Previous Olympics, including Sydney 2000, failed to produce an increase in participation. It added that there was no evidence of a link between national sporting success and increased levels of sporting activity.
So far this International Sportsfest has left its host countries in debt. But there are benefits. Those remaining FIFA bosses who escape prison will enjoy a £1.3m junket, including five star hotels and tickets to events like the final of the 100 metres, denied to the rest of you.(I wouldn't go if they were staged in our front garden. Indeed I would draw the curtains) Sepp Blatter, its head, and his Secretary General have been given “all areas passes”, and will be ferried round in chauffeur driven BMWs. Other FIFA bigwigs have been awarded tickets in all prestige events, and 200 heavily discounted rooms in The Mayfair luxury hotel have been booked. We will pay FIFA technical staff £200 a night subsidies for the three weeks they will be here. FIFA will also be offered 2,000 Olympic tickets at face value. In fact the reason so many people were disappointed in the ticket ballot is that only 40 per cent of the tickets available were offered to the public because 60 per cent have gone in freebies.
Last year the Spectator published the complete, contractually binding and previously confidential set of demands made by the 115-member International Olympic Committee (IOC).
London is required to provide the IOC and the ‘Olympic Family’ with 40,000 hotel-room bookings for the entire duration of the Games. The city must control all billboard advertising, city transport advertising, airport advertising etc. for the duration of the Games and the month preceding it. Customs officers and police must ‘co-operate’ in taking action against unapproved Olympics advertising and enforce the confiscation of non-official goods. Brand protection teams will ‘conduct surveillance’. They must ‘attempt to confiscate any infringing material whether inside or outside the venue’.
Spectators at the Games ‘must not wear clothes or accessories with commercial messages other than the manufacturer’s brand name’. ’No athlete or other participant’ at the Games may wear any clothing on which the manufacturer’s name takes up more than 10 per cent of the surface area. No journalist covering the Games is allowed any ‘signage of any kind’, even for his or her own publication — on ‘camera bags, hats or other garments’.
The Olympics flag must be more prominent than the Union flag. There must be a royal reception on the day before the Games open, at which, ‘IOC members are presented to the Head of State’.
Billboards and pageantry throughout the city shall be in French as well as English.
The IOC is getting 250 miles of so-called ‘Zil’ lanes — named after the old Soviet limousines that enjoyed traffic-free passage. They will stretch from London to Weymouth, where the sailing games are being held. It now emerges that there will also be 500 air-conditioned limos, whose drivers must wear hats and uniforms. London must provide a ‘dance café’ in the £325 million Olympic Village. A flower shop is required, which the IOC insists ‘should provide a range of flowers and gifts for customers’.
A balloon rental service is optional, .but ‘it is recommended that the same housekeeping staff perform their duties for the same teams daily’, because this will ‘build relationships and trust’, ‘give confidence’ and ‘maintain standards’.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A letter to a friend
Dear Sarah,
Thank you for your kind concerns about our wounded dog. The other night when he could not sleep I sang him a lullaby. It seemed to soothe him, though once, when singing with the choir of The Big Pit at Blaenavon, I threw the entire choir out of tune and they begged me never to sing with them in public.
Last night - or more accurately at 4 am - the prisoner/dog wakened me demanding to perform his ablutions. He has to go everywhere on a lead, so, harnessed up, prisoner and escort marched into the garden where he instantly knocked me over and escaped. At my great weight, once over, I cannot right myself. I tried pulling myself up by a rose bush and pulled out the bush by the roots. I tried to climb up my walking stick and broke the stick. My floundering about roused the prisoner's curiosity and he abandoned what was clearly a carefully crafted escape plan and came back to find out what I was about. At that point my nerve broke and I fear I abused him. Oh well, his eyes said, if that is your attitude... and stalked off. When, after half an hour, I eventually stood upright and staggered into the room we had vacated, the prisoner was happily sleeping and scornfully snoring - in My Chair!
The whole thing was clearly a devilishly cunning plot. I expect he had heard that when a butterfly dies in Africa the effect is felt here. I see myself as an elderly, crippled, overweight butterfly. The stop press news is that he has been back to the vet and is mending nicely. I am not.
Much love,
Ian
kidmoresisland.blogspot.com
Friday, 3 June 2011
VET DEBT
Historically lawyers and members of parliament have a richly deserved unsavoury reputation which the parliamentarians have shown themselves anxious to retain.
It is interesting that the most venal trade of all, the veterinary surgeon has escaped opprobrium.
I think I know the reason.
In my view only the atom bomb has been a greater threat to civilisation than TV. Thanks to that devilish invention violence has become endemic. Our feral young have been encouraged to slaughter each other and aspiration has been replaced by insistence. If we see it we must have it.
Some years ago a Yorkshire vet published a series of moderately successful anecdotes. Anxious to bring out a collected edition his London publisher hunted round for a title and eventually settled on “ All Creatures Great and Small” It proved a gold mine. The publishing industry to a man, or more correctly a woman, scratched its hennaed head for biblical titles. I ws writing my book on Ken Williams the policeman naturalist and I was solemnly assured that it would a beat seller if I could establish a biblical connection.
I couldn’t and it wasn’t. However an ecstatic review in the Police Gazette was read by a Yorkshire policeman who ws encouraged to publish his own memoir. That became the TV series “Heartbeat” and I believe he is now a millionaire. It ws par for the course in our family. My wife’s book “ Prisoners of Santo Tomas was the acknowledged inspiration for the TV series “Tenko”, though in admitting it the TV company declined to pay a royalty on the grounds it ws “in the public domain”
The Vets’ stories were also made into a TV series that depicted Vets as loveable, eccentrics who spent their lives with their arms up a cow’s uterus with never a thought about money. It is not sour grapes to say that Herriot had an enviable command of the cliché. The aristocratic eccentric, the wayward charmer, the try harder do gooder and the lovable servant. Surround them with a cast of thousands of well meaning rebel peasants all speaking impenetrable treacle toffee. Place them in an enviable landscape of empty roads, free of caravans, EC lorries and mechanical diggers. Follow that with interminable series about earnest and often beautiful young people learning how to castrate a newt. The result?
A national perception that all Vets are Good Eggs and probably Scottish.
Porridge eating philanthropists to a manHow quickly the perception fades. The writer Max Hastings published an article about vets costs and te a storm of comment
. We have just paid a number of vets a sum of money I once took a year to earn. I remember being charged £40 to discover the cause of death of a five shilling goldfish.A pensioner neighbour found a stray cat which was obviously ill, took it to the Vet and was charged £218. It goes without saying that we coughed up our king’s ransom without a murmur. As did all the people who commented on Hastings article.
“Ah” you will say “ Vets were kinder in my day.”
Rubbish. I have a friend, a vet of the old school who died last week,, An admirable man who would give you his right arm and did in fact give me a C C de France split cane game rod. Often sought my advice on books to read and matters of literary style. Yet if I asked him the most innocent question about dog behaviour an iron shutter came down.
TV is at it worst in documentaries. I watched one in which the presenter claimed that Dr Crippen was innocent of his wife’s murder and based it on “ truths” that he claimed to have discovered about the remains found in Crippen’s cellar, which were those of a man and not Crippen’s wife. He also claimed as a matter for astonishment the Scotland Yard man Inspector True was corrupt.
I have no doubt Crippen was innocent. A significant number of murderers brought to book by Scotland Yard have proved to be innocent In fact it was known at Crippen's trial the remains were those of a man.The judge mentioned it in his summing up.
As to the revelation that True ws corrupt. Some years ago Dr Howard Taylor, a historian from Nottingham University conducted a four year research programme which showed that since the days of Jack the Ripper police forces have been fraudulently massaging crime figures. Until the First World War police efficiency was judged by the LOW number of detections and prosecutions. In consequence crime figures were kept below 90,000 a year and any crimes above that figure were “lost”. From 1880 to 1966 the Director of Public Prosecutions “rationed” murders at a fixed rate of 150 a year, with the connivance of the police.
In 1919 the Government sought for reasons to cut police numbers and budgets. Overnight the crime figures trebled.
Dr Taylor concluded “ It is clear that crime rates have been supply led, rather than demand led and have little reflection of reality”
Even traffic deaths, he found, had been manipulated so that they rose precisely in line with the number of extra policemen required
“All the police did ws claim that one sixth of the force was needed each year for traffic duties and the accident rate rose accordingly.
When I was “doing crime” for The People” scarcely a week seemed to pass without a senior officer going to prison on corruption charges. During the invstigation in to the Richardson Brothers crime syndicate I was given a tip off that one of the gang, a man called Duval, had kept a diary of his time with the gang. and I was sent to find him.
I was told on no account to ring th Metropolitan police. So many of them were in the pay of London g gangs that the Richardson investigation was being conducted from a rural police station in the Home Counties.
Some years later I was hired by Lord Russell of Liverpool, a celebrated lawyer of the day to check the alibi of Hanratty who had been hung for the A6 murder, despite insisting he was in Rhyl at the time.
Hanratty had described the room in a boarding house in Kimnel st where he had slept. He said it had green shiny wallpaper. The police could not find such a room When I went with Russel the landlady after some pretty impressive questioning by him suddenly said.
“There is a room with shiny green wallpaper. The bathroom. And if I am full I let it out to visitors”
As Deputy Judge Advocate General to the British Army of the Rhine Lord Russell was one of the chief legal advisers during the Nurnberg war crime trials held after the end of the Second World War" After our investigation he was adamant that Hanratty ws innocent
Massaging crime figures? I have told here how the Lord Chancellor’s office at the time of the moratorium of death sentences instructed judges that murder charges were to be reduced, Because there were apparently fewer murders there was no argument for the retention of the death penalty
DANGEROUS CUTTING.
POLICE dispatched to a 999 emergency reporting a “bright stationary object” above a caller’s house soon solved the mystery – when they discovered it was the moon.
The recording runs as follows. Police have not revealed the identity of the caller except to say he was from the South Wales Valleys:
Control Room: “South Wales Police, what’s your emergency?”
Caller: “It’s not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there’s a bright stationary object.”
Control room: “Right.”
Caller: “If you’ve got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is? It’s been there at least half an hour and it’s still there.”
Control: “It’s been there for half an hour. Right. Is it actually on the mountain or in the sky?”
Caller: “It’s in the air.”
Control: “I will send someone up there now to check it out.”
Caller: “OK.”
A few minutes later, all became clear in the following exchange between the control room and the police officer sent to the scene.
Control: “Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?”
Officer: “Yes, it’s the moon. Over.”
It is interesting that the most venal trade of all, the veterinary surgeon has escaped opprobrium.
I think I know the reason.
In my view only the atom bomb has been a greater threat to civilisation than TV. Thanks to that devilish invention violence has become endemic. Our feral young have been encouraged to slaughter each other and aspiration has been replaced by insistence. If we see it we must have it.
Some years ago a Yorkshire vet published a series of moderately successful anecdotes. Anxious to bring out a collected edition his London publisher hunted round for a title and eventually settled on “ All Creatures Great and Small” It proved a gold mine. The publishing industry to a man, or more correctly a woman, scratched its hennaed head for biblical titles. I ws writing my book on Ken Williams the policeman naturalist and I was solemnly assured that it would a beat seller if I could establish a biblical connection.
I couldn’t and it wasn’t. However an ecstatic review in the Police Gazette was read by a Yorkshire policeman who ws encouraged to publish his own memoir. That became the TV series “Heartbeat” and I believe he is now a millionaire. It ws par for the course in our family. My wife’s book “ Prisoners of Santo Tomas was the acknowledged inspiration for the TV series “Tenko”, though in admitting it the TV company declined to pay a royalty on the grounds it ws “in the public domain”
The Vets’ stories were also made into a TV series that depicted Vets as loveable, eccentrics who spent their lives with their arms up a cow’s uterus with never a thought about money. It is not sour grapes to say that Herriot had an enviable command of the cliché. The aristocratic eccentric, the wayward charmer, the try harder do gooder and the lovable servant. Surround them with a cast of thousands of well meaning rebel peasants all speaking impenetrable treacle toffee. Place them in an enviable landscape of empty roads, free of caravans, EC lorries and mechanical diggers. Follow that with interminable series about earnest and often beautiful young people learning how to castrate a newt. The result?
A national perception that all Vets are Good Eggs and probably Scottish.
Porridge eating philanthropists to a manHow quickly the perception fades. The writer Max Hastings published an article about vets costs and te a storm of comment
. We have just paid a number of vets a sum of money I once took a year to earn. I remember being charged £40 to discover the cause of death of a five shilling goldfish.A pensioner neighbour found a stray cat which was obviously ill, took it to the Vet and was charged £218. It goes without saying that we coughed up our king’s ransom without a murmur. As did all the people who commented on Hastings article.
“Ah” you will say “ Vets were kinder in my day.”
Rubbish. I have a friend, a vet of the old school who died last week,, An admirable man who would give you his right arm and did in fact give me a C C de France split cane game rod. Often sought my advice on books to read and matters of literary style. Yet if I asked him the most innocent question about dog behaviour an iron shutter came down.
TV is at it worst in documentaries. I watched one in which the presenter claimed that Dr Crippen was innocent of his wife’s murder and based it on “ truths” that he claimed to have discovered about the remains found in Crippen’s cellar, which were those of a man and not Crippen’s wife. He also claimed as a matter for astonishment the Scotland Yard man Inspector True was corrupt.
I have no doubt Crippen was innocent. A significant number of murderers brought to book by Scotland Yard have proved to be innocent In fact it was known at Crippen's trial the remains were those of a man.The judge mentioned it in his summing up.
As to the revelation that True ws corrupt. Some years ago Dr Howard Taylor, a historian from Nottingham University conducted a four year research programme which showed that since the days of Jack the Ripper police forces have been fraudulently massaging crime figures. Until the First World War police efficiency was judged by the LOW number of detections and prosecutions. In consequence crime figures were kept below 90,000 a year and any crimes above that figure were “lost”. From 1880 to 1966 the Director of Public Prosecutions “rationed” murders at a fixed rate of 150 a year, with the connivance of the police.
In 1919 the Government sought for reasons to cut police numbers and budgets. Overnight the crime figures trebled.
Dr Taylor concluded “ It is clear that crime rates have been supply led, rather than demand led and have little reflection of reality”
Even traffic deaths, he found, had been manipulated so that they rose precisely in line with the number of extra policemen required
“All the police did ws claim that one sixth of the force was needed each year for traffic duties and the accident rate rose accordingly.
When I was “doing crime” for The People” scarcely a week seemed to pass without a senior officer going to prison on corruption charges. During the invstigation in to the Richardson Brothers crime syndicate I was given a tip off that one of the gang, a man called Duval, had kept a diary of his time with the gang. and I was sent to find him.
I was told on no account to ring th Metropolitan police. So many of them were in the pay of London g gangs that the Richardson investigation was being conducted from a rural police station in the Home Counties.
Some years later I was hired by Lord Russell of Liverpool, a celebrated lawyer of the day to check the alibi of Hanratty who had been hung for the A6 murder, despite insisting he was in Rhyl at the time.
Hanratty had described the room in a boarding house in Kimnel st where he had slept. He said it had green shiny wallpaper. The police could not find such a room When I went with Russel the landlady after some pretty impressive questioning by him suddenly said.
“There is a room with shiny green wallpaper. The bathroom. And if I am full I let it out to visitors”
As Deputy Judge Advocate General to the British Army of the Rhine Lord Russell was one of the chief legal advisers during the Nurnberg war crime trials held after the end of the Second World War" After our investigation he was adamant that Hanratty ws innocent
Massaging crime figures? I have told here how the Lord Chancellor’s office at the time of the moratorium of death sentences instructed judges that murder charges were to be reduced, Because there were apparently fewer murders there was no argument for the retention of the death penalty
DANGEROUS CUTTING.
POLICE dispatched to a 999 emergency reporting a “bright stationary object” above a caller’s house soon solved the mystery – when they discovered it was the moon.
The recording runs as follows. Police have not revealed the identity of the caller except to say he was from the South Wales Valleys:
Control Room: “South Wales Police, what’s your emergency?”
Caller: “It’s not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there’s a bright stationary object.”
Control room: “Right.”
Caller: “If you’ve got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is? It’s been there at least half an hour and it’s still there.”
Control: “It’s been there for half an hour. Right. Is it actually on the mountain or in the sky?”
Caller: “It’s in the air.”
Control: “I will send someone up there now to check it out.”
Caller: “OK.”
A few minutes later, all became clear in the following exchange between the control room and the police officer sent to the scene.
Control: “Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?”
Officer: “Yes, it’s the moon. Over.”
Friday, 27 May 2011
When the chauffeur returned our dog Taz from Racehorse Ritz he brought with him a raft of Part One Orders. We were instructed to limit him to one room,.accompany him at all times to the ablutions, not allow him to climb on furniture and above all not let him escape to the Great Outdoors.
Here, at Stalag Luft One, an anti-escape committee was convened. It was pointed out that this entire dwelling was about the same size as my library in our home at Aberbraint. Therefore it was proposed, and seconded, that for the purposes of command the ground (and only) floor of Stalag Luft be designated as 'one room'. A further proposal was adopted that furniture be rearranged in the drawing room to limit movement in early stage of convalescence/captivity. Dog walker to be re- mustered as dog sitter.
The meeting was then adjourned and adjutant(me) retired to my study. Closely followed by Taz, who had ignored recently erected barriers and now glared at him challengingly from the plastic cone which prevents him from biting stitches. An escort was summoned and prisoner and escort were marched out to confinement suite.
Adjutant returned to study and peace reigned until rent by scream from Head Ferret. The dog under advisement had vanished. Suite search failed to discover signs of tunnel and guards were despatched to search perimeter fence. Prisoner discovered hiding behind hedge. Challenging glare replaced by smug insubordinate expression. Prisoner returned to punishment suite. Peace reigned after Last Post was piped.
At 6 am came a sound as of a plastic helmet being dashed against C.O.'s bedroom door. Adjutant observed dog butting said door. Returned prisoner to suite with adjutant spending night on armchair duty till reveille piped.Prisoner insisted on lullaby before sleep. Adjutant obliged and prisoner slept soundly
Anti-escape committee re-convened. Prisoner's records perused. Revealed considerable form for escaping whilst still an apprentice dog on recruitment to Unit.
The problem is that he insists on being with us. With us he is loving and obedient. If we are not within licking distance he gets a red mist. He is the only dog we have ever been owned by to be barred from a boarding kennels.
When he was badged with us on Anglesey he was billeted in a Kennel Yard in which bloodhounds had been confined. He pleaded guilty to burrowing beneath a 6ft high, heavy duty steel fence and tearing through wire on a padlocked gate. When repairs were effected he found a weak join four foot up, made a hole and jumped out. Left in the house, he ate through a listed window, demolished the cat flap, ripped out the phone cable and shredded the cushion flooring in a bid to burrow under the door.
Confined to cars, he ate fourteen seat belts. Estimated cost of replacing and repairing £3,000.
At this point it was discovered from a Children's TV programme that Taz is the shortened form of Tasmanian Devil. Obviously there were personality flaws his previous owners had kept to themselves. Happily his cheery, loving presence more than cancelled them out and it was observed that he only escaped as far as the gate, where he waited placidly for our return.
In the light of these disclosures, the anti-escape committee unanimously voted for compulsory parade of dog to view DVDs of “Colditz” and “Bridge Over the River Kwai” for instruction purposes. Dog warned that future acts of indiscipline may be punished by confinement to the Hole. Adjutant's objection to this description of his study overruled by CO.
Sadly over the weekend the wound became infected and Taz was back in the camp hospital, under guard, on a diet of money; leaving his bemused owners to wonder how his absence leaves a huge chasm so much greater than the space he occupies with his presence.
On Thursday we had an anxious call from the veterinary nurse. He had gone on hunger strike. He was refusing to eat hospital food. Could we bring round some chicken?
The C.O immediately went into Meals on Wheels mode and delivered a tasty melange of chicken and rice. The suggestion of the adjutant that he might like to wash it down with a saucer of Chardonnay was not well received. Before she returned a vet rang to say that if she wanted to visit Taz after Rounds she would be welcome.
That day we had lunch at 4 pm because a second vet rang to say he had been in touch with the Racehorse Ritz who said there was nothing to worry about. Wound infection often happened with greyhounds and Taz could come home the next day.
The adjutant is as well as can be expected though exhibits a worrying tendency to jump nervously for no apparent reason. No doubt in time the attendant nervous twitch will disappear.
LIONS LED BY DONKEYS
Lord Dannett, the noisy Christian who used to be C.I.G.S. is predictably against defence cuts. He says if we do make them we won't be a great nation any more. He asks if that is what we want.
General, you can bet your sweet arse it is. It is time we gave up our seat at the top table. It is time we gave up trying to turn Afghanistan into Slumberland. Afghanistanis are an undisciplined mob which lives to fight.
General, the MOD is already 3.5 million in debt financing your folies de grandeur. Add to that a further billion fighting the Libyan army, whose military experience in war is limited to stealing petrol from the 8th Army.
May I remind you that you are borrowing from your countrymen, who are so broke we are closing care centres and libraries, throwing millions out of work? We even have to buy hospitals on HP.
General, you seem to have misunderstood our role, or perhaps you have not noticed the Empire has gone. Nations sit on the top table because they are powerful and call the shots. We are not. Borrowing billions to buy lethal toys and giving billions in Aid to countries wealthier than we are will not buy us privileges to which we are no longer entitled.
But that is not the reason I want us to be a little nation, bothering no one. The reason is guilt.
My ancestors fought at Hastings, Crecy, Agincourt, in the Civil War; at Ramillies, Waterloo, Trafalgar; in the Crimea and in the Zulu and Boer wars, and every silly war including World Wars One and Two. A branch of us even fought in the American Civil War. It didn't do us any good. We learned nothing, Worse, I am of the generation of World War Two. I grew up watching the destruction of my cities, the death of my school fellows in a succession of blitzes. I spent two years in a beaten Germany, witness to its degredation and the mass obliteration of Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and Cologne.
My guilt? I have fathered a generation which has learned nothing. A generation of people like you, General, who believe that war is a solution, not a problem. It is something of which I am deeply ashamed and eager to make reparations.
Thanks to my publishing friends Revel Barker and Neil Marr, the thirty odd books I have written are being republished and all the royalties are going to service charities. It won't wash away the guilt I feel but it might help the fine young men and women who will go through life without limbs or genitals just so that our generals and our politicians can swank on a top table they have no right to share.
YOU FEEL BETTER FOR THAT ???????
A mass display of public disobedience, of judicial petulance, blatant abuse of parliamentary privilege and a commercially driven media campaign............
So now we know that Ryan Giggs had it off with Imogen Thomas. Do we feel (a) greatly relieved (b) proud that a blow has been struck for media freedom or (c) slightly shabby and wondering what the fuss was all about? Young men filled with adulation and money, surrounded by nubile young girls eager to give their all. The wonder would be that a testoterone-brimming Adonis turned down the opportunity. I do not suppose the cuckolded Mrs Giggs feels better for the fact we all know of her betrayal by the man she loved. Ms Thomas cannot enjoy the reputation that will be her lifetime companion.
I used to make a handsome living writing stories for the tabloids about similar situations. Cannot honestly say that I felt ashamed. My only fear was that one of my victims might have asked in answer to my probing:
“What has it got to do with you?” I wouldn't have had an answer.
Until recently all I knew of Giggs is that his dazzling talent has entertained thousands of supporters for over a decade. That he is universally liked...
I think I will stick with that memory and the feeling of relief that no one has been nosing into my private life in the way I nosed into theirs.
P.S. In passing, I cannnot believe that any legislation which muzzles Giles Coren is wholly bad.
Here, at Stalag Luft One, an anti-escape committee was convened. It was pointed out that this entire dwelling was about the same size as my library in our home at Aberbraint. Therefore it was proposed, and seconded, that for the purposes of command the ground (and only) floor of Stalag Luft be designated as 'one room'. A further proposal was adopted that furniture be rearranged in the drawing room to limit movement in early stage of convalescence/captivity. Dog walker to be re- mustered as dog sitter.
The meeting was then adjourned and adjutant(me) retired to my study. Closely followed by Taz, who had ignored recently erected barriers and now glared at him challengingly from the plastic cone which prevents him from biting stitches. An escort was summoned and prisoner and escort were marched out to confinement suite.
Adjutant returned to study and peace reigned until rent by scream from Head Ferret. The dog under advisement had vanished. Suite search failed to discover signs of tunnel and guards were despatched to search perimeter fence. Prisoner discovered hiding behind hedge. Challenging glare replaced by smug insubordinate expression. Prisoner returned to punishment suite. Peace reigned after Last Post was piped.
At 6 am came a sound as of a plastic helmet being dashed against C.O.'s bedroom door. Adjutant observed dog butting said door. Returned prisoner to suite with adjutant spending night on armchair duty till reveille piped.Prisoner insisted on lullaby before sleep. Adjutant obliged and prisoner slept soundly
Anti-escape committee re-convened. Prisoner's records perused. Revealed considerable form for escaping whilst still an apprentice dog on recruitment to Unit.
The problem is that he insists on being with us. With us he is loving and obedient. If we are not within licking distance he gets a red mist. He is the only dog we have ever been owned by to be barred from a boarding kennels.
When he was badged with us on Anglesey he was billeted in a Kennel Yard in which bloodhounds had been confined. He pleaded guilty to burrowing beneath a 6ft high, heavy duty steel fence and tearing through wire on a padlocked gate. When repairs were effected he found a weak join four foot up, made a hole and jumped out. Left in the house, he ate through a listed window, demolished the cat flap, ripped out the phone cable and shredded the cushion flooring in a bid to burrow under the door.
Confined to cars, he ate fourteen seat belts. Estimated cost of replacing and repairing £3,000.
At this point it was discovered from a Children's TV programme that Taz is the shortened form of Tasmanian Devil. Obviously there were personality flaws his previous owners had kept to themselves. Happily his cheery, loving presence more than cancelled them out and it was observed that he only escaped as far as the gate, where he waited placidly for our return.
In the light of these disclosures, the anti-escape committee unanimously voted for compulsory parade of dog to view DVDs of “Colditz” and “Bridge Over the River Kwai” for instruction purposes. Dog warned that future acts of indiscipline may be punished by confinement to the Hole. Adjutant's objection to this description of his study overruled by CO.
Sadly over the weekend the wound became infected and Taz was back in the camp hospital, under guard, on a diet of money; leaving his bemused owners to wonder how his absence leaves a huge chasm so much greater than the space he occupies with his presence.
On Thursday we had an anxious call from the veterinary nurse. He had gone on hunger strike. He was refusing to eat hospital food. Could we bring round some chicken?
The C.O immediately went into Meals on Wheels mode and delivered a tasty melange of chicken and rice. The suggestion of the adjutant that he might like to wash it down with a saucer of Chardonnay was not well received. Before she returned a vet rang to say that if she wanted to visit Taz after Rounds she would be welcome.
That day we had lunch at 4 pm because a second vet rang to say he had been in touch with the Racehorse Ritz who said there was nothing to worry about. Wound infection often happened with greyhounds and Taz could come home the next day.
The adjutant is as well as can be expected though exhibits a worrying tendency to jump nervously for no apparent reason. No doubt in time the attendant nervous twitch will disappear.
LIONS LED BY DONKEYS
Lord Dannett, the noisy Christian who used to be C.I.G.S. is predictably against defence cuts. He says if we do make them we won't be a great nation any more. He asks if that is what we want.
General, you can bet your sweet arse it is. It is time we gave up our seat at the top table. It is time we gave up trying to turn Afghanistan into Slumberland. Afghanistanis are an undisciplined mob which lives to fight.
General, the MOD is already 3.5 million in debt financing your folies de grandeur. Add to that a further billion fighting the Libyan army, whose military experience in war is limited to stealing petrol from the 8th Army.
May I remind you that you are borrowing from your countrymen, who are so broke we are closing care centres and libraries, throwing millions out of work? We even have to buy hospitals on HP.
General, you seem to have misunderstood our role, or perhaps you have not noticed the Empire has gone. Nations sit on the top table because they are powerful and call the shots. We are not. Borrowing billions to buy lethal toys and giving billions in Aid to countries wealthier than we are will not buy us privileges to which we are no longer entitled.
But that is not the reason I want us to be a little nation, bothering no one. The reason is guilt.
My ancestors fought at Hastings, Crecy, Agincourt, in the Civil War; at Ramillies, Waterloo, Trafalgar; in the Crimea and in the Zulu and Boer wars, and every silly war including World Wars One and Two. A branch of us even fought in the American Civil War. It didn't do us any good. We learned nothing, Worse, I am of the generation of World War Two. I grew up watching the destruction of my cities, the death of my school fellows in a succession of blitzes. I spent two years in a beaten Germany, witness to its degredation and the mass obliteration of Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and Cologne.
My guilt? I have fathered a generation which has learned nothing. A generation of people like you, General, who believe that war is a solution, not a problem. It is something of which I am deeply ashamed and eager to make reparations.
Thanks to my publishing friends Revel Barker and Neil Marr, the thirty odd books I have written are being republished and all the royalties are going to service charities. It won't wash away the guilt I feel but it might help the fine young men and women who will go through life without limbs or genitals just so that our generals and our politicians can swank on a top table they have no right to share.
YOU FEEL BETTER FOR THAT ???????
A mass display of public disobedience, of judicial petulance, blatant abuse of parliamentary privilege and a commercially driven media campaign............
So now we know that Ryan Giggs had it off with Imogen Thomas. Do we feel (a) greatly relieved (b) proud that a blow has been struck for media freedom or (c) slightly shabby and wondering what the fuss was all about? Young men filled with adulation and money, surrounded by nubile young girls eager to give their all. The wonder would be that a testoterone-brimming Adonis turned down the opportunity. I do not suppose the cuckolded Mrs Giggs feels better for the fact we all know of her betrayal by the man she loved. Ms Thomas cannot enjoy the reputation that will be her lifetime companion.
I used to make a handsome living writing stories for the tabloids about similar situations. Cannot honestly say that I felt ashamed. My only fear was that one of my victims might have asked in answer to my probing:
“What has it got to do with you?” I wouldn't have had an answer.
Until recently all I knew of Giggs is that his dazzling talent has entertained thousands of supporters for over a decade. That he is universally liked...
I think I will stick with that memory and the feeling of relief that no one has been nosing into my private life in the way I nosed into theirs.
P.S. In passing, I cannnot believe that any legislation which muzzles Giles Coren is wholly bad.
Friday, 20 May 2011
EVERY DAY HAS ITS DOG
It was a funny sort of birthday. Celia painfully pulled a muscle either leaning backwards over a basin at the hairdresser or heavy duty gardening. The dog broke his leg in several places for no apparent reason but perversity. Minimal fee for physiotherapy for the Head Ferret. The dog?
We spent the day ferrying him between vets and specialist clinic. Our vet had him in for two days to take X-rays; said we had three options euthanasia, amputation or send to a specialist vet. For that, and little else, he charged us £400. The specialist was in Newmarket and deals with costly racehorses. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the clinic had four receptionists and a glossy brochure on the desk in its palatial premises.
Estimated bill £2,500 to £3,500, plus VAT, with the possibility of additional fees. I have to say from the point of view of the dog it is a bargain. Chicken lightly broiled and a phone call three times a day to tell us how he is enjoying himself
His glance has become so imperious I am practising coming to heel on his whistle and it is a good job we take the Independent. I cannot see him fetching the Daily Mirror and its like. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he was getting up a party for Ascot. I will be taking part time work to pay his fees. Not that I am complaining. I remember what my chum lifeboat cox Dick Evans said to the man he rescued from a watery grave. The man asked what he owed. Dick explained there was no charge because the RNLI was a voluntary service. The man insisted. “Very well,” said Dick, “pay me what you would have given me two minutes before I pulled you out of the water.”
When I heard Taz howling with pain I would have given half my pitiful kingdom, and the leg was so badly smashed it was a long and complex operation.
Having said that, I am concerned that vets are becoming the Dick Turpins of our day. On degree day they wear a black mask with their gowns and mortar boards. Compared to Vets the Great Train Robbers were a Hospital Saturday Fund.
As I write, Taz is convalescing with his new mates, aristocratic racehorses, and nibbling caviare blinis, washed down with Louis Roederer Crystal Brut. One of the legions of nurses who are there to do his bidding tells us he will have permanent limp.
He always was a master of the martyr's glance and the eloquent whimper. Now he is going to be unbearable limping like a latter day Long John Silver. But we cannot wait for tea time to-day to resume our roles as hand maidens.
I KNOW WHAT I DISLIKE
One good thing happened on my birthday. Revel Barker Publishing brought out a magnificent new edition of my biography of Sir Kyffin Williams, RA.
“The Man Who Painted in Welsh” replaces and extends an earlier edition, “A Figure in a Welsh Landscape”, produced by another publisher, which had so many errors as to be virtually unreadable .
Kyffin's views on modern art were sulphuric. How he would have relished this from the new “i” newspaper;
THE VALUE OF TRACEY EMIN
“Until the late 20th century art was unfairly dominated by people who could draw, paint and sculpt well. Tracey Emin's success demolishes the elitist notion that only the technically able should attempt a professional artistic career............................”
IRISH EYES ARE SMILING – AND NO WONDER
Andre Maurois once said that if in the eyes of an Irishman there is anything more ridiculous than an Englishman, it is an Englishman who loves Ireland.
Yet, once again, Our Gracious has been sent, poor lady, to lie abroad for her country. To placate our troublesome neighbours, she has been required to lay a wreath at the memorial in Dublin to that country's martyrs, ignoring the fact that most were executed for murder. Then it was off to take the blame for the Croke Park massacre.
That bloodstained former unemployed plasterer and pederast's brother, Gerry Adams, subsidised his IRA past with unemployment benefits and now lives comfortably bolstered by parliamentary pensions. But he retains the ill manners of his back street birth. He calls the Queen's visit insensitive - and he should know. He is one with that undistinguished cabal of former terrorists who gnawed at the hand that fed them. Archbishop Makarios brought blood to the streets of Cyprus; Yitzhak Shamir was operations officer of the Stern Gang which murdered Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte; and his predecessor as Israeli prime minister Mr Begin was leader of the Irgun Gang, which had the massacres of the Palestinian villagers of Deir Yassin and the occupants of the King David Hotel on its battle honours.
As so often the case, it is the sainted Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent who tells the true story:
“There's a wonderful book about Bloody Sunday by Michael T Foy, 'Michael Collins's Intelligence War' (Sutton), that I sincerely recommend, from which most of the following details are taken.
A Captain Newbury was staying with his wife at a ground-floor flat at 92 Pembroke Street that morning, when two IRA volunteers arrived at the front door. Still in his pyjamas, he fled to the back window, where a third volunteer was waiting: the three men cut him down in a ferocious volley of shots, while his wife screamed beside him.
After throwing a blanket on her husband's corpse, she collapsed, and gave birth to a stillborn baby. Some days later she herself died. Michael Foy thinks that Captain Newbury was not an intelligence officer. Of the 13 defenceless men murdered in their bedrooms that morning, Foy reckons eight were intelligence officers: the other five were 'unlucky'.
These included two Irish Catholics, an RAF officer (and cousin of Oscar Wilde) Lt L E Wilde, and Captain Patrick McCormack, an army vet, who were both murdered in their beds in the Gresham Hotel.
It could have been far, far worse: many decent IRA men simply ignored their orders, and shot no one.
In the aftermath of this slaughter, Dublin Castle correctly sensed that many soldiers and RIC Auxiliaries would be thirsting for revenge, and confined as many as possible to barracks. Alas, some Auxiliaries, aided by untrained recruits from the Depot at Phoenix Park, arrived at Croke Park, and perpetrated the infamous and legendary slaughter.
But according to Michael Foy -- and I am inclined to believe him -- these RIC men were out of control. They were not following orders, nor were they implementing policy of any kind.
Six of the Croke Park dead were buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, along with the bodies of the innocent Wilde and McCormack.
These evil events now exist largely in a realm of legend, which states that the British secret service was crippled in one brilliantly organised stroke, and so the cruel British army got its revenge with a massacre of the innocents of Croke Park.
But no soldiers opened fire at Croke Park, just policemen -- and most of the recruits doing the shooting were Irish. And if the British intelligence was so crippled by the assassinations, how come the terms of the Treaty 13 months later so comprehensively favoured Britain's strategic interests?
Queen Elizabeth was not born when Bloody Sunday occurred, and neither she nor any of her family had any association with it. This cannot be said of the Irish State, of which the third Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, was involved in the shooting of an unarmed army officer that morning -- the one-legged Captain Baggalay, who was not involved in intelligence, but in civil administration.
His murder was an atrocious affair, but no intelligent person would seek an apology for such a deed in the middle of a very dirty war so long ago.
For the queen to offer a one-sided sorry for Bloody Sunday would merely give a fresh and needless lift to the wings of nationalist mythology; while for the poor dead Newburys in their pitiful Pembroke Street flat, no one either knows or cares.”
- Kevin Myers
Irish Independent
We spent the day ferrying him between vets and specialist clinic. Our vet had him in for two days to take X-rays; said we had three options euthanasia, amputation or send to a specialist vet. For that, and little else, he charged us £400. The specialist was in Newmarket and deals with costly racehorses. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the clinic had four receptionists and a glossy brochure on the desk in its palatial premises.
Estimated bill £2,500 to £3,500, plus VAT, with the possibility of additional fees. I have to say from the point of view of the dog it is a bargain. Chicken lightly broiled and a phone call three times a day to tell us how he is enjoying himself
His glance has become so imperious I am practising coming to heel on his whistle and it is a good job we take the Independent. I cannot see him fetching the Daily Mirror and its like. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he was getting up a party for Ascot. I will be taking part time work to pay his fees. Not that I am complaining. I remember what my chum lifeboat cox Dick Evans said to the man he rescued from a watery grave. The man asked what he owed. Dick explained there was no charge because the RNLI was a voluntary service. The man insisted. “Very well,” said Dick, “pay me what you would have given me two minutes before I pulled you out of the water.”
When I heard Taz howling with pain I would have given half my pitiful kingdom, and the leg was so badly smashed it was a long and complex operation.
Having said that, I am concerned that vets are becoming the Dick Turpins of our day. On degree day they wear a black mask with their gowns and mortar boards. Compared to Vets the Great Train Robbers were a Hospital Saturday Fund.
As I write, Taz is convalescing with his new mates, aristocratic racehorses, and nibbling caviare blinis, washed down with Louis Roederer Crystal Brut. One of the legions of nurses who are there to do his bidding tells us he will have permanent limp.
He always was a master of the martyr's glance and the eloquent whimper. Now he is going to be unbearable limping like a latter day Long John Silver. But we cannot wait for tea time to-day to resume our roles as hand maidens.
I KNOW WHAT I DISLIKE
One good thing happened on my birthday. Revel Barker Publishing brought out a magnificent new edition of my biography of Sir Kyffin Williams, RA.
“The Man Who Painted in Welsh” replaces and extends an earlier edition, “A Figure in a Welsh Landscape”, produced by another publisher, which had so many errors as to be virtually unreadable .
Kyffin's views on modern art were sulphuric. How he would have relished this from the new “i” newspaper;
THE VALUE OF TRACEY EMIN
“Until the late 20th century art was unfairly dominated by people who could draw, paint and sculpt well. Tracey Emin's success demolishes the elitist notion that only the technically able should attempt a professional artistic career............................”
IRISH EYES ARE SMILING – AND NO WONDER
Andre Maurois once said that if in the eyes of an Irishman there is anything more ridiculous than an Englishman, it is an Englishman who loves Ireland.
Yet, once again, Our Gracious has been sent, poor lady, to lie abroad for her country. To placate our troublesome neighbours, she has been required to lay a wreath at the memorial in Dublin to that country's martyrs, ignoring the fact that most were executed for murder. Then it was off to take the blame for the Croke Park massacre.
That bloodstained former unemployed plasterer and pederast's brother, Gerry Adams, subsidised his IRA past with unemployment benefits and now lives comfortably bolstered by parliamentary pensions. But he retains the ill manners of his back street birth. He calls the Queen's visit insensitive - and he should know. He is one with that undistinguished cabal of former terrorists who gnawed at the hand that fed them. Archbishop Makarios brought blood to the streets of Cyprus; Yitzhak Shamir was operations officer of the Stern Gang which murdered Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte; and his predecessor as Israeli prime minister Mr Begin was leader of the Irgun Gang, which had the massacres of the Palestinian villagers of Deir Yassin and the occupants of the King David Hotel on its battle honours.
As so often the case, it is the sainted Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent who tells the true story:
“There's a wonderful book about Bloody Sunday by Michael T Foy, 'Michael Collins's Intelligence War' (Sutton), that I sincerely recommend, from which most of the following details are taken.
A Captain Newbury was staying with his wife at a ground-floor flat at 92 Pembroke Street that morning, when two IRA volunteers arrived at the front door. Still in his pyjamas, he fled to the back window, where a third volunteer was waiting: the three men cut him down in a ferocious volley of shots, while his wife screamed beside him.
After throwing a blanket on her husband's corpse, she collapsed, and gave birth to a stillborn baby. Some days later she herself died. Michael Foy thinks that Captain Newbury was not an intelligence officer. Of the 13 defenceless men murdered in their bedrooms that morning, Foy reckons eight were intelligence officers: the other five were 'unlucky'.
These included two Irish Catholics, an RAF officer (and cousin of Oscar Wilde) Lt L E Wilde, and Captain Patrick McCormack, an army vet, who were both murdered in their beds in the Gresham Hotel.
It could have been far, far worse: many decent IRA men simply ignored their orders, and shot no one.
In the aftermath of this slaughter, Dublin Castle correctly sensed that many soldiers and RIC Auxiliaries would be thirsting for revenge, and confined as many as possible to barracks. Alas, some Auxiliaries, aided by untrained recruits from the Depot at Phoenix Park, arrived at Croke Park, and perpetrated the infamous and legendary slaughter.
But according to Michael Foy -- and I am inclined to believe him -- these RIC men were out of control. They were not following orders, nor were they implementing policy of any kind.
Six of the Croke Park dead were buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, along with the bodies of the innocent Wilde and McCormack.
These evil events now exist largely in a realm of legend, which states that the British secret service was crippled in one brilliantly organised stroke, and so the cruel British army got its revenge with a massacre of the innocents of Croke Park.
But no soldiers opened fire at Croke Park, just policemen -- and most of the recruits doing the shooting were Irish. And if the British intelligence was so crippled by the assassinations, how come the terms of the Treaty 13 months later so comprehensively favoured Britain's strategic interests?
Queen Elizabeth was not born when Bloody Sunday occurred, and neither she nor any of her family had any association with it. This cannot be said of the Irish State, of which the third Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, was involved in the shooting of an unarmed army officer that morning -- the one-legged Captain Baggalay, who was not involved in intelligence, but in civil administration.
His murder was an atrocious affair, but no intelligent person would seek an apology for such a deed in the middle of a very dirty war so long ago.
For the queen to offer a one-sided sorry for Bloody Sunday would merely give a fresh and needless lift to the wings of nationalist mythology; while for the poor dead Newburys in their pitiful Pembroke Street flat, no one either knows or cares.”
- Kevin Myers
Irish Independent
Saturday, 14 May 2011
TIME WITHOUT NUMBERSt
I suppose it is because I am 82 on Monday (I took quiet pride in getting TWO birthday cards from Gordon's Gin PLC and an invitation to sky dive from my gorilla charity), HIM UPSTAIRS didn't think there would be any harm in letting slip a few secrets. So I woke this morning having heard Him answer the age old problem. “Is there any proof we have an immortal soul?”
It is a lot to take in with the morning tea bag but it seemed pretty simple the way He explained it. “You just tell your brain to count to the limit of numbers and then go on counting..............”
How long will that take ?
“Time is an artificial concept.”
It gave me quite a boost on the way to the bathroom to realise I had achieved Enlightenment effortlessly and it was only on the way back that I hit a snag. How do I go on counting when I have reached the limit of numbers?
I tried asking Him but as usual when there are awkward questions – it was the same when I asked him the reason He appears in some religions as an elephant - He copped a deaf 'un. Mumbled something about some chap called Yorrick and dreams and philosophy. He did, however, let slip something about counting beyond numbers being possible beyond time which I have still to work out. He did saytime was artificial and how can you go beyond something that isn't there, especially when you are counting non-existent numbers? I have got nothing to worry about anyway. I have just come across the fragments which are all that are left of the teachings of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, as you know, is the citizen who taught Socrates:
“All things were together, infinite both in numbers and in smallness, for the small too was infinite and when all things were together none of them could be distinguished for their smallness....”
Pick the bones out of that. All I can say is, it's a funny sort of fragment to leave lying about for later generations to trip over. I mean, he did say ALL things were infinite ….........?
Naturally when you get Stable info from the Elephant's Mouth, as 'twere, you like to share it. So when I got to the clinic to have the most recent stitches removed, I told the pretty nurse about counting beyond numbers.
I forgot how the Head Ferret likes to be part of the audience when someone is inflicting pain on me and she was kibbutzing. “If you were constantly counting in your head how would you carry on a conversation?” she wanted to know.
I ask you?
I replied with icy dignity that some of us can count under our breath. And I made up my mind I was not going to tell her about Elephants and God, not if Hell had me.
“Counting away in your head, you'd never BE ABLE TO FOLLOW THE PLOT IN SPIRAL,” she countered, a touch smugly, I thought.
She had me there. It's bad enough trying to keep up on the corpse tally and wondering if the lady detective ever took a shower. It was like in “The Killing” wondering if that detective was ever going to change her jersey and what sort of state was her underwear in? Never did find out who did it.
The Swedish Wallander was OK. A relief to discover Sweden has even less scenery than the Fens and that not all Swedish women are fanciable. But Branagh's version had me banjaxed. For some reason he replaced activity with the lengthy pause. I know it's a great help not having to learn as many lines but it is confusing to some poor devil who is trying to keep up a corpse count whilst going up to several million in his head trying to communicate with his immortal soul.
So anyway, I have told Him to lay off answering any more questions before they are asked. I'll be meeting Him soon enough and he can tell me everything all at once......But if he could see his way clear to making sure Branagh has a shave before he goes to work........
I gave myself a special birthday gift. I resigned from Facebook and Twitter. I have always felt uneasy about being part of those networks. It was like watching TV in the daytime, which offends one's Protestant work ethic long after one's working life is over. The nosey networks offended some deep sense of being grown up. The catalyst came for me when I found myself seeking to identify those shabby men who have taken out super injunctions. It is nearly half a century since I enjoyed an adulterous association but I remember how the enjoyment was diluted by the feeling of shame. I do not expect actors and professional sportsmen to behave like grown ups: their choice of occupation maroons them in childhood. The knowledge that one has been adulterated against hurts, I would imagine, but for that you have to be Grown Up. The act itself verges on the absurd. If I knew the identity of those shabby injunction men I would not be any the wiser and, anyway, they should be judged by their on-stage prowess. Beyond that they do not exist in an adult world.
I am constantly surprised at the number of my friends who are happily married, despite the adverse publicity, and I believe that it is broken relationships that have produced our feral young. That doesn't mean that I think the act of marriage is important. If one feels able to betray the trust of someone who is important to one then the contract is void anyway. What I object to is that the guardians of our law and our freedom are prepared to corrupt that law if the price is high enough.
I am heartened by the number of my readers who have praised me for casting off the need to tweet and be two Faced-book.
CORRESPONDENTS KEN AND COLIN WRITE........................
Closing the 'news' programme on Friday evening, ITV Wales anchor Jonathan Hill said: 'The end of an historic day for Wales.'
???????
Another hung Assembly, another washout for Plaid, little harm to the Tories, the referendum on AV means nothing changes and more than 50 per cent of Welsh voters couldn't be bothered to turn out.
****** ********* ********
ALMOST half of people living in an area of Rhyl can’t read or write well enough to function properly in every day life. Teenage pregnancy, unemployment, low birth weight babies, alcoholism, poor sexual health, obesity and suicides amongst men are also among the issues that need to be tackled, a report into the levels of deprivation and ill health across Denbighshire claims.
****** ********* *********
Champion runner Roger Bannister has achieved a knighthood, was the first Sports Council chairman, and is a famous neurologist. Two contestants on Friday's The Million Pound Drop ,Andrew and Vanessa were asked; “In 1954, did he go into space, run a sub-four minute mile or become the first man ever to put the toilet seat down?” Andrew shouted, "I think I've seen 'Bannister' written on a toilet!"
++++++
A new guide book has ruffled feathers across Wales after describing Cardiff as a “prodigious drinking town” and Bangor as “soulless”.
The latest edition of Lonely Planet suggests weekends in Wales’s capital see it invaded by “hordes” of “lads and ladettes”, who go “tottering from bar, to club to kebab shop whatever the weather”.
The book is equally critical of Bangor, saying the North Wales city’s “glory days have long since faded”.
POT CALLING KETTLE......
Can we trust our government with custody of our national language?
Heard today: "It's up to drivers to upskill themselves..." - Philip Hammond, MP, Transport Secretary
.LOCAL Newspaper Report
Reported in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle:
A lady died in September, and MBNA bank billed her for October and November for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance that had been £0.00, now was somewhere around £60.00.
A family member placed a call to the MBNA Bank:
Family Member:
'I am calling to tell you that she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.'
MBNA:
'Since it is two months past due, it already has been.'
Family Member:
So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?'
MBNA:
'Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to The credit bureau, maybe both!'
Family Member:
'Do you think God will be mad at her?'
MBNA:
'Excuse me?'
Family Member:
Did you just get what I was telling you . ..
The part about her Being dead?'
MBNA:
'Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.'
Supervisor gets on the phone:
Family Member:
'I'm calling to tell you, she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'You mean you want to collect from her estate?'
MBNA:
(Stammer) 'Are you her lawyer?'
Family Member:
'No, I'm her grandson'
(Lawyer info given)
MBNA:
'Could you fax us a certificate of death?'
Family Member:
'Sure.'
( fax number is given )
After they get the fax:
MBNA:
'Our system just isn't set up for death.
I don't know what more I can do to help.'
Family Member:
'Well, if you figure it out, great!
If not, you could just keep billing her.
I don't think she will care.'
MBNA:
'Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.'
Family Member:
'Would you like her new billing address?
MBNA:
'That might help.'
Family Member:
'Heaton Cemetery, Heaton Road, Newcastle upon Tyne Plot 1049.'
MBNA:
'Sir, that's a cemetery!'
Family Member:
'Well, what the **** do you do with dead people on your planet?'
MBNA were not available for comment when a reporter from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle rang.
'
It is a lot to take in with the morning tea bag but it seemed pretty simple the way He explained it. “You just tell your brain to count to the limit of numbers and then go on counting..............”
How long will that take ?
“Time is an artificial concept.”
It gave me quite a boost on the way to the bathroom to realise I had achieved Enlightenment effortlessly and it was only on the way back that I hit a snag. How do I go on counting when I have reached the limit of numbers?
I tried asking Him but as usual when there are awkward questions – it was the same when I asked him the reason He appears in some religions as an elephant - He copped a deaf 'un. Mumbled something about some chap called Yorrick and dreams and philosophy. He did, however, let slip something about counting beyond numbers being possible beyond time which I have still to work out. He did saytime was artificial and how can you go beyond something that isn't there, especially when you are counting non-existent numbers? I have got nothing to worry about anyway. I have just come across the fragments which are all that are left of the teachings of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, as you know, is the citizen who taught Socrates:
“All things were together, infinite both in numbers and in smallness, for the small too was infinite and when all things were together none of them could be distinguished for their smallness....”
Pick the bones out of that. All I can say is, it's a funny sort of fragment to leave lying about for later generations to trip over. I mean, he did say ALL things were infinite ….........?
Naturally when you get Stable info from the Elephant's Mouth, as 'twere, you like to share it. So when I got to the clinic to have the most recent stitches removed, I told the pretty nurse about counting beyond numbers.
I forgot how the Head Ferret likes to be part of the audience when someone is inflicting pain on me and she was kibbutzing. “If you were constantly counting in your head how would you carry on a conversation?” she wanted to know.
I ask you?
I replied with icy dignity that some of us can count under our breath. And I made up my mind I was not going to tell her about Elephants and God, not if Hell had me.
“Counting away in your head, you'd never BE ABLE TO FOLLOW THE PLOT IN SPIRAL,” she countered, a touch smugly, I thought.
She had me there. It's bad enough trying to keep up on the corpse tally and wondering if the lady detective ever took a shower. It was like in “The Killing” wondering if that detective was ever going to change her jersey and what sort of state was her underwear in? Never did find out who did it.
The Swedish Wallander was OK. A relief to discover Sweden has even less scenery than the Fens and that not all Swedish women are fanciable. But Branagh's version had me banjaxed. For some reason he replaced activity with the lengthy pause. I know it's a great help not having to learn as many lines but it is confusing to some poor devil who is trying to keep up a corpse count whilst going up to several million in his head trying to communicate with his immortal soul.
So anyway, I have told Him to lay off answering any more questions before they are asked. I'll be meeting Him soon enough and he can tell me everything all at once......But if he could see his way clear to making sure Branagh has a shave before he goes to work........
I gave myself a special birthday gift. I resigned from Facebook and Twitter. I have always felt uneasy about being part of those networks. It was like watching TV in the daytime, which offends one's Protestant work ethic long after one's working life is over. The nosey networks offended some deep sense of being grown up. The catalyst came for me when I found myself seeking to identify those shabby men who have taken out super injunctions. It is nearly half a century since I enjoyed an adulterous association but I remember how the enjoyment was diluted by the feeling of shame. I do not expect actors and professional sportsmen to behave like grown ups: their choice of occupation maroons them in childhood. The knowledge that one has been adulterated against hurts, I would imagine, but for that you have to be Grown Up. The act itself verges on the absurd. If I knew the identity of those shabby injunction men I would not be any the wiser and, anyway, they should be judged by their on-stage prowess. Beyond that they do not exist in an adult world.
I am constantly surprised at the number of my friends who are happily married, despite the adverse publicity, and I believe that it is broken relationships that have produced our feral young. That doesn't mean that I think the act of marriage is important. If one feels able to betray the trust of someone who is important to one then the contract is void anyway. What I object to is that the guardians of our law and our freedom are prepared to corrupt that law if the price is high enough.
I am heartened by the number of my readers who have praised me for casting off the need to tweet and be two Faced-book.
CORRESPONDENTS KEN AND COLIN WRITE........................
Closing the 'news' programme on Friday evening, ITV Wales anchor Jonathan Hill said: 'The end of an historic day for Wales.'
???????
Another hung Assembly, another washout for Plaid, little harm to the Tories, the referendum on AV means nothing changes and more than 50 per cent of Welsh voters couldn't be bothered to turn out.
****** ********* ********
ALMOST half of people living in an area of Rhyl can’t read or write well enough to function properly in every day life. Teenage pregnancy, unemployment, low birth weight babies, alcoholism, poor sexual health, obesity and suicides amongst men are also among the issues that need to be tackled, a report into the levels of deprivation and ill health across Denbighshire claims.
****** ********* *********
Champion runner Roger Bannister has achieved a knighthood, was the first Sports Council chairman, and is a famous neurologist. Two contestants on Friday's The Million Pound Drop ,Andrew and Vanessa were asked; “In 1954, did he go into space, run a sub-four minute mile or become the first man ever to put the toilet seat down?” Andrew shouted, "I think I've seen 'Bannister' written on a toilet!"
++++++
A new guide book has ruffled feathers across Wales after describing Cardiff as a “prodigious drinking town” and Bangor as “soulless”.
The latest edition of Lonely Planet suggests weekends in Wales’s capital see it invaded by “hordes” of “lads and ladettes”, who go “tottering from bar, to club to kebab shop whatever the weather”.
The book is equally critical of Bangor, saying the North Wales city’s “glory days have long since faded”.
POT CALLING KETTLE......
Can we trust our government with custody of our national language?
Heard today: "It's up to drivers to upskill themselves..." - Philip Hammond, MP, Transport Secretary
.LOCAL Newspaper Report
Reported in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle:
A lady died in September, and MBNA bank billed her for October and November for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance that had been £0.00, now was somewhere around £60.00.
A family member placed a call to the MBNA Bank:
Family Member:
'I am calling to tell you that she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.'
MBNA:
'Since it is two months past due, it already has been.'
Family Member:
So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?'
MBNA:
'Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to The credit bureau, maybe both!'
Family Member:
'Do you think God will be mad at her?'
MBNA:
'Excuse me?'
Family Member:
Did you just get what I was telling you . ..
The part about her Being dead?'
MBNA:
'Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.'
Supervisor gets on the phone:
Family Member:
'I'm calling to tell you, she died in September.'
MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'
Family Member:
'You mean you want to collect from her estate?'
MBNA:
(Stammer) 'Are you her lawyer?'
Family Member:
'No, I'm her grandson'
(Lawyer info given)
MBNA:
'Could you fax us a certificate of death?'
Family Member:
'Sure.'
( fax number is given )
After they get the fax:
MBNA:
'Our system just isn't set up for death.
I don't know what more I can do to help.'
Family Member:
'Well, if you figure it out, great!
If not, you could just keep billing her.
I don't think she will care.'
MBNA:
'Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.'
Family Member:
'Would you like her new billing address?
MBNA:
'That might help.'
Family Member:
'Heaton Cemetery, Heaton Road, Newcastle upon Tyne Plot 1049.'
MBNA:
'Sir, that's a cemetery!'
Family Member:
'Well, what the **** do you do with dead people on your planet?'
MBNA were not available for comment when a reporter from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle rang.
'
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