Quote of the week - didn't we try that already?

One of the Sunday papers offers this, from a young Eritrean who has been in the migrant camp at Calais for two months:

We want to go to Britain only because of our bad governments and dictators. I would like to see Europe civilise Africa and the Middle East.

What form, I wonder, would this hoped-for civilisation take? Peacekeeping forces? Regime change? A permanent presence, at least until the population feel safe?

It's hardly as if anyone thanked us last time:

Take up the White Man's burden 
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Sense at last!

Double cause for celebration today; not only will 2015 OQ21 soon be whizzing by a mere 568,000 km away but a journalist has, at long last, said the hitherto unsayable.

History, they say, is written by the victors. Mainstream media opinions on working mothers, in the same way, tend to be written by women who have delegated at least some of their childcare to other women (men, of course, would not dare to pronounce on such a contentious issue and childless women tend to keep their own counsel).

While full-time mothers hover around the edges in comment threads or the blogosphere, the floor of mainstream media and political coverage is firmly held by working mothers intent on justifying their own course of action.

It's also worth noting that we hear little from women who have returned after a full career break; the reason for that becomes lamentably clear when trying to get back into the workplace after a prolonged absence.

I've made my views on this issue known here before* but it is a breath of fresh air to read this from Sarah Vine (or, as she is also known, Mrs Michael Gove):

...the whole concept of childcare has a way of short-circuiting our internal feminist wiring. On the one hand, it’s our right to have meaningful careers; on the other, it’s also our right to have children. 

There’s just one tiny problem: who’s going to look after the kids? 

That is the great paradox of feminism: for every woman forging ahead in the workplace, there’s another taking her place in the home.

Regular readers may recognise more than a little similarity to a post which appeared here last November: 'There are plenty of high-flying self-styled feminists who apparently see nothing incongruous in their household outsourcing the domestic chores to an assortment of low-paid females.' 

Admittedly, it's taken her a while to see the light - she describes having been, in effect, a 'benign but distant' fifties-style 'father' to her young children for years - but better late than never; the response of her children has clearly convinced her that being there for them is the right thing to do and, to her credit, she has admitted it publicly.

Fact is, nannies make life possible for working mothers, but they are no substitute for being a parent. That, I’m afraid, is the one thing you simply cannot delegate.

Two glasses will therefore be raised in the Tavern this evening; 2015 OQ21 and Sarah Vine, your very good health indeed!


*Essentially this:'I firmly believe that a woman is the intellectual and social equal of a man and should be treated as such - with the proviso that a dependent infant is biologically more important than either man or woman and its needs should come first.'



Update: As a bonus, this URL from the Express surely qualifies for some kind of award:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/592987/End-of-the-world-asteroid-Blood-Moon-September-apocalypse-armageddon-comet-meteor

A toe in the water

Between a frantic few weeks at home and at work and your host being somewhat under the weather, the doors of Peachum's Tavern have been shut for far too long - my apologies to those who have turned up and rattled the handles in search of a virtual pint and a chat.

Forget the usual example of retrieving a banknote from the garden; being unable to face posting even when there's a 320m wide asteroid cruising by is, I reckon, a fair indication that it was flu and not just a cold.

Anyway, there's a lot to catch up on - Harriet Harman's pink battle bus, the Greeks expecting gifts and a host of other startling news stories, some of which I hope to get round to in the near future, though posting may be light for a while yet.

Popular culture has also taken an odd turn recently. Perhaps it's best summed up by a moment I caught by chance while channel hopping a few weeks ago in which one Big Brother inmate opined on the subject of another,

"She's such an exhibitionist in all the wrong ways."

From the simian antics of twerking celebrities to the cloying glimpses of domesticity dished up in a vain attempt to make politicians seem more human, we are living in an age where far too little is left to the imagination - which brings us finally to the cinematic event of the week.

Regardless of the official soundtrack, surely I can't be the only person who has been thinking of this...

Quote of the day - "I'll just need to photocopy the baby..."

Spare a thought - if only a small one - for the problems of law-abiding tattoo artists beset by unreasonable demands.

We've already met the unfortunate chap in Wolverhampton whose attempt to deter would-be customers who don't understand English earned him a slap on the wrist from the authorities, multiculturalism being, apparently, more important than the ability to communicate with the person about to ink a permanent design into your skin.

Now it's the turn of a Birmingham tattooist to attract media attention with a notice in his window:

"I don’t care if it’s your 18th next week. The answer is still no – and your children are not ID. Most of the girls in Northfield have a child by the age of 13."

The last statement is, by his own admission, hyperbole* - though that may not prevent a torrent of abuse heading his way in the near future - but the underlying intention is clear:

“I put up the notice because I kept getting young mums coming into the shop for a tattoo and when I ask them for an ID they try and use the child as a form of ID.

This was, he says, happening on a weekly basis, which offers food for thought when you consider the costs involved; the teenage mothers of Northfield clearly have money to burn**.

In any case, the 'House of Pain' tattooing studio hardly seems an appropriate environment for a small child - though opinion on that may differ; regular readers may remember that a mock advert for specialist children's tattoos - 'a gift for life at pocket money prices' - apparently received ten genuine enquiries from parents.

The oddest thing about this story, however, is the suggestion that the child should somehow constitute a valid proof of age. Do the mothers likewise brandish their unfortunate offspring while buying a round in the pub or purchasing age-restricted DVDs or fireworks?

And, more seriously, what is likely to become of children raised by immature mothers whose disregard for the law is matched by their willingness to abuse shop staff when their unreasonable demands are thwarted?


*But not complete fiction; official figures show that over 100 13- and 14-year-olds in the Birmingham area have given birth over the past 5 years.

**Interestingly, subsequent research has turned up this memorable quote on the subject:

'The amount of gold worn by people in Northfield could probably redecorate Tutankhamun’s tomb twice over.'

The bank that likes to say "F*** off!"

Picture the scene: it's a rainy Tuesday morning in the high street and you have a long list of things to do, the first of which involves a trip to the bank.

Fate, however, has other plans. The bank doors are firmly shut, the night safe sealed and the windows blanked out inside. Taped to the door is a single sheet of paper with a printed message: the bank will be closed for refurbishment for the next four weeks.

You are, it helpfully adds, welcome to visit any of the branches in the neighbouring towns, a mere 20 miles or so away. Judging by the expressions of the half-dozen or so customers reading the notice, this is a rather less than satisfactory arrangement.

A quick straw poll makes it clear that none of these customers - some of whom make weekly visits to the bank - has been notified by letter, text or telephone call that a month-long closure was imminent and neither was there any public indication in the branch itself.

Instead, the bank staff took advantage of the bank holiday weekend to 'fold their tents, like the Arabs, and quietly steal away', leaving  behind one functioning cash machine and a great deal of resentment.

A clue to the motive behind this moonlight flit may be found in the notice on the door, which recommends using the bank's online service instead. Though I doubt that they contrived the closure expressly to force their customers to adopt it, the way online banking has been pushed recently by cashiers and other staff suggests that the management saw this as a golden opportunity to increase the take-up rates.

This is, perhaps, the beginning of the end for those who cannot or will not embrace the new technology and commit their savings to the dubious security of cyberspace. Banks already offer favourable interest rates and extra benefits to online customers in a clear bid to hasten the day when they can dispense with an expensive and inconvenient real life presence on the high street for good.

The same phenomenon is creeping into other spheres; businesses and the public sector increasingly offer discounts for online bill payment or official registration - occasionally followed by notification that their database has been hacked and 'it is essential that you change all your passwords immediately' - in a bid to maximise their profits and efficiency by removing any semblance of human interaction with their 'valued' customers.

"We are" said the Tavern's resident Wise Woman recently, "being farmed - it's the only word for it."

Sadly, I have to agree.

Quote of the day - 'not now!'

Before we finally leave the Torquay Herald Express, this story caught my eye:

BREAKING NEWS: Child and parent stuck in mud

The emergency services are working together to rescue a young child, and what is understood to be a parent, who are both stuck in mud at Combeinteignhead near Newton Abbot.

The reporter was clearly quick off the mark but this is 21st-century journalism; rather than racing to the scene, he or she seems to have set about phoning around for quotes while the rescue was going on.

The first source was a fruitful one:

A spokesman for the police said...“The fire service have launched a raft on the river and are pulling them out.”

...but things went downhill from there: the Fire Service wouldn't comment because of industrial action and the local pub denied any involvement, which is fair enough, and finally I invite you to consider the unspoken subtext behind:

...the coastguard confirmed they were involved but were too busy to give further details.

Quote of the day - outsize edition

Continuing on the theme of the unfortunate encounter experienced by a late night traveller which was the subject of last Wednesday's post, a comment on the logistics of six women squeezed into the confines of a train lavatory got me thinking, so, in an idle moment, I tried to find out the dimensions involved.

This, it turned out, was easier said than done, though it was almost certainly one of the modern sliding-door affairs with room for a wheelchair or for one of those double buggies that provide such interesting and varied gymnastic challenges for other users of Britain's high streets and public transport.

The size of the new cubicles has led to their number being drastically reduced to the point where there may be only three toilets to cater for the needs of an entire train full of passengers. Instead of a quick trip to the facility at the end of the coach, travellers now need to embark on a lengthy and often futile quest to find an unoccupied cubicle.

Incidentally, it is, in theory, possible that the lavatory in this story was decorated with the winning image from c2c's design-a-door competition; with commendably creative sadism, the judges chose a large and vivid depiction of a dripping tap sure to be greatly appreciated by pent-up travellers waiting cross-legged in the corridor outside.

Anyway, this research ultimately led to a somewhat startling headline in the South Wales Evening Post:

Port Talbot train station toilets 'too small for portly women' says Llanelli MP 

Political correctness evidently has not yet arrived in Llanelli, at least in describing the larger lady.

Ragnarök and roll!

With only a few hours to go before Fenrir the Wolf bares his fangs and the mighty god Thor battles the serpent Jörmungandr, heralding the Twilight of the Gods and the end of life as we know it, the Times quotes a latter-day devotee of Odin who definitely has the right attitude:

"I'm all prepared - I'll be in the pub at 10am and if the world is still here by the time I get home, I'll be pleasantly surprised."

Citation du jour

Sarah Vine, on Francois Hollande's motor scooter assignations with his glamorous actress lover:

"...Wallace and Gromit meets Emmanuelle"

Quote of the day - gourmet edition

This one is from a teenager who found more than she bargained for in a box of Chicken Popsters (nope, me neither!):

"The box said it was 100 per cent meat, but it didn’t say anything about maggots." 

Quotes of the day

First, a headline from the BBC, whose staff really ought to be able to proof-read:

Plymouth student talks of

drink-drinking regret

We can all identify with that, I think. And secondly this, from a 'close friend' of Blair on the rumours concerning Wendi Deng:

“I believe Tony. He would never do such a thing and he is not a liar.”

Admittedly it's from the Mail, which is doing its utmost to fan the non-existent flames of conflict. To be honest, it looks as if its staff are letting their collective imagination run away with them.

A sensational note written by Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng that reveals she had a ‘crush’ on Tony Blair has been found, it was revealed last night.

The idea that Ms Deng would sit down and write a note to herself expressing 'warm feelings' for Blair and then leave it lying around for staff to find is so preposterous that it could surely originate only in the fevered brain of a Mail journalist, unless, of course, the woman herself has lost all reason.

Quote of the week

From veteran astronaut Rusty Schweickart, speaking at a US conference on our current ability to cope with a potential major asteroid impact:

“If we don’t find it until a year out, make yourself a nice cocktail and go out and watch.”

No news to some, of course, but I like his style!

Zoomorphic quote of the day

Hot on the heels of the tale of stolen shoes comes another glimpse into everyday life in our troubled times:

Two men were arrested at Legoland after around 10 parents got involved in a mass brawl in front of horrified children.

They weren't horrified to start with, mind you, having been reared in a soap-opera-fuelled culture where the boundaries between reality and fiction have become increasingly blurred and screen violence is commonplace:

At first, some children thought the disruption was part of an act for the pirate-themed ride, but as more parents got involved it became clear that it was a fight.

The spectacle, according to one eye-witness, sounds positively Homeric:

'About ten people were involved - even some of the women flew off the ride trading punches'

(in the manner, one imagines, of the vengeful Olympian goddesses descending on the battlefield before Troy, albeit rather less divine in appearance).

The Legoland management, predictably, take a calmer view than the tabloid media, claiming that 'An altercation occurred between a family group and a male guest'.

Meanwhile the police state that  fixed penalty notices for public order offences were issued to two men aged 29 and 30, which is definitely old enough to know better. What hope is there for the offspring of men who behave like this on a family day out?

Under the circumstances, perhaps it's appropriate that Legoland's statement concludes with a phrase that could have come straight from a nature documentary:

'The group of males and their families were removed from the park'.

(The title is the result of a Google search to answer the question this story immediately brought to mind:  'What is the opposite of anthropomorphism?'. It is, perhaps, significant that a lot of other people out there seem to be asking the same question.)

Well, I'd never have thought of that!

Hot on the heels of my vague musing on the question of curtains left open after dark regardless of passing nosey-parkers, axe-murderers or zombies comes this, via a comment on a post by Mark Wadsworth:

"I’d even turn on the lights and leave the curtains open at night just so our neighbours could get a glimpse into our fabulous home."

From the Daily Mail (where else?); my thanks to doej105

Toast of the week - pragmatic Darwinism

As ever, the bank holiday weekend sees the start of the coastal Darwin Award season, as landlubbers seek ever more ingenious ways of removing themselves from the gene pool only to be thwarted by the tireless efforts of the Coastguard and the RNLI.

Early aspirants include the two intrepid anglers blown out to sea from Humberside in a child's toy dinghy, together with the usual assortment of clueless jetskiers and overconfident swimmers, 130 of whom had to be fished out of the North Sea when organisers launched a two-mile open-water race in unseasonably cold water and a current so fast the hapless swimmers were travelling backwards.

And, of course, there are always the latter-day Cnuts, who have apparently failed to grasp the essential fact that the sea level around our coasts goes up and down twice a day.

An elderly couple had to be rescued by the rather nifty Hunstanton Hovercraft (if you ever wondered what the RNLI buy with donations, check it out) when their 4x4 was stranded in a foot or so of water, but this is small beer compared to the experience of taxi driver Kryxdztof Tomaszek (H/T JuliaM, via comments).

The unfortunate Mr Tomaszek parked on Brean Beach (complete with pay-and-display ticket) and set off for a pleasant Sunday evening stroll along the sands, blissfully unaware that the car park was of a somewhat impermanent nature and there was a spring tide on the way.

'I managed to get in and tried to drive it away but the engine kept cutting out and two guys helped me out of the car by opening the driver's door and getting some belongings out.'

Despite the Mail's valiant attempts to create a life-or-death drama, there appears to have been little risk to life and limb; not really Darwin territory at all. It could, however, have been a very different story in Dorset, where teenagers have been seen climbing on the precarious piles of rubble that recently fell from the cliffs near Durdle Door.

A local resident reports that boys were clambering about high up on the stones, ignoring the fact that the rocks they dislodged were falling onto people below:

"Their reply was they are not throwing them so it's not their fault."

That sort of attitude has come to be associated with 'vulnerable' youngsters who need to be protected from themselves, so you might imagine that the Nanny State would have swung into action, ensuring everything is expensively fenced off. But no, they make 'em tougher than that in Dorset:

A spokeswoman for Portland Coastguard said the advice to people was not to climb on the rock, to act sensibly and to stay away from the landslip debris. 

"That's our advice, if they ignore it that's up to them," she added.

Well said: Madam, your very good health!

You think the horse meat was bad news?

A spokeswoman from the Florida Department of Agriculture has this to say on the source of the giant African land snails and other exotic pests infesting Dade County:

"If you got a ham sandwich in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, or an orange, and you didn't eat it all and you bring it back into the States and then you discard it, at some point, things can emerge from those products."

Quote of the day - squirrel edition

"You'd need one and a half squirrels for a main course; that's why we are serving it as starters." 

Full marks to the sous-chef at River Cottage Canteen, where diners with twitchy sensibilities need not apply. This was a one-off,  but there are plans to add squirrel to the menu again in the Autumn, when they will be nice and fat.

It's no more than you would expect of an establishment under the aegis of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (or, as my mother calls him, 'the bloke who eats dead owls') and, what's more, there's a sound ecological reason for doing it, these being grey interlopers rather than our native red ones.

The long-overdue investigation into what goes into burgers and ready meals shows just how detached the general population has become from the source of its meat. For those who never shop at a  butcher's, there is no apparent connection between the packaged ready-meal or takeaway and a real animal; it's something many consumers prefer to ignore completely.

This is, of course, largely a product of urban living and a sentimentalised view of the animal kingdom; I shall never forget the horrified reaction of a town-bred family friend who arrived unexpectedly one day and was offered rabbit curry for dinner (unorthodox, I know, but pies and casseroles do get boring after a while).

But I suspect that we are now seeing a generation grow up who just don't care. 'Watership Down' and the like have been largely forgotten (or dismissed as too middle-class to be allowed) - in any case, few children read much these days - and, where 1990s teenagers embraced vegetarianism along with all things green, their modern-day counterparts are more likely to say "Whatever" and tuck into a burger in front of the X-box.

Having been forced by recent news stories to consider the source of their meat, perhaps people may start to question whether it really matters that their food once had big eyes or a fluffy tail, especially if it's cheap, low-fat and sustainable into the bargain.

The newspapers have doubtless published this non-story in the hope of sparking a storm of outrage from the fluffy brigade amid accusations of  'a wildlife massacre' (it's happened before: 'Another Slice of Squirrel, Julia?'), but, taking into account the misleading meat labels and unidentifiable imported ingredients in processed food, they might just find it's the start of something new.

Mitigating statement of the day; is it really relevant?

'The family planned a trip in October 2011 to the Hajj pilgrimage having embraced religion, to ask God for forgiveness. That had to be cancelled because their passports were seized.'

For those who have not read the story (Mail, so usual caveats apply), two brothers and their wives spent 15 years indulging in a version of what, in the days when I worked in a Housing Benefit department, was known as the Camellia Avenue scam.

This was operating virtually wholesale along a particular road in town; homeowners and tenants nominally swapped houses, grown offspring or - occasionally - wives in order to claim the maximum housing benefit payments on offer, while the council inspectors did their best to disentangle the whole sorry business.

No matter how many were caught, the claims kept on coming in, swearing blind that No. 34's 16-year-old son was paying sky-high rent for a room at No. 42, while No. 42's teenage daughter claimed housing benefit for a bedsit ten feet away at No. 44, despite actually living with her boyfriend at No. 26.

And the inspectors worked tirelessly to bring them all to justice, with regular dawn stake-outs and relentless enquiries. Most bogus claims were identified within a matter of months; might so many years of unchecked activity suggest undue reticence in this case on the part of those charged with detecting such frauds?

The two couples involved in this case - with their 11 children - clocked up an impressive £314,452.25 in benefit payments:

'Each couple swapped houses and made claims for housing benefit and income support,' Mark Himsworth, prosecuting, said. [...] 'It went on for a long time an.d there was a great deal of manifest dishonesty.'

So far, so cut and dried. The crime was detected - eventually - and restitution has been made, and so we come to the question of mitigation and a bizarre intrusion into the proceedings of something that should be a personal matter irrelevant to the judicial process.

This is a case of financial fraud, pure and simple. Why, then, should 'asking God for forgiveness' come into it? These people were prepared to lie, cheat and steal - which casts some doubt on the 'fervent' religion of Ahmed's wife (as does her prior conviction for fraud) - but divine forgiveness is surely a matter between them and their deity of choice.

Whatever the religious beliefs of defendants, they surely have no place being wheeled out in the hope of eliciting sympathy or favourable opinion from an objective judiciary.

Quote of the day - Dracula Rises from the Tomb

A brilliantly-phrased gem from Caedmon's Cat today describing the recent doings of one Tony Blair, or, as he is known in the Cat's Kingdom of Northumbria, 'Tondvig the Bleurgh':

Eager to exercise his finely-honed skills in mendacity, oratory and sincere guile, he's been travelling over the many waters of the earth, giving lectures to adoring window-lickers, knuckle-draggers, lickspittles and anyone deranged enough to part with several million Holy Groats for the privilege of hearing diatribes of magic-mushroom-fuelled fantasy and folly drip from his amply proportioned chops.

Actually, this one was entirely predictable; even when he was in Downing Street, the fervour with which Blair proclaimed the importance of the role of EU president was a clear indication of his ambitions in that direction.

If he does manage to fasten his teeth into the Presidency and ensure that we are, once again, maintaining him in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed, at least there's the small consolation that he may, once again, inspire others to memorable flights of oratory...

And a bonus quote today: from JuliaM at OoL, on the power of advertising:

I’ve watched quite a lot of advertising this week, but so far I’ve managed to avoid:

a) taking a meerkat to bed,
b) bungee jumping off a bridge with my identical twin,
c) strapping a bulldog into a motorcycle sidecar, or
d) setting up a relationship counselling agency for snowme…err, snowpeople?

So I think we can safely say that normal adults can distinguish between real life and advertising scenarios.

"Where's the foetus going to gestate? ...

...Are you going to keep it in a box?"

Lynne Featherstone has put her elegantly manicured finger on what is stopping today's women achieving their full potential:

“One of the main barriers to full equality in the UK is the fact that women still have babies.” 

Er...yes - I mean, who else is going to do it?

By popular demand: