Pick and mix

Today we are raising a brimming tankard in honour of the rambling Irish Grandad, who has performed the sterling public service of putting online the archives of the Raccoon Arms (see sidebar). Grandad, your very good health!

Meanwhile, I've been doing a spot of housekeeping here in the Tavern, and, among the dust and cobwebs, I found an assortment of notes which never made it online.

For a variety of reasons, these draft (or daft) fragments either resisted further development or proved too insubstantial to make a reasonable post. Rather than throw the whole lot out with the rubbish, I thought I'd offer a few of them for your edification and amusement this Bank Holiday weekend so, in no particular order, here we go:

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Every now and then you hear of a demise so bizarre that you can imagine St Peter at the Pearly gates, quill in hand, pausing and looking up from his list in utter amazement: "You did what?"

In keeping with its chosen role as purveyor of exotic and salacious news stories from around the globe, the Telegraph last week brought us the tale of a Michigan woman who was admitted to hospital with a fatal gunshot wound to the eye.

St. Joseph Public Safety Department Director Mark Clapp told the Kalamazoo Gazette 55-year-old Christina Bond was “having trouble adjusting her bra holster and could not get it to fit the way she wanted it to.” 

In an attempt to sort out the problem, she apparently bent forward to have a closer look, whereupon the gun went off; although 55 is probably rather too late in life to qualify for a Darwin Award, this untimely departure surely deserves some kind of honourable mention.

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With apologies to readers of a sensitive disposition:

The Clacton Gazette surpassed itself this week with the tale of a couple observed in flagrante delicto on Martello Beach in broad daylight amid the crowds of promenading holidaymakers.

For reasons known only to himself, one witness decided to film their antics and, presumably, share the result with the local paper, leading to this exquisite quote from the article:

The couple’s identity is unknown. Their faces can’t be seen on the video but the woman is believed to have a bulldog tattoo on her back.
 

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And finally, this one just defied any attempt to make sensible use of it but remains one of my favourite headlines:

Giant gorilla made from 40,000 spoons proves popular at Llangollen Eisteddfod

Corbyn addresses the faithful

It's good to see Jeremy Corbyn's commitment to recycling: full marks to Alex Massie at the Spectator for listing the verbatim borrowings from a 2011 speech written for (and rejected by) Ed Miliband.

Personally I'm not sure how much it matters. In the great tradition of party conferences, no-one there really bothers too much about the minutiae of  the leader's speech; they just join in when they like the tune.

Since I have decided I am allergic to politicians (or perhaps it's just an intolerance), I shall, at this point, refer you to Caedmon's Cat, who comments at length on the rise of Corbyn far more stylishly than I ever could -  I invite you to join me in a raising a glass to the author of phrases such as 'a boil on the buttock politic'.

Meanwhile, having taken the tongue-in-cheek (I hope!) quiz from the Telegraph (back in August), I have been told that

"You don’t like Corbyn, or his ideas. No matter who you vote for, extremist Corbynistas condemn you as an Evil Tory."

I can't say it comes as a complete surprise - though coming from the Telegraph, I do rather wonder whether that is the default response.

Actually, there is one idea of Corbyn's I do find palatable; the end of the Punch-and Judy PMQs - although I'm not so sure about the 'Housewife's Choice' sourcing of his questions. Still, whatever else he brings to the table, anything that makes Westminster less infantile is alright in my book.


(I am indebted to the Tavern's resident Wise Woman for the picture, a serendipitous find in an old book of Irish Folk Tales. The resemblance is striking, don't you think?)

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

Half a century

Back in the early 1970s, thanks to the wonder of television, we knew what the future would look like.

By the 21st century, the Space Age would be well and truly under way; ordinary men and women (the latter, for some obscure reason, invariably clad in form-fitting bodysuits or miniskirts) would be going about their daily business in moonbases and interplanetary spacecraft, while back on Earth, families would subsist on daily protein pills and pursue a life of leisure while robots did all the work.

Contemplating these wonders, it was daunting to think that, when the millennium rolled around, I would be approaching the inconceivably advanced age of 35; anything beyond that was so remote as to be hardly worth considering so I never gave it much thought.

Somehow, over the intervening 40 years, it feels as if I've never quite got round to the business of growing up; it is thus with some astonishment that I now find myself staring down the barrels of my 50th birthday. Here I am in the distant future and, to be honest, it isn't at all what I expected. Where, I ask myself, is my personal jet-pack? What happened to those robots to take over the housework?

Granted, I have at my personal disposal better communication equipment and more processing power than than the Apollo space programme. There are computers hidden in my household appliances, I scan and pack my own groceries (though the robot servant would come in very handy there) and I can manage my finances or buy virtually anything I want over the telephone or internet at any time of the day or night.

But - although I appreciate the ability to download pictures of cats doing silly things in Anchorage, Alaska - much of the rest of life is business as usual. What has changed is my own attitude, and it's made me wonder how much of that has been formed by those early aspirations.

For those of us born in the summer of '65, just as the first space-walk was taking place and Bob Dylan upsetting his fans by 'going electric', progress was a given; emerging from the Winter of Discontent, we came of age in Thatcher's Britain where, whatever your politics, it was impossible not to feel the impact of technological advances (remember your first Walkman?) or to compare our bright new electric-blue youth culture with the perpetually brown-and-orange 1970s.

Then came the 1990s - grunge and recession - and, before we knew it, the magical 2000 was upon us with the 'River of Fire', setting the scene for the arrival of middle-aged cynicism and disappointment. On top of that, 24-hour news coverage has given us the ability to see our political masters as never before, warts and all, and it's not a pretty sight. At the same time, we are old enough to recall the failures of successive administrations and see the pitfalls and hidden agendas of every new government initiative.

With the potential of the internet, this growing cynicism was able, for some, to manifest itself in blogging, which leads me to an interesting (for me at least) observation; of the dozen or so general-interest blogs I read regularly and with which I frequently find myself in agreement, often with a shock of recognition at an opinion that precisely matches my own, at least two are written by my exact contemporaries.

That being so, I should like to raise a virtual glass to Kath and Pavlov's Cat, both of whom turned fifty in the last fortnight, and to any other bloggers hovering around the half-century mark (I suspect at least one more, which would make it a significant proportion of my sidebar born in 1965 or thereabouts).

Given the political, social and technological developments of the last 50 years and they way they have shaped my generation, I wonder whether this affinity is, in the words of Heinrich Böll, 'neither accident nor design, but simply unavoidable'.

"Live long and prosper!"

I wonder if Leonard Nimoy ever thought, when he adapted a traditional Orthodox Jewish prayer gesture for his new television role, that thousands of small fingers would be painstakingly coaxed into the same position every school breaktime for years afterwards.

I can't be the only one who, on learning of his recent death, responded with an automatic Vulcan salute, half-surprised that the muscle memory persists to this day.

Gene Roddenberry's vision may look dated now but, growing up in a place where a 'foreigner' was a Southerner from over the English border, a crew of humans of all nationalities united in space exploration was a novel and thought-provoking concept (though we all knew, of course, that Scotty had to be the real hero, whatever Kirk and Spock got up to); add in a character from a distant planet and we were all completely hooked.

The early 1970s were heady times for space-mad nerdlets; real-life moon rockets vied for attention with the fictional exploits of intergalactic travellers and the crew of the errant moon base in the optimistically named  'Space 1999' (a series which, to my delighted surprise, still had a devoted following in Austria in 1982, when British television had moved on to 'Boys From the Blackstuff' and invented Channel 4).

With such a background - not to mention the early influence of the lids protecting the Clangers' underground homes from meteorite impacts and space debris - it's hardly surprising that this blog has retained an interest in extra-terrestrial matters and asteroids in particular.

Today, therefore, we have double cause for celebration in 2015 DO215 and 2015 DS23, two 50-odd metre wide space rocks passing by today at around 1.2 million km. Rather bigger than the Chelyabinsk meteor, they are, as their designations show, relatively recent discoveries, a reminder that NASA's impressive detection equipment is doing well - and that there are plenty of as yet undetected bodies out there.

And tonight, we are not only raising our usual glass in the Tavern to mark the event but also drinking a toast to Leonard Nimoy and to the unforgettable original Mr Spock.

Blackened toast

Politicians generally get short shrift in the Tavern but we are always prepared to be open-minded; this week, therefore, we are raising a brimming tankard to none other than David Cameron.

The Prime Minister was photographed at a folk festival on Saturday amid a Border Morris side complete with traditional costume trappings including - and here's the rub - black face paint.

Given that, these days, an image can travel halfway round the world while the text is putting on its shoes, this could be seen as a somewhat courageous move, in the time-honoured political sense of the word. In the words of one Canadian academic,

"...it seems unlikely that North American audiences who encounter Morris [...] would see in blackface dances anything other than a white peoples' representation of black culture."

Sure enough, even on this side of the Pond, knees are apparently jerking in a veritable Riverdance of protest - at least according to those newspapers doing their best to fan the flames. The Independent, for example, merrily relays this charming example of liberal intolerance:

"If you're a Morris dancer and you want to black up, ask yourself if it's really appropriate. If the answer is yes, you're wrong.”

Never mind over four hundred years of documented practice and the stated aim of disguise, for which soot long provided the cheapest and most effective medium; someone has decided to be offended so it has to stop.

Thanks to recent media fuss over the Bacup Coconutters, whose blackened faces adorned, successively, Will Straw's twitter account and the label of a guest beer in a House of Commons bar*, Cameron must have been fully aware of the implications of posing for the photograph.

While it's unlikely to have lost him any votes - it certainly won't be the Tory faithful carping away on Twitter - it shows a certain moral courage to ignore the critics and publicly embrace a tradition that has been so emphatically misinterpreted.

And a Prime Minister prepared to stand up to the offence-seeking mob and their ill-informed revisionist prejudice is a welcome sight to see.

So, just this once, David Cameron, your very good health!


*Regular readers may remember being subjected to a longer post containing which contains much rambling historical detail and comment.

A bad case of asteroids

A busy week, but I couldn't let a passing space rock go untoasted even though it seems to have attracted a media frenzy - many happy returns, 2014 RC!

In the best churnalistic tradition, if one science editor picks it up then all the rest follow - never mind that other very close approaches go unmarked save by astronomical websites and the occasional obsessional blogger.

Once again, I feel rather peeved; it's like being a die-hard fan of an obscure indie band which has inexplicably gone mainstream and appeared on Saturday night television, complete with gyrating dancers and laser displays.

Perhaps this is something to do with the opportune appearance of the media-savvy Professor Brian Cox as (appropriately enough) honorary Chicken Licken to the nation, a position left vacant thanks to Lembit Opik's apparent desertion of the cause for rather more earthly attractions.

The media coverage inspired the Express, in particular, to hyperbolic flights of fanciful prognostication:

ASTEROIDS could rain down on the earth for 100 years, shocked experts have just warned.

which in turn, prompted this excellent debunking at Slate Magazine.

Meanwhile, investigators have been called in to assess a new crater in Nicaragua, which has raised the interesting question of fragmentation, bane of the Bruce-Willis-and-the-Nukes school of asteroid impact prevention.

According to JPL and NASA:

For those wondering, the event in Nicaragua (poss meteorite?) is unrelated to asteroid 2014 RC. Different timing, different directions.

which brings to mind the recent coincidence (?) of the Chelyabinsk meteor and DA14; will we one day be blindsided while all our attention is centred on another rock passing overhead?

All in all, it's a salutary reminder of our own insignificance in the face of whatever is hurtling round out there. In the words of John W Campbell (as quoted by Arthur C Clarke):

'Meteorites don't fall on the Earth. They fall on the Sun, and the Earth gets in the way.'

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."

Toast of the week - a Herculean task

In the previous post, I mentioned a man dressed as Santa Claus on behalf of a Canvey Island charity, whose sleigh was undeservedly run out of town at the behest of some over-zealous citizens (JuliaM has the story too).

He is, in fact, the chairman and founder of the charity 'The Friends of Concord Beach', an organisation formed with the laudable aims of maintaining the salt-water pool there and promoting 'good citizenship, civic responsibility and good habits' in those visiting the area and using the facilities.

The group are also busy arranging for sponsored benches along the front and a pool-side shower, together with murals to cover unsightly graffiti and some very polite notices:

But it doesn't stop there; these valiant souls have a far more challenging objective in their sights:

To promote the education of those who visit the beach in sea water and beach safety as it applies to the tidal estuary of the River Thames.

One has to admire their ambition; as a trawl through the Tavern archives makes abundantly clear, Britain's coastline is the destination of choice for an alarming number of Darwin Award hopefuls every year. In fact, an appropriately seasonal example was reported this week:

Two men who were in a toy inflatable boat and wearing penguin and Santa costumes have been taken to a Cornish harbour by the RNLI after they were seen drifting out to sea.

These intrepid mariners set out to paddle across Mount's Bay from Marazion to Penzance, a distance of about 4km, in voluminous fancy dress and without the benefit of life-jackets or a seaworthy craft; what a good thing we've been having such calm weather recently!

If the Friends of Concord Beach seriously intend to tackle the Augean stables of public ignorance of even the basics of beach safety, they certainly have their work cut out, which is why we are raising a glass to them and their endeavours.

Friends of Concord Beach, your very good health!

Toast of the week - thumbs up!

This week, we ask you to raise a glass to objectivity, in the shape of a young man with a refreshingly down-to-earth attitude.

 As a way of remembering his best friend, Chris Scullion has set up The Thumb Fund which involves people getting the word ‘Thumb’ tattooed on a big toe.

So far, I admit it's not promising...

Mr Scullion said: “Jay lived with Danny Desmond, who was a tattoo artist. After a few too many beers, Jay decided to get a tattoo of the word “Thumb” on a toe.

Oh dear! Though I suppose he's not the first - and certainly won't be the last...

As a tribute to Jay, his closest friends will be recorded getting the same “Thumb” tattoo on their toes.

Yes, it's another memorial tattoo - that strange phenomenon which is covering Britain's youth in human graffiti and helping to make tattooing a major growth industry.

“The toe is notoriously painful to get tattooed, but it is nothing compared to the pain we have gone through since he died."

And I suppose it beats cutting off a finger, like the Dani people of Papua New Guinea or the Sioux. While I understand wanting to make some kind of gesture after the murder of a friend, self-mutilation does seem an odd way to go about it.

But they do seem to be maintaining a resolutely upbeat attitude in spite of it all; what I liked about the story was this:

“The support has been unbelievable. I think Jamie would think we are all idiots, but that is why he was friends with us,” he added.

You have to admit, there is a certain charm in such clear-eyed self-awareness, which is why, even though he does now sport a truly ridiculous tattoo, Chris Scullion is our toast of the week.


Things will be a little quiet around here for a week or so as I am taking a short holiday away from the lure of the internet - please feel free to pour yourselves a drink and browse the Tavern archives (this might be a good place to start) and do keep leaving comments, which I shall answer when the opportunity arises.

Come Hell or high water...

Sometimes a story appears which, however trivial, reminds you that life in these islands is not all bad....

Thanks to a combination of strong winds and 5m spring tides in the Chichester area this week, Bosham pub 'the Anchor Bleu', was flooded with several inches of seawater.

Even so, according to the bar manager,

'We have had a few of the die-hard customers wade through and sit on the patio with the tide around them.'.

There is something irresistibly appealing about the idea of these hardy souls sitting contentedly amid the flood waters, pint in hand.

Drinkers of Bosham, your very good health!

Result!

From today's Mail, a seasonal vignette composed entirely of headlines:

• Woman wielding fake knife handed trick or treat children real lamb's heart when they knocked on her door
• Children ran away screaming when they realised the heart was real
• Nine to 12-year-olds were chased by woman wearing blood-stained apron
• Angry father confronted woman who said it was a 'bit of fun'

and finally...

• Mother says her children will not be allowed trick or treating again

It all sounds to me rather like going on the ghost train at the fair then demanding your money back because the ride was haunted.

Like David Duff, I have to say, I'm impressed by the thoroughness of the preparation involved:

'a table set out outside the woman's home was adorned with raw cuts of meat, as well as offal, including intestines'

In fact, I like the story so much that I think the householder should be the Tavern's Toast of the Week.

Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses to the scourge of trick-or-treaters; I give you...

...the Butcher of Orpington and her Table of Woe!

Toast of the week - animal rescue edition

It's not just humans who get cut off by the tide, you know...

Two young ferrets who were at risk of drowning were rescued by lifeboat volunteers at Newbiggin RNLI lifeboat station.

What makes this story particularly appealing - apart from its furry protagonists - is the tone of the RNLI account of the incident, written by the local volunteer Press Officer, who has eschewed the usual utilitarian style of reporting in favour of a more literary approach:

The ferrets' anxious owners had made desperate attempts to save their animals by wading into the sea on the Cambois Bay rocks but their best endeavours looked likely to be scuppered when neither Tootsie or Lucky responded.

The crew found Tootsie and Lucky minutes away from drowning by the rapidly rising tide.

Fortunately the intrepid rescuers were able to calm the animals (and, by the sound of it, their distraught owners) and lift them to safety from the rocks.

The icing on the cake is the accompanying photograph, taken by the author; showing two seemingly identical ferrets, it is carefully labelled 'Tootsie (left) and Lucky' - a level of attention to detail that some of our national newspapers would do well to emulate.

It may come as no surprise that the Press Officer, who has written a book about the lifeboat station, is also listed as their mechanic; it's surely good news for the crews and those who may need rescuing that the lifeboats are in such meticulous hands.

When every day seems to bring us another news report of man's inhumanity (or indifference) to man, it is reassuring to think there are still volunteers out there prepared to risk life and limb if necessary to save lives - and to rescue the occasional pet.

It's a while since we had a toast in the Tavern, so I invite you to raise a glass tonight to the men and women of the RNLI and to their Press Officer in Newbiggin by the sea.

"...He just feels restricted in conventional clothes"

This week, the Tavern resounded to a rousing cheer for the Stockholm train drivers who have struck a mighty blow against fashion stereotypes.

A dozen male train drivers in Sweden have circumvented a ban on shorts by wearing skirts to work in hot weather.

A few centuries ago, or a few thousand miles away, there would be nothing unusual about a man wearing a piece of draped material round his waist rather than encasing his nether limbs in individual fabric tubes; indeed, as the intrepid Swedes have found, there are distinct advantages in hot weather.

Yet, somehow, our region of the world has developed an odd system of taboos and aversions; while women are mostly free to interchange skirts and trousers at will, the male skirt is still a headline-grabber when it makes one of its occasional forays into the world of fashion and celebrity.

Of course, the Scots are well aware of the advantages and style potential of the kilt, which can also occasionally be seen on unaccustomed Southern wedding guests decked out at the bride's insistence. I once overheard a bunch of them complaining in unmistakable Estuary English in a Home Counties hotel bar; it was clear that the whole skirt/kilt business made them distinctly uncomfortable.

This prejudice, of course, is why it took no small measure of confidence for schoolboy Chris Whitehead to wear his sister's skirt to school two years ago in protest at a ban on shorts; his gesture attracted the attention of the national press and a great deal of public admiration without which the outcome might have been very different.

We have somehow acquired a set of unwritten sartorial regulations and conventions that are, when you look at them, largely arbitrary and illogical; why, for instance, should a man be required to knot a length of fabric around his neck before being allowed to enter certain premises? [Insert your own Parliamentary joke here.]

To fall short of these standards or reject them is to invite at best scorn or ridicule and at worst outright hostility. While the Ancient Romans regarded trousers on a man as the unmistakable sign of a barbarian, a group of 21st-century Swedish men going to work in skirts is enough to make international news.

So, although everyone concerned should really have taken it in their stride and not made a fuss, since it has been made into a news story, I invite you to join me in raising a glass to Swedish train drivers in skirts.

Skål!

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!

Habebunt Corpus

Three cheers today for Sir Tony Baldry, MP for North Oxfordshire, who has hit on an unconventional way to repay the nation for years of living it up on Parliamentary expenses. As the Oxford Mail announces in the best possible taste:

Medical students in the distant future could find themselves scalpel-deep in the body of Banbury MP Sir Tony Baldry.

The Conservative MP has left his body to the Oxford University anatomy department.

The MP himself demonstrates admirable pragmatism in explaining his decision:

“I have a body. When I die, it’s not going to be much use to me. I think you will find that anatomy students nowadays don’t find it very easy to get hold of cadavers on which to practise."

But he also seems to view the matter with a certain wry amusement, incidentally confirming what many of us have long believed about the lifestyle of Honourable Members:

“I suspect the liver of anyone who has served more than 30 years as a Member of Parliament is probably worthy of anatomical study."

This is certainly a novel PR coup and it will be interesting to see whether any of his fellow MPs follow suit. One might argue that it is also a necessary gesture, given that his most recent foray into the headlines, apart from his opposition to same-sex marriage, was the mishap memorably described by Anna Raccoon.

For connoisseurs of conspiracy theories, this was a car malfunction that occurred just hours after Sir Tony had clashed with Nick Clegg in the Commons. Sir Tony's car, you may recall, overshot a barrier in the Matalan car park at the back of Poundland (next door to MacDonalds and Wilkinson's, where Peacocks used to be) and demolished a portable toilet in what must hold some kind of record for the classiest accident ever.

With that on his record, it's not surprising that he should be on the lookout for ways to recover his bespattered reputation, but I applaud his willingness to tackle the awkward issue of mortality head-on and do something for the common good.

Admittedly this public announcement, apparently confirming a long-standing private arrangement, was made in a debate about hospital A&E units and in the context of Sir Tony's support for a local hospital, so it's hardly surprising, MPs being what they are, that there's an element of political capital involved:

“...when they open me up they will find inscribed on my heart the words “Keep the Horton General”.

but it is surely no less significant for that; well done that man!

No man is one: learner in singular desert (6)

Veteran Guardian crossword compiler, Araucaria, this week chose the unusual medium of one of his crosswords to tell the public that he has terminal cancer.

I first encountered the work of the Reverend John Graham back in my socialist youth, when I cut my cruciverbalist teeth on - naturally - the Guardian's daily offerings, leading to a habit that has since consumed many idle hours.

Araucaria's crosswords were the pick of the bunch - the outward manifestations of a brain so stuffed with arcane knowledge and convoluted verbal dexterity that others paled into insignificance beside him. 

It's saddening to hear of his illness but greatly heartening to know that his immense brainpower has continued unimpaired into his 90s and he's not giving up yet:

Rev Graham said he plans to continues to creating puzzles for as long as possible.
"I'm not actually doing much else."

An extra toast this week, then, to Araucaria, with thanks!

French toast

Well - I'm back!

Though it wasn't quite a trip to Mordor, the five hour queue for the Channel Tunnel in Calais on Saturday night was certainly an ordeal of epic proportions.

I sincerely apologise to those who turned up at the Tavern in my absence hoping for a brimming tankard of winter ale and a chat and found the place deserted, though I'm glad to see that the archives have had some visitors (some of whom were not looking for the Ryanair calendar).

Having spent much of the past fortnight away from the internet or much in the way of news, I clearly have a lot of catching up to do, though a cursory look around on my return suggests that it's pretty much business as usual, at least as long as the underclass, health fascists and politicians are concerned.

And since December 21st seems to have brought about neither the marked improvement in human understanding hoped for by some nor the spectacular apocalypse of the more lurid predictions, I have chosen this week to raise a glass to a Frenchwoman with enviably high ethical standards.

While most people celebrated New Year's Eve with parties and fireworks one pensioner in northern France spent the night alone in a locked supermarket. 

The 73-year-old woman felt faint at the store in Roubaix and went to the toilet but when she came out later she found the shop deserted and locked up.

Despite being trapped there until a manager arrived at 10.30 the following morning, she did not touch any of the food and drink in the shop because, according to television reports, she 'had not paid for it and there was no one to whom she could give the money'.

Though it may perhaps be unwise to put one's moral values above physical wellbeing, we salute her formidable integrity: madame, à votre santé!

Toast of the week - the Duke of Edinburgh

Oh dear - it's open season on the Duke of Edinburgh again.

The publicity juggernaut has been set in motion for a new book of the Duke's gaffes out in time for Christmas so the media  royal-watchers have been put on high alert to capture any fresh, headline-worthy lapse in word or deed.

And, sure enough, he's come up with the goods again:

Prince Philip spotted with finger in his ears during Royal Variety Performance

Quite understandable, really, given a line-up that includes the shrill, nasal tones of one Alicia Keys, presumably performing her latest single (here on youtube, if you must), a work of staggering monotony at a level of amplification designed to enhance the Bacchanalian frenzy of the short-skirts-and-stilettos Saturday night crowd.

And it gets worse:

She performed alongside British favourites Rod Stewart, Girls Aloud, One Direction and Britain’s Got Talent winners Pudsey and Ashleigh Butler.

In  the unlikely event of this assortment performing for the royals alone, Prince Philip's actions could have been seen as a slight, but as part of a huge audience, he should surely be allowed more leeway - after all, how many octogenarians would have chosen to sit through that lot?

What's more, I doubt that many of the performers or their agents were more thrilled at the prospect of Her Majesty's presence than at the TV exposure and column inches the event would give them.

I have to admit, I'm rather puzzled by the inclusion of the New York born-and-bred Ms Keys in any case; shouldn't the emphasis be on home-grown talent? Or is promoting the latest single in the hit machine the real purpose behind it all?

Frankly, the Royal Variety Performance is a bit of a mystery all round these days, given the diversity of entertainment on offer. What we are left with is a kind of national celebration of the convention that obliges grandparents to greet the antics of their infantile descendants with slightly baffled but indulgent and affectionate applause.

That being so, is it really a matter for comment when the nation's proxy grandfather finds the children just a bit too noisy for comfort? For goodness' sake, go and find some real news to report!

Here in the Tavern, we are raising our tankards to a man with a wicked sense of humour, a sharp tongue  and a thoroughly impressive dedication to duty.

Toast of the week - cosmic paintballing edition

If you believe that we are on borrowed time and that somewhere out there is an asteroid with our name on it, you may be relieved (or disappointed, depending on your view of humanity) to hear of an idea put forward by a graduate student at MIT.

Sung Wook Paek, who works in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (lucky thing!) has just presented the paper that won him the UN's  2012 'Move an Asteroid' Competition.

Possibly inspired by a weekend away from his desk, Paek proposes an interplanetary paintballing mission to blast the approaching asteroid with white pigment, doubling its reflectivity. This, he argues, would change its response to solar radiation sufficiently to alter its course over a period of years.

It's elegantly simple - the paint pellets are delivered in two bursts synchronised with the asteroid's rotation, ensuring complete coverage front and back (I believe the same principle operates in spray-tanning).

The impact of the paint pellets gives the asteroid an initial small nudge to start things off; after that, you just sit back and let the sun do the work, deflecting it sufficiently to pass by at a comfortable distance from Earth.

All we need to do is make sure we get enough warning to send the supercharged paintball gun up there in time - otherwise it's Bruce Willis and the nukes.

Sung Wook Paek, this week's toast of the Tavern, your very good health!