Sunday 28 February 2010
Does Gordon Brown really hear what you say?
For anyone with hearing loss, a dinner party is a refined form of torment, featuring constant background noise and the need to make polite responses to questions you have only half understood. This becomes far worse if, for some reason, you cannot admit to your deafness.
Now read Minette Marrin's description of Brown's behaviour at a dinner party - her evidence for describing him as 'a dangerous weirdo':
'At times he fixed a broad, exaggerated smile to his face, almost randomly it seemed, and directed it at someone, but he kept getting it wrong — the wrong moment to smile, the wrong person to smile at and occasionally the wrong place to smile at. When challenged by one guest on some difficult economic point, he kept baring his teeth in the opposite direction, at the lovely bosom of a guest on his other side who was not part of the conversation. He made me think of an android with faulty programming.'
Consider a man of dour temperament placed at a table where he must show he is entertained by the company but is unsure when and whether he has heard a joke - a table, moreover, surrounded by journalists and London chatterati whose collective sense of humour is almost entirely alien to a manse-born Scot.
Add to that the removal from his side of his wife and accomplice - a supportive dinner partner in the know can help effectively disguise a substantial hearing loss from the assembled company; all it takes is constant attentiveness and the ability to repeat relevant information without seeming to do so.
I don't say this is at the root of all Brown's behaviour - far from it, although it does help explain his well-documented habit of ignoring people when they speak to him (see the link above for other examples). It may, however, be an unconsidered factor in the complicated picture now emerging from Downing Street.
Saturday 27 February 2010
Lies, Damn Lies and Unemployment Figures...
Blastland describes a hypothetical worker whose redundancy leads to a 0.1% rise in unemployment figures. The media, ignoring such boring matters as standard deviation and margins of error, jump on the figures and produce headlines that trigger financial panic and crisis.
Blastland argues that even increasing the raw data by a small fraction may lead, via rounding off, scaling up or standardisation, to a significant difference in the end result - something the more responsible climate change scientists have been trying to convey to the media for years. Like food, if data is processed, it usually needs seasoning with a pinch of salt*.
His final caveat - 'Economic data is never a set of facts; it is a set of clues, some of which are the red herrings of unavoidable measurement error' - is a salutary reminder that in the run-up to the election we will be bombarded with facts and figures, all purporting to tell a story.
One wonders how many of the electorate will know or care that the story in question may well be total fiction?
* Although Consensus Action on Salt and Health (H/T Ambush Predator) might have something to say about that.
Friday 26 February 2010
Where is Everybody?
How many politicians does it take to have a debate?
If you can tear your eyes away from the person of Nigel Farage in mid-tirade (at about 1.11), you will notice the tiers of empty seats in the chamber. Either they had 'evacuated' the area to spare people the spectacle of Tilly - sorry, Farage - in attack mode or most of the delegates had better things to do that day.
The sight of rows of empty seats in parliament is nothing new - remember when we first heard of 'doughnuting' - but there are times when television makes it all too clear that the lights are on but there's practically no-one at home.
All of which led to Tavern regulars wondering if there's a critical mass. For instance, if there are six people there apart from the Chair, then a speech will surely be made. And five. And even four. But what about three? Slightly embarrassing, perhaps - do you make eye contact? - but you've still got enough for a vote, after all, local quorum rules aside.
But what happens when you get to two? An involuntary intimacy where the interlocutors trade opinions and insults only with each other, while the Chair looks on. No chance of a decisive vote here unless protocol allows the Chair to play. Does that mean that if only three are present and one leaves, the others have to pack up their toys and go home?
And what if there is only one? Does he or she make the speech even if nobody has turned up to hear it? After all, there may be millions of taxpaying television viewers out there waiting to hear - it's hardly fair to lose your chance of raising an issue just because everyone else fancied a lie-in or an early night. It's one of those 'Does-the-light-stay-on-in-the-fridge?' questions.
And in the case of the European Parliament, do the interpreters have to sit in their box all day on the offchance the absent delegates decide to attend - rather in the manner of harem ladies awaiting the arrival of the Sultan? And how did the ones in attendance during Farage's speech translate his picturesque imagery?
Doubtless there are readers out there more knowledgeable than the Tavern regulars about political procedure and we eagerly await enlightenment on all these matters.
Thursday 25 February 2010
Ernest Rutherford Seagull - a Cautionary Tale
Staff at Sellafield are considering a cull of seagulls as the site is overrun with birds, cats and mice, representing a substantial risk of contamination. Meanwhile, natural wildlife deaths on site mean they have 350 little frozen carcasses in storage as 'putrescent' nuclear waste pending proper disposal.
Ernest Rutherford Seagull hovered in the updraught from the cooling tower, watching mice scurry over the brickwork. The faint glow from his extended wingtips was matched by the eerie luminescence of the waste water lagoons where his friends were swimming.
He knew there was something different about the mice – something new about the way they gathered in small groups, then moved on decisively. Things were changing around Sellafield. Certainly the cats he had seen looked thinner, more desperate. Some of them were even hungry enough to tackle a seagull.
His friend Robert Oppenheimer Seagull manoeuvred into position beside him. Ernest Rutherford Seagull pointed downwards with his beak. “Do you see anything different about them?” he asked.
“So you’ve noticed too.” Robert Oppenheimer Seagull didn’t sound surprised. “I think they’re evolving intelligence. They’ve already learned to evade the cats.”
“Poor little things,” said Ernest Rutherford Seagull. “They probably wish they could fly.”
At that moment there was a loud bang and Robert Oppenheimer Seagull crumpled into a ball, plummeting downwards towards the ground and landing in an untidy heap. A man in a biohazard suit picked him up with tongs and placed him carefully in a freezer bag.
Behind the man the grass stirred, although there was no wind. There was a glimpse of fur, the twitch of a tail, a slight hissing sound. The mutant feral cats were gathering. And they were hungry.
Ernest Rutherford Seagull wheeled on the updraught and flew sadly away towards Whitehaven, his wings still glowing faintly.
Wednesday 24 February 2010
At My Command, Unleash Meat Loaf
A reminder of my misspent youth: I've deviated from the rhyme scheme more than usual here because Darling's own words fitted uncannily well...
Alistair's Hell
Oh, Whelan was screaming and McBride was howling
And in Downing street the knives were all out;
There was Brown in the shadows with a glint in his eye -
It was a weekend I could do without.
I don’t know why the briefers did what they did,
One day maybe they will explain,
What I do know, and it’s not a great source of pleasure,
What I said, unfortunately, turned out to be true;
We were bound for a recession again.
Well, maybe there’s no better thing in this whole world
Than knowing you've been right,
And wherever you are and wherever you go
There's always gonna be a fight.
And I know there have been some robust exchanges
Between me and Gordon Brown,
But there’s more that unites us than will ever divide us;
Without me, you know,
He’d really be alone.
And the forces of hell
Were unleashed by Number Ten,
When Brown’s two enforcers
Were let loose and set on me again, again, again.
Yes, the forces of hell
Were unleashed by Number Ten;
But now the day is done
Then Messrs Whelan
And McBride you’ll see it’s true
That I’m still Chancellor of the Exchequer
And there’s only one left of you.
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Hey Christine, Can You Keep a Secret?
So Gordon's in trouble for picking on the wee kiddies and his mum - sorry, wife - has decided to stick up for him and tell everyone he's a lovely boy, really.
Guns blazing, she's come out to defend him in public - how embarrassing is that! - and, in a typical move, has decided to do so from the comfort of the GMTV sofa. Piers Morgan, Tesco magazine then GMTV - I suppose that indicates some sort of logical progression.
Meanwhile, Christine Pratt gives a whole new meaning to the word confidential with this update:
“I have even received an email from someone who is alleging that they have [an] issue with Gordon Brown also, but we will be addressing that confidentially.[...] I have received an email. I cannot discuss the detail. It does name Gordon Brown but I'm not able to go into that."
Leaving aside the woman's tortured grammar (and the dubious relationship between the helpline and her business consultancy), there is something distinctly unsavoury about this disclosure; you can see its counterpart in any primary school playground - 'I know something about Gordon, but I'm not telling you what it is!'
In fact, what with Gordon's tantrums and Christine's stories, combined with a fair amount of name-calling from the sidelines by each of the rival gangs, the whole affair is becoming distressingly juvenile.
What it boils down to, after all, is whether Gordon's a bully and whether Christine should have kept a secret; perhaps the best thing would be to call in an experienced primary school head teacher to sort the whole thing out.
And I think I know just where to find one...
Monday 22 February 2010
Britain's Got Bread and Circuses
Thus the Prime Minister, aiming for popular support in an election year, must be seen to endorse this farrago to the extent of public pronouncements - what price dignity these days? - but does it go deeper than that?
In the Sunday Times this week, Rod Liddle interviewed Piers Morgan :
I ask Morgan how well he knows Brown. He says he has always liked him, thinks of him as a friend. They speak once every three or four weeks; Brown will ring for a chat, or ask him over. He says he speaks to Sarah Brown once every week, sometimes he offers advice, same as he might do to Gordon. Advice about how to get the message over to the public.[...]
Crucially, he speaks to the prime minister about the programme he does, Britain’s Got Talent. “Gordon is obsessed with Britain’s Got Talent,” Morgan says, laughing.
Allowing for the fact that this is Piers Morgan relayed by Rod Liddle, think about the implications of Piers Morgan with the confidential ear of the Prime Minister and of Brown actively seeking contact with Morgan. And above all about the Prime Minister being 'obsessed' with a show featuring trampolining pigs and someone farting 'The Blue Danube'.
After all, they do say you can judge a man by the company he keeps.
Sunday 21 February 2010
A Slow Bicycle Race to No. 10
Saturday 20 February 2010
With Friends Like These...
Friday 19 February 2010
It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)
I wasn't going to post this one on the grounds of taste but when I read this at Plato Says I decided it was probably fair game after all....
IT'S MY PARTY
(To be sung in a lugubrious Scots accent)
Nobody knows where my mojo has gone,
But Mandy and Ed say it’s time
For baring my soul on the Piers Morgan show;
Then the hearts of the voters will be mine.
It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to,
You would cry too if Ed and Mandy said to.
Say that one fails, then I’ll still be alright,
I can still win through with style,
Using Tesco’s store magazine
And my irresistible smile.
It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to,
You would cry too if Ed and Mandy said to.
-----------------
To pursue my campaign there’s no loss I’ll ignore,
No heartstrings I won’t try to wring,
Hoping the voters won’t realise
That New Labour’s wrecked everything.
It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to,
You would cry too if Ed and Mandy said to.
Thursday 18 February 2010
The Winterton Manoeuvre 2: Set to Music
This is livin', this is style, this is elegance by the mile...
Oh the posh, posh travelling life, the travelling life for me,
Comfy seats and lots of tables, complimentary tea;
If you can’t enjoy the benefits then why be an MP?
Proles Out, Stewards at Hand, posh with a capital P-O-S-H, posh
The people there in second class will always make me frown,
Their noisy children anger me, they never settle down
But I am on expenses so ta-ta and toodle-oo
As I board first class and never have to sit with any of you.
Oh the posh, posh travelling life, the travelling life for me,
Comfy seats and lots of tables, complimentary tea;
And all the other passengers are people just like me,
Proles Out, Stewards at Hand, posh with a capital P-O-S-H, posh
In first class I am sure to find an atmosphere to suit me
If there was any justice then the public would salute me;
They’d understand why I avoid all peasants great and small;
When crowded out by hoi polloi one just can’t work at all.
Oh the posh, posh travelling life, the travelling life for me,
Comfy seats and lots of tables, complimentary tea;
When I'm travelling at your expense I do it stylishly
Proles Out, Stewards at Hand, posh with a capital P-O-S-H, P-O-S-H, P-O-S-H, P-O-S-H...
Update; sad news of the death of Lionel Jeffries today - 19th Feb. Astoundingly, Wikipedia have already updated their page - do they have someone on permanent obit. duty?
The Winterton Manoeuvre: Open Mouth...Insert Foot...
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Go, Nutkin!
Mindful of the risks involved, the management have installed the sort of high-pitched noise generator used to deter alcopop-wielding teenagers from hanging around shopping centres at night. A sonic device, in other words so the squirrel has inevitably been nicknamed 'Sonic'.
And there's something slightly disappointing when you find out that the ride is, coincidentally, the 'Sonic Spinball' and the source of the information is Alton Towers' director of sales and marketing. And the newly-refurbished ride opened to the public on Sunday.
So there you are; the sum total of the evidence for the regular rides is a single picture of a squirrel in a stationary roller-coaster car and a story from a marketing director. Is it true? You decide.
Monday 15 February 2010
Dick Francis: Rest in (Unproductive) Peace
Sunday 14 February 2010
For Whom, the Bell tolls
And now the front cover of the Sunday Times Style section has administered the coup de grace. There it stands, in black and white; "Who do you love?" Not whom, but who. Subject, object, who cares? We're all stylish and fashionable and now.
The imminent demise of this lamented interrogative pronoun was foreshadowed some years ago when I found myself addressing a group of twelve-year-olds. One of them looked at the words written on the board - 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' - and exclaimed triumphantly, "You've made a mistake! There's no such word as 'womm'".
A quick vox pop found that several more shared this opinion, although a couple of them, on reflection, 'might have heard it somewhere before'. Anyway, it was all far too much effort to try and understand it.
I expect they all went on to have careers in journalism.
Saturday 13 February 2010
Patron Saint of Painted Babies
Friday 12 February 2010
Blaze Away, Mon Ami...
Thursday 11 February 2010
Trapped in a lift...
True justice: Stupid people get trapped in faulty elevator in world's tallest mistake.
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Cremating Taxpayers' Money
Davendar Kumar Ghai has won his appeal to be cremated according to his religion. Regulars at the Tavern will recall our indignation that government lawyers opposed Mr Ghai's request for a burning site in a remote part of Northumberland on the grounds that it would be 'offensive to the majority of British people'.
Admittedly open-air cremations haven't figured largely in British tradition - the damp climate may have something to do with it - but it's not as if Mr Ghai planned to do it in a built-up area or on the Millenium Bridge. In any case, his wishes can be satisfied within walls providing there is an opening in the roof; the presence of open air and the scattering of ashes at sea are, I believe, the critical requirements here.
Mr Ghai's reaction was dignified: "I always maintained that I wanted to clarify the law, not disobey or disrespect it. The Court of Appeal understood my request was consistent with both the spirit and letter of the law and my only regret is that tax payers' money would have been saved had that been recognised in 2006".
Too true! For the record, I should like a full Viking's funeral at Blyth with gallons of beer and a burning longboat (and ideally a selection of my enemies despatched at the same time). Not for any religious reason, you understand; just to annoy the hell out of Newcastle City Council.
Update: This from Birmingham City Council's somewhat menacing plans -
" The council has also identified several areas where it can increase its revenue. These include looking at what can be done to increase revenues at its cemeteries and crematoria..."
It's the Drama that Counts
Some killjoy returning officers were actually having the audacity to to begin counts the following day "for their own convenience". Well, what a nerve!
Never mind the distance the ballot box has to travel and the welfare of people counting votes into the early hours, forget the rising staff costs and the potential inaccuracy of exhausted tellers working by artificial light; all that matters, it seems, is the 'excitement and drama' of election night.
Honourable members from all parties stampeded to support Jack Straw's amendment to the Constitutional Reform Bill to ensure that votes are counted by tired people in the early stages of sleep deprivation.
To be fair, some have also raised the spectre of market uncertainty (not a new idea; Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels refer to it), which is an area I prefer to leave to experts, but the main thrust of their argument has been that they, and by extension the public, would miss out on a lot of drama.
This, I assume, is the same kind of drama they claim we all enjoy in PMQ - we enjoy it so much, it seems, that the whole experience has to be broadcast live on BBC Parliament and News 24 and Sky News. Simultaneously.
And some of us are sick of it. Sick of their schoolboy jibes, the triumphal paper-waving and jeers, the whole Yah-boo! Nyah-nyah! Punch-and-Judy lot of it. For goodness' sake, just get on with running the country rather than spending hours in advance closeted with your advisors thinking up new and exciting insults!
(A particular aspiring politician from my student days springs to mind; in Union debates, he would consult a small notebook containing alliterative insults filed alphabetically by college/birthplace/political orientation in order to bring out an appropriate jibe once he found out his opponents' affiliations.)
I'm sure there are members of the public who do enjoy the spectacle of election night (and a lot of happy news crews on time-and-a-half), but to give the last word to David Monks, head of the returning officers' organisation, 'We are not in the business of entertainment'.
Tuesday 9 February 2010
All Aboard the Amfibus
"It's a good idea, Q, but I can't see it replacing the Aston Martin."
Oh the river Clyde, the wonderful Clyde,
You can hop on a bus to the opposite side,
And then when it breaks down you can drift on the tide,
And float out to sea through the mouth of the Clyde.
If your bus breaks down in Sauchiehall on the way to Blythswood Square
You can disembark and you can walk it all or you can take a taxi there,
If the engine fails at Kelvingrove or on Breadalbane Street
You’re still on dry land with the use of your feet.
But break down half-way over the wonderful Clyde
And there’s nothing to do but be swept by the tide,
Watching beer cans and turds bob along by your side
As you float out to sea down the turbulent Clyde.
Monday 8 February 2010
The Rise of the Machines
I'm sure it has; I'm just worried about what - or who - might be on it.
Sunday 7 February 2010
Johnny Wants A Burger
The waiter arrives to take their orders but there's a problem. One of the party doesn't like the menu and wants a burger and chips. “You can’t, John," they tell him, "It's a Lebanese restaurant. They don’t have burger and chips here.”
But John isn't giving in: “That’s what I want,” he insists. The waiter is apologetic but firm; "Everything we have is on the menu. We serve only Lebanese food.” But it seems this won't do, so the waiter is sent back to ask the chef to produce a burger.
We're all familiar with the notion of the child who refuses to eat what's on offer, but the striking thing here is that the spoilt protaganist is not a toddler or even a stroppy teenager, but an adult in a position of responsibility - captain of England's football team, no less.
This edifying tale, related by Alison Kervin in the Times, sums up the situation which has led to the recent bonanza for the gossip columns - a tribe of young men who expect their every whim to be indulged as a matter of course. Her story ends with the chef arriving in person to give the party a piece of his mind, only to capitulate instantly when he realises he's dealing with John Terry.
Update - If you type 'spoilt child' into Google, the search engine obligingly produces a number of images depicting John Terry and his team-mates.
Saturday 6 February 2010
Who will rid us of these turbulent MPs?
Faced with the threat of prosecution for their dubious accounting practices, do Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield put up their hands and utter the immortal words 'It's a fair cop, guv'? Why no, dear reader, they do not.
Instead they plan to hide behind the skirts of parliamentary privilege, claiming that under the 1689 Bill of Rights, the dodgy figures were communicated via 'proceedings' and are therefore exempt from criminal prosecution.
Funnily enough, something of the sort was going on in the 12th century. "Yes, there may be a sackful of someone else's gold under my bed but I'm a priest, so you can't try me in a criminal court - I know my rights!"
So the errant cleric would be tried by his peers away from the King's justice system by like-minded and sympathetic souls. The trouble was that the Benefit of Clergy wasn't exactly a way to win friends and influence people, as Thomas Becket found out.
Meanwhile, speculation in the Tavern that there was an eminence grise lurking in the shadows of the expenses fiasco may yet prove prescient. Jim Devine is the first to blame an 'unnamed Labour whip' for advising him how to carry out the financial manoeuvres that may yet land him in the dock.