Surely you can't be serious!

Fancy jetting off somewhere to escape the royal wedding? If so, you might prefer not to read on.

First we heard about the sleeping beauties who should have been flying the Airbus to Denver; they were finally woken not with a kiss but with the screams of the air traffic controller 20 minutes before touchdown.

And they were lucky - it seems US air traffic controllers themselves have been nodding off left right and centre, leaving the pilots to work it all out for themselves. It's true that, when traffic lights fail, motorists seem to manage but I'm not sure the same thing appplies in three dimensions.

And now things have takes a slightly surreal turn as the crews of planes approaching an Ohio airport found themselves listening to the dulcet tones of Samuel L Jackson over the radio instead of the expected instructions. The controller, it seems, decided that watching a DVD might alleviate the crushing boredom of coordinating high-altitude air traffic.

For three minutes, with his microphone stuck in the 'transmit' position, the controller broadcast the soundtrack of the film* to all and sundry; oh to have been a fly on the wall in the cockpits! No danger of them falling asleep, one assumes - it's the ultimate in introspective disaster scenarios.

I can't wait for Hollywood to get hold of this one!

Spare a thought for Captain Ranty, whose recent post announces that he is shortly to be at the mercy of a daunting assortment of flight crews and air traffic control; he was worried enough before this last story broke. 

*Sadly for the purposes of the blogosphere, the film in question was not 'Snakes on a Plane'. Update: This one has only just occurred to the Mail - or perhaps they have been reading this blog; their 1.36 edit has amended the headline to the distinctly un-snappy Air traffic controller played Samuel L Jackson movie he was watching at desk over the airwaves (at least it wasn't Snakes On A Plane).

The elephant in the room isn't all that bright

News this week from the land of the free;

Scientists say substantial weight loss improves cognitive functions like memory and concentration.

Researchers in Ohio rounded up 150 people weighing over 21 stone (not, from what I hear, a difficult task in the mid-west) and gave them a bunch of intelligence and memory tests.

Then two-thirds of the subjects had gastric bypass operations; 12 weeks later, they all took the tests again, and this is where it starts getting interesting.

The group that lost weight boosted their scores, particularly those involving memory, significantly. They also showed great improvement in organisational skills.

So far so good. However, there's more...

The 41 obese volunteers who declined the surgery ended up with even worse results.

Uh-oh; treading on dangerous ground here – no wonder that news reports worldwide have chosen to spin the story from the ‘weight loss boosts brainpower’ angle. The only paper to carry it so far in the UK – the Mail – is no exception:

Losing weight is not only good for the waistline, it is good for the brain.

So what about the converse? Funnily enough, despite the researchers’ assertion that obesity damages the brain, ‘especially the parts most important for paying attention and learning new things’, that side of things seems to have slipped under the radar.

I suppose it’s hardly surprising – those scientists probably don’t get out much, but in today’s climate, anyone in the public eye suggesting such a thing might find themselves on the receiving amount of a considerable amount of flack from the PC brigade.

Should our great and the good accept these findings and decide that the situation needs action of some kind, they would hardly be able to explain why without attracting criticism from every side. It would certainly be entertaining to watch.

So will you tell them or shall I?

Ah, bless!

The glorious 13th April! What? You missed it? Then here for your delectation is the photographic record, courtesy of 'In Defence of Youth Work'.

It's a protest by young people in Oxfordshire.  
 

Can you guess what it is yet?

Yep, that last one's a bit harder - it says 'cuts', in case you didn't quite get it - but when there are only eight of you, some letters can get a bit tricky. Still, there you are - no fuss, no kettling, no criminal damage and quite a lot of fun by the looks of things; I'd call that a result.

This is a silent protest - 'Scene not Heard' - against cuts to Oxfordshire's youth services - their plan is to send a video of it all to David Cameron, though I can't see him settling down to enjoy it with a takeaway and a bottle of plonk.

Now I may not agree with them - after all, I'm not sure that universal youth services are the best use of taxpayers' money in these straitened times - but you have to admire their determination. After all, the vast majority of their contemporaries are permanently glued to me-pods and bookface, incapable of interacting with the real world.

And, while I accept that there is probably a youth worker or two in the background, it's a great opportunity for them to learn how to express themselves and that you don't need to smash anything to make a point. In fact, the response of the passers-by was generally sympathetic - even those disagreeing with them did so politely.

It's a good illustration of alternative tactics - a charm offensive instead of being, well, just offensive. Since protests against the cuts are unlikely to achieve anything directly however they are conducted, surely it's better to win the sympathy of the man or woman in the street rather than become a public menace.

And, cutest of all, the report carrying these photos ends with a link: 'More images of resistance here.' What's not to like?

The Walking Dead(ish)

Remember Keith MacDonald, the Tyne and Wear bus-stop Lothario, busily engaged in increasing the ranks of unmarried mothers in the area for the past 10 years?

He’s back, repaying us for the welfare handouts that keep him in booze and fags by offering a spot of entertainment for a dull afternoon.

Two weeks before the latest fruit of his loins was due to put in an appearance, though he (and his trusty X-box) had decamped several months since, the expectant mother received a text message sent from his phone;

‘Here, its Jason, just tho I would Tel u keith is dead he went on friday.’

This illiterate and interestingly matter-of-fact communication was followed by more:

‘I was getting messages from Keith's Facebook page from someone saying she was his sister, Kim.

‘The messages said Keith had died at his girlfriend's house on Friday night. I got in touch with the police and the hospitals but nobody could tell me anything.’

However, two weeks later, she she had something of a surprise:

‘I got this text from him asking me to be friends with him on Blackberry Messenger. I replied asking him what on earth he thought he was doing.’

As opposed to where he was texting from, perhaps? If I received a text from beyond the grave, I’m not sure I would be quite so calm about it. Incidentally, does this mean that his x-box has been joined by a Blackberry? Nice to see he’s putting his benefit money to good use.

It seems MacDonald faked his own death to avoid parting with any more of his unearned cash than the £5 a week he currently pays for child maintenance; meanwhile, his irresponsibility is evidently matched by his ignorance of biology:

MacDonald denies fathering all but one of his nine children because they have different hair colour to him.

Sadly for the gene pool of Tyne and Wear, this fine, upstanding specimen ‘refuses to have a vasectomy’ – the implication being that it has already been offered at least once.*

I think he might be wise to reconsider that offer, because if this is any indication of how he treats the women in his life, one of them** might just take it into her head to do the job unofficially, so to speak, and without anaesthetic.


Update: thus The Mirror, possibly exercising poetic licence: 'Macdonald claims only one of the kids is his and he has asked TV’s Jeremy Kyle to do DNA tests'. Classy!


*from Burning Our Money: 'The Sun offered to pay for him to have his testicles trimmed, but he declined. Or as the Sun put it, "Slob snip snub".'
**Or, judging by some of the comments, a Daily Mail reader or two.

News reader fail

She's back! Those Gillian Duffy Blues - Part II

Things were looking bleak here in the Tavern; we were beginning to feel the muse had deserted us and there would be no more song parodies. But now salvation has appeared in the form of Gordon Brown's nemesis:



There’s a lady you’ll have heard of up in Rochdale,
She told Nick Clegg to look her in the eye;
She said ‘Are you happy with the coalition?
Don’t you wish you’d given Labour a try?’
‘It’s all gone wrong’ says that woman,
The one stilll givin’ party leaders the blues.


‘I've watched you speaking on the television,
I've listened to you on the radio,
I know that you've got nothing new to offer;
That’s the same speech that you gave an hour ago.’
‘It’s all gone wrong’ says that woman,
And she's still givin’ party leaders the blues.

‘Yes, it’s all gone wrong’ says that woman,
And now she won’t accept Nick Clegg’s excuse.

Yes, it’s all gone wrong’ says that woman,
And Gillian Duffy's back again in the news.

(See Those Gillian Duffy Blues for the original story)

Roll up, roll up for the flea circus!

On a rare foray into the world of commerce this week, I encountered a new business directory designed to ‘bring local businesses into contact with high-end consumers’.

While the inmates of the Tavern could in no way be described as ‘high-end consumers’, I was interested to see to what delights the affluent denizens of the neighbourhood could be treating themselves – onyx bathtubs? Bespoke champagne coolers? Handmade truffle forks? – so I had a sneaky look.

On the first page was a large advertisement for another business directory, and on the fifth page, a second one. Meanwhile the intervening pages advertised the services of a design consultancy, a recruitment consultant and a life coach.

Subsequent double-page spreads invited the reader to contemplate the benefits of sales and motivational seminars and yet more business directories and web agencies. In fact, the whole thing seemed to be an exercise in consultancies selling their services to each other with a few builders or kitchen firms in there for form’s sake.

And it made me wonder what sustains them all in these straitened times; is the whole edifice balanced precariously on the few remaining manufacturing industries left in the area or are they all involved in a sort of perpetual motion carousel, reciprocally patronising each other’s businesses over and over again?

Or is there another explanation – are they surviving as parasites, quietly bleeding the state dry with seminars, management days, website design and recruitment fees?

'Roll on, thou grate and restless ocean...'

'There, twice in every twenty-four hours, the ocean's vast tide sweeps in a flood over a large stretch of land and hides Nature's everlasting controversy about whether this region belongs to the land or to the sea.' [Pliny the Elder, Natural history]

For the Mediterranean-bred Romans, the rising and falling tide further afield was certainly worthy of comment. One might expect the inhabitants of our proud seafaring nation to be a little more aware, but it seems some visitors to our beaches have yet to grasp this complex phenomenon.

'Liverpool Coastguard are reminding people to check the tide times before venturing out to the coast today after they sent resources to rescue 93 people cut off by the tide in five different incidents this afternoon.' [Coastguard agency]

This story made the news because of the numbers involved, but a quick glance through the agency’s archives shows a regular stream of call-outs for people trapped by rising tides – making a change, I suppose, from rescuing terminally incompetent amateur mariners.

It’s a more extreme version of an event that can be seen almost every hot summer’s day in the East Coast resort habitually frequented by Clan Macheath, on a flat sandy beach that is fully covered by the tide for several hours twice a day.

Families come swarming down the steps to the beach encumbered by a plethora of deck-chairs, picnic baskets and inflatable toys. Once on the sand, they head straight for the water’s edge and set up a complex encampment a few feet from the waves, unpacking their picnics and hammering in their windbreaks.

And then the fun begins. Usually they have had enough time to settle down for a nap or are in the middle of lunch when they notice that the sea, instead of staying put in a well-behaved fashion, is advancing inexorably towards them. The resulting frantic scramble is highly entertaining for all onlookers.

Even better are the ones who, having staked out their territory, set out in search of ice-cream, drinks or entertainment (no chance!) and return to find their belongings bobbing about merrily in the North Sea (locals are reluctant to move them because of the tendency of the returning owners to express outrage first and ask questions later).

And best of all, perhaps, are the ones who arrive at the beach with all their paraphernalia at high tide and stare, open-mouthed, at the water that covers every square inch of sand - utterly perplexed despite the tide information widely available in local papers and online.

It might be worth MPs bearing these people in mind when considering Douglas Carswell’s early day motion calling for a rethink of planned cuts to the Coastguard service.

Aintree - beware of headcrab zombies!

Grand National day - the thud of hooves on turf, the clatter of jumps, the excitement of the finish and, of course, hats.

Though they do seem to have shrunk rather in recent years; regardless of the quantities of bubbly sunk by Liverpool's lasses, there'll be a fair few sore heads tomorow after a day in the blazing sun protected by nothing more that a few feathers and a bit of netting.

I'm told it's all because of Kate Middleton - you just can't get away from the woman! Largely thanks to her predilection for the things, a whole industry has sprung up selling and even renting out what my milliner grandmother would have called 'scraps' for exorbitant prices.

Meanwhile they are, according to the Artful Dodger, causing much amusement in the geek world. You see - forgive me if I get this wrong but I'm off my home turf here - there was once a computer game called Half-life which featured a multi-legged menace to society known as the headcrab.

'A headcrab's primary goal is to attach to the head of a suitable host using its mouth [...] incorporating parts of its biological workings with the motor cortex of the host's nervous system. The victim is thus taken over by the headcrab and mutated into a mindless zombie-like being known as a headcrab zombie.' [Wikipedia]

Half-life in its turn spawned a so-bad-it's-good fan-fiction which has become an internet cult.

Now, thanks to the Dodger, the phrase 'headcrab zombie' has passed into family parlance at the Tavern to denote a mindless fashion victim, particularly one sporting a fascinator.

Frankly, I can't think of a better description.

One ring to rule them...

An illustration of priorities, perhaps; despite a few local difficulties in places like Libya and Ivory Coast, the British press continues to enlighten us on vital subjects such as royal wedding rings.

In much the same way as his grandmother was castigated for her failure to emote on camera, the prince is facing criticism from all sides for his choice not to join generation Ratner and wear a wedding ring.

Now I have nothing against men wearing rings if they wish to, or if they belong to a tradition that includes male wedding rings, but it seems somewhat harsh that the poor boy is expected to pop down to the high street simply because a jewellery chain once saw an opening* and started a craze.

Even Mumsnet - that social barometer of our time - has entered the fray:

'...in cases of ring refusal, an underhand motive is often inferred, as shown in a discussion on parenting website Mumsnet that came in the wake of the Prince William announcement.

"It's so he can pick up girls in bars anonymously, no?" joked one contributor. "Perhaps he doesn't want anyone to know he's married cos it'll cramp his style," suggested another.'

Interestingly, the BBC article attracts several comments from men who reluctantly agreed to wear wedding rings at their wives' insistence - and this utterly pompous interpretation: 'Choosing not to wear a ring while expecting your partner to have one is a sign to me that William has less regard for Kate than she has for him. Not a good start to the marriage IMO'.

It all goes to show - if further proof were needed - that commercial pressures have turned the 'ghastly public confession of a strictly private intention' into a circus where all must comply with the conventions or risk the ire of the masses. Still, one commentor, at least, is making the best of the situation:

'My father does not wear a ring and I never planned on it either, when it came to it though my wife said she would like me to. I wasn't a jewellery person, but I did to make her happy. Now it feels weird if I am without it.

Plus it's handy for doing Frodo impressions.'


*The double-ring ceremony, or use of wedding rings for both partners, is a relatively recent innovation. The American jewellery industry started a marketing campaign aimed at encouraging this practice in the late 19th century.[Wikipedia]

No wet blankets at the street party

Royal wedding fever has gripped the nation, it seems. Not our nation, you understand - despite the best efforts of the media to convince us otherwise; the French are going overboard on the subject of les mariages princiers.

For a people who decisively ousted their royal family and fervently embraced liberty, fraternity and equality, they are unaccountably fascinated by the small doings of the anointed; even the fragrant Carla lacks the necessary mystique and je-ne-sais-quoi of the genuine article, despite her obvious merits as gossip-column fodder.

And now French fans of royalty are spoilt for choice; William and Kate have sneakily stolen a march on Albert of Monaco and are getting in there first. Poor old Albert gets relegated to the status of a summertime repeat.

Was that their intention all along, I wonder? To show the Eurotrash how real royals do it - in widescreen and HD? It would be amusing to think there was some such reason, and possibly some recompense for all the extra work I've put in recently.

You see, the RAF isn't terribly season-dependent, and royals run on a regular timetable unchanged since 1857; Balmoral, Sandringham, Trooping the Colour, Ascot, grouse and so on. So they couldn't possible be expected to realise that, out there in the real world, there are things like GCSEs. And tax returns. And hospital appointments.

The wheels of the public sector grind slowly at the best of times - in some offices, POETS* are common and an approaching bank holiday can reduce them to a state of torpor reminiscent of hibernating tortoises; what hope, then, of a swift decision or assessment in the next few weeks?

A couple of extra days holiday here and there may not be much to our Saxe-Coburg overlords, but to those of us who have spent the past few weeks re-arranging timetables and appointments set up months in advance, it's a right royal pain in the neck, to say nothing of the pupils who have lost vital class preparation time before their major exams.

And now the BBC is getting all het up about the lack of plans for street parties; Auntie thinks we should all be out there polishing the best china and brandishing brown betty teapots. French TV has been doing its best to join in, broadcasting footage of the 'Eastenders' jubilee party as a helpful demonstration of 'une fête à l’anglaise'.

Personally, I'm inclined to think we just can't be bothered**. Unlike the French, we've got permanent royals and they just aren't exciting enough. Instead, thousands of Brits are planning to jet off for ten days, leaving the field open for the foreign visitors expected to flock here in vast numbers.

So here's an idea; the tourist boards set up street parties for the visitors instead, along the lines of the one planned for Downing Street. The BBC gets plenty of interesting footage, SamCam pulls off her PR stunt, the royalists have a great experience and the rest of us can go and sulk in peace.

 

*That's 'Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday'; ever tried contacting a council office at 4pm on a Friday?

**There could, of course, be another explanation.(h/t JuliaM)

Update

My heartfelt thanks to those who have continued to drop in* since things got rather quiet around here.

A combination of a drastically increased workload, swine flu and a serious attack of blogging fatigue have kept me incommunicado for some months, though I have been regularly reading the output of the tougher souls listed in the sidebar - I doff my tricorn to you one and all for your valiant persistence in the face of society's ills.

Normal service may be resumed in the not-too-distant future...

*unless you're only here because you put 'RyanAir calendar' into Google