A real-life game of thrones

Anniversaries are not something we make much of here in the Tavern, but occasionally something comes along that is too good to miss.

On this day in 1314, Philippe IV of France had four high officers of the Order of Knights Templar brought from their prison cells to make a public confession of their sins and those of the Order, the culmination of a seven-year process of persecution designed to assert the King's spiritual authority and, conveniently, secure for the Crown the Templars' substantial assets.

Instead, to the consternation of the authorities, Grand Master Jacques de Molay and Geffroi de Charnay, Preceptor of Normandy, loudly recanted the confessions of heresy, sorcery and sacrilege that had been wrung from them by torture. The royal council immediately decreed they should be burned at the stake that same evening.

According to legend, as the flames rose about him, de Molay cursed the King and the Pope, who had assisted in the disbanding of the Templars; both, he said, would be summoned to divine judgement within a year. The curse may have been a later invention, but it is true that Clement V died only a month later and the King in November of the same year.

What happened next is history with more than a touch of drama and was certainly enough to fuel rumours of a family curse operating into the next generation.

The first event was a major scandal which erupted when Philippe's daughter observed two young knights wearing distinctive gifts she had given to her sisters-in-law. Two of Philippe's three daughters-in-law were found guilty of adultery while the third was said to have abetted and concealed the affairs.The King immediately had the princesses imprisoned in remote castles and their lovers publicly tortured, flayed and executed.

The succession of the Capet dynasty was already problematic; two of Philippe's brothers were believed to have been poisoned in childhood by their stepmother in favour of her own new-born son Louis who, along with Philippe's younger full brother, Charles, grew up to play an active part in disruptive political intrigues.

Philippe's death complicated matters further; the new king had only a single female child whose legitimacy was questionable and, with his wife imprisoned for adultery, little chance of producing another heir. A papal annulment proved impossible to obtain but, with suspicious convenience, the 24-year-old 'queen' died in prison a few months later and Louis X was free to marry again.

The following year he too died - rather picturesquely, after a vigorous game of tennis - leaving a pregnant wife and a daughter whose parentage was in doubt. In the face of this potential crisis, some hasty legal manoeuvring resurrected an ancient law excluding females from the line of succession, a law which was to foster decades of dynastic conflict.

As well as dividing the nobility of France, this ultimately led to the Hundred Years War; Philippe's daughter, thus excluded from the French throne but mother of a son with a possible claim, was none other than Isabella, wife of Edward II, whose notoriety owes much to her alliance with the ruthless Roger Mortimer and the untimely and unusual demise of her husband.

If all this sounds like the plot of a novel - and a novel you would like to read - I recommend 'The Accursed Kings' by Maurice Druon, a seven-book epic fraught with arrogant kings and warrior princes, renegade Popes, feuding noblemen (and -women), scheming politicians, adulterous princesses, religious fanatics, daring escapes, damsels in distress, a sprinkling of sorcery and, of course, the obligatory red-hot poker, all based on real events.

It'll help pass the time, anyway...

(Youtube link here)

Darwin's Cupcakes strike again!

If you're the sort of person whose idea of a treat is a miniature sponge cake topped with a mound of piped buttercream and a liberal sprinkling of glitter, then you probably wandered here by mistake.

Cynicism we have in abundance, along with satire and acerbic comment occasionally seasoned with song parodies and asteroids, but, if sparkly cupcakes are your thing, you're not going to find much to interest you here.

And you certainly aren't likely to want to know that, according to tests carried out by West Yorkshire Trading Standards on certain 'edible' cake decorations:

When the plastic glitter was placed under a microscope, it was shown to be made up of hexagonal fragments with jagged edges.  

In one case, the glitter was made of finely powdered brass.

Mmmmm, yummy! The findings were released eighteen months ago but, the legal system being what it is, the case has just come to court.

A businesswoman has been landed with a £13,500 legal bill for duping customers into buying “edible” cupcake glitter made out of shredded plastic - which ended up in the food chain.

Unlike the standard edible variety, which is based on gum arabic, the glitter in the samples tested was made from the same plastic as drinks bottles - polyethylene terephthalate (PET to its friends) - and was originally intended for craft use. The hearing was told that its effect on the human digestive system is unknown and it should not be eaten.

I should have thought that most rational beings, confronted with multicoloured glitter, would not naturally assume it to be edible, but there are clearly people out there willing to tuck in with gusto - Oooh, shiny! - and even feed the stuff to their children (on the plus side, the inevitable consequences should add a certain interest to potty-training).

Of course, one might argue that it's Darwin in action again; if you are fool enough to consume sparkly plastic flakes in a range of startling artificial colours, you probably deserve all you get.

Meanwhile, the boss of the firm has neatly sidestepped the issue by insisting that, despite selling the products to cake decorating shops and bakers, she had never suggested that they could be eaten. As for the homophonous company name printed - rather haphazardly - on the labels:

Protesting her innocence, Ed Able Art Ltd boss Margaret Martin claimed the name of her firm was inspired by three animated mice characters called Ed, Able and Art.

Nope, me neither. In fact these alleged mice are, as far as I can ascertain, conspicuous by their complete absence from the world-wide web - although I admit I was briefly sidetracked from the search by a fascinating scholarly article entitled:

Mice as a Delicacy: The Significance of Mice in the Diet of the Tumbuka People of Eastern Zambia

Ed Able Art products, however, are out there in abundance, offered for sale by cake decoration suppliers; I could even, if so inclined, order a pot of black and silver 'Asteroid Disco Glitter' for a mere £2.50, one of a range of 94 Disco Glitters including 'Neon Flamingo', 'Laser Blue Hologram' and 'Remington Steel'.

The £13,500 fine - surely a mere slap on the wrist in modern business terms - and 12 charges dropped out of a total of 24, combined with a number of previous unheeded warnings suggest that Trading Standards lack the teeth required to prevent inedible decorations reaching the market.

This means we are back to caveat emptor - and Darwin. To quote from my original post on the subject:

'Trading Standards warn that they do not know what the effects of eating glitter might be - I can see some interesting lawsuits pending when Yummy Mummies find out what they've been feeding their little darlings - but we can be fairly sure they will, by and large, be confined to that sector of the population prepared to throw common sense to the winds for a sparkly, self-indulgent treat.'

I'm sure you'll agree that, should the ingestion of plastic glitter prove to have negative consequences, this will ultimately benefit the human race.


Update: A brief tour of online retailers suggests that, even after buying clearly-labelled 'non-edible cake decorating glitter' - how is that supposed to work? - consumers are happily leaving comments about how much they and their children enjoyed eating it.

I'm starting to think that, if you ran up to them and shouted "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!", they would just smile and say "I know, but it makes lovely cakes!".

Crowded Skies

It's been a busy week but there's still time to raise a glass to the two asteroids that passed by this morning a whisker over a million kilometres away.

Though relative tiddlers on a cosmic scale - 13m and 26m respectively - 2014 EP12 and EB25 surely merit a toast, as does 2014 EX24, which literally slipped under the radar last Sunday and wasn't spotted until two days after its closest approach at around 260,000km.

As an ideal accompaniment to your drink, assuming you are in a reasonably robust frame of mind, you might like to contemplate the work of some some enterprising astronomers who have created, in effect, a prototype Total Perspective Vortex.


(For those unfamiliar with the works of Douglas Adams: The prospective victim of the TPV is placed within a small chamber wherein is displayed a model of the entire universe - together with a microscopic dot bearing the legend "you are here". The sense of perspective thereby conveyed destroys the victim's mind.)

Scotch for the rocks

A positive cornucopia of asteroids at the moment: yesterday brought us the 25-metre 2014 DX110 at a distance of 348,000 km and today a double helping in the shape of 'very small' asteroids 2014 EF at 120,000km and 2014 EC at 62,000 km.

Since we are in the habit of celebrating every flyby with a drink or two and things are very busy in the Tavern, I have decided to devote the rest of the evening to getting comfortably horizontal.

If you dropped in in search of entertainment, I do apologise; please feel free to have a wander through the archives or, if you prefer, pour yourself a drink and join us in a virtual toast to 2014's latest crop of asteroids.

'Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!'

It seems that optimism reigns supreme north of the Border, where Alex Salmond has apparently claimed that an independent Scotland would be an 'economic powerhouse':

The First Minister said Scotland would rebalance the “economic centre of gravity of these islands” by becoming a “Northern light” that would act as a counterpoint to London’s “dark star”.

Since, according to the Telegraph, experts have warned that the fledgling state would start life deep in the red and that he has massively overestimated oil revenues, you have to wonder where he is getting his figures.

Oddly enough, I have something in the archives from last year that might give some indication of what happens when politics and mathematics collide...

     ************

According to a decidedly excitable headline today at the Scottish Daily Record:

Margaret Thatcher snatched £130bn of Scottish wealth as she axed 250,000 of our jobs

Mrs Thatcher, it proclaims, 'reaped a massive Scottish tax windfall' and 'squandered North Sea oil cash on her destructive policies', which, I think, roughly translates as "Let's all share a highly enjoyable outburst of righteous indignation".

Having obligingly done so, the readers will have probably gone off the boil rather by the time they reach the explanation that:

Extra Scottish revenues handed to the UK Treasury during the Iron Lady’s 1980s heyday would be worth a staggering £130billion at today’s prices.

So the figure has been adjusted. Never mind the intervening quarter of a century and the misleading 'as' suggesting contemporaneous events; what matters is that the journalist has an attention-grabbing figure to crown a collection of loaded phrases straight out of the rabble-rouser's handbook.

But wait a minute; what's this?

Finance Secretary John Swinney claimed the figures proved that Scotland’s oil wealth had been wasted by the Thatcher government. 

He said: “The additional revenue paid by Scotland totalled £130billion during the 1980s – or an average of £2541 per person each and every year."

So which is it? £130 billion then or now? Oil revenues are a complicated question at the best of times but understanding can hardly be helped by such apparent political sleight-of-hand.

When it comes to political speeches, most people don't listen out for the metaphorical small print; they just join in when they like the tune. Look at the crowds of under-30s out on the streets celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher and you'll see exactly what I mean.

We've become so accustomed to misdirection from our political masters on both sides of the border that
 it hardly seem worth remarking these days, but a combination of disinformation and opportunistic demagoguery cannot but harm the democratic process.

The Scottish people deserve better than this.

Chariots of the Rock Gods

Some time ago, we reported that Bruce Dickinson was backing a project to build a modern-day airship.

Mainstream production came a step closer this week with the unveiling of the Airlander, a 92m long craft filled with enough helium to make the Treorchy Male Voice Choir sound like a chorus of gnats. The vehicle could provide an ingenious solution to the problems of moving heavy items in areas with no ground access or runways.

Dickinson himself has played an active part in the publicity, appearing on the Today programme where he memorably compared the Airlander to one of the Thunderbirds (to the secret delight, I imagine of a host of forty- and fifty-somethings). He now has plans for a non-stop trip twice round the world:

"It seizes my imagination. I want to get in this thing and fly it pole to pole."

Mine too. If there is anything that might serve as some consolation for this week's conspicuous lack of giant serpents, wrathful Norse Gods and supernatural wolves, it's the thought of Iron Maiden's lead singer cruising above our heads in something that looks like Thunderbird 2.

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."

Lost, stolen or strayed

There was cheering news recently for those of us of an absent-minded nature; something went missing this week besides which all those car keys, glasses and phones pale into insignificance.

The 270-metre space rock known as 2000 EM26 was slated to skim past Earth early on 18 February, coming within 3.4 million kilometres of our planet.

So far so routine - it's been a busy week and we don't tend to get excited unless an asteroid gets closer than 500,000km or so - but there's more:

When a robotic telescope service trained its eye on the predicted position, the asteroid was nowhere to be found.

Oops! Admittedly there's very little chance of it heading in our direction, though it's a happy coincidence that the Viking Twilight of the Gods is, in theory, due this weekend. (Other predicted events of Ragnarok include earthquakes and vast floods, just to let you know...)

The first thing you usually ask when something goes missing is, "Now, when did I see it last?" In the case of 2000 EM26, it was back in 2000, when it was discovered and briefly observed by astronomers. As a result of those calculations, observers at SLOOH lined up their lenses ready for a live broadcast of the flyby this week.

Instead, like hopeful paparazzi outside a stage door, they waited... and waited... and waited. Although there is usually some measure of uncertainty, it's not entirely reassuring, given the number of the things hurtling round out there, that there is such a substantial margin of error.

Now SLOOH's CEO has been reduced to putting up forlorn notices on the virtual lamp-posts of the internet calling on amateur astronomers to keep an eye out for the thing. Sadly there's no reward - just honorable mention on their website.

Still, if you happen to see a large space rock hurtling past you this weekend, it might be kind to let the chaps at SLOOH know about it - unless, of course, it's headed straight for us, in which case apocaholics of a Viking persuasion are in for the ultimate treat.

See you in Valhalla!

Quote of the week - Levelling criticism

"I will apologise for probably not having done enough to twist arms..."

Lord Smith's apology of an apology after coming under fire over the Somerset floods.

The rising waters have caused much comment in the Tavern, not least because one of the clan grew up a stone's throw from Muchelney and saw at first hand the floods of 1947. The results of the collective musings are, in no particular order:

• If the Rivers Tone and Parret had been more accurately - albeit less picturesquely - named 'Drains', perhaps desk-bound bigwigs at EA HQ might have questioned the use of management techniques better suited to natural rivers. 

• During the 1947 floods, the locals managed to get around thanks to a centuries-old network of narrow causeways designed to stand above flood waters. With increased car use, these footpaths lost their importance and many have since deteriorated or disappeared.

• For the past century (apart from a brief respite during WWII), heavy farm machinery has been steadily compacting the soil in areas previously trodden only by beasts of burden or used for pasture - meanwhile, the same machinery has made it possible to cultivate previously fallow headlands and remove stands of withies, altering the drainage patterns.

• Although the inhabitants of the Levels have somehow managed to escape the nicknames and jokes attached to fen-dwellers in East Anglia, the area was, by the 1940s, so accustomed to inundation that Darwinian selection had turned the local cats into accomplished and habitual swimmers. 

• In the previous floods, a new development in one of the affected villages was hailed as a success - and a design to be emulated -  because none of the new houses flooded. The fact that the water draining away from the development was washing round cottages downstream which had never before been affected (including that of a family friend, who had lived there flood-free since the 1930s) was, of course, someone else's problem.

Finally, a quick bit of research suggests that the higher echelons of the Environment Agency are stuffed with graduates of 'top' universities and Lord Smith himself boasts highly impressive academic credentials (albeit in the field of English Literature). Is it possible, I wonder, that this situation has fostered something of a sense of superiority over the horny-handed sons of toil and their petty concerns? 

I suspect the Somerset farmer whose urgent request for channel dredging was rejected last year would certainly think so.

Olympic Soundbite

Oh dear, a Sochi calamity
USA bobsledder locked in a lavatory;
Posted on twitter, it's caused much hilarity,
Don't you just long to be there?

"Heeeeere's Johnny!"

Asteroid round-up

As regulars are well aware, an asteroid fly-by always calls for a drink. 

That being so, we have been in something of a celebratory mood for the past few days, what with 2014 BA3 and 20134 BP8 on Sunday - at 2.3 million and 1.4 million km respectively - followed by Wednesday's 2014 BK25 at 1.2 million km and 2014 BM25 at a bit over a million.

And it goes on: next Monday gives us 2014 BW32, at a mere 730,000km and, to make matters even more exciting, while those others are somewhere around 10-15m wide, this one could be up to 37m across, getting on for the size of the one that caused the Tunguska airburst in 1908. 

If it were to hit us, the results could be catastrophic. The devastation seen at the Siberian site when the first expedition arrived there (in 1927, which suggests a certain lack of urgency) shows the force of the explosion on the ground. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? You bet!

It's all a lot of numbers, I know - don't you long for the old days, when you knew your asteroid by name? - but it's worth pointing out that the 2014 prefix means these have all been identified this year; it just shows what can be done once the need is recognized. Eagle-eyed asteroid spotters, both human and machine, are clocking up sightings at an unprecedented rate.

Apart from having a noticeable effect on the Tavern's drinks bill, this painstaking labelling of everything hurtling around our neighbourhood clearly shows just how busy it is out there. Every week this year has brought us at least one within 10 Lunar Distances, most of them discovered only a few days or even hours before their closest approach.

The majority, of course, are mere tiddlers by asteroid standards, with  no room to swing a space slug, and there are probably thousands more of them out there. In fact, given the way the Chelyabinsk meteor came out of the blue, it's hardly surprising that a large number of fireballs are recorded annually as rocks up to 2m in diameter burn up in the atmosphere - and that's just the ones that appear over inhabited areas.

In the face of the cosmic pinball going on around us and the certainty that, one day, the big one will arrive , the only sensible attitude is a degree of fatalism. At least we know it's random -   if fire from heaven were truly a manifestation of divine displeasure, Celebrity Big Brother would surely have elicited a bolt from the blue by now.

Meanwhile, though this weekend - as far as NASA are aware, at least - will not bring a close flyby, I invite you to raise a glass to this week's crop of space rocks and to those currently whistling past us but as yet unknown.

Promises, promises!

Of all the points for discussion raised by Ed Balls' Magic Porridge Pot pledge to 'balance the books' by 2020 while reducing the national debt, my favourite is the fact that, according to in the conventions of headline-speak, his utterances are reported thus...

Labour not anti-business - Balls

or

Balls - Labour Government will 'balance the books'

...and somehow I find myself mentally adding an invisible exclamation mark of disbelief each time.

I admit it may be somewhat below the belt to poke fun at a chap's name - though in this case I'm prepared to make an exception - but you have to admit there is a rich vein of satire to be mined here.

We have, of course, already celebrated him in song back in the days when he was Education Secretary - sorry, 'Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families'; it's not New Labour without a touchy-feely title - and doing such a good job that many of those who entered secondary school during his tenure now 'cannot write properly, add up or even wear appropriate clothes for work'.

Apparently this is damaging Britain's hopes of economic recovery, which gives an interesting irony to the grand schemes he unveiled this week.

I think it's time for a reprise (with apologies to The Who):

He walks onto the platform and gazes round the hall
"I promise you," he tells them, "That we can have it all;
A healthy budget surplus while Britain's borrowing falls."
And this man's behind it; it's got to be pure Balls!