At Last a Win
Ipswich finally got a win in the Championship today against Doncaster.
A lot of managers would have panicked after going in 1-0 done, but Paul Jewell seems to let the team he picked get on with it. The philosophy certainly worked today and he resisted the urge to waste time by using substitutes as the clock ticked down. After all shouldn’t substitutes be for when you have serious problems like injuries. The Doncaster manager, Sean O’Driscoll, made all his and you almost thought he was wasting time, to get more added minutes at the end. As it happened the fourth official still found three minutes from thin air.
And then after the match, Paul Jewell praised everybody including the crowd and criticised no-one. After a hard-fought victory like this, there is probably some criticism to be made, but it should be done next week in a calm, constructive and intelligent manner.
Let’s hope that Town can hold Arsenal on Tuesday.
Globalisation Hits Executions in the United States
Globalisation is often blamed for many of the world’s problems, but here’s an article that says that the same process is starting to hit executions in the United States.
The news has broken today that the sole US manufacturer of a key drug used in lethal injections will cease production because authorities in Italy, where the drug was to be made, wanted a guarantee that it wouldn’t be used to put inmates to death.
Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill, had decided to switch production of the anaesthetic sodium thiopental from its North Carolina plant to Liscate, outside of Milan. But the Italian Parliament wanted the company to control the product’s distribution to prevent it being used for executions. Hospira decided it couldn’t make that promise and has decided to suspend production — potentially throwing the death penalty system in the US into disarray.
But what’s missing from today’s reports is that behind the Italian Parliament’s insistence is a lay Catholic movement dedicated — among many other things – to the eradication of the death penalty around the world. The Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio had been engaged in discussions with Hospira’s Italian subsidiary, Hospira SL, which led to meetings with the Foreign Affairs minister, Franco Frattini, and the Ministry of Health. The result of those meetings was an agreement that the production of the drug in Italy would have to be for strictly therapeutic purposes. The company has long deplored its use in executions, and said it regretted the need to cease production.
Hospira’s choice to end production because it couldn’t give that guarantee was described as “highly responsible” by Sant’Egidio’s spokesman, Mario Marazziti, who said: “It highlights the point that therapeutic drugs and doctors should never be used to bring about death”.
Sidium thiopental is already in short supply after the British government last November also banned the UK manufacture of the drug following a campaign by the British NGO Reprieve. According to the Wall Street Journal’s law blog, Hospira’s decision means the death penalty system in the US “is potentially thrown into turmoil”. States can attempt to use another anaesthetic instead — Oklahoma, for example, has switched to a drug used to euthanise cats and dogs
— but it involves seeking clearance from the courts, which is likely to delay executions.
There is a lesson here about globalization. It’s not just the market that’s gone global. It’s civil society pressure, too.
I also applaud the work of the Catholic church here.
Black Swan
There was a pub in a 1950s British comedy called the Black Swan. It was always called the Mucky Duck.
Was it Hancock?
Not sure I can go to see the new film and keep a straight face.
A Dickensian Tavern
As I passed through Clerkenwell, I walked up Britton Street to the north of the famous meat market and had a drink in the Jerusalem Tavern. The tavern is owned by St. Peter’s Brewery and serves their gluten-free ale.
If you’ve seen any period dramas, based on the stories of authors like Charles Dickens, you’ll recognise the style of the pub. But of course it doesn’t have footpads and low-life of the period and is probably a lot more hygienic.
So any coeliac who likes their beer and visits London, should put this unique drinking establishment on their list of places to visit.
Anyone for a Cold Bath?
I’ve not had a bath in some months, as these days I have a shower, when I smell like I need one. But this curious sign was on the wall of a building in Clerkenwell.
Coldbath Square
It must be surely one of the strangest road names in the UK, let alone London. You can read about the area here.
For many years there was a grim prison on the site and this is taken from the article.
The prison, built on a plan of the benevolent Howard’s, soon became a scene of great abuses. Men, women, and boys were herded together in this chief county prison, and smoking and drinking were permitted. The governor of the day strove vigorously to reform the hydra abuses, and especially the tyranny and greediness of the turnkeys. Five years later he introduced stern silence into his domain. “On the 29th of December, 1834, a population of 914 prisoners were suddenly apprised that all intercommunication, by word, gesture, or sign, was prohibited.” “This is what is called the Silent Associated System. The treadmill had been introduced at Coldbath Fields several years before. This apparatus, the invention of Mr. Cubitt, an engineer at Lowestoft, was first set up,” says Mr. Pinks, “at Brixton Prison, in 1817. At first, the allowance was 12,000 feet of ascent, but was soon reduced to 1,200.”
I think it is true to say that our justice system is much more enlightened these days.
The Anonymous Widower 