The US Navy Does Irony
This is a good story from most peoples’ point of view, even if a US ship rescuing Iranian fishermen has a rather ironic taste given the state of relations between the two countries.
Let’s hope that the politicians play their next cards right and don’t undo all the good work.
What Do You Call Someone Who Makes An Inappropriate or Stupid Tweet?
The obvious answer is probably a twit, as that isn’t a particularly rude word and people have been known to say they’ve been a twit, when they’ve done something silly.
There are three today.
Ed Milliband tweeted this on the death of Bob Holness.
Sad to hear that Bob Holness has died. A generation will remember him fondly from Blackbusters.
Ed or his Tweetmaster General must have had something from yesterday on their mind.
And talking of yesterday, Diane Abbott got out a shovel and started digging.
Dubious of black people claiming they’ve never experienced racism. Ever tried hailing a taxi I always wonder?
As you can imagine you don’t annoy London’s black cab drivers. My address does, as it contains the name of one of Arsenal’s rivals and most black cab drivers in this area support the boys in red. I’ve now had three refuse to take me with a smle on their face and then of course they have. One was a white man, another was a white woman and the other was a black man in an Arsenal bobble-hat. It probably proves that London taxi-driver humour is rather universal.
And then there was racing commentator, Jason Hall, who tweeted this to racegoers at Plumpton racecourse.
I want your hot body tonight babe.
I suppose he should be the Twit of the Day. Especially, as it was at Plumpton. Or is that Fat Twit of the Day?
Daddy Of Them All
A ram has made a name for himself by escaping and fathering 33 lambs in one 24 hour session. It’s all here in the Daily Mail.
This reminds me of a conversation with a Research Vet at Liverpool University in the 1960s.
At the time, the M62 was being built, and the Ministry was worried that sheep would get on the motorway. The University had been asked to find a solution and found that moorland sheep could easily climb a chain-link fence several feet high. Judging by the lack of reports of sheep on the motorway these days, I’m sure that the research indicated a solution that worked well.
Standing Up To Cancer
Another obituary in The Times today is of Frank Horwill. By forming the British Milers Club and developing advanced training methods, he had a lot to do with the success of British middle-distance runners in the 1970s and 1980s.
He didn’t fit in with the athletics administrators, but how many great coaches in any sport do? And how many useless coaches do well-funded sports employ?
It was this paragraph in the obituary that I liked.
Four years later Horwill was found to be suffering from stomach cancer. He reacted with the sort of resolve that he sought in his athletes. To the consternation of his nurses he got out of bed each day to exercise with a drip attached to him. “I am going to enjoy this day,” was his mantra. He survived for another 23 years.
C had that attitude to her breast cancer and won by a mile. Sadly, her cancer of the heart was a much tougher problem.
In some ways though, Frank got the last laugh, as after serving a prison term for tax evasion, which was essentially to fund his athletes, he was rewarded with an MBE last year.
Diane Abbott Slips Up
The media is making a hell of a fuss about Diane Abbott’s comment on Twitter.
I find Ms. Abbott entertaining, although her politics are very different to mine. I suspect, that if we were sat next to each other on a plane or train, we’d argue and agree and disagree in unequal measure.
What she originally said was probably scientifically correct in its full context, but was rather shortened because of the rules of Twitter. I don’t disagree with her reasoning and “divide and rule” is a method, that is used by everybody to get their own way on a committee or in a meeting, whether inside politics or not. The British Empire probably used the technique in the past, but hopefully that is all history and to be learned from and not copied. I suspect that it is technique much less used in business and management these days as well.
The real mistake she made was to publish without thinking. But this is the Twitter trap!
I think it would also be better, if when we see something wrong on Twitter posted by someone we know, we douse it in a bucket of very cold water, rather than report it all to the media.
Having read the tweets that caused the story, it strikes me that an early intervention, perhaps in a light-hearted vein could have created a molehill out of a mountain.
We have had politicians in the past, who would have mangled their words with impunity and got into awful trouble on Twitter. George Brown comes to mind, although there would probably be many others in his era. On the other hand, politics has had its fair share of precise wordsmiths, who would have found Twitter suited to their style.
The Man Who Stabbed Errol Flynn
Bob Anderson has just died and his obituary is in The Times today. He had been an Olympic fencer and fencing coach until he started coaching actors in films.
Reading his credits, you get the impression that he was involved in organising the sword fights in every film that had one in the last few decades. He was also a double for Darth Vader in the Star Wars films.
In one incident he actually stabbed Errol Flynn. However, they remained good friends.
Vinny Jones Shows He’s All Heart
Vinny Jones has got involved in publicity for the British Heart Foundation. The details and a video are here.
It should be remembered that his wife, Tanya, has had a heart transplant and I think he’s done work for the BHF before.
I actually think the whole concept of the video is rather good, as it’s very simply put together and you remember his message.
Is The Economy Getting Better?
I’m not sure, but there have been some good stories today.
On the BBC this morning there was a piece about how small exporters were doing well.
I know it’s a Japanese car company, but this article on the BBC about Nissan can’t be seen as anything but positive. It’s also in an area of high unemployment, where they need every job they can get.
John Lewis also reported a 6.2% like-for-like increase in sales during the Christmas period. As the company have branches in most parts of the UK, it can’t be anything other than a good thing. Next too is on target, but other retailers aren’t doing so well. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as customers are picking up a few bargains. I bought a new pair of boots from Blacks at a very silly price.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been to several places on the trains, like Reading, Blackfriars, Cambridge and others, where the fruits of investment seem to be coming through. You can argue, that these were planned by the previous government, but it does seem that progress has speeded up in the last year or so. I will say that some of the developments in the London area, seem to have benefited from better engineering and project management, with the professionals being given targets by the politicians, who then have not interfered at the micro-management level. We could probably do even better with Network Rail, if they were controlled in the same way as Transport for London.
And lastly today, this piece about the pound has come in, showing it has risen against a failing euro. That may not be a totally good thing for exporters, but it shows that the world thinks our economy is on the mend.
It Appears There’s No Breast Implant Database
For every car my father owned, he kept a book in which he wrote all the service details and modifications he made. He was typical of many in the 1950s and 1960s, who looked after all details of their cars.
Nowadays we don’t do that, but if you buy a vehicle these days and have it serviced properly, everything is recorded on a computer database. And when you buy a second hand car, you can usually have access to this data to check, you’re not buying a ringer.
According to a letter in The Times today from the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, there is no such requirement for comprehensive details to be kept on breast implants and other cosmetic surgical procedures. However, the letter states that for joint replacements, there is a very successful National Joint Registry, that is analysed to detect problems before they become serious.
Why is there no registry for breast implants and cosmetic surgery? Obviously, such a registry would put up the cost of the surgery! If this discouraged the vane idiots, it might not be a bad idea, but I suspect it wouldn’t as they’d just go somewhere outside of the reach of the registry.
It would appear that many of us take better care of our cars than our bodies!
Farewell Ronald Searle
Ronald Searle was one of the greatest cartoonists this country has ever produced.
He is remembered most for St. Trinians. But I saw his wartime drawings from the Burma Railway in the sixties and they left a deep impression about the horrors of war and man’s inhumanity to man. All are part of a legacy of a great artist, who is mainly remembered for just one small part of his work.
He deserves to have a proper retrospective exhibition at a major gallery in the UK.
I noticed that Ronald Searle had the initials, RDI, after his name. The initials stand for Royal Designers for Industry. It is is a distinction established by the Royal Society of Arts in 1936, to encourage a high standard of industrial design and enhance the status of designers.
The Anonymous Widower 