Hideous Underwear
My late wife discovered expensive underwear late in life and I often bought her bras and knickers from the web. I also buy all my pants that way, usually from Figleaves, as I can never find anything that fits me properly in the average shop. They’re either too big, uncomfortable or the wrong colour. If they’re not what I want I can always change them.
I had an e-mail a couple of days ago, announcing a new range called Lascivious. Not for me I hasten to add.
But!
I’ve never seen anything that looks so ugly, impractical and very expensive for a long time. It even looks bad on the attractive model.
If a lady undressed in front of me in the Milla contraptions, I would go into uncontrolled laughter.
The Dickin Medal
The Dickin Medal is the Animals VC and it has just been won by a black labrador, called Treo, in Afghanisthan for finding improvised explosive devices.
To me, two animals who have won the Dickin Medal stand out.
One is Able Seacat Simon, who was the ship’s cat on HMS Amethyst during the Yangtze Incident. I remember the making of the film of the incident at Felixstowe in the 1950s, so it probably sticks in my mind.
The other was Judy, the only dog to be recognised as a prisoner-of-war by the Japanese. I first read about her in the obituary of Len Williams in 2006. CPO Williams was also on the Amethyst, but later had an easier posting on the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Unlike Simon, who died in quarantine at the age of about two, Judy lived to be 14.
Scientifically-Correct – David Aaronovitch
Sometimes you wait for months for good scientific articles to come along and then you get two in one day in the same newspaper. David Aaronovitch has written this piece in The Times entitled “Climate campaigners reap what GM sowed”.
He ranges through global warming, homeopathy and GM crops, an puts a healthy plea for proper research and not to ban something just because you think it is wrong. Think of all the things in our modern society; scientific as well as moral, that were once subject of a prison sentence or even worse.
The last three paragraphs are ones that we should all heed.
But there is a rich irony here, which it has taken me some time to appreciate and that I want to share. Back in the crop-burning days of the late 1990s, when green activists prevented even trials taking place to discover more about GM produce, they rode shotgun on the denialist wagon. They didn’t care that they didn’t have the evidence, or that much of their support was mystical.
“The war against nature has to end,” Lord Melchett, the executive director of Greenpeace, told Specter, “and we are going to stop it.”
And now the green movement is in the camp of the governments and scientists, bitterly fighting the new denialists who must surely, in the words of John Wayne, remind them of them. Reaping, not sowing.
If you have time, then read his full article. But sadly, if you are in favour of Mr. Aaronovitch you will, but the various flat-earthers and deniers wouldn’t go near his well-reasoned arguments.
Smiling at my Wife
I don’t whether other widows do this, but often as I walk round the house, I smile at the various photographs of my wife that are everywhere. Each photograph is a memory.
Beyond the Pole
After the gloom of the last post, We’re Under Control, this one is about a new film called Beyond the Pole. It’s all about Brits doing what we do best; muddle through with courage, humour and style.
It has been made by Helen Baxendale and her husband and their struggle is described in The Times.
I hope it’s a hit. But if it isn’t it won’t be without the help of their fans and Facebook.
There’s an equally appropriate irony in the reason this low-budget flick with a tiny distributor and zero marketing budget is on the verge of becoming a hit in America — the pecs and abs of Alex Skarsgard. Between filming Pole and its release, the then unknown Swede stormed the screens in Generation Kill, but most particularly as the sensual, dark vampire Eric in True Blood.
I shall try and see it, but whether it gets to this neck of the woods is definitely in the lap of the distributors.
We’re Under Control
Last night’s television was frightening.
It wasn’t any old horror story, but two programmes which shared a common theme.
The first was Panorama about the Government’s, Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) which aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults. A laudable idea, but it is being done in such a heavy handed way, that it will end up with large numbers of people being branded unsuitable, despite there being no real evidence.
Here’s what Sir Ian McKellen had to say about the effect on the theatre.
A new vetting scheme is dissuading amateur theatre companies from casting child actors, Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen has said.
The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) aims to stop unsuitable people working with children and vulnerable adults.
But some theatres say they do not have resources to carry out the paperwork it entails, and Sir Ian fears child actors will lose important stage experience.
He may be overreacting, but then I always worry about schemes like this, as I have a very common name. As an example I’m in a database in Hong Kong and every time I visit, I’m called aside for special treatment. At least I haven’t ended up in jail, but one day my namesake might have upped his level of crime or annoyance. I also used to live in a small village with a criminal with a similar first name and the same surname. I had great difficulty getting a credit card, as I was thought of as one of his relatives.
I will be very unlikely to have any trouble with the Act, but then I only have about two hours contact alone with children in every year. And that is with my granddaughter, either when I take her to the supermarket or show her something on the computer, with one of her parents in the next room!
However, I’m thinking about volunteering to perhaps provide transport or computer help. Because of this Act, I have said that I don’t want to do anything concerned with children or their parents.
Is that the purpose of the Act? Because if no-one worked with children, then we wouldn’t have any problems would we!
And then I watched Generation Jihad.
This was chilling as young Muslims talked candidly about their outlandish views.
I feel that we may be winning some of the battles against those who feel we should be punished because of our lack of religion. The Police are arresting people before they do any damage, mullahs seem to talk sense in good English, and the tone of Muslims on phone-in programmes seems to be very much more tolerant to others.
But again oppressive legislation has been used against the Muslim extremists, that in the end may prove to be unproductive. How many people have downloaded anti-Western videos? Probably a lot more than you would think. For instance, I’ve been sent links to them in spam, by spammers in the Middle East. I unknowingly downloaded the first bit, but then as my Arabic is a bit rusty, so I deleted it.
If your brother was locked up for doing something like this, would you support the authorities or the brother? I suspect, where no actual threat has been proved you would support him.
So is this legislation actually creating more potential terrorists, rather than reducing them? After all if you’re prepared to be a suicide bomber, then a few years in jail if you get caught preparing, is a small price to pay. You can wait and probably you’ll learn a lot more in prison to help you on your way.
Let’s face it, on a scale of nastiness, terrorists and paedophiles are the lowest of the low. Oppressive agencies feasting on innuendo as well as facts, relying on typical government computing and staffed by people on not the best wages are one way to do it. But is that the best?
No!
These systems only catch those on the radar of the authorities. The London bombers weren’t and neither are most paedophiles.
I also have a big worry about these sort of systems. Supposing one was found to be a complete waste of time. Would it be scrapped? After all, if a government did, they’d be described as pro-paedophile or pro-terrorist. Look at how long it took them to sort out the Child Support Agency and the damage that was done in the interim.
So what should we do?
We should look at what causes people to become paedophiles, terrorists and criminals for that matter. One thing stands out; poverty. There is also the way that the parents treat their children. Many paedophiles were abused by their parents, many criminals take up their parents habits and there are terrorists, who have strained relationships with their family. Obviously, not all, but as the programmes pointed out last night, the seeds of criminality are sown within the family home.
Poverty is a very difficult one. The poor are very little better off after nearly thirteen years of Labour rule. But perhaps we should radically change things like the tax system to make sure that those at the bottom end keep more of what they earn, paying for it with taxes on energy. The tax system should also be seamless with the benefit system, so that part-time work is better and less hassle than no-time work.
I have hopes though about poverty and from a rather surprising person; Iain Duncan Smith.
As to family problems, my late wife spent a lot of her working life dealing with their breakdown. Barristers like her are being squeezed by the Legal Aid Fund and anyone worth his or her salt would not go into that field today. But then government doesn’t properly fund the Social Services, so that we get so many problems there.
But then those at the bottom end of society don’t vote, so looking after them is not on the average politician’s radar. Also horrendous crime plays well in Middle Britain, when the government says that they’ll bring in ASBOs, Super-ASBOs, life for littering etc. etc. I bet some wish capital punishment was still available.
But perhaps something that would help everybody, is that we should look at society and make it all a lot simpler.
Let’s have a Bonfire of the Regulations.
Would the Owner Please Remove his Fridge
At the bottom of my lane last night, I noticed a dumped fridge.
Is This Your Fridge?
What annoys me about this is that I doubt it was anybody in the village and someone must have taken the trouble to drive it a few miles. Now when I had to get rid of a fridge a couple of years ago, I put it in the back of my car and took it to the dump in Haverhill. So I probably drove as far, but I was within the law.
At least we don’t have Glasgow’s problem.
Velcro Wallpaper
I like photographs and I have small frames of them everywhere. Sometimes I put letters and newspaper clippings into frames and want to hang them on the wall. But getting them all in line is a pain and you end up bashing endless hooks in the wall or drilling a large number of holes.
I thought that an idea to handle this would be Velcro wallpaper. Perhaps, in it’s simplest form it would be a plain colour heavyweight paper, with say 10 mm. strips of the loop Velcro vertically every 50 mm. or so. Pictures could then be hung by just sticking the hook Velcro to the back of the frames. No nails or screws. I know I could just stick strips of Velcro to the wall, but then if they were on the wallpaper, I wouldn’t have to space them out. Removal would also be much simpler.
I’m not the first to think of this, although this lady on her blog envisages modified flock wallpaper. From her experiments it would appear that Velcro can support quite a weight.
I’m not sure I’d use it like she has proposed in her bathroom.
