Should Huhne And Pryce Go To Jail?
This stupid case, which quite frankly is all about seeing, who can be the nastiest to the other, has cost the taxpayer enough.
Obviously, the case is serious, but equally so, they are unlikely to cause any harm to anybody else, if they didn’t go to jail.
So they are a classic case for an alternative punishment.
Perhaps they should be sentenced to a certain amount of time, in something like a bail hostel, where they had to do the cooking and cleaning. Where of course, they had to stay in each night. Perhaps they should also be made to share a room to save money.
It could even be broadcast live on Channel 5.
Rape Is Acceptable If It’s Within The Socialist Workers Party
This seems to be the message from several reports this morning, including this one in the Guardian.
Let’s face it rape and I would include threats and violence as well, is never acceptable in any circumstances.
The Times says that many have resigned from the Socialist Workers Party. Hopefully, they’ll be the first of nearly everybody who leaves.
Jamie Gets Dropped In The Salt
I am someone, who’s never liked salt in his food. I would argue with both C and her mother, as I don’t even like it when you cook or in my mother-in-law’s case stew vegetables like sprouts. I do sometimes wonder, what she would have made of my gluten-free regime, as I hadn’t been diagnosed as a coeliac before she died. She was a great one for gluten-rich puddings, which I always declined.
Perhaps, my body was telling me something? It’s a pity her husband’s body didn’t tell him to stop eating, as too much rich food probably raised his cholesterol which caused the stroke that killed him.
So it is with a wry smile that I look at reports, like this one on the BBC, that the champion of healthy eating; Jamie Oliver, has been caught by the Consensus Action on Salt and Health, putting too much salt in the food in one of his restaurants. There’s a full list of the dishes they analysed here.
Only one thing I eat regularly in Carluccio’s is on the list, but then I always cook everything I( eat without salt. Sadly, one of the things I wanted to try, which is Pizza Hut’s gluten free pizza is very high in salt.
The Phone Problems Of The Channel Tunnel
Years ago, I met the guy, who had project managed the installation of the telephone system on the Channel Tunnel. It wasn’t as simple as you’d have thought. I remember one problem he outlined in particular.
Say you are an engineer, customs officer or whatever, employed by the Tunnel and because you are French, you live in France, but your major place of work is on the British side. You want to make a phone call to your wife, husband or partner, to say that because of a problem, you’ll be late home for supper. Obviously, the same problem would apply to British employees working in France.
So is your call home a local call, which it would be if you lived and worked in the same country or an international call, which of course would be at a higher rate.
The solution was to make for telephonic purposes, the Channel Tunnel, its own country.
The guy who managed the installation was British, but he had a French-speaking mother, so BT probably made a good choice, as to who managed the installation of a rather complicated project.
The White Cliffs Of Dover Have Moved To France
According to this article in the Metro, if you use your mobile phone on top of the White Cliffs of Dover, you may get charged as if you’re in France.
Landlord of the Coastguard pub and restaurant on the beach Nigel Wydymus, 53, said: ‘We are a little telecommunications enclave of France here.
‘It did not cause a huge amount of trouble for a few years with mobile phones because you got a message saying welcome to France but since smartphones have come in it’s more of a problem.
No-one has checked, but I wonder if you’re on the French side under the cliffs there, you might find the British signal is your phones preferred choice.
i do remember, when I would fly back in my Cessna from France, I was quite surprised at how far beyond the French coast, I could pick up a UK signal. Not that I made a call, as I probably needed two hands to fly the plane, but some of my passengers did. And of course that was well before smart phones.
Educating The Germans
I’ve just read this piece on the BBC’s web site called “Affection for Britain brews in Germany”. Part is about the Germans new-found love of tea and the author, Stephen Evans, says this.
The office of one of the Green MPs in the Bundestag, you see, has made a collective decision to switch from coffee to tea.
So when I was there the other day, I was relentlessly quizzed about brewing times – they seemed to want the correct answer to the very second – and which tea to use.
I was not much help, except to say, “Make sure it’s a strong, black tea, probably Indian.”
They had made a bad start, offering me a cup of insipid weak Darjeeling, which would have shamed a gnat. They had not made sure the water was boiling.
It is definitely a piece worth reading.
What everybody forgets is that the Great British Breakfast is actually the Great German Breakfast, as in the Victorian age, everywhere had their German delicatessen which introduced bacon and sausage to many in the UK. The Germans had to leave, when there was a bit of trouble with the Kaiser in 1914.
A Taxi Driver In Mumbai
I’m just watching the BBC documentary of a London cabbie trying to drive a cab in Mumbai. Fascinating.
I posted this story of my holiday in Mumbai.
Manchester Comes To Liverpool
I’m fairly certain, although I could be mistaken, that the Class 390 Pendolino, I took back from Liverpool on Saturday was named City of Manchester.
But it was the second train south in the morning.
Times When I’m Glad I Don’t Own A Car
Today, according to this article on the BBC web site, the Dartford Crossing has been closed to traffic for seven hours. This article doesn’t say why, but it was a man threatening to jump. In the end according to this article after four hours of negotiating he jumped and later was pronounced dead in hospital.
I’m not going to question the man’s motives or suggest that the police should have taken more radical or forceful action, but why is it, it’s inevitably men, who climb on buildings and bridges and threaten to jump? I can’t remember an incident, where it was a woman, who was the prospective jumper.
I’m just glad though, that I’m a non-driver, as I can’t remember this sort of incident with trains. Perhaps, the men who threaten to jump are frightened of getting smashed into small pieces by something like a Class 66. Thinking about it, most suicides on the railway seem to be with passenger rather than freight trains. I wonder why? I have travelled on passenger trains with freight drivers and they have told me that many that get killed by freight trains are thieves nicking cable and other things in the middle of the night.
Crossrail Launch An Arts Programme
Crossrail do seem a bit different to your average company, with some of the things they do, like their excellent archaeological program, which resulted in last year’s exhibition called Bison to Bedlam.
Now they have launched an arts programme, as they report here. I’m glad to see too, that they have spelt programme correctly.
The Anonymous Widower 