Doctors Catch Bob Crow Syndrome
I like this use of words in a leader in The Times today.
I would define Bob Crow syndrome, as being unwilling to give up salaries and pensions, that are way above what similar groups of employees are getting.
The leader does praise British Airways pilots, who graciously took a pay cut rather than see their jobs disappear.
Is God He or She?
I don’t believe in any supreme being, but I find it strange that Christianity, Islam and a lot of other religions assume that God is male. Others do have famale deities, so it’s not universal.
It would be a real problem for some religions and especially sects in some, if God did appear and she was female. It would certainly cause a lot of embarrassment. But I suppose they wouldn’t believe her, as their God is male.
At least not believing in anything means, I won’t have that problem.
God Isn’t Listening
Apparently, Texas is in the midst of a drought.
According to The Times today, last April Rick Perry, the governor and Presidential candidate, lead a prayer for rain in the state.
And guess what?
It hasn’t rained.
Either God doesn’t exist or he/she doesn’t like the fact that Rick Perry executes a lot of people in his state.
The Artist at the Barbican
I went to the Barbican Centre last night to see The Artist.
It was well worth seeing and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It is very much a feel-good film.
Perhaps, I’m being sentimental, but I also felt it was about how you get over loss. The main character had lost his career because of talking films and was very much on the point of suicide after a downward spiral. He was in the end saved by his dog and another actor, Peppi.
I hope it wins the Oscar for best film, but will this happen as the film is French?
All I want now, is my Peppi to come along.
Jon Snow Is Everywhere
It’s a good cause and I agree with the charity’s aims.
Trees for Cities Advert with Jon Snow
Adverts for Trees for Cities are everywhere on the Underground and they feature Jon Snow.
I was at Liverpool University, just before Jon Snow organised the protest against Lord Salisbury, who at the time was Chancellor of the university. There must have been an earlier protest, as I remember something about 1968. In Engineering, who didn’t take too much of a political stance. the reasons were a bit above our head. Although, we did think that Lord Salisbury was not the sort of old right-wing political buffer, who should hold that position. Wikipedia says this about the protest in 1970.
Apart from his political career Salisbury was Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 1951 until 1971. In 1970, students at the university staged an occupation at Senate House to demand his removal, over his support for apartheid and similarly reactionary views.
I think it is true to say, that today, anybody with those views wouldn’t hold such a position.
In the end Jon Snow was rusticated for organising the protest, but the University did later award him an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2011.
C’s tutor at the University was Robert Kilroy Silk. He was also one of the organisers of the protest against Lord Salisbury, but I have read that at the last minute he didn’t turn up. It couldn’t have been because he was giving a tutorial to C, as she had graduated from the university in the previous year and we were living in London. Obviously, no punishment was handed down to Kilroy Silk.
C always found him odious and I can remember her stinking with tobacco smoke after she had been to one of his tutorials, where he chain-smoked Capstan Full Strength all the way through.
He obviously left the right impression on her, as once we were standing next to him at Newmarket racecourse and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get her to approach him and speak of her times at Liverpool under his tutelage.
So now I think justice has been done. Kilroy was here, briefly and Jon Snow is everywhere. Sadly C is no more, but I still have her memories of her tutor in my mind.
McQueen on the Green
I took this picture as I passed the Screen on Islington Green.
McQueen on the Green
It’s nice to see humour and creativity in something as mundane as a cinema advert. I can’t imagine a major chain doing something like this.
You Can Advertise But Not Sell
James Smith & Sons is probably the last real umbrella and walking stick shop left in London if not the world.
I passed the shop on a bus yesterday and took this picture.
James Smith & Sons
Note that at the top right the wonderful shop front says they sell dagger canes and swordsticks.
They may do for those who have a special need, but I suppose if I walked in to buy one, I would be refused.
American Celebrity Chef Gets Diabetes
American celebrity city, Paula Deen, has just announced she has diabetes, like 26,000,000 other Americans. Apparently, her signature dish is a hamburger in between a doughnut. Enough said! And very gluten-rich too!
But she has got a deal to endorse a diabetes drug.
The United States is eating itself to being a has-been power. And helped by her recipes! She should be kept away from the media for ever, as she is probably doing as much damage to the population of the United States as your average terrorist.
In a few years time, they won’t be able to find enough fit people to play any serious sport or join the army.
Are Our Policemen This Dim?
It is being reported that the Metropolitan Police spent £35,000 in the last two years ringing the speaking clock. I know it is important that they time everything correctly for the purposes of evidence, but surely, in most cases they have a mobile phone handy. My twenty-year-old phone gives the time very accurately. The only excuse would be that they need to put down the time to the nearest second. And I can’t believe that is necessary.
They also spent £200,000 on directory enquiries. I have spent nothing in the last five years or so, as I always use 118500 on the Internet.
There may be operational reasons why they need to call directory enquiries, but surely the police could have a better internal system, which gave them more information.
It all goes to illustrate how inefficient our public services are and that they waste money our money all the time.
To the Geological Society of London for a Lecture
When I went to the exhibition on Soviet Architecture, I saw this lecture being advertised on a poster outside the Geological Society of London. So I applied for tickets and yestersay I was able to see James Jackson of Cambridge University, lecture on Earthquakes and Tsunamis in the Modern World. It was fascinating and I learned a lot. I think a video of the lecture will be uploaded at some time.
Years ago, as a sixteen-year-old schoolboy, I went to see Patrick Moore give a lecture on whether there was a link between earthquakes and the moon, next door at the British Astronomical Association.
We do go round in circles.
The Anonymous Widower 