[justice on its head] signs of a deeper malaise

Vox quotes a judgement in the UK where a cuckolded husband has an injunction against him, preventing him from naming [anywhere or in any form] the public figure who slept with his wife. The adulterer is being legally protected from the victim, in other words. Vox comments:

This is a powerful demonstration of the way that Western governments are increasingly taking positions which not only attack traditional morality, but do so in a manner that demonstrates their intrinsic opposition to the very rights which they are supposedly protecting. One would think that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" would easily, automatically, be trumped by the husband's free speech and economic freedom rights; after all, one cannot slander someone so long as one speaks the truth, nor should one be prevented from profiting from his unique knowledge. That is, after all, the entire premise of the media business, that people will pay for knowledge they do not currently possess.

You might agree that, quite apart from the rank injustice of this decision, it points to something further – that the justice system is actively protecting the perpetrator and blocking the victim. This is a convolution which Vox [and I] understand only too well from our increasingly marginalized vantage point and it’s numbing that whereas before it was all done surreptitiously, now they are openly turning justice on its head and brazenly lying to the people.

‘They’ is people very high up who are the driving force behind the moral equivalence and the marginalizing of any voice which could have spoken out against what is going on. Their deep cynicism is born of the knowledge that the majority either can’t see where the trail leads back to or will simply refuse to accept that it is so, preferring varied sociological explanations.

[no climate change] tornado in london every day

Hundreds of people have been left homeless after a tornado brought devastation "like a horror movie" to a residential area of north London late today. They took cover in a respite centre set up in a local church after about 100 homes were damaged in "freak weather", injuring six people and causing millions of pounds' worth of damage.

My friend was at a European conference yesterday where they were discussing Austria’s devastating losses in tourism because of the lack of snow. I ran a post on Switzerland yesterday. Meanwhile, over here, when there should be bitter cold of around minus 15 to 20 and dumps of snow, there is plus 3 [plus 7 in Moscow], the streets are awash in sludge and slime and I’m back to the autumn jacket and light cap.

But of course this situation, the London tornado and the weird weather in Australia and the Philippines are all ‘normal’. Don’t dare say ‘climate change’. It doesn’t exist, according to the experts. Truly.

[native americans] raking in the billions

Osceola, Seminole hero

British leisure group Rank has agreed to sell its Hard Rock cafe and casino business to the Seminole tribe of Florida for US$965 million ($1,378,474). Rank has shed British household names like Butlins holiday camps, Odeon cinemas and Pinewood film studios in a drive to get rid of its image as an old-fashioned conglomerate. Hard Rock's portfolio includes 124 Hard Rock Cafes, 4 Hard Rock hotels, 2 Hard Rock casino-hotels, 2 Hard Rock Live! concert venues and equity stakes in three unbranded hotels.

Semi-what? A little from Wiki: They never surrendered to the U.S. government, hence the Seminoles of Florida call themselves the "Unconquered People." The Seminoles are the only American Indian tribe never to sign a formal peace treaty with the United States who spent $20 000 000 and lost 1500 soldiers in the early 1800s to subjugate them. When South Florida tourism boomed in the 1920's, Seminoles capitalized by wrestling alligators for money. In 1979, the Seminoles opened the first casino on Indian land, ushering in what has become a multibillion-dollar industry operated by numerous tribes nationwide.

This is the sentence which jolted me: They started out in northern Florida, but when the Americans attacked them, the Seminole tribe retreated further south, into the Everglades. So they’re not American? Yet they’re on American soil and taking in billions of dollars. Go America!

[want to escape] the horror of the silly season

Today, I learnt the word for ‘I’ll be hiding’ in Russian: ‘Спрячюсь! Spryachoos.’ That’s the answer to the question: ‘What are you doing for New Year?’

I plan to be hiding from Friday December 22nd until Saturday, January 2nd. If anyone rings on the bell during that time [well, actually they can’t because it’s disconnected] or knocks on the door [well, actually they can’t because there’s a triple security door system], then we’ll just go to ground until they go away. Everything will be via the e-mail or website.

Why so? Firstly, there’s absolutely nothing I can see to celebrate at this time of year except Bethlehem and that can be done on January 7th in Russia, after all the madness has passed. This, now, is the time of year when we’re at our most weary, when we’re at our lowest financial ebb, when all we want to do at night is curl up in a warm room with one’s love, when all the prices are sky high, when the roads are absolute mayhem, when everyone’s coughing all over everyone else and the wisest course is to quarantine oneself.

There’s so much false bonhomie when people who’ve walked past you all year or wouldn’t have given you the time of day suddenly lose all sense of proportion and wish to press-gang you into some sort of enforced group frenzy. It’s like they’ve been injected with a dervish pill and the drunken shrieks and hysteria rend the night as they grimly ‘let their hair down’. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong that a few whiskies won’t fix with friends or at the pub - ordinarily – but not with a bunch of complete strangers who’ve taken leave of their senses during the silly season.

Stephen Pollard wrote a classic on this matter last year [an abridged version of his article appears here] but I’ve also reprinted a comment by a girl which gets very close to the real reason I’ll be hiding. It’s an incredibly lonely time of the year.

[lexicon] ten handy shakespearean taunts

Gratuitous nudity for a Wednesday morning – wonder why they had to be naked to have a quarrel.

Which of us have not, at some time, wished to have a classic Shakespearean jibe at the ready to hurl, like a thunderbolt, at the unsuspecting offender? Now you can – here are the first ten in an ongoing series of wonderful taunts:

1] Thou gorbellied reeling-ripe clotpole!
2] Thou puny elf-skinned strumpet!
3] Thou reeky clapper-clawed gudgeon!
4] Thou fawning tardy-gaited joithead!
5] Thou bootless fat-kidneyed skainsmate!
6] Thou mammering spur-galled codpiece!
7] Thou mangled unwash'd clack-dish!
8] Thou droning full-gorged apple-john!
9] Thou dankish rump-fed jolt-head!
10] Thou warped dismal-dreaming foot-licker!

[fraught] bit under the hammer these 24 hours

Hope to post two or three before tomorrow evening but I’m a bit under the hammer until then - tomorrow doesn’t bear thinking about so I’m not going to.

It’s also killing my blogvisits to you and it’ll take till tomorrow evening to get round to you all to annoy you so please bear with me and forgive my tardiness. All will be back to normal soon.

Coming back to Leighton’s painting again for a minute [the one in the slavery post and partly reproduced to the left here], I was thinking, you know – let’s have a party and everyone has to strike a pose and act in character as depicted.

Better still, we’ll have a ‘classical day’ and everyone in, say, London or Edinburgh becomes ‘sad Andromache’ or ‘the babe with the urn’ or the angel with the urn on the head for 24 hours. Better still, let’s forget all about it.

[idle thoughts] the kings of the east

Bit difficult to see but the city boxed in purple on the left is Babil and the map on the right is Kashmir, a major obstacle for China until now.

Whenever I touch on this sort of thing, I prefer to just present it and stop there. It’s your decision whether it means anything or not. Have a look at:

# the international situation with the great rivers;

# poisoning and drainage of the marshes and basin;

# China’s leaders’ statements on future policy;

# Pakistan’s relinquishing of rights over Kashmir, including links to the rebuilding of the silk road route;

# China and Iran’s recent agreement;

# China and India’s recent agreement.

# A bit of far-fetched apocalyptic literature, from Revelations, to finish up with:

9:14: Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. 15: And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. 16: And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

16:4: And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

16:12: And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

The only other thing I can do is pose the question – why Babylon and Israel? Why not, say, Frankfurt in Germany or Columbus, Ohio?

[ghosts] yea or nay

These two photos were sent to a UFO site a few years back. The sender, named Martha, said: The attached photos were taken about 4 seconds apart using a 400 speed film.

The site host said: Notice by the gate. There is a human shaped anomaly in the first photo and four seconds later there is no human shaped anomaly. I cropped these photos to show only the gate, instead of the whole scene in front of the camera but in the original, there is a much wider view and in that, no body can move out of camera range in four seconds.

I now ask: What is your immediate reaction to this?

1] Wry smile of disbelief - such things can't happen;

2] Wry smile of disbelief - of course the figure moved out of range;

3] How can you trust either Martha or the conspiracy fanatic not to have doctored the photo;

4] Might be something in it - can't be sure - not enough evidence;

5] The evidence is there in front of you - what more do you need?

[presidents' letters] sheer coincidence

RMN with Checkers

Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton. Of course this means diddly squat and I'm not intimating anything - not any way. Both fine leaders. Yessir.

[global] the widening wealth gap

Interesting report in the NYT on wealth distribution:

The widening gap between the global haves and the have-nots in large measure reflects the failure of less- developed countries to develop, while rich countries — particularly the United States — have experienced fast economic growth and a spectacular buildup of assets.

“Developed countries have pulled ahead of the rest of the world,” said Edward N. Wolff, a professor of economics at New York University who is a co-author of a new study. “With the notable exception of China and India, the third world has drifted behind.”

It’s certainly a worry but understandable at the same time. In the countries high on the chart, there are so many more dedicated to mammon who’ve accumulated accordingly. If you’re obsessed with wealth, to the exclusion of humanity, you’re a very rich beast. The converse is equally understandable.

Another factor in this is that it’s hardly likely to alter through revolution or whatever, as socialists are wont to dream of. And at the risk of alienating humanistic readers yet again, some believe there is one, lurking in the shadows, all too happy too protect this pentagonal state of affairs and altruism is not his middle name.

Still, nice to have some stats on the issue.

[vingt-et-un] the french way to blackjack

Blackjack or Pontoon. For differences between French and English court cards, click here.

If you’re at a loose end this day or you have an extended lunch or you make one, try French vingt-et-un, the expanded version, played by any number of persons. The first deal is played as in the ordinary game.

In the second, [Imaginary Tens], each player is supposed to hold a ten-card and receives one card from the dealer, face downwards; he is then considered to hold a ten-card plus the one dealt, and stands or draws, receives or pays, as in the ordinary game. If he receives an ace he holds a natural.

In the third deal, [Blind Vingt-et-un], each player receives two cards, and draws or stands without looking at either.

The fourth deal is Sympathy and Antipathy, each player staking, and declaring which of the two he backs: two cards are then dealt to him: if they are of the same color, it is sympathy; if of different colors, antipathy.

At the fifth deal, [Rouge-et-noir], each player, having received three cards, bets that the majority will be either black or red, as he chooses.

In the sixth, [Self and Company], every one stakes but the dealer, who then sets out two cards, face upwards, one for himself and one for the players. If the two cards are pairs, the dealer wins; if not, he deals till one of the cards exposed is paired, paying or receiving according as that card belongs to himself or the company.

The seventh deal is Paying the Difference. Each player receives two cards, face upwards. The dealer pays or receives a stake for the difference in number between the pips on his own cards and those of each player. The ace counts as one.

The eighth deal is Clack. The stakes are pooled. The dealer deals the cards out, face upwards, calling one for the first, two for the second, and so on, the knave being II, queen 12, and king 13. If any of the cards dealt correspond to the number called, the dealer takes the pool; if none correspond, he forfeits that amount. At the end of this (the eighth) deal, the next player deals.

[blair’s apology] ten things about british slavery

This blog’s comment on Blair’s apology is drawn from the BBC: The story of British slavery is one of the greatest untold stories in UK history. It's a subject people don't talk about, with most Brits knowing more about slavery in the Deep South of the US. Here are 10 things for those of us who might still be a little hazy on the business:

1. The British were the first big slave-trading nation to abandon the trade. They did this in 1807 when there were still huge profits to be made, and they did it for mainly moral reasons. It took a revolution of the slaves to destroy France's system and a terrible civil war in the US decided the fate of the slaves of the Southern States. In Britain alone slavery was ended by millions of people, black and white, free and enslaved, who decided it could no longer be tolerated.

2. From the ending of the slave trade to the beginning of the 20th Century, the Royal Navy patrolled off the coast of Africa searching for slave trading ships, boarding them and freeing the slaves. The fleet was known as the West Africa Squadrons.

3. Slaves in the British Caribbean didn't produce cotton as they did in the US. Sugar was the crop of islands like Jamaica and Barbados and the slaves who produced it were the world's first industrial workers.

7 more things about British slavery here …

[switzerland] schengen and snow cannon dilemma

Justice and Interior ministers from the European Union have decided to include the EU’s 10 new members into the bloc's borderless Schengen system which includes 13 former EU member states [UK and Ireland remained outside the agreement] and the non-EU states of Iceland and Norway.

Unlike Malta, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and five other eastern European nations that have applied for full entry into the Schengen zone, Switzerland, which is not an EU member, will not sign up yet. Swiss voters endorsed their country's participation in Schengen in 2005, despite opposition from the rightwing People's Party.

Meanwhile, on another front, it is no secret that winters are becoming warmer everywhere and in the Alps, the temperature has risen considerably faster than the world average, with less snowfall and a vicious circle has set in: when the snow cover disappears, it leaves the rock face exposed. Dark rock absorbs heat, raising the temperature further.

Snow cannons are the solution for the pistes but they use huge amounts of water: about four litres per square metre per centimetre of snow cover, taking water from reservoirs and streams, when the water is in any case running low, effectively dumping it elsewhere, harming both soil and plants. The cannons also consume huge amounts of energy and to make matters worse, artificial snow quickly forms a hard surface and needs frequent fresh snow to keep the pistes usable.

The cannon issue is hardly likely to upset the Swiss but the open borders is more interesting. It was never very stringently applied and I crossed back and forth to France at Thonon-les-Bains without a word from anyone. That the people voted for open borders though surprises me - they always seemed more insular than that. Do you think it could be a purely economic decision?

[blogfocus tuesday] dealing in death

In the vanguard and beating the drum

If ever there was a good time to deal with death dealers, this is it. The known world is at the crossroads as we write and these fearless bloggers are tackling the issue before the focus swings away to more altruistic matters.

1

Getting us off to a nice apocalyptic start and setting the tone for kaboom kaboom, the Tin Drummer asks the biggie: Have we, indeed, actually finished the twentieth century at all? I tend to think some things, such as our anxiety over climate change and the shrill language surrounding it, may instead be ways in which we're trying to grasp its legacy. Maybe we're only just getting started on facing up to what we went through, the vast, mechanised murder, the leaders who slaughtered by the million while smiling and promising great worlds, even the tower blocks which were supposed to be new communities in the sky - and what our civilisation caused and nearly caused.

2

My dear friend Alex, from my home turf, is also on home turf with his fields of death commentaries and here’s his comment on Rumsfeld’s plan: Not doing reconstruction in places where there is violence is, well, interesting. It is probably the truth - where there is violence, the contractors won't go. And anyway, one doesn't try to persuade one's allies. Finally, showering cash on Iraq has been tried continuously since the 9th of April, 2003, and seems to have resulted in the biggest theft in history. Donald Rumsfeld was actually stupider than I thought.

Another 11 bloggers plus the mystery blogger here …

[silk road] china, kashmir and jihad

Only today some of us were discussing the Silk Road and now Kashmir is once again in the limelight:

Confirming that Pakistan was prepared to relinquish formal claims to Kashmir, a long-festering sore between New Delhi and Islamabad, General Musharraf said: "Yes, we are against independence. One is giving (that) up clearly and I say, yes, (I) am giving up." General Musharraf's statement represents a significant olive branch and the first sign of movement in some time on the thorny issue of Kashmir, which provides the raison d'etre for Islamic militancy in the Subcontinent and has caused three major wars since independence.

Indeed significant, yes? While they’re all concentrating on the reduction in ‘jihadism’, what it also does is smooth the way for China, which already has redoubled its efforts to get its western Karakoram Highway and economic centres along the route set up. If you glance at a map of the old Silk Road above, it’s hard to see but this highway heads inexorably for Kashmir and beyond.

Of special significance is the town at the western end of the road pictured above – Babylon. And Babylon is south of Baghdad. Another interesting thing is that a functioning superhighway with logistic support along the route and peaceful passage through Kashmir and the rest of the sub-continent would also be highly desirable from a military point of view.

[canada] election possibilities

I ran a post earlier on the new Canadian Liberal leadership and that Mr. Dion faces the possibility that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will try to engineer a quick election before he, Dion, can properly unite his party and organize for a vote. Blognor Regis adds: They only had one last January. And the one before that was barely 18 months before hand. It's like 1950 & 1951 or 1974 in Britain. Fatigue must be setting in by now.

Now, Halls of Macadamia [Neo Conservative] has offered “a Canadian perspective” which makes it clearer in my mind:

I'd say real, or engineered, voter fatigue is probably the biggest concern about engineering a snap election. Harper could easily make "same-sex marriage" or the "farmer bob rifle registry" a confidence vote and the opposition would have to vote them down. It's probably less about voters actually being upset, than the feeding frenzy that the opposition and the largely lefty media would make of it.

The vote is typically split lib/ urban, cons/ rural... the west conservative, with the exception of largely left British Columbia... Quebec is half sovereignist and half fed up with political machinations of any sort. The Maritimes are traditionally huge pork barrel provinces due to their lousy economies.

Right now Harper is governing as if he has a majority... which has stunned the liberals. Libs are in debt, and despite electing Dion as leader, in disarray. My guess is he [Harper] will continue what he's doing ... acting large according to his conscience and if he's brought down, he'll be happy to go to the ballot box.

Harper says what he means and despite a few concessions to political reality ... does what he says. My prediction is a conservative majority ... I'll let you know if that changes.

[worst movie ever] 5th nomination - st. elmo’s fire

Croydonian has now added his nomination ...

Hmm. There was a series of 'Golden Turkeys' hosted by Michael Medved on C4 many, many moons ago, featuring such triumphs of the film maker's art as 'Plan 9 from Outer Space', 'The Creeping Terror' etc etc.

However, bad though those films were, they did end up being entertaining, so I think it might be an idea to also look at commercially successful films that are truly terrible. The worst films I have paid money to see are the staggeringly self-indulgent and utterly lousy 'Golden Child' and the toe-curlingly awful 'St Elmo's Fire'. Re the latter, as a rule any film involving Joel Schumacher will be exploitative, badly made dreck. Conversely, the widely slated 'Heaven's Gate' has pacing problems but is actually not bad.

Right, so let’s concentrate on St. Elmo's Fire.

Wiki: This coming-of-age film revolves around a group of friends that have just graduated from Georgetown University and their adjustment to their post-university lives, the quarter-life crisis, and the responsibilities of encroaching adulthood.

Imdb: Cast: Emilio Estevez as Kirby Keger; Rob Lowe as Billy Hicks; Andrew McCarthy as Kevin Dolenz and Demi Moore as Jules. Written by Joel Schumacher and Carl Kurlander Directed by Joel Schumacher. Tagline: The passion burns deep.

Plot Outline: A Group of friends, just out of college, struggle with adulthood. Their main problem is that they're all self-centered and obnoxious.

Notes: Demi Moore. Not the same faded never-a-star of whom Wiki says: “She became well-known after a string of 1980s teen-oriented movies”? 1980s!! Not the same Demi Moore whose concept of acting is insisting on revealing an increasingly aging body to the camera in almost any film she manages to scrape into? Is this the same Demi Moore? The one who posed naked and pregnant in Vanity Fair? And she’s a coming of age teenager here, named Jules Jacoby?

St. Elmo’s Fire is most definitely nominated – Erasmus of Formiae would surely turn in his watery grave. Other nominations so far include:

1] Manos 2] Tom & Vera 3] Arthur's Dyke 4] Starship Troopers .

[australia] one reason never to live there

This one came from Norm and I caught it on the Tin Drummer’s site. It provides one simple, definitive reason not to settle in Australia. This is now not permissible at a cricket match, because of the threat of terrorism:

[Anyone who] ... offends, insults, humiliates, intimidates, threatens, disparages, vilifies, abuses, belittles, scorns, denigrates, traduces, ridicules, dehumanizes, dishonours, defames, victimizes, contemns, disrespects, slanders, frightens, taunts, torments, wounds, derides, terrifies, terrorizes, petrifies, demeans, maligns, badmouths, and [to go with 'offends'] upsets, dismays, demoralizes, depresses, distresses or anguishes... [and anyone who does such thing will be taken outside and laden down with the waste paperwork from every unnecessary government department until he or she be dead. And may the Force of PC have mercy on them.]

Australia is a sunburnt land with cute, cuddly wildlife, wide open spaces, golden beaches, huge vistas of multi-coloured sky and a vibrant, go-ahead society, hell-bent on nobbling itself, of strangling itself into submission. Clearly admirers of Soviet Russia and missing it badly, this drivel above is what they’ve now lumbered themselves with.

Can you see the demented bureaucrats in their airconditioned offices, Thesaurus and dictionary on the desk before them, pausing and asking one another: ‘Do you think we’ve covered everything here? Anything else anyone wants to ban? Darleen? Paula?’

Lord, help them because all I can do is traduce them.

[taliban] why they’ll never be defeated

Syed Saleem Shahzad, of the Asia Times, rode with Abdul Jalil, of the Taliban, whose multiple roles include coordinating between the Taliban and those government officials who are sympathetic. He relates how, when he has to travel in high-risk areas, a friendly, highly placed government official from Kandahar takes him in his jeep - complete with official license plates. He adds that much of the material he sources comes from the government.

Commenting on the Taliban's tactics, he said, "We follow the techniques of remote-controlled explosive devices used by the Iraqi resistance. But our technology is different. The Iraqis improvise with various explosive materials and then link it to a remote control. Our source of explosives is anti-personal and anti-tank mines. These were in the possession of various warlords who looted them after the fall of the communist government in Kabul. They either sold or donated the mines to us."

"These mines are our main source and we link them with remote controls and effectively blow up our targets. But this is not the only source - the other source is American bombs. Many of the bombs they drop from the air do not explode. I am an expert in defusing these unexploded bombs, and there are many others like me. We extract all the explosives inside the bomb shells and use them for sacrifice [suicide] attacks," said Abdul Jalil.

Nice one, huh? Afghanistan is their home. There are only two places they’re going, in their own minds, the Taliban – either home or to the 72 virgins. They are not going to lose. They have never lost in Afghanistan. Why oh why can’t the Defence Department wake up, why couldn’t they learn the Russian lesson, what on earth are they trying to prove there and why did they drag Canada into it?

This blog is in full support of the troops and is deeply angered by their shoddy equipment and short-changing by the DofD but it equally asks Rumsfeld/Gates: ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at over there?’

Please read the whole article here …

[in the fsu] anything can happen … and usually does

This is as close as I can find at short notice

Just back from work and you know I usually don’t talk shop beyond vague references. This is an exception. It’s a perfect example of how, in this country, things can change so suddenly, without the least warning, both for the good and for disaster.

So, finished up with the ladies [mentioned in the last post] and went out into the global warming – slush everywhere and trucks kicking it up all over the clothes. Managed to escape that and tore across to the Ministry, where I was late, cleaned the boots on the electric machine inside the door, skipped upstairs and the look on the secretary’s face said it all. Something had come up and he’d had to deal with it. Result - no conference.

About to go home when in came the most ravishing Ayisha you could imagine and before I could stop myself … well … the Min’s sec, this lady and I ensconced ourselves in the kitchenette, coffee and what have you was served and the serious business of meeting my new friend took almost an hour.

The Min’s aide popped his head in, then out again, as did the Min’s sec and there I was with the hard task of entertaining a lady who spoke no English. And she was something. Turns out she was the Press Secretary, so you can imagine her charm but further we shall never know because apparently there was a hunt on in the building for her. She’d gone missing.

So, in high spirits I departed, stuck out a hand, caught a car and it was the mangiest broken down vehicle, driven by a chap clearly out of work and so the fragility of life here came home yet again. All the way to my place, there was every chance he’d mug me but actually he turned out quite nice, as most of them do and now here I am writing to you.

But it could well have been otherwise. That’s the point in the FSU – you just never know and it keeps you on your toes. It was Dame Edna Everage’s alter-ego who said: “Anything can happen … and you know … it usually does.”

[exercise] when there's no alternative

Photo courtesy Mosnews

These are the sorts of people I'm obliged to spend a substantial portion of my waking hours with each day. Actually the ones I deal with are around four years older and there are usually fifteen or so and hundreds more on the stairs outside the room.

However, that is not the point of this post. The point is that there are hardly any obese or thunder-thighed girls in the FSU for the simple reason that they exercise naturally – walking to the bus, walking up and down stairs seven times a day, walking around shops for hours, dancing half the night and so on. I’ve asked many how difficult it is to stay so trim and they think nothing of it.

[langley] abandon hope, all ye who enter here

Hannah Arendt, writing in 1963 of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem, was moved to describe what she saw as:

The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.

This seemingly out of place word, ‘banality’, seems very much to be part and parcel of true evil. Leaving aside the films and books for one moment, it seems to me that this is what it’s all about. Nothingness.

Of course the CIA are anything but evil – they’re an altruistic, kindly lot of do-gooders, dedicated to peace on earth and yet – look at the photo and the textures and colour scheme they’ve adopted. These are the colours of cold efficiency, of clinical dispassion, of tiled rooms and the absence of style, the absence of any feeling whatsoever. What a cheerless foyer to a great public building. How dispiriting.

When we eventually see ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter here’, this is the sort of portal I have in mind.

[exercise] forget all the substitutes - make the move

Morning exercises – don’t you love the chap in the background, watching?

The peerless Bryan Appleyard has done it again. He’s come up with one hell of a topic:

I see calorie restriction is becoming fashionable. I looked into this phenomenon while researching my new book. The idea is that you restrict your calorie-intake to about 30 per cent of normal levels. Since the thirties, animal research has shown that this prolongs life.

No, no, no, no, no, no – that’s not the way to go. Quite the opposite. What is not mentioned once with the animal research is that in their natural habitat [as distinct from in a cage in a laboratory] they would exercise – naturally. Here’s the list for homo sapiens, in no particular order:

# Exercise
# Love - to and from
# Conversation
# Intellectual stimulation
# Eating a balanced diet heartily
# Sleeping big time
# Keeping in touch with your spirituality
# Relaxing with a diversion of some kind e.g. sex or a book

Forget the pills, forget the calorie restriction, forget all of that. Exercise! Go to the gym, as so many other boomers do and after the initial shock, if you stick at it, everything improves on the list above. Appetite, heartiness, optimism and so on all improve and there’s one huge bonus if you combine aerobic and anaerobic exercise, [i.e. heart routines and lifting weights], quite apart from the social interaction.

Exercise becomes a drug – hence all the gym rats who can’t do without their daily fix. It’s a narcotic and the buzz afterwards lasts a boomer a good hour and a half, during which time he’s in grave danger from the female of the species. He’s … er … desirable again. Plus … and this is the biggy … he feels so proud of himself and the buzz rubs off on those around him.

If you’ve done none for years, if you think you’d look ludicrous – seriously, no one’s going to think that. They’re going to admire your spirit. Aside from watching the heart carefully, [and there are so many ways to monitor that], there is no known downside to exercise. You just have to make that massive move to get up off the posterior and start it.

[canada] election on the cards

It’s all action over at Stephen Harper’s ice palace:

Mr. Dion faces the possibility that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will try to engineer a quick election before he, Dion, can properly unite his party and organize for a vote. Across Canada, 26 per cent said they would be less likely to vote Liberal now that Mr. Dion is leader, and 20 per cent said they would be more likely; 47 per cent said their vote would be unaffected.

Mr. Dion moved immediately yesterday to prepare for a possible election when he announced the formation of his transition team. "I am a quick learner," he told reporters in his first press conference as leader. "We don't have a lot of time, as you know. We may be in an election at any time."

C’mon Stephen, c’mon. Sorry, sorry – mustn’t show any bias, must I?

[catastrophe] now what time does the film start

Nourishing lunch

What does the following news do to you on a Monday morning whilst you’re briskly getting ready for work?

The Red Cross has sent out an urgent plea for water, food and medicine today as Philippine officials said more than 1000 people were dead or missing after mudslides swallowed up whole villages. The Government's National Disaster Coordinating Centre confirmed 425 dead from the mudslides around Mayon volcano trigged by super typhoon Durian rains. It listed a further 599 people as missing in the same eastern region of Bicol.

I asked a lady about this once while we were finishing lunch, prior to going to a matinee – not this particular disaster, of course, another one – and she replied, ‘Yes, shocking, isn’t it? One more tea before we go?’

To which I replied something along the lines of, ‘That’s 1000 people dead, you know. 1000.’

‘Yes, it’s terrible the things which happen in the world,’ and by now she was looking at me strangely. ‘James, when’s the film start?’

‘It's easy to see them as statistics, rather than as people, isn't it?’ I mused.

‘Who?’

‘The 1000 who died.’

Slightly exasperated, she muttered, ‘Well why don’t you go and help them, if you feel that way. Look, they’re there and we’re here. I feel terrible but what can we do? Is there some Bandaid concert or something? How much do they need?’

‘12:30.’

‘Pardon?’

‘12:30. The film starts at 12:30, so we’ve forty five minutes. We’d best get a move on.’

[She did later contribute a sizable donation, to be fair and followed the story in the papers until the papers lost interest.]

[in brief] thought for the day

You can't cheat an honest man. He has to have larceny in his heart in the first place.

[country quiz 4] 10 more tricky ones for you

1] If you crossed the Panama Canal from the Atlantic (Caribbean) to the Pacific, in which general direction would you be going?

2] If you saw the letters BWI after a country on a postal address, where would you expect the letter to be delivered?

3] If you were in Molokai, in which country would you be?

4] In which city is Marco Polo airport?

5] In which city is the HQ of the Central Bank of China?

6] In which country is water considered so precious that it gives name to the currency: the Pula?

7] London's Fleet Street runs from the Strand to Ludgate Circus and has become the former home of British journalism. What is it named after?

8] Name the eastern-most and western-most state in the United States.

9] Jebel Musa is acknowledged to be one of the Pillars of Hercules, the end of the world according to Mediterranean cultures. What is the other one?

10] Valencia Island is off the coast of which European country?

Answers here …

[bryan appleyard] why the right blogs are more successful

Bryan has this to say about the success of the “rightish” British blogs:

[The] left's rhetoric has been inhibited by a variety of self-imposed restraints - broadly those known as 'politically correctness', but also by certain, as it were, theological dogmas such as the need to blame America for everything and to insist that America can only do evil. PC and dogmatism have progressively tightened the gag on the rhetoric of the left so that, in effect, they can say less and less about more and more.

The right, by contrast, has not really acquired any such fixed dogmas. It is more pluralist. The reason for this is the left's dogmatism and package of prejudices combined with an “if you're not for us, you're against us” mindset. This restricts entry to the left club and excludes anybody who might dissent too readily from the prevailing orthodoxy.

My take: The left is incessantly on about rights and legislating for inclusion, citing a mythical 'pie in the sky' of which they want their slice. The right realizes there are no rights, save what we create for ourselves by dint of hard work. We make our own contacts, we conduct our own business, we 'makes' our money, we protect those dear to us and ourselves. Providing everyone else also has a 'trade' mentality, it works well. Along the way, our network of contacts gives us all the protection we're ever likely to get.

[managers] treading a fine line

The most successful small companies in this part of the world are those with strong managers who act with vision and according to sound business practice but are known for their open-door policy and frequent planning meetings. They therefore have to tread a fine line between managerialism and fiasco.

Yet it’s in the interests of any manager worth his salt to listen, digest and to adopt, to initiate discussions and to give weight to what is put forward and this is the hardest task with the hands-on, start-up type of free-wheelers who manage companies over here. Divisional and sub managers can certainly contribute – that’s what they’re paid to do – but would they assume personal liability for any company action? In small companies, one man takes the rap and only has himself to blame, so best practice and the free flow of ideas are in his own best interests.

If staff feel they are appreciated for their input, this is far more important than making decisions by enforced democratic vote. As Alec Issigonis said: ‘A camel is a horse designed by a committee.’ If a staff member can have room to move in his particular specialization and if he can see the result of his input reflected in company policy, then why would he want to be the one with his head directly on the block? Indirectly, he still stands or falls by his decisions and the thing has a tendency to self-actualization.

It’s a fine line. Unfortunately, many get it wrong and the result is dysfunction. Like a car with an engine that can't fire on all cylinders, a business that's dysfunctional may move forward for a while. But eventually it stops running. Companies don't start out maladjusted, of course. It just tends to happen over time.

"The hallmark of a dysfunctional organization is a gap between reality and rhetoric," says Ben Dattner, a New York organizational psychologist. Once diagnosed, the corrosive effects of such problems can be corrected. But make no mistake: It's neither easy nor immediate. Joanna Krotz, of Marketing Intelligence, identifies three signs of dysfunction.

Read on …

[worst movie ever] competition details

There's something fascinating about an atrocious movie. That's why this blog is currently running a 'Worst Movie of all Time' competition [I know, I know it's been done ad nauseam]. Rules are:

1] it must have been made for cinematic release, not as a garage movie;

2] they can’t have set out to make a bad movie. This last criterion would seem to put out Attack of the Killer Tomatoes which was intended as trash but ended up being quite a cult flick;

3] you must include a blurb and link;

4] pic would help.

First four nominations from you good people are here:

1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4

[the big three] shift in the hegemony

“The West's international oil majors are in real trouble as regards the collapsing of their control over global energy reserves and face a global wave of nationalization, forced renegotiation of existing agreements, inability to get access to new exploration and production acreage and rising taxes. It is a caustic mix that is dissolving the glue that holds together the US-backed oil order.”

It must be pretty clear to all who observe that there’s a three way struggle for global pre-eminence. America’s hegemony, based on its undisputed financial clout is very much under threat from the might of China with all its convoluted alliances and questionable agenda and methods.

While America remains oil dependent, Russia and Saudi also hold very strong hands and Russia, for one, is fully aware of it and playing hardball. The rejection of Exxon-Mobil’s and Shell’s advances over Sakhalin are a case in point. Reluctantly, America is paying greater attention to exploring bio-fuels and the Mexican gulf but it’s certainly a slap in the face nonetheless. America will never be weak because of the very nature of its competitive instinct and the willingness of its people to spend and yet … and yet …

Iraq is a perfect example of how to bleed America dry – not to cripple it, of course but to weaken it enough for China and the Muslim Alliance to take centre stage and set the agenda, with Russia still strong for another 30 years at least. The following article, from www.GeoStrategyMap.com, addresses Russia itself.

Read it here ...

[hollywood nativity] of movies and spirituality

Very interesting article in the Globe and Mail which I reproduce in abridged form below. The thing is that the humanists will be uneasy by definition but it would be perhaps harder to see how a Christian could be equally uneasy. Surely this is precisely the break they’ve been looking for.

Er … no. First the article:

Two years after Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, a film rejected by every major studio, earned more than $600-million (U.S.) worldwide, Hollywood is finally beginning to believe in the possibility of a Christian audience.

Earlier this year, executives at New Line Cinema — the Time-Warner subsidiary that first came to fame with slasher flicks in the eighties, and achieved major studio status by producing The Lord of the Rings trilogy — sat down in a Los Angeles screening room and were given a class in what they dubbed “Christianity 101.” The teachers included a Pauline nun who doubles as a film critic, an evangelical preacher and a Presbyterian minister.

Continued here …

[blogfocus saturday] creative initiatives

As the title suggests, this Blogfocus concerns those with a new, novel, creative initiative or way of looking at a particular issue which has not been done a thousand times before. Hope you enjoy it.
1

Bryan Appleyard specializes in extra-terrestrial explanations for the origins of life and this is no exception: Panspermia - the theory that life on earth was seeded from space - finds support from the discovery of hollow spheres in meteorites. These could have rained organic molecules onto the surface and got the whole show on the road. In fact, panspermia does not seem to explain very much, but it's a theory of which I have always been fond. To my mind, it implies that we are the alien invaders of earth, which is exactly what it feels like early in the morning on the Norfolk saltmarshes. Atmospheric.

2

The similarly atmospheric look of Outside Story’s blog does not prepare us for his piece on the CBI: Wat Tyler’s summing up of the CBI: If the first rule of journalism is "never let the facts get in the way of a good story" then the first rule of think tank economists must be "never let the sums get in the way of a good idea". Unfortunately Wat has done just that and found the Citizens Basic Income (a version of Friedman's negative income tax) comes up short.

He then offers some food for thought: Perhaps there is some way of cutting benefits in half and scrapping council tax altogether. This would be an obvious administrative saving because the two activities would cancel each other out - so the government would be doing nothing at all. It's something to think about at least.

Another 12 bloggers here …

[england] will they win and is warne finished

Paul Collingwood

Have to smile, really. When I put up the little poll in the right sidebar, England were crashing out to ignominy in the 1st Test. I was the one who posted the 'draw' vote for the series. All others posted 'lose'. Now England is in command of the 2nd Test, the situation has radically changed in the poll. As for Warne, is he finished or not?

[protection] how long must the container be

German researchers are developing a type of spray can into which the man inserts Percy, then latex is sprayed on from nozzles on all sides - a bit like a car wash, as they put it, all within about five seconds. However, before it can be sold in shops, the firm who’ll make it must ensure that the latex is evenly spread when sprayed, as well as optimizing the vulcanisation process.

They hope it will be available in different strengths and colours and on the market by 2008. The spray can would likely cost about 20 euros as a one-off purchase. The latex cartridges - sufficient for up to 20 applications - would cost roughly 10 euros.

So – what do you think? Personally it sounds quite good but the fear of emasculation by a guillotine type malfunction might put many off. And what if you weren't ... er ... excited at the point of application?

[semantics] christmas trees lit in iceland today

The lights of the Christmas tree in Midbakki in Reykjavík harbor will be turned on today at 5 pm. The tree in Akureyri town center will start glowing at 4 pm. The Christmas tree in Reykjavík is a gift from Hamburg in Germany. This is the 41st year Hamburg has given Christmas trees to Reykjavík out of gratitude to Icelandic seamen who brought food to children in Hamburg after WWII. Fréttabladid reports.

Quiz Question 1: What is the most unusual thing about this otherwise mundane story?
Answer: It actually gratuitously uses the word Christmas in four places.

This is enough to make a godless leftie fume. After all the hard work getting into positions of power and influence over the last few decades, after rewriting all the schoolbooks, after expunging any references to THAT superstitious myth and after educating the common man in the cold, materialistic humanistic light, these throwbacks in Iceland still insist on using the correct name for the tree. What hope is there for the world?

Here's the oldest trick in the book:

1] You want to normalize and make acceptable an unacceptable concept;
2] You group some other generally accepted concepts together and lump this one in with them;
3] You then concentrate on or attack something else altogether and mention this group of concepts in passing, thereby never opening them to question but assuming they’re taken as read.

The Chinese are good at this. They speak of THE three enemies of society, for instance: Crime, Drugs and Careless Speech or the three eternal verities: The Family, Hard Work and the State Leadership.

In the same way, the Labour Party gave us this one:

''Whether the barrier is their background, their race, religion or sexual orientation, the Labour party has always been prepared to take the decisions to open up opportunity for all.''

Except that the first two are equal and different but the third, cleverly tacked on at the end, is simply deviance from the biological roles of the higher animal kingdom. It is no more a choice than paedophilia. It’s deviance from the norm.

The cleverest part of it is that people will be so incensed by Labour’s claims in the last five words that the real aberration will get through unchallenged. They've been very clever about it.

[icelandic logic] food prices down, alcohol up

Here’s a perfect example of the type of government interference which makes Tim Worstall and Chris Dillow fume, only this time in Iceland:

Minister of Finance Árni M. Mathiesen submitted a bill yesterday aimed at lowering food prices after 1 March next year. If passed, the price of alcoholic beverages would rise. The bill includes the abolishment of excise taxes on food products and the lowering of VAT to 7 percent. As a consequence, the VAT of alcohol will also go down to seven percent, automatically lowering the price of alcohol as well. Fréttabladid reports.

Mathiesen said the purpose with the bill had been to lower food prices, not alcohol prices, as the tax decrease on alcohol would deprive the state budget of an income of several ISK billions (ISK 1 billion = EUR 11 million, USD 15 million). To prevent that, the government has decided to raise the price of alcoholic beverages. The cost of some brands of beer could go up by 17 percent. The Federation of Trade & Services and The Icelandic Travel Industry Association have objected to the government’s plans.

At least the government is being honest about it. They didn’t try to claim it was to prevent the spread of alcoholism or to protect children – they admitted it was to rake in the kroner.

[litvinenko] one or two developments

Although tests have been conducted on dozens of people who came into contact with Litvinenko after he fell ill — including the doctors who treated him — an Italian investigator named Mario Scaramella is so far the only one to show more than a negligible amount of radiation in his body. Scaramella has said all along that he felt fine. The health agency would not say how much radiation he had ingested, only that he had "a significant quantity."

Scaramella was a consultant for a parliamentary commission in Italy looking into reported connections between the KGB and Italian politicians. In the process, the group — the Mitrokhin Commission, created during the tenure of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi — created dossiers on a number of opponents of Berlusconi, including the present prime minister, Romano Prodi. It was disbanded earlier this year.

Litvinenko also worked for the Mitrokhin Commission, Goldfarb said. The two met regularly in London. Their last meeting took place at the Piccadilly branch of the Itsu sushi restaurant on Nov. 1, the day Litvinenko became sick. The Health Protection Agency also said Thursday that someone who could only have been Litvinenko’s wife "had tested positive for low levels of radiation exposure. "

Scaramella told reporters that during the meeting he presented Litvinenko with e-mailed documents showing their names on a list of people whose lives were in danger from Russian criminals. Scaramella said the same criminals had killed Anna Politkovskaya, a well-known Russian investigative journalist, in October.

Meanwhile, the 2008 question is getting closer and closer and so far there don’t appear to be any credible alternatives to Putin in the offing. A quick scan of today’s Russian news sources reveals nothing new except opinion pieces and that is truly the state of play. Countless journos are offering up opinion but the only ones who seem to have some of the facts at hand are the British investigators. As my contact said on Thursday, better to wait and see what happens.

That, of course, does not satisfy the need for a daily fix of shocking revelations and following this blog's withdrawal from the Litvinenko/Politskaya issue on Thursday came an immediate drop in site visitors. Perhaps it was just coincidence.

[better technology required] ufo crashes in siberia

An unidentified flying object has crashed in Krasnoyarsk Region, Siberia, causing a forest fire, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported on Friday.

The crash took place in the taiga between the towns of Yeniseisk and Lesosibirsk, the agency said, quoting the local Interior Ministry Directorate. The crash was reported by local villagers and traces of forest fire could be seen. Air traffic officials said that no aircraft were scheduled to fly in the region at the time of the crash and no air vessels were missing.

A group formed of police investigators, representatives of the Transport Prosecutors Service and representatives of the aircraft safety watchdog Rosavianadzor has started to the site of the crash from Krasnoyarsk. The Local Emergencies Directorate has sent a helicopter to the site.

This is not good enough.

This blog feels that 1] these alien life forms should be required to submit documentation, in triplicate, on air safety standards compliance and craft reliability before entering terrestrial airspace; 2] should cease attempted abductions of terrestrial lifeforms henceforth until approval is granted 3] as this is a clear case of threat from alien sources [hostile], all citizens should report to their local ARP shelter Monday morning for implantation of the bio-data ID verichip in their right forearms.

[grimm tale] little red riding hood

One afternoon a big wolf was waiting in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did come along and she was carrying a basket of food.

'Are you carrying that basket to your grandmothers?' asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.

When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she could see that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on.

She approached no nearer than three metres from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother at all but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look the least like anybody's grandmother. So the little girl took an automatic pistol out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.

Moral. It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.

James Thurber:Fables for Our Time [adapted]

[london olympics] just who should foot the bill

Lady Ellee asks: Should UK taxpayers pay towards the Olympics? Is it fair that London taxpayers should bear the full brunt of the astonomical costs for the 2012 Olympics, a national event that will benefit other parts of the country too?

Teri says: Here’s the sticking point Elle: It’s in London. If it had been somewhere like the Midlands or in the North then maybe a large number of people would agree that it’s fair to distribute the cost.

james higham says: It’s a good point about the dweller in the north. He’s hardly likely to get down and see them but on the other hand, he’ll bask in the national glory. I don’t know if it should be national or city. What about the expats too? Don’t they reap some of the radiated glory?

[food & wine] red wine, mediterranean diet, as we thought

New research from the William Harvey Research Institute and the University of Glasgow shows that red wines from areas of greater longevity in southwest France and Sardinia have higher levels of procyanidins - a type of flavonoid polyphenol with potent protective effects on blood vessels.

The team tested wines from two specific regions in southwest France and Sardinia, associated with increased longevity, to see if they differed to wines sourced from other countries across the world. The 'traditional' wines revealed surprisingly high levels of procyanidins, with often five to 10 times more than some new world wines.

Welshcakes Limoncello said… "Vino vecchio ed olio nuovo" = "old wine and new olive oil" - that's what they say the secret is here, James.

Forbes agrees: people who eat a "Mediterranean" diet rich in fruits, vegetables, olive oil, legumes, cereals and fish have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers report. Another study finds that taking omega-3 fatty acid supplements slows cognitive decline in some patients with very mild Alzheimer's disease.

"It seems that this diet is [health] protective," Scarmeas said. "Taking into account that this diet is protective for other conditions such as coronary heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, obesity and a series of cancers, it seems to make sense to follow this diet anyway, and the diet may also protect from Alzheimer's disease."

It all seems pretty clear to me.

[freedom of speech] assault on the blogosphere gains momentum

Chicken Yoghurt has an important post on the freedom to blog and that many bloggers can’t see how they can be shut down if their host is offshore. CY refers to the Prime Minister’s senior policy adviser, his former press secretary and the director of the Press Complaints Commission and their views on what they’d like to do to the blogosphere. Also, former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich:

“This is a serious, long-term war,” Gingrich added, “and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country. It will lead us to learn how to close down every Web site that is dangerous.”

War? Yes, it is indeed a war and you can just see the wheels turning in their minds. At the moment they can’t touch the blogosphere so they’ll soon resort to the good ’ole Hegelian thesis-antithesis, translated into layman’s terms as: 1] create a crisis 2] raise cries from the populace to solve the crisis 3] step in with your pre-packaged solution which achieves your true aim.

The blogosphere is the only place left where the long term goals of these very dangerous people who purport to lead the country can be exposed. We still have the freedom for now but the Google shutdown last evening perfectly illustrated how tenuous is our ability to communicate with each other. The plug can be pulled at any time.

[space shuttle] haute cuisine out of this world

Space shuttle Discovery, meant to launch Dec. 7, will carry Thai chicken and two other dishes devised by Food Network star and TV talk show host Rachael Ray. She made the astonauts' meals in NASA's kitchens, the first from a food celebrity to fly on the shuttle. The meals will make "a nice … psychological twist for our crewmembers," says NASA food systems manager Vickie Kloeris.

Space station astronauts have already sampled Emeril Lagasse's jambalaya and mashed potatoes with bacon, devoured on the station in August. German station resident Thomas Reiter told Lagasse, famous for his New Orleans-style fare, that it was "perfect" for satisfying the crew's "longing … for spicy food."

Most of the shuttle food is freeze-dried or heat-treated and can last for months - freeze-dried shrimp cocktail and irradiated steak for example. Ray's dishes, which were cooked at NASA's kitchens, will get eaten despite the astronauts' tendency to skip meals because they'll go in the fresh-food tray, which holds perishables such as fruit and favorite snacks of the crew's choice.

Appearing on Ray's talk show in October, Discovery commander Mark Polansky, an avid cook, pronounced Ray's chicken "great." The crew can also dig into treats from crewmate Christer Fugelsang, the first Swede to fly in space: ginger cookies and moose pâté. More here.

[wishful thinking] the pope and the muslims

This business of the Pope praying with the Muslims - wonder if they’re praying to the same G-d? For what expected result?

1] to convert the Muslims to Christianity or vice versa?
2] to reach understanding so all that nasty terrorism will stop?
3] to prevent the mistreatment of the Christian minority by establishing dialogue and therefore some sort of negotiating position?

Pope Benedict XVI stood Thursday in silent prayer, facing Mecca, beside Mustafa Cagrici, the chief of religious affairs for Istanbul — under the ornate domes of the Blue Mosque. He stated his desire to reconcile Christians and Muslims and then referred to the “Christian roots of Europe” and then, in a joint declaration with Bartholomew, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, referred to the Christian roots of Turkey — the Byzantine church based there for more than a millennium.

He must fail on N1 for obvious reasons, he’ll fail on N2 for a less obvious reason – namely that the unrest and killing is done by crazies funded by the 4th player and so reason N3 appears to be the one he’s running with.

On Thursday he endorsed Turkey’s entry to the European Union but linked it to specific progress in respecting the rights of minorities e.g. the officially harrassed Orthodox Christians. Finally, he repeated a theme from that speech in Regensburg, Germany, about violence in the cause of religion, though this time without mentioning any religion by name.

The Pope’s real purpose, though, was to heal the rift with the Orthodox Church. How? There are several doctrinal differences and the East will never accept the pontiff as anything more than first among equals so this blog asks, yet again, for what expected result?

UPDATE: Melanie Phillips' take on this.

[the snow] signs of winter out there

You can’t use the term ‘bucketing down’ for snow, as you can for rain and sleet or even ‘p---ing down’. ‘Fluttering down fast’? ‘Driving downwards like a fast hit shuttlecock’? Whichever you choose, that’s what’s happening now outside and the sky is full of it. The temperature is hovering around minus 3 and that’s not good.

It’s not good because it doesn’t kill off all the little bugs and nasties, doesn’t help the plant life and gives rise to epidemics of flu and the like. It’s not mere bravado that has us wishing for low temperatures like minus 25 or so, every so often. It’s absolutely necessary. And it’s deceptive. After the initial onslaught, the body gets used to it and that’s where the danger lies – in over-confidence. Then the chills come and you’re off for a week.

There’s a contrast between men’s and women’s approaches. A young woman will often go without hat but will always wear gloves – a young man the other way around. Same for the fur coats [increasingly acrylic nowadays]. The men generally have the fur inside, the women outside. Women go for long scarves, the men for functional items.

The traditional Russian hat still can’t be beaten but there aren’t many of the under 40s who’d wear one. The black, woollen, knitted cap is the way to go. I myself choose that way, with the fur-lined hood up if the wind’s up outside. I also have fur mittens of a thick variety for when it dips to minus 30 or so. This is much rarer than you might think and generally, it’s around a nice ambient minus 10 and this is not being facetious.

Being a continental climate, minus 10 here is about plus 3 or 4 in Britain in terms of body effect. I recall one day at Hadrian’s Wall, at 06:00 in November when I almost literally froze to death. I wasn’t that cold again until I tried to work on my car in the carpark in minus 37 one morning here.

Which brings me to the car. If it kicks over in the morning, you offer a silent prayer if you’re that way inclined and things go smoothly and safely for the day. Trouble is, when you have a car, you’re generally dressed more lightly and if something goes wrong, such as leaving your keys in it and the doors automatically locking after you, then you’re in real trouble. You’d have about 25 minutes before hypothermia began its inexorable setting in. Always, always, there’s the possibility of such things lurking at the back of the mind.

It happened that way on the road to the airport and there was no choice but to abandon the car, engine still running and catch another car back home for the spare keys. But that’s another story.