[reality] is paper thin

origami chair
by so takahashi
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[kernow] exciting new life for young people

Fine, fine, 20 000 Cornish men, tell you what we'll do - let us help you out. We'll grant you immediate independence, build a no go zone between two twenty foot high walls along the Tamar and patrol the coast north and south to ensure no illegal Cornish immigrants get into England by sea or vice versa. There'll be a two month period of grace, during which people can decide which side of the Tamar they'd like to live on and then the border will be sealed up.

You can then enjoy your independence and trade your tin and fish with Bretagne and Wales. You'll have to forget tourism though because no one's coming through that wall. So those double lanes of English and foreign cars will no longer enter your sacred land - we'll respect the land of your forefathers, protect you from the trampling tourists and wish you all the best for the next 100 years.

When would you like to start?
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[support out troops] get out of this political mire

It's not often this blog quotes The Mail:

The steep rise in casualties in Afghanistan is being matched by increasingly bitter recriminations between the Government and the British Army.

Soldiers accuse ministers of failing to give the troops on the ground the support they need. Ministers charge the Army with dangerously politicising its role.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, has especially angered Labour by complaining privately to a group of Tory MPs about under-resourcing of the campaign.

Senior officers are impenitent about speaking out, because they regard the stakes as so high - the lives of their men. One told me yesterday: 'I regard the losses of the past fortnight as a wake-up call to the Government.

'If we are going to fight this war as it needs to be fought, we need a properly-resourced army.

'We also need the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to explain to the British people, as they have never convincingly tried to do, why we are in Afghanistan and what we are trying to do there.'

There is a tendency amongst patriots and pro-armed forces bloggers to see any opposition to Afghanistan as a bunch of conchy lefties whining about the brave boys and girls defending our country. While the opposition might include such people, you'd hardly lump the British Army itself under that heading would you, boys?

This blog is 100% behind our troops and the number of posts on how shoddily the armed forces have been treated shows the mindset of your humble correspondent. But I'm sure as hell not going to support a war we should never have been in, for purely political purposes which have zero to do with defending our nation, completely ill-equipped, defending peope who don't give a damn about this country and which the British Army itself is outspoken against.

You can support Gordo, Mandy and the Afghan quagmire if you like.

This blog, however, supports the Armed Forces.

Interesting American perspective here on how the government over there is planning to ban cigarette smoking for the military to make them healthier.

[By the way, I tried to rejoin the army last October and got as far as papers being prepared by recruiting but then the brass rang back and said I was too old. If I'd been a doctor they would probably have taken me. Oh well.]
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[sportsmanship] difficult when there's a lot riding on the result

[This pic has been used by most of the dailies so I'll just acknowledge the Independent and move to the post.]

Sportsmanship.

What does it mean? In a game which has been a byword for sportsmanship for so long and the spawner of that remonstrance 'it's just not cricket', Ponting's words were restrained:

I'm not saying any of this changed the result – they were only brief interruptions, and I don't want to make too big a deal of them. But they were such visible incidents that I'm sure others will be taking these issues up with the England management.

The Telegraph took those words and made a headline: 'Ponting hits out at England'. No he didn't - he mentioned some things, that's all. I don't particularly like a lot of what Ponting has done over the years but I equally don't like the beat-up in the Telegraph.

The trouble with the concept of sportsmanship is that at the top level, the game is so competitive and there is a lot riding on the result. Even at junior level, it was always interesting the way we'd take teams to schools which shouted 'sportsmanship' from the rooftop but in the actual game, all sorts of little advantages were allowed to them but if one even looked askance at a strange decision, 'sportsmanship' was the repost.

It reminded me of Terry Gilliam's Brazil where Big Brother was constantly referring, in his broadcasts, to 'playing the game', in his attempts to have Tuttle caught or turned in.

If you're going to play a game for sportsmanship, fine - let's have independent umpires and nothing riding on the result. But if we are playing a game to win, then within the rules, let's go all out to win and not be so hypocritical as to accuse the opposition of not displaying sportsmanship. You can't have it both ways.

Unfortunately, cricket is a game which, like tennis and its line calls, lends itself to controversy, not least with the LBW rule. And how much time wasting should be allowed on the field when one side is playing for a draw? I've seen the Australians do it many times, particularly under Ian Chappell but this is our turn now.

I didn't notice but were the umpires ours?
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[swimming pool drains] waiting for your child

Have to confess I've never really thought much about swimming pools but this stopped me short:

A 14-year-old schoolboy from the Isle of Man has died while on holiday in Thailand, after he was sucked into a swimming pool pumping system.

There are some U.S. stats which could be added to that:

Following are just a few facts uncovered by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in a comprehensive study of drowning and submersion incidents involving children under 5 years old in Arizona, California, and Florida.

* Seventy-five percent of the submersion victims studied by CPSC were between 1 and 3 years old; 65 percent of this group were boys. Toddlers, in particular, often do something unexpected because their capabilities change daily.

* At the time of the incidents, most victims were being supervised by one or both parents. Forty-six percent of the victims were last seen in the house; 23 percent were last seen in the yard or on the porch or patio; and 31 percent were in or around the pool before the accident. In all, 69 percent of the children were not expected to be at or in the pool, yet they were found in the water.

* Submersion incidents involving children usually happen in familiar surroundings. Sixty-five percent of the incidents happened in a pool owned by the child's family and 33 percent of the incidents happened in a pool owned by friends or relatives.

* Pool submersions involving children happen quickly. A child can drown in the time it takes to answer a phone. Seventy-seven percent of the victims had been missing from sight for 5 minutes or less.

* Survival depends on rescuing the child quickly and restarting the breathing process, even while the child is still in the water. Seconds count in preventing death or brain damage.

* Child drowning is a silent death. There's no splashing to alert anyone that the child is in trouble.

Drains, by definition, catering for a large volume of water, even in family pools, are a source of hazard. While we don't want to go down the draconian H&S route and over-regulate everything or ban it, there needs to be some sort of middle position found. Perhaps when schools take kids for weekly swimming lessons, the dangers of the pool itself, not just the standard safety lessons, can be given.

All the same - to be able to be sucked into a drain in a public pool says something about the owners and the builders, doesn't it? The last thing we want is to stop kids swimming and yet this sort of thing is just a little too prevalent for comfort.

[weekend poll] closed, results here

Which three do you vote for?

1. Cheetah (1)	2%
2. Lion (1)	2%
3. Tiger (12)	23%
4. Cat Woman (2)	4%
5. Jaguar (8)	15%
6. Puma (2)	4%
7. Black Panther (4)	8%
8. Snow Leopard (11)	21%
9. Domestic Cat (10)	19%
10. Sabre-Toothed Tiger (1)	2%

Total Votes: 52

The results were fairly steady throughout the polling and thanks to all who voted.