Sunday, February 28, 2010 :
Prosecution for failing to report treasure
It seems to me that the mistake that led to the prosecution was reporting it, albeit to the museum rather than the coroner! The moral being, if you want to keep it, don’t tell anyone!
The rules on treasure are in essence that it belongs to the Crown, although there is a regime to reward finders and landowners (subject to abatement for bad behaviour). I wonder whether there was any reward paid in this case or whether the failure to report meant that the finder got nothing?!
Labels: news
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 :
Skeptics
Clever bloke, and I enjoyed all of his books that I have read, but Richard Dawkins has a lot to answer for. I mean, they may have a point about the whole God not existing thing, but I have been thinking for a while that some of the soi–disant “skeptics” movement really are a bunch of very annoyingly superior smart–arses, as many of the comments on this article about the BBC declining to allow atheists on Thought For the Day demonstrate. From the other side, the comment with which I found myself the most in sympathy was that stating:
“If atheists are so convinced they’ve got it right, why are they so obsessed with hijacking the expressions of other people’s beliefs?
So you’re an atheist. Good for you! Now get over it, and go away.”
Quite right. Leave Rabbi Lionel Blue alone! It’s, like, three minutes a day, man.
Thursday, October 29, 2009 :
Nanny State
This is brilliant. A few weeks ago, we had the story that two policewomen were in trouble with OFSTED for babysitting each other’s children without being officially registered as childminders. Now, parents have apparently been banned from supervising their own children at public playgrounds in Watford. Instead, parents will be barred from the playgrounds and expected to leave their kids in the hands of officially sanctioned Watford council “play rangers”.
Labels: news
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 :
Proceeds of Crime Act extension
The Times reports that Alan Johnson has pushed through a Statutory Instrument extending confiscation powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2003 to civilian investigators. It comes into force next week. Another great example of mission creep. Powers brought in to hit mafia godfathers being made available to hit those who are in arrears with their council tax. How many Terrorism Act 2000 searches was it again that have resulted in a terrorist being apprehended?
A telling point mentioned in the article is that targets for financial seizures have been set, to recover £250 million in criminal assets by 2010, rising to £1 billion per year soon after. Somebody in central government has been taking lessons from Camden council…
Labels: law, news, UK politics
Friday, October 16, 2009 :
Geert Wilders
I can’t help thinking that Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation has slightly misunderstood the idea behind the prohibition on inciting religious violence and its interface with concepts of freedom of speech. While acknowledging that British ideas about the latter mean that Geert Wilders should not be banned from entering the UK because of his views about Islam, Mr Shafiq has apparently stated that while Mr Wilders is here:
“…he has got to be monitored so that he doesn’t say anything to incite religious violence. If you start attacking somebody’s faith in the way that he has, they could react violently.”
I think the idea is that people should be banned from inciting others to physically attack people based upon those people’s religion. Not that people should be banned from saying anything about religion that might induce the religious to get offended and beat them up.
Times article on the story here.
Labels: news, UK politics, war on terror
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 :
Chas and Dave
It was reported yesterday that following the death of his wife, Dave, one half of “Chas and Dave”, has decided to retire from the music business, bringing to an end 30–odd years of Chas and Dave. Sad news. I went to see them a couple of years ago at the 100 Club and it was a bloody good night out. I am sorry that I didn’t get down to another gig before now to see them again.
Monday, July 27, 2009 :
Amy Winehouse in "not dead" shocker
You know how when something appears in the news, then you get several more stories in quick succession about the same thing so it looks like an epidemic? Then it quietly slips off the agenda, leaving you to wonder whether the whole thing was basically manufactured by the media?
Knife crime is a good example. After a high–profile stabbing, a week will go by where someone is in the newspapers and on TV getting shanked every five minutes. Then it all remarkably dies down for a bit, while in the meantime for some reason every MP has apparently suddenly started making outrageous bogus expense claims.
Well, following Michael Jackson’s sad demise, I guess the current media furore of choice is celebrity death. So the front page headline in the Sun newspaper this morning (a World Exclusive, no less): “Amy ‘died’ in my arms”, with a picture of Amy Winehouse and her erstwhile other half. One minor impediment to this otherwise no doubt titillating story, and fortunately for Ms Winehouse — she’s not actually dead. A new low in ‘bandwagon’ journalism?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 :
Free speech
Having seen the news footage of the Royal Anglians being jeered on their homecoming parade this week, I was moved to give a few quid to the Royal Anglian Regiment Benevolent Charity. 10 of the Regiment killed in Afganistan, 2 in Iraq.
Labels: news, war on terror
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 :
Alleged Stanford fraud
Of course Allen Stanford wasn’t a real Texan billionaire. He is clearly one half of the popular 90s comic duo Hale and Pace.
Stanford.
Hale and Pace.
Labels: comedy, crime, news, sport
Friday, October 24, 2008 :
UK Economy
It was confirmed on BBC breakfast news this morning that for the last quarter, the UK went into recession. To clarify, it was added that taking into account all sectors of the UK economy, for the last three months “the UK economy actually lost money”. That ain’t right is it? We’d have been better off just doing nothing? I thought the point was that GDP growth has become negative. Rather than actual GDP becoming negative. Unless we’re in deeper shit than I thought.
In other news, the fact that the pound is now at a five–year low against the dollar doesn’t fill me full of glee in advance of my forthcoming trip to the US in December.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008 :
You've got to love Australians
It’s in the news that rangers in Australia are searching for a man who is thought to have been grabbed by a crocodile. In a great illustration of the difference in “Health & Safety” culture over there, the Manager of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service is quoted as saying:
“We need to make sure the searchers are safe while they’re doing the search. What we’re advising is that they have someone holding their belt at all times when they’re leaning over the edge of the boat”.
RISK ANALYSIS
Potential Risk — Operatives being dragged over the side of a boat by an 18 foot crocodile.
Preventative Measures — Operatives are to have attended the “Belt Holding Technique” seminar and are to present the certificate of attendance upon request.
Labels: news
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 :
Gary Glitter
Apparently, Thailand has threatened Gary Glitter with detention for his refusal to continue his journey from Vietnam to the UK. Surely detention is the last place to put him, what with all the young school children who will be there, doing their lines. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to put him in a prison?
Labels: news
Friday, January 25, 2008 :
Black Monday
Now Monday 21 January this year was not only Black because it was a) commonly held to be the most depressing day of the year in any case; b) the day upon which I returned to the office with major jet lag after a month off having a great time, but also because c) the worst European stock market crash since 2001 took place. It also turns out that it was the day on which a bank had to start unloading a €30bn long position of OTM European equity futures, having discovered a major fraud on the Friday. How unlucky is that! Or are the two events not unconnected…?
Also, am I the only one who thinks that it sits rather ill in the mouths of senior members of a bank in such circumstances to describe the person who had entered the bank into that €30bn position apparently without anyone at the bank noticing in such patronising terms as “he was not one of our stars” and he was “without particular genius”.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 :
I thought that this was funny, about people apparently still deciding to embark upon journeys despite severe weather warnings. It’s absolutely right. There is indeed a severe weather warning just about every day.
Labels: news
Thursday, November 15, 2007 :
Better stick to basketball?
So Michael Jordon is about to enter into the biggest celebrity divorce settlement of all time, paying US$168m to his erstwhile other half. According to the article, “a year after their marriage in Las Vegas, he signed a prenuptial agreement that entitled her to half his fortune”. Hasn’t quite got his head around the prenup concept, has he?
Labels: news
I heard on the news this morning that the Government now wants to ban supermarkets from providing bags to customers.
(shopper) “Where are the baked beans mate?”
(supermarket worker) “Hold out your hands…”
Labels: news
Tuesday, October 16, 2007 :
Postal Strikes
Every cloud has a silver lining, and all that: “This strike has thrown the direct–marketing industry into crisis” (Robert Keitch, a spokesman for the Direct Marketing Association).
Labels: news
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 :
Michael Jackson
I am sad to hear that Michael Jackson has passed away, on 30 August 2007, aged 65. I never met him, knowing him only from his early 1990s series for Channel 4, “The Beer Hunter”. I have fond memories of those television programmes. Jackson educated me, with avuncular enthusiasm evoking a gentler age of TV production, about the world of beers beyond the typical English pub. The Beer Hunter inspired me to sample the wide variety of beers from around the world, from which I have derived much pleasure over the past decade or so. Michael Jackson, you will be missed, and I regret that I never had the opportunity to buy you a pint.
Labels: news
Friday, August 10, 2007 :
Valentino Rossi investigated for tax evasion
Not only is he struggling to find a way of overcoming a dominant Casey Stoner in this year’s MotoGP, but according to this, Valentino Rossi is also being investigated for tax evasion, with potential nine figure(!) fines. Where did it all go wrong? He should have a word with Lester Piggott.
Labels: motorcycles, news
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 :
What do we think of this new proposal to make Sex Offenders Register background checks available to women on new boyfriends and families on new relatives? It seems to me that the result of this would be to render the Sex Offenders Register pretty close to being a public document. Is that a good thing?
Labels: law, news, UK politics
Monday, April 02, 2007 :
Is there any scope for apologising to Iran to get them to release our troops and then when they release them, say “ha ha, we were lying, it was obviously just a trick to get you to release our troops, we don’t really apologise for anything, and what’s more, you suck”?
Also, what’s with all these televised “confession” presentations, complete with charts, etc? Is name; rank; number and “Sir, I cannot answer that question” no longer the form? (Not that I’d fancy being in their position and not that I wouldn’t consider saying anything I was told if I thought it could save me from a stoning — here’s hoping it gets sorted and they’re soon back in Portsmouth safe and well).
Labels: news
Thursday, March 08, 2007 :
She’s lucky. In America, the cops would probably have shot her. Given that drunken violence and vandalism is no longer an exclusively male prerogative, why should we make a big fuss when the police need to deploy physical violence to restrain and arrest a female subject? If some pissed up 19 year old bint took it upon herself to attempt to separate me from my wedding tackle, I’d smack her one too.
Labels: news
Thursday, January 11, 2007 :
Amusingly ambiguous newspaper headlines (via madmusingsof.me.uk).
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 :
This is pretty disturbing shit as well, on the old interference with personal liberty in a supposedly free country tip. It details the Control Order restrictions “including a 12–hour home curfew, no Internet access and a ban on visits from anyone who has not been approved by the Home Office” that have been imposed for the last two years upon some guy who has never been tried or convicted of anything but is apparently a terrorist. Unsurprisingly, his lawyers are contending that the restrictions are a breach of his human rights.
Whatever John Reid says about how nanny knows best and how we need protecting from terrible things that for reasons of national security he can’t tell us about, I cannot help feeling uncomfortable that there are now crimes to which the usual rules of habeas corpus do not fully apply. Still, the Law Lords stopped the Government from detaining this geezer in Belmarsh without trial after three and a half years, so maybe they’ll step in here and restore the time–honoured position in relation to house arrest also.
Labels: law, news, war on terror
Like, woah
There are apparently some new requirements coming in if you want to visit the US from Britain. But something in this story in the Guardian totally shocked me.
“Britons already have their credit card details and email accounts inspected by the American authorities following a deal between the EU and the Department of Homeland Security. Now passengers face having all their credit card transactions traced when using one to book a flight. And travellers giving an email address to an airline will be open to having all messages they send and receive from that address scrutinised”.
So US authorities are already permitted to inspect credit card details and email accounts for anyone visiting the US from Britain, pursuant to a deal done with the EU, and now just dealing with an airline by email means that US authorities can inspect all messages to and from that address and if you pay by card they can review all transactions on your account?! Sorry for all the emphasis, but holy shit. Did I miss the memo on this? Isn’t that, like, a bit of an invasion of privacy if there’s, say, no actual evidence whatsoever that you might have done anything wrong?
Labels: law, news, war on terror
Monday, December 18, 2006 :
"The John in your life" my arse
This is complete bollocks from the well known “all men are potential rapists” school of logic.
“…isn’t it understandable if a woman does not care to contemplate her man’s weakness for whores? But it does matter. In a book she wrote after reporting on the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, Joan Smith argued powerfully that the reason Peter Sutcliffe remained at large for so long — and survived nine police interviews — was that detectives were looking for a bogeyman. They had convinced themselves he was probably a loner and a weirdo. One senior officer said: “If we had 20 or 30 suspects in one room we would know very quickly which one was the Ripper.” In fact he was just a local bloke, a married man who, said Smith, shared the police’s “background and attitudes to a remarkable degree”. An acceptance of this would have saved a lot of lives”.
So the point is a warning to women is that they had better watch out, because not only might your apparently normal man be sleeping with prostitutes, but he might also be a serial killer like Peter Sutcliffe? Because men are all the same. Just a bunch of ’ho shagging, kiddy–fiddling, raping, serial killers in waiting.
Is it just me, or is the world a better place if we conduct ourselves on the basis that everyone is a decent, ordinary person until proven otherwise rather than assuming the absolute worst about everyone because “you never can tell”. Reggie Kray was allegedly nice to his mother. This does not mean as a matter of logic that we should treat everyone who is nice to his mother as a suspected Reggie Kray.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 :
Newton's third law/badgers/Metro
In the Metro today, someone asks (page 17):
“How many badgers would it take to support the Empire State Building?”.
The answer given is:
“The Empire State Building weights 331,818 tonnes. The average weight of an adult European badger is 11kg. So, according to Newton’s third law, you would need 30,102,040 badgers”.
Now, I am not a scientist, but this seems unsatisfactory. It seems to me that all they have done there is answer the question “how many badgers does it take to equal the weight of the Empire State Building”? Why is Newton’s law applicable?
The answer to the question actually posed depends upon what you mean by “support”. If you mean you mean “act as a foundation for”, it seems to me that the issue is one of strength (principally seperable here into compressive, tensile and sheer strength, depending upon where the load forces are applied), not weight. Badgers’ propensity to break/be squashed under load means they are insufficient to support a large building, however many badgers you have got, unless the weight of the building is spread out over a very large surface area (on the same principle that means that an elephant’s foot does not sink into a muddy field where a stiletto heel would, despite the elephant’s weight). So you need to look at the weight–bearing strength of one badger before it will squash or break (say, 50kg?) to see how many badgers you will need (6.6million?), then make sure that the weight of the building is applied down through a cross–sectional surface area sufficient to contain that number of badgers in load–bearing formation (say, roughly 825,000m², assuming 0.125m² per badger (based upon a length of about half a metre and a width of about half of that again for one badger in a load–bearing stance)). So you don’t need as many badgers as the Metro suggests, but the value of the real estate that would be necessary would be substantial, particularly given land values in Manhattan.
No doubt one of you fiendishly clever lot will tell me why I am wrong about all this.
Alternatively, we could look at the issue economically. The Empire State cost some $41m to build. To amass that amount of money (£22m) from badgers, one could go into the business of selling badger pelts to the traditional shaving brush industry. At an average profit of, I dunno, £2.50 per pelt, one could say that 8,800,000 badgers would be required to have supported the construction costs of the Empire State. One could also look at the question of support based upon current annual running costs for the Empire State, giving a smaller number of badgers but on an annualised basis.
Labels: economics, news, science
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