Hay Festival starts today

I'm just going outside, and may be some time

Lie in at the Home Office

2,000 people wrongly labled as criminals

The Home office says it makes "no apology for erring on the side of caution"
Interesting statement. Gives the impression that these were not errors at all.
If what they say is true then there should be no cases of the third type ie convicted criminals who were missed by this process. I bet there are good few of these too and the "no apology for erring on the side of caution" line is just a bit of opportunism like John Reid's catching of the illegal immigrants on their 'first' visit to the Home Office.

Trade with China

Ive just had this idea for a novelty Christmas present suitable to give to a UK boss.
I don’t know anything about porcelain but maybe there is some thing minimalist and shiny white available in China that could form the elegant basis of my product.
The idea is for the buyer to compose a suitable insult which is then translated and hand painted onto the cup/mug/teapot in Chinese. If they cant think of anything suitable there would be a readymade list of insults from which to choose allowing them to combine the correct sentiment with the artistic expression thereof.
I am sure it would look extremely elegant – the boss would have a nice present and the employee would have the satisfaction of knowing that every time he raised the cup to his lips he would be announcing to the world ‘May this gweilo burn in eternal damnation.’ Or something better.

A few more Bits near the bottom

Galileo said that the earth moved around the sun instead of vice versa and ever afterwards we laugh at anybody who talks of the sun going round the earth.
But as I understand it we can use either description without being wrong its just that one explanation, the Galileo explanation is simpler. I doubt whether most of those who laugh at the sun round the earth model are up to the simpler mathematics necessary to describe the Galileon orbit never mind anything else. Neither the sun nor the earth are fixed in space and so to grant the sun real priority is as unjustified or as justified as regarding the Earth as the centre of the universe.


Ann’s Aunty Sunday 28th October 2005
‘Ive lost interest in that old Millionaire. They are playing for charity. I suppose they don’t care whether they win or not.’
And on another Sunday in 1992
‘They are both very poorly – him and her- you know they asked S where they could get a cooked chicken for Christmas’

Russian Proverb
You can feed the wolf but he still looks towards the forest.

I see I made a note of a Henry Blofeld commentary in August 1996 as a bouncer was delivered.
‘He backed away from that and it was so close it almost knocked the drip off the end of his nose’

Chess and the No Claims Bonus

Here is another idea for the psychologist to research.
If you play chess regularly you get a grade, a number, and this number accurately reflects your playing abilities – unfortunately.
I saw a TV program years ago about good driving. It was proposed that good drivers recognise changing patterns in the road as they drive – bad drivers dont. Seemed plausible to me.
Back to chess – a good chess player is one who above all else recognises changing patterns in the game. A good chess player contrary to popular notion is not primarily a good calculator.
Given those two pieces of information it occurs to me that a good chess player should be a better motor insurance risk than a bad chess player. The chess grading system puts a number to, quantifies, the players ability and if the idea holds the chess grade should correlate with the driving ability.
To test the theory would be simple and would cost hardly anything – comparing chess grades and claims records. It would also be a cheap piece of publicity for the insurance company doing the research as it is just the kind of thing the press love.

Table turning

Mon 8 May 2006 @ 13:45 Pivot Tables Mon amour Post #1

Douglas Mcleod I have just discovered that Pivot Tables are magic. I think I will go on and see if there is anything in these new fangled portable telephones.


Mon 8 May 2006 @ 15:50 Re: Pivot Tables Mon amour Post #2

alan johnston is that like a swivel chair, ma cherie?Alan Johnstonwww.morelandinsurance.co.uk

Waiting for Egg O

I have just been looking up some hotels on Trip advisor very good for the invaluable contributions of disgruntled guests getting their own back for having an almost full English going cold on their plate while they wait their turn to take delivery of a separately cooked fried egg. That’s always a problem though isn’t it? Not the fried egg – but have they remembered me?
I noticed a reference to a ‘turkey & tinsel weekend.’ My sister has been on a couple of these – surely one real Christmas is sufficient?
She was the youngest on this coach trip a mere 57 year old. I think it was early November, about 4 weeks after the shops first start hard selling Christmas proper.
They were taken to a hotel by coach and then over the next 4 days inside the hotel, it was Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and then even more anachronistically New Years Eve , while outside in the real world shop salesmen fretted about their targets and wondered whether a Christmas bonanza was ever going to take off.
What I thought was funny though was New Years Eve in the hotel.
Just like all the other days the owners strove for authenticity and New Years Eve in early November consisted of a New Years Eve party with the climax being the countdown to midnight. However due to the advanced age of most of the revellers it was requested that the hotel clock be put forward two hours so that they could all get to bed by 10.30 real time.

Nigel Tokely in my sock drawer another mystery solved

Me to them

Dear Sirs,
I wonder if you can help me .
While cleaning out my sock drawer I found a small circular buttonlike object with Nigel Tokely Broadstone G.C inscribed on it. Any ideas what it is and how I may have come by it?
Only idle curiosity on my part.
thanks

Them to me
Dear Mr McLeod
Nigel was the Head Professional from 1984 until last week. Nigel often had ball markers made, such as you suggest.

Kind regards

Still there

Just received the following disapointing email from the Pledge Bank

We are sorry to have to inform you that the pledge to which you
signed up did not meet its target in the required time. It
required 100000 other people, but achieved only 150.

The pledge, created by Tim Ireland, read: 'I will pledge £10 to
a cash prize fund to be awarded to the person who proves Tony
Blair is a liar and prompts that PM's removal or resignation as
a result, but only if 100,000 other people will too.'

Play this

Humiliation

I am an expert jay walker. I worked in the Strand for a number of years and in the City before that..
I could squeeze through the narrowest of quickly closing gaps, my spatial awareness bordering on the miraculous. I could have been a bull fighter of the most artistic kind but I didn’t like the idea of killing, or the idea of flying to Spain come to that.
Today in this hick town of Llandrindod I was humiliated in the most dreadful manner. The road is an ordinary two way road of moderate traffic density. I looked right – one car in the distance. I looked left – a stream of cars moving at less than 30 mph but an easy gap between the leading taxi and the next car. I walked into the centre of the road and waited for the taxi to pass me when I would quickly move in behind it cross the remaining six feet and the car behind the taxi would not even have to slow up.
Elementary jaywalking well within my city developed abilities. But the bastard taxi driver stopped and waved me across with his index finger like I was some old pensioner!
Still I suppose from a driver’s point of view it is an excellent stroke to pull and I was reminded of that book/film about Lifemanship written by Stephen somebody or other and starring Alister Sims, Terry Thomas and Ian Carmichael.

Experiment with Church Hall

Don't bother to play this unless youve got broadband and are exceptionally bored.
This is just an experiment by me to see if I could get it on to the blog.
The Boughrood & Llyswen new Church Hall opened today.

Upanill

A picture today of Llyswen again – I forgot about this viewpoint.

Change it's name to Snickers

I instinctively dislike the London Marathon. The whole thing is ludicrous. What have wheelchairs to do with Marathons ? Whats so elite about an elite runner that merits a separate start from the rest of the field; the only thing that might induce me to watch would be the possibility of some kid working his way up through this bunch of professional miseries and winning the race on Tower Bridge by running the last few yards backwards waving an open can of lager tauntingly in the face of the pursuing elite.
Even though Paula Radcliff wasn’t there this year I was still unable to bear the awful voices of Brendan Foster & Steve Cram for more than 10 minutes. At one point Cram piously said ‘at what other sporting event in world could complete novices compete against sporting giants’ at which point the camera cut from the sparsely populated elite race well under its early started pampered way to a great mass of ordinaries strolling and squeezing its way through the lovely gates of Greenwich Park completely despoiled by huge advertisements for some kind of politically correct margarine.. My heroic little yob runner would have to be very good indeed to overcome all this and beat these sporting giants.

More Money for the NHS

So £250,000 pa GPs.
Dr Del to Dr Rodney, "This time in 4 years we'll be millionaires ".
Missing millions

Another Fishy Business

Years ago in Post Magazine - an insurance paper taken by me mainly for the jobs, I read the story of a trawler called the 'Girl Pat'. I could never thereafter find any reference to it, the internet not being invented. I have just found the following BBC link.
Girl Pat With some research and a script this could be a good film.
Now I must see if I can find a copy of the book by the mutinous captain George Orsborne.

Gravitarse

Have just read the following first bit of a conversation on the Chess website I play on.
‘Johnnyjohnson(50): I have a theory its my own theory that in some cases gravity can go sideways, that explains chairs moving across the room in poltergiest behavoiur. I don’t know why gravity goes sideways but I think in some cases it does its my own idea but noone seems interested.’

The Fastest Gun Alive - Idea for research

Yesterday I watched ‘The Fastest Gun Alive’ with Glen Ford. There was a very good , if out of place, dance sequence with Russ Tamblyn.
Perhaps now would be a good time to record my own contribution to the knowledge banks of Psychology. So to start could you imagine that you are Wyatt Earp about to draw your gun in Dodge city. Draw your gun fast and shoot and then hold it there. Now look at your gun and remember what you see.
Now imagine that you are flying a Lockheed Lightening jet around the room – off you go. Now freeze , remember the position. – and as Harry Hill would say , “and relax”.
Playing cowboys and Indians and flying a Lockheed Lightening dates my childhood terribly I know.
Think of the gun – had you extended the first one or two fingers like the barrel of a gun ? Or when you looked at your hand was your index finger curled around the trigger of an otherwise invisible gun, as mine always was.?
Think of the plane were your arms swepped back like the wings of a Lightening jet or was your aircraft, as mine was, totally invisible with your hands clasping an imaginary joystick.
I think there is a significant difference between the two modes of imagining.
Pointed, gun like fingers and swepped back wing like arms are signals to the world outside of the personal imagination whereas my way of doing it seems much more a ‘private world’. I wonder if there are two groups distinct groups in the populace displaying these characteristics.

Theology

It occurs to me that God like an anxious parent leaves us at the school gates of life and is reluctant to intervene until it is time to go home; but I think I may have suffered from too much Readers Digest.




Advertising ‘The rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket’ – George Orwell

Philosophy of Art

Did this course at the OU.
Lionel Blair style lecturer on how to take the exam.
"Now you are all students of aesthetics so when you come to your desks I want you put a beautiful bowl of flowers (gesturing) there - not there , but there"
Ann has just come back from the village art exhibition. Quote "Its a £100 but its got a beautiful frame mind".

GP's again

Picked up a pensioners pills yesterday from the surgery and they included this warning.Id love to be a fly on the wall during one of these meetings to 'discuss their behaviour'. Personally I think the behaviour of some GP's needs a bit of explaining too.