That's bigamy

Judge John Rogers QC imposed a nine-month prison sentence and said: “A prison sentence is inevitable for an offence of bigamy."

It might seem strange, but our statute book still retains some of the most obsolete, quaintest and oddest crimes imaginable.

We all know, of course, the hoary old tales that in the UK, a man who feels compelled to urinate in public can do so only if he aims for his rear wheel and keeps his right hand on his vehicle but did you know that a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants – even, if she so requests, in a policeman’s helmet.

Other bizarre laws include taxis, and it's illegal to put rabid dogs or corpses in a  London taxi or to flag down a taxi if you have the plague, which is worth remembering ,if the weather's that bit warmer.

Among the many illegalities our MPs perpetrate, it's worth noting that it's illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament and an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down.

Under the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing.

Two interesting laws about the Scots and Welsh include Welshmen being banned from entering Chester before sunrise and from staying after sunset and legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls of York, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow.

However, compared with some parts of the world we have it easy. Most adolescent boys should avoid Indonesia, where the penalty for masturbation is decapitation.

Perhaps it's time we asked the political candidates if they're going to reform the laws of the UK to bring them into line with the 21st century. And while we're at it, if Wales gains full independence perhaps we could adopt a constitution that would guarantee us the right to bear arms. Just a .44 Magnum would do.




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To boldly go

Politics can be depressingly like football. Both seem to encourage polarisation, both seem to acquire supporters who delight in the yobbish behaviour so decried by all political parties and football supporters (so who does it, then?) and both seem to work towards the lowest common denominator in terms of message.

It doesn't have to be like that, of course, as last night's debate between Cable, Osbourne and Darling demonstrated, but the simple fact is that most people who unreservedly support a political party do so without using their brains.  It's easy, after all, to re-print swathes of the Daily Torygraph, or masses from any right-wing publication and swallow it hook, line and sinker (to escape from the unremitting football analogies for a moment) but real life isn't like that.  The fact is that whomever wins the next General Election is going to do broadly similar things: increase taxes, cut back services and make most people poorer.  Why? Because the UK can't simply do its own thing any more. We're in thrall to the very people who're responsible for the mess we're in - the Banks. 

And as if that wasn't depressing enough, the EU has multiple conditions to ensure we don't go our own merry way, no matter how much politicians like the egregious Osborne would have us believe they can. Anyone who says otherwise is sadly uninformed.

But for light relief,  Star Trek aficionados might be interested in the current trend of matching a character from the Next Generation & ST:DS9 to our current contenders.

Thus far, Brown is matched with Worf, while Cameron is matched with Data.  Neither is a flattering comparison, so feel free to contribute any ideas you might have. 

Per ardua ad asda, as they say in Basingstoke...

Slaving away...

This is bound to be an interesting time for us, locally.  As we await further details about the fascinating events of Friday at CCBC, the comment made about slavery being a way forward is worth considering.

Ancient Rome had (broadly) three categories of population: citizens, non-citizens and slaves. As with any society, it was more complex in reality, and the struggles that took place between the wealthy landowners (Patricians) and the rest of the citizens (Plebians) echo British Airway's problems quite eerily.

But perhaps the ancient Romans had something, when they made the position of Citizen something to which you had to aspire. And reintroducing slavery - a status which could be meted out to offenders in the same way as prison sentences or community service orders are now - could have an interesting effect.  It would - at a stroke - cut down on prison building, provide plenty of fresh air and exercise for the former inmates, and - best of all - those who paid their due to society in full, by completing their tenure as a slave - would be awarded full citizen status.

And, of course, the ultimate spin-off would be the reintroduction of the games - gladiatorial, naturally.   Think what Simon Cowell would pay for that.

Pardon?

"THE SENIOR official of a North Wales council has been temporarily suspended during a police investigation.
Byron Davies, chief executive of Conwy County Borough Council, has been relieved of his duties "temporarily" the authority said on Friday.
The council said: "A complaint has been made to North Wales Police against Byron Davies, Chief Executive of Conwy County Borough Council.
"He is currently understood to be assisting the Police and has been relieved of his duties with the council temporarily."

Mea Culpa

Well, just about the only things of any direct importance to emerge from Darling's speech yesterday were potholes.  Which is a tad ironic, since they don't actually emerge.

But why 'potholes'?  One source suggests that our ancestors were constantly patching roads. In fact, it's suggested the first potholes date back to Roman times, when potters dug up hunks from the clay roads - hence the name.

Which might work, if Romans had used clay.  But they didn't.  The term 'pot-hole' in the sense of "a deep hole of more or less cylindrical shape" was in use in 1826 by geologists and civil engineers to describe naturally-occurring holes, which were thought to be the result of water action. The holes in question were actually effects of glaciation. By 1878, the word was sometimes written without the hyphen.

In 1898, an author in the Archaeological Journal used "pot-hole" in the sense claimed above:

"That the manufacture of pottery was carried on in Haying in former times is shown by the existence of 'pot-holes', i.e. holes from which clay has been taken."

However, this has nothing to do with defects in the surface of a road. The use of 'pot-hole' to describe bad roads is given in a news item from 1909, which complains that "artificial watering and constant scavenging" are ruining the local macadam roads. But macadam roads are made of crushed stone and cement.

Roman roads, like macadam roads, were made primarily of stone rather than clay. Here's a description of the canonical Roman road from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

In its highest stage of development the Appian Way was constructed by excavating parallel trenches about 40 feet (12 metres) apart to mark its exact location and to indicate the nature of the subsoil. The foundation was then covered with a light bedding of sand or mortar on which four main courses were constructed; (1) a statumen layer of large flat stones 10 to 24 inches (250-600 millimetres) in thickness; (2) a rudus course of smaller stones mixed with lime about 9 inches (225 millimetres) thick; (3) the nucleus layer, about one foot (300 millimetres) thick, consisting of small gravel and coarse sand mixed with hot lime; and (4) on this fresh mortar a summa crusta, or wearing surface, of flint-like lava about six inches (150 millimetres) deep.

But the Romans had two big advantages over us when it came to building and maintaining roads: they built them straight - mainly because chariots initially had trouble turning corners, the Romans having not quite cottoned on to the idea of a differential, but also because it made getting to the next country to conquer quicker.

The second advantage they had was slaves.  And it's here where Darling missed a trick.  Reintroducing slavery would save us a packet.  We could use long term prisoners, who would enjoy the day out, working in the fresh air, getting plenty of exercise, or simply designate a nearby nation - perhaps the French - as slaves. And he could be reasonably sure no other party would come up with that idea.

Mea Culpa, as they say in Rome….

If wishing made it so

As we all await, with pre-taxed baited breath, the budget, it might be worth thinking of things that could well bring in a few billion to the treasury's rattlingly empty coffers, so here's a list of ideas, to start the balls rolling.

• Impose a 45% tax on Mephedrone.

• Introduce a 75% higher income tax rate for the following: Consultants (non-medical), parking wardens, MPs, County Councillors, MPs, the Royal family, MPs and - oh,. did we mention MPs?

• Introduce a 2000% special purchase tax for all four by four owners based on postcode.   Those with London and other big-city addresses pay top whack;  those who live in rural areas pay nothing.

• Introduce a 'performance tax' for MPs;  exact amount to be determined in a constituency-wide vote each March.

Happy Budget Day!

The times they are a changin'

We've emerged from both a real and metaphorical drought to find all sorts of things happening, locally, nationally and internationally.

The news that eleven pubs facing closure over the Easter weekend because they were caught selling alcohol to young people and instead been given the option of squeezing it in at a time when they'll stand to lose a lot less money has met mixed reactions, the most common of which seems to be the 'one law for them' type of response. 

Curiously, the 'enforcer', Roly Schwarz,  said:

"This decision is not made lightly but the number of premises involved here makes for unusual circumstances and could give out a message that the towns themselves were closed for Easter,' 

which makes a number of truly bizarre assumptions, not least being that the visitors are either potential inebriates or too stupid to read properly. Either way, when we're talking about encouraging under-age drinking, neither he nor the council emerges with much credit.

On the national front, the Government's desire to make every one (except lawyers, interestingly) totally accountable is finally coming back to bite them, as yet more tales of MPs holding down multiple 'jobs', taking free holidays (and the tax payers), and selling their souls generally emerge.  One blogger - the Jobbing Doctor - has an answer of sorts.  He's proposing that it's high time that MPs were themselves governed by a quango of independent non-elected folk:

First thing I would do is reform the holidays. We are allowed 6 weeks a year, so that can be the same for the politicians. As we are having HMRC crawling all over our tax returns, let's do the same for MPs. We have targets, so there should be some for politicians. We also do not have proper training for MPs, so they should all pass a language, competence and probity test before being allowed to be an MP.

Finally, Obama is busy making history, as the USA takes its first steps towards a reform of their wobbly health-care system, by bringing the powerful insurance companies into line. 

Fascinating times lie ahead.

Not so Happy, Valley...

As the new season begrudgingly sneaks its way in through the snow covered mountains, there's a comic inevitability that some folks' thoughts turn to spring.

Spring : new lambs, new flowers, cold nights and warming days.  More to the point, a steady increase in visitors to plough money into local businesses, which in turn just possibly might lead to more shops being occupied, more rates being paid and thus a better funded council, who would then be able to provide better facilities for us, the locals.

Well, that's the way it's supposed to work. But does it?

In 1999, The NWWN reported that a £500 000 Heritage Lottery funded scheme was being proposed to re-build a permanent stage in Happy Valley which would allow live shows to be put on throughout the season.

Town Councillors were said to be "Thrilled that the valley was once more going to be a tremendous asset to the town".

When the article was written, it was expected that the work would have been completed within a year, yet now - 11 years later - there's little to show the place was once a focus for visitor activity and a wonderful venue for shows of all kinds throughout the summer season.

So what happened?  Why did the promised stage never appear?  Did the money get used elsewhere?

We need to know.

A blaze of glory

The recent fires above Conwy that you could both see and smell from Llandudno were the cause of much debate, but that debate does lend an interesting perspective to the whole business of statistics. 

In the Daily post ,operations manager Gareth Wyn Griffiths  claimed 245 appliances or fire engines were called out at £340 a time, a total of £83,300. Though most fires were attended by full-time firefighters, many were tackled by part-time crews. It costs around £100 an hour for a crew of five part-time, or retained, firefighters – making the cost even higher.

He also noted - somewhat self-deprecatingly "We are coping with the strain through successful management, but these fires could be tying up firefighters and resources needed to save lives elsewhere."

It's always tempting to swallow stats like those without asking some pertinent questions. So we'll do that.

The claim that "245 appliances or fire engines were called out at £340 a time, a total of £83,300" assumes they cost nothing to be left in their sheds, or wherever, so we're presumably expected to deduce that the cost of £83,300 is down to petrol.  Now, prices have risen in the past year, but that seems rather a lot for fuel.  Or is that the hire charge for a fire engine? Curiously, fire engines do move when they're aren't any fires. in fact, North Wales doesn't have that many fires, which is why we have few full-time firemen, so those that work within the fire service spend a lot of their time rehearsing.  These fires probably provided some real on-the-job training opportunities for them.

But his subsequent observation that "… these fires could be tying up firefighters and resources needed to save lives elsewhere," implies that if your house catches fire and granny is left screaming for help from the attic, the gorse fires come first. So what was that about "successful management"?

Fire fighting's a dangerous job, and those who do it deserve their accolades, but reducing incidents to the level of ticket-punting and bald financial figures does little to generate real concern over the real issues of gorse burning during a drought and can deflect attention from the seriousness of mountain fires in general.

All good things...

Strange, really, how the smallest things that affect your life.  On Tuesday evening, all was right with the world, but our music server had stopped playing during the night. 

We are an all Mac household, and we have nine computers, all doing their thing, perfectly, smoothly, without complaint, infections or any of the dreadful afflictions that PC owners seem to suffer on a daily basis. However, Wednesday morning, the iMac providing our untrammelled access to music stored on the server wouldn't reset.  It reported a fatal error with the disc drive, which required a new drive, major upheaval and two days of non-stop work with a lot of screwdrivers.

Now, I don't blame Apple;  they don't make the hard discs, you see, and - while those bits of technology are normally phenomenally reliable, they are - after all - only a rusted pice of metal or glass with a fishing line hanging a sensor microns above and spinning at ridiculous speeds all the time,  so there's bound to be the odd bad batch that only last three or four years.

But the other day our 24 year old dishwasher also gave up the ghost, along with our 19 year old freezer.  Makes you wonder, though;  is nothing built to last these days?

Distractions

It's an interesting time, as they say in parts of the world where explosives, missiles and suicide bombers are par for the course. Naturally, our interesting time is a little less unhealthy, but the news that Tryfan might not be as high as was once thought, coupled with the petition to turn the A55 into a motorway sits well with the local Nuclear Power chaps, who are suggesting that they might build a nice bypass for a village in Anglesey so they can build their shiny new Nuclear Power station.

If you're all both wondering exactly what the connection is, it's all to do with distractions. The Nuclear power industry is in the throes of making a comeback. Years ago it received a dreadful press, largely because of silly issues, like contaminating a large chunk of Russia and North Wales, doubling cancer rates and generally being a bit sloppy with some of the most lethal substances known to man.  So the A55 - which never fails to cause controversy - and the height of Tryfan have both provided useful talking points, when otherwise folk might be nattering about death and destruction over their elevenses.

The Nuclear power industry spends an enormous amount on PR, yet there's a quiet acceptance growing that we generally prefer warm and well lit homes to living in caves, and that if we're to continue enjoying the benefits of central heating, hot showers and Chris Evans (although whether that last should be described as a benefit is debatable) then we need nuclear power.  Wind power, despite its 'green' credentials, which are rather less than might be imagined after the manufacturing process has been taken into account, is really just another distraction, with many long-term reliability issues. Tidal power - which could be really effective - needs technology still in a fledging state, and the promise of Fusion - the great hope for tomorrow - is still, er…tomorrow's dream.  Realistically, we need nuclear power, just not too close. Perhaps they could hollow out Tryfan and use that?

A laugh a vote

This blog is apolitical so, to redress the balance slightly, enjoy these: 

The problem with political jokes is that they get elected!!
*
The government is sneaky. They raise the tax on alcohol, then make sure that the country is in such a mess that you drink more.
*
Honesty in politics is much like oxygen. The higher up you go, the scarcer it becomes.
*
During Britain's "brain drain," not a single politician left the country.
*
Make your MP work - don't re-elect him.
*
You Tories will never win here in Norfolk if you keep tellin us you're goin to reduce taxes. We NEED our TAXES! The buses are terrible round here.
*
Chap in the Midlands goes into his usual pub and greets his friend the barman.

'Have you heard that joke about the young Conservative who went into a pub?'
'Watch it' comes a voice from down the room, 'I'm a young Conservative!'
'Don't let it worry you,' says the first chap, 'I'll tell it slowly!'
 *
A man went in for a Brain transplant operation and was offered a choice of two brains by the surgeon. He could choose either the Architect's brain which would cost him £10,000 or a Tory Politician's which was £100,000.
"Does that mean that the Tory politician's brain is much better than the Architect's?" exclaimed the clearly puzzled man.
"Not exactly" replied the surgeon, "the Tory politician's has never been used."

Your count votes

In democracy, your vote counts.  In feudalism, your Count votes....

Your vote counts...

Prime Minister, and self proclaimed saviour of the terrestrial world, Gordon Brown dies and his soul arrives at the Pearly gates to meet Saint Peter.

"Welcome to Heaven," says Saint Peter, "Before you come in, we need to make sure that you are in the right place by having you visit both hell and heaven for day"

 "Just let me into heaven; I'm a good Christian; I'm a believer, I'm a son of the Manse" says the PM.

"I'm sorry .. but we have our rules," Peter interjects, and, with that, St. Peter escorts him to an elevator and Gordon goes down,, down ...all the way to Hell.
 The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a lush golf course. The sun is shining in a cloudless sky. The temperature is a perfect 22C degrees. In the distance is a beautiful club-house. Standing in front of it is Harold Wilson and thousands of other Socialist luminaries who had helped him out over the years --- John Smith, Michael Foot, Jim Callaghan  etc. Everyone was laughing, happy, and casually but expensively dressed.

 They run to greet him, to hug him and to reminisce about the good times they had and they play a friendly game of golf before dining  on lobster and caviar.

During the course of the day, Brown meets the devil and they get on well as the devil appears to be just like Gordon - a really friendly bloke who tells funny jokes, someone who pulls hilarious nasty pranks. Returning to the Pearly gates by elevator, Gordon is sent upwards to Heaven for his day there.

Brown spends the day with the honest, good-natured people there who enjoy each other's company, talk about things other than money and treat each other decently.  No fancy country clubs here and, while the food tastes good, it's not caviar or lobster. And these people are all poor. He doesn't see anybody he knows but he likes being treated like everyone else, because he knows that he is someone special.
At the end of the day, Gordon returns to the Pearly Gates to meet up with Saint Peter and makes the decision where he is to stay for Eternity - he chooses Hell - and then makes the journey down wards.

The doors of the elevator open and he is in the middle of a barren scorched earth covered with garbage and toxic industrial wasteland.  He is horrified to see all of his friends, dressed in rags and chained together, picking up the roadside rubbish and putting it into black plastic bags. They are groaning and moaning in pain, faces and hands black with grime.

Shocked,  Brown makes his way over to the Devil, saying " I don't understand this. Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a club-house and we ate lobster and caviar and drank tequila. We lazed around and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and everybody looks miserable!"

 The Devil looks at him, smiles slyly and purrs, "Yesterday we were campaigning; today you voted for us!"

Time. Now.

You might only just have heard of Operation Punnet, or might have assumed that the strawberry Police enforcement unit is rigorously checking the number of seeds on each strawberry, but the reality is far different and much more serious.

Operation Punnet, run jointly by North Wales Police with Conwy and Denbighshire County Council licensing teams and other agencies, saw a staggering 11 pubs in Ruthin, Denbigh and Llanfair DC ordered to close their doors for two days.
A further two pubs in Colwyn Bay and Abergele had their licences suspended for a week or more. All 13 boozers were caught out by Test purchasers, all girls aged 15 and 16, sent to try to buy alcoholic drinks in December and January, supervised by undercover police.
As punishment for serving them, the Central Hotel, on Station Road, Colwyn Bay, can’t sell alcohol for two weeks after staff were twice caught selling to the test purchasers.

Police say alcohol-related violent crime inside these premises dropped by 56% on average while measures to stop selling to underage drinkers were active, and incidents of alcohol-related violent crime in neighbouring streets in Rhyl also dipped by 11% during those three months, a statistic which translates to 27 fewer assaults and public order offences, compared with a similar period in the previous 12 months.

As a new ID scanner, which takes a photo of official documents like a driving license or passport, and flashes up the person’s picture on a computer screen is being pushed hard, the redoubtable Roly Schwarz, said: “We’ve found some people let into pubs have actually had their ID checked, and it shows they’re 17, so this will help door staff work out people’s ages quicker.”

Alcohol and teenagers don't mix. The evidence is overwhelming, from the additional strain on the NHS to the community effects of vandalism, assault, criminal damage and anti-social behaviour.  Pubs who serve it to youngsters without ensuring that they're the appropriate age ought to be closed - and fast.

Learning by degrees

The Guardian reports to day that Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Tesco's director of corporate and legal affairs, says school-leavers have basic problems with literacy and numeracy and that many also have "what you might call an attitude problem". She adds: "They don't seem to understand the importance of a tidy appearance and have problems with timekeeping ... Some seem to think that the world owes them a living," adding "There are growing questions over various aspects of our exam system. There seems to be a fair amount of evidence now that [exams] are getting easier and failing to stretch people. The proportion of firsts and 2:1s has risen enormously so it's much rarer to get a 2:2 than a first. People who are clever today are achieving the grades of the very clever a couple of decades ago."

And in that final sentence, she betrays not only her lamentable grasp of education but also a total inability to understand what constitutes intellect.

It's likely that she has a point - of sorts. There are school leavers out there who fulfil all the criteria she lists but there are as many - if not far more - that don't, and the question is why she doesn't hire them.  But the final statement she makes is not only wrong, it is incredibly misleading.  Firsts are still hard to come by and what she so quaintly terms 'cleverness' has little do with gaining one. But the final evidence of her extreme paucity of understanding is her sweeping comment about the value of degrees.

Is she arguing that a needlework degree from John Moore's is worth less than a physics degree from Warwick? If she is, then she needs to look at the consultancies who hire graduates, and who have known for many years that degrees are judged firstly by subject and secondly by who awards them.  Anyone gaining a degree from a university in the Russell group is given priority at interviews.  Perhaps she needs to brush up on her research skills…

Flushed with success

The news that Gwynedd pubs and cafes are, rather ironically, 'queuing up' to take £500 from the council in return for letting the public use their toilets makes for interesting reading. Public toilets are a major issue in all the local areas, with none in Mostyn Champneys or Parc Llandudno, other than those provided by the businesses themselves.

But it's taken a long time for Gwynedd to catch up with New York, where a city-wide ordnance was enacted decades ago making all public buildings provide toilets for everyone.
Holiday towns and resorts need public toilets; and if those owned by the councils are too dangerous, dirty or simply unpleasant to use then coercing businesses into providing them for visitors seems the way to go.  Vandalism is the oft-quoted reason for the councils not providing them, but it's far less of a problem when people have to walk past security cameras to a toilet hidden away in the large department store - there's a reason why most stores have their toilets on the top floor.

But perhaps the other issue is why people vandalise toilets.  Homebase was forced to close off their toilets, because they were being wrecked on a weekly basis.  Some people might complain about the insidious introduction of cameras everywhere,  but it they do their job, then perhaps we need to put up with them.

Things that go bump

At least one hotel in the area holds a clairvoyant or spiritualist meeting on a regular basis. Now, both these 'disciplines' are interesting, not least because of those who most vociferously oppose them.

Clairvoyants are seen mainly as carnival entertainers; Gypsy Rose Jones or some such who, after having had their palm crossed with silver (or, more likely, a fiver or two) will spout meaningless twaddle about you and your future, hoping desperately you won't ask them why - if they can see any of the future at all - they didn't sell their shares in British Gas before the last slump so they wouldn't have to spend eternity talking rubbish to the terminally naive (assuming they didn't want a career in politics).  Those who claim to be able to see the future are also usually expert at seeing the past. The tabloids delight in plucking the hitherto unknown from their justified obscurity to claim foreknowledge of a dreadful event, as witness the papers immediately following the 9 / 11 terrorist atrocity.

Some of these people are markedly more dangerous, however, and label themselves 'prophets', formulating prognostications of doom and gloom which - because of the vague and enigmatic manner in which they're presented - can always be claimed later to refer to a specific event.  Which begs the question as to why they weren't a tad more specific in the first place. 

Curiously, given that their day jobs revolve around the unfathomable, unprovable and supernatural, church leaders are usually the first to condemn those who seek to suggest that the church doesn't have a monopoly on such goings-on. Some churches espouse faith healing - an even more dangerous variant on the Gypsy Rose product line - and their proponents merrily wheel out lines of 'witnesses' who willingly testify that they were healed through prayer or the 'touch', who can always be relied upon to quote a 'Doctor' or 'Doctors' who all swore that they'd never seen anything like it, leaving aside that if faith healing actually worked, doctors by now would be bored silly with tribes  of terminally ill patients leaping to their feet in the 'Faith' OR and dancing away into the twilight.

The biggest crime committed by the charlatans, however, is to breed an inherent mistrust and disbelief in the claimed powers. By using fakery, accomplices and observing subtle clues they can put on a good show, with bitter disillusion usually being the only fallout product, although in a society which worships the supernatural and which seeks to elevate the inexplicable to sainthood, the exacerbation of incipient serous mental illness can be a risk.

But the real problem is that it might all be possible.  Who knows?  Only the genuine clairvoyant, probably.

The mind of God

Monday morning isn't necessarily the best time to ponder the secrets of the universe.  In fact, it's probably not the best time to do very much, at least until the first couple of strong. black cups of coffee have doused the oesophagus.  But it is perhaps the best time to consider how little we  - as a species - really know about anything.

Take gravity, for instance.  ECPs (extremely clever people) have been trying for many years to come up with a theory to explain why the universe exists, and how. EMECPs (even more extremely clever people) have centred their thoughts on M-theory; M-theory can describe any of 10 000 000 000 000 000 000…and so on universes. Some physicists argue that this is evidence that there are multiple universes, but others think it just means the theory is untestable.

The list of what we don't know is almost infinitely long, and rather worryingly impacts significantly on our everyday lives. There are those - often avid devotees of "24" - who firmly believe that torturing suspects will comprehensively protect us from any and all attacks, despite clinical evidence from studies which proves fairly conclusively that prolonged physical torture acts on the body to flood the brain with stress hormones such as cortisol and the catecholamines, reducing the size of the hippocampus, which is important in retrieving long-term memories; the amygdala, which forms part of the fear network; and the frontal lobes. In addition, prolonged stress can also lead to the creation of false memories based on information and supposed facts presented by the interrogator.

Given that we know so little about almost everything, therefore, one has to ask why the media continues to bombard us with 'facts' which are nothing of the sort, and continually scare us into believing that just about everything causes cancer. 

Or more pertinently, why do we continue to buy newspapers?

..and throw away the key!

The Venables case is making the headlines, today, along with the NSPCC calling for more powers for social workers to see potentially abused children alone.  Locally, it's reported that ambulances were queuing like B list celebrities at the Oscars outside Glan Clwyd hospital yesterday, while a quote from 'Disgusted' (presumably of Acacia Avenue) bemoaned the situation with regard to a patient she'd brought over.

At first glance, these stories share nothing in common. But scratch the surface, and there are more common elements than initially - at least - meet the eye.

In a very real sense behind each of these events lies a trend;  a trend where society appears to be failing its most vulnerable. This is not a political issue, although the parties concerned will doubtless try to accuse each other of being in some way responsible for it, along with the demise of sterling, the state of the NHS and the lunar occultations of the Pleiades. 

But Venables' crime, the call for social workers to be given the power to see vulnerable children away from their parents and the endless lines of waiting patients all beg the question of whether society can deal with the deranged, the dangerous and the desperate, without deploying resources far and away greater than any thus far deployed.

There are those whose answer to the likes of Venables, child molesters, rapists and parking wardens is "Lock 'em all up and throw away the key!", a somewhat impractical option, given that someone has to clean out the resultant mess left by decomposing bodies, or - less often heard - "Hang 'em all!", but such solutions themselves pose other questions. If we reintroduce the death penalty, can we be certain that no miscarriages of justice will occur?  These are difficult to remedy, once the victim is no more.

Imprisonment where 'Life means life'. the rallying call of the far right for aeons, it seems, also ignores the fact that resources for more prisons will be needed, and the health issues of a rapidly ageing prison population don't bear thinking about.  Besides which, it's also important to remember that we lock up a significantly higher percentage of our population than any other European country, which itself suggests that either our population behaves more badly or we simply have too many laws, any infractions of which can land you in pokey.

In fact, successive governments have been struggling, and mostly failing, to deal with the problem, even when they had the resources. In the days ahead, when resources will be stretched thin, perhaps it's time to start to think about what social issues we ought to prioritise as a society, and which we can afford to let slip. But given the increasingly interlinked nature of our society, perhaps we need to start asking our local Candidates how they would address the issue in not more than three sentences, and without using the phrases 'Lessons to be Learnt", "Maximisation of Resources" and anything else that fails to answer the question asked.

Social issues a`re difficult to resolve, and we're not as good at it as some of our European neighbours, but the impending election at least gives us the chance to ask them what they would do.  So long as we demand a straight, unequivocal, honest answer.  And good luck with that one.

The Devil or the Deep Blue Sea?

It's always an interesting week in politics, especially so when our hard-done by Lords and Masters (that's the MPs we're talking about) award themselves a massive pay rise, at the precise time when the entire public sector is being told there won't be any pay rises at all, millions face seeing their pensions devalued or removed and the opposition-bashing enters a more virulent phase.

It's currently fashionable to denigrate the Labour Party for its 'achievements', and - let's face it - by not reversing the Tories' initiatives in Education, Health and Welfare, they deserve criticism.  But before we all assume that it's time for a change (as we do, from time to time) it's worth pondering if we'd be any better off under the Tories.

This is, after all,  a party, one of whose biggest supporters is that bastion of democracy, Robert Mugabe, a party whom the Electoral Commission - no less - accused of interfering with the inquiry into Lord Ashchroft's  dodgy donations and a party led by a man who - it was revealed today - intends to spend some of his time raising money for the US Republican party, by hosting paid-for 'meets' with its biggest donors.

That last one is interesting, because it reveals that we'll almost certainly have even closer ties with the US under a Cameron-led government and it's also worth noting that the single biggest difference between the Labour and Tory parties in government over the past 20 years has been the distribution of wealth.  The Tories consider tax avoidance for the wealthy to be acceptable and see off-shore residence coupled with donations to their party as being desirable in the extreme.

But - in the last resort - you have to follow your conscience at the polls and ask yourself what sort of government do we really want?  The answer just might be to reform the voting system, as has been said on this blog many times before.

Happy Talk

Ask anyone in their fifties or sixties visiting Llandudno what their best memories of the place were and you can bet that Happy Valley will be mentioned. Happy Valley - a chunk of wooded hillside tucked into the NE corner of the Great Orme, thus protected from the prevailing wind, once hosted many of the typical seaside attractions we associate with holiday resorts in the UK. In the true sense of the word, it's unique - even now -  although time has erased some of the better features.

But the one thing which most remember Happy Valley for is the Theatre.  For many years - up until the 1960s, in fact - the legendary performer, Alex Munro, hosted a live show in the theatre which stood at the rear of the present cafe. In these days of pre-recorded entertainment, it's hard to imagine the effect of a group of singers and dancers giving their all on an outside stage for the entertainment of the holidaymakers, plus what little they could persuade the visitors to part with.  Even at the height of the season, it was tough going, as the vast majority of the visitors chose not to pay, and sat - instead - on the surrounding hillside, which forms a natural amphitheatre for the stage.

Happy Valley was given to the 'People of LLandudno' back in 1887 by the Mostyn family, and for many years was put to great use.  Although the years have taken their toll, the geophysical shape of the place, which provided such outstanding acoustics, remains, and it's clear that live shows there could not only be recreated, but might well prove extremely popular.   To do that, however, the existing land would have to be returned to the original 'tiered' form, to allow for some form of seating.

This is not an impossible aspiration;  CCBC has, in its wisdom, bulldozed the site, removed the old stage and tiering, and left it as a pale imitation of what it used to be, but this could all be recreated, and without vast expenditure.

Locally, interest in performance art has never been higher, with several groups of performers competing to attract visitors in Llandudno throughout the summer season, an excellent youth theatre, performing courses run by the local schools and the College and Llandudno's own town band.  What all this needs is the will to draw the strands together and surmount the not inconsiderable logistics involved in mounting a weekly or even daily show throughout the season.

On past experience, it's unlikely CCBC will be of any help,and might actually be quite active in hindering, so what's needed is someone with the time and the ability to start the ball rolling.  Any takers?

Risky stuff

Risk: the effect of uncertainty on objectives (whether positive or negative). Risk management: the identification, assessment, and prioritisation of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimise, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events or to maximise the realisation of opportunities.

And we wonder why people hate the phrases 'risk management', or 'risk assessment' and 'health and safety'.

And yet, the actual mechanics of risk assessment are known to every half-decent parent who ever takes their kids on a day out, or holiday, or watches them playing. What causes all the resentment is the way in which the small-minded implement legislation, and the sheer ignorance, both of what comprises 'risk' and of the legislation.

It's the 'risk' issue that the DFM loves to play with, of course, in their frequent articles about what can kill you, when they write in their singularly disingenuous way that eating carrots can double your chances of contracting toe cancer.  Which, if the original risk was 0.0001% means that the risk is now 0.0002% - or, in other words, indistinguishable from sheer chance.

Of course, many fear dying in a 'plane crash, although the odds of that having are so massive you'd have to fly in a 'plane every single day for 19000 years. But at least you'd get some frequent flyer miles.

The WHO collates risk stats, but it's a big job, and the last year for which we have complete figures is 2000.  Nevertheless, they make interesting reading. 

In that year the major causes of death in order were

      Tobacco (18.1 percent of total deaths)
   
      Poor diet and physical inactivity (16.6 percent)
   
      Alcohol consumption (3.5 percent)
   
      Microbial agents  (germs 'n stuff)
  
      Toxic agents (people drinking bleach and drain cleaner)

      Motor vehicle crashes
  
      Incidents involving firearms

      Sexual behaviours

     Illicit use of drugs

The interesting thing about all those factors is that they're a product of human activity. And it's important to remember that when we talk about climate change and its causes, we're talking about risk, and it's the risk that human activity may be causing it that worries the better scientists.

Important information

This blog (in common with others) has been receiving a number of comments which are racist, anti-semitic and unpleasant, often aimed at David Cameron and Gordon Brown.  For those comments not planted by robots, please note that we will refuse to publish anything which makes baseless allegations or libellous remarks, so it will easier if you simply stop wasting your time and posting them.