Weblog

As any fule no, a blog is a weblog, and it started out by being a list of sites visited. As an antidote to Blytonia, here are some of the more interesting items I've come across in the past few days.

Jim Murdoch ponders the dearth of modern nursery rhymes.

Lorna Watts is refused the loan of scissors by a north London librarian: They are sharp, you might stab me.

Anton Vowl suggests what Gordon Brown should have answered to that question from Andrew Marr.

Belle Waring has an impassioned post on Crooked Timber about sexual harassment in the academy, with a sideswipe at "look but don't touch" Kealey from Buckingham. Mary Beard isn't so bothered. Is Terence Kealey as misunderstood as Juvenal? (Or as contemporary? I'm inclined to add.) Yes, it may have been satire, but it's pretty lame satire.

In a post entitled Because Men are Stupid and Shallow, That's Why, Jeff Fecke demonstrates that some men are capable of seeing the person beyond the breasts. He challenges the Canadian Rethink Breast Cancer campaign (aimed at raising men's awareness by concentrating on breasts):

the thing about breasts that I generally like the most is that they’re usually attached to living, breathing women, and I like women, because, you know, they’re people. Many of them are people I like, and consider friends. All of them are worth far more than the breasts attached to them; that should go without saying.

Ben Goldacre considers the AIDS-denialist film House of Numbers, which was shown at Cambridge Film Festival and (temporarily) hoodwinked rationalist sceptic Caspar Melville. Goldacre starts a lively discussion about how to deal with moonbats - exposure, ridicule, debate? Or by ignoring them? (There's no widely accepted noun for that, but ignoral might suit.) This comment in particular struck me:

The best advice my late Dad ever gave me was; “Never argue with an idiot, because people watching lose track of which is which”. The older I get, the more I appreciate his words. Several times a week, I’m given cause to think of them.

Teach the debate is what creationists say.

Jack of Kent argues why English libel law is a danger and makes a proposal for reform.

Shuggy has a go at performative theists aiming for the class prize.

no man ever forsook his father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter and took up his cross in order to support the nuclear family, preserve the work ethic, reduce crime in the neighbourhood or foster charitable giving as an important ingredient in civil society.

Terry Glavin doesn't know how to handle the human tide, except that the handling should be humane. Who could disagree?

Right, I'm off to Oxford now for the launch of See How I Land.

Antidote

[Emily asks: Did you enjoy the Blytons? Yes, like a drug. When I wasn’t reading them I’d be trying to work out how I could get away in secret for my next fix. It was the summer holiday, and my mother thought I should be out of doors. Normally I needed no encouragement, so she must have worked out that something was amiss. Inevitably, she discovered me in the act.]



- Said, said, said, said, said! My mother jabs her finger down the page. It’s so boring! She looks exasperated.
- But it’s not boring! It’s very exciting! I want to know what happens next.
- Said Julian, said Dick, said George. Didn't you notice? Proper reading is when you read the words.
She’s right. Why hadn’t I noticed?
- Look at this. She produces another red-covered book, the same size as Five Go to Smuggler's Top. My spirits lift for a moment, then I see the title: Just William. Richmal? Why do these writers all have funny names? The pictures aren’t as good as Eileen Soper’s. The boy doesn't look much older than me. He’s very scruffy. There isn’t anyone who looks as sensible as Julian. At least there’s a dog, but he’s not powerful like Timmy. I don’t think these children will be able to deal with grownup situations like smugglers and spies. But the print is small, which suggests it's for older children. It is confusing. I look again at the boy with his cap askew and his socks around his ankles. His face is grinning and dirty.
- That boy doesn’t look very reliable.
- He's got more life in his little finger than all this lot together.
I stare at his little finger, which is just a blur.
- I think you'll enjoy his company. But you can’t have it yet. Finish that Famous Five and come and tell me all about it. Then we’ll see.

* * *

My mother is right of course. She is always right. There is an art to writing that doesn’t draw attention to itself. But now she’s pointed it out, I can’t help noticing the saids, and that’s done for it.

William hardly ever just “says” anything. He’s forever exclaiming, proclaiming, conjecturing, expostulating, reasoning, arguing, protesting and even ejaculating. (Ah that will get me some Google traffic. But those were the days when social intercourse was polite.) I get the impression of a boy with a very mobile face.

Sometimes I need to ask the meaning of a word, and the tubby, child-sized COD has become a dear friend. But that's another story.

Issues

Gmail is temporarily unable to access your Contacts. You may experience issues while this persists.

Issues? The mind boggles.

Of course I know what they mean, but it's the first time I've seen this used formally and it piqued my interest.

Here's dictionary.com:

1. the act of sending out or putting forth; promulgation; distribution: the issue of food and blankets to flood victims.
2. something that is printed or published and distributed, esp. a given number of a periodical: Have you seen the latest issue of the magazine?
3. something that is sent out or put forth in any form.
4. a quantity of something that is officially offered for sale or put into circulation at one time: a new issue of commemorative stamps; a new bond issue.
5. a point in question or a matter that is in dispute, as between contending parties in an action at law.
6. a point, matter, or dispute, the decision of which is of special or public importance: the political issues.
7. a point the decision of which determines a matter: The real issue in the strike was the right to bargain collectively.
8. a point at which a matter is ready for decision: to bring a case to an issue.
9. something proceeding from any source, as a product, effect, result, or consequence: His words were the issue of an intelligent man.
10. the ultimate result, event, or outcome of a proceeding, affair, etc.: the issue of a contest.
11. a distribution of food rations, clothing, equipment, or ammunition to a number of officers or enlisted soldiers, or to a military unit.
12. offspring; progeny: to die without issue.
13. a going, coming, passing, or flowing out: free issue and entry.
14. a place or means of egress; outlet or exit.
15. something that comes out, as an outflowing stream.
16. Pathology. a. a discharge of blood, pus, or the like.
b. an incision, ulcer, or the like, emitting such a discharge.
17. issues, English Law. the profits from land or other property.
18. the printing of copies of a work from the original setting of type with some slight changes: the third issue of the poem.
19. Obsolete. a proceeding or action.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

Nope, None of those. On the contrary.

Then some similar definitions from another source including additionally:

Informal A personal problem or emotional disorder: The teacher discussed the child's issues with his parents.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Not that either. I try to keep sane when the computer plays up.

Further down the page:

Slang dictionary

n.
problem. (In colloquial use, issue has virtually replaced the word problem. It is even heard in a few idioms such as Do you have an issue with that?) : I had an issue with my car this morning. It wouldn't start. , You are late again! Do you have an issue with our office hours?
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill

The car thing.
What's the problem with problem? Anway, why didn't Gmail just stop after the first sentence? I get the impression that "problem" isn't a sufficiently empathetic word for their purposes as they want to convey the nuance that We know that when things go wrong people get upset. I hope I'm wrong. It's infantilising. Not everyone gets upset, and it's something we all try to grow out of. If they wanted to convey a warm fuzzy Googly feeling, an apology might have done the trick.

Torch under bedclothes

By balancing the stool on the chair, I can just reach the top of the wardrobe. I know it’s silly and dangerous, but I’m sensible and a good climber. I’ll get into trouble if anyone catches me.

It’ll be worth it.

Up there under the ceiling is a cardboard box full of books the new vet carried into our kitchen when he arrived for supper yesterday, announcing: Anne would like these. Out of politeness he’s allowed to show what’s in there: a glimpse of maroon, occasionally light blue bare boards, dust jackets long gone: a dozen fat volumes – twenty perhaps. All the same size, the same but different. A collection! On the bottom right hand corner is impressed an almost illegible signature, which seems to say Cuid Blyton. Cuid is a funny name, I think, but the titles are irresistible: Five on a Treasure Island, Five Go to Smugglers’ Top. For me! All night, and all the next day, unread adventures torment me: Five Go to Mystery Moor, Five Go Off to Camp, Five Go to Billycock Hill.

My mother deems them “unsuitable”. You can read them when you’re old enough, she says.

It’s not fair. She knows I am a good reader. The headmaster calls us in for reading tests. He says, I don’t know why I bother with you and Christine Simpson, I only call you in to cheer myself up. He puts his arm round me in a fatherly way. I have a reading age of fourteen.

It is only years later that I realise my mother meant when you’re old enough to recognise them for the trash they are.

Meanwhile, here I am, tiptoe on the stool balanced on the chair, stretching for the forbidden books in the cardboard box just too high for me to reach. I try jumping. The stool rocks alarmingly. Only by tugging and tearing a corner of the cardboard can I get a hold on one. It’s alright, no one will look on top of the wardrobe until Christmas time, by when I’ll be old enough to say I was much younger when I committed the crime. They might even think the box was torn already. So I dip in and grab a book.

Five On a Treasure Island. The vet is a methodical man. It’s the first in the series.

How different from the home life of an ordinary person

For reasons we won't go into, this morning I found myself listening to William Shawcross being interviewed by Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour about his new biography of the late Queen Mother. What an extraordinary piece of radio. The Royal Family is an anachronism, useful as trade ambassadors and tourist attraction. And - in principle anyway - it is a good thing for the Prime Minister to have someone to defer to. (Imagine Blair as head of state. Or Cameron for that matter.) But, while Murray has no time for this gilded, profligate life and sense of entitlement, Shawcross adores his subject. I'm on Murray's side in this. Yet through Shawcross's passion one can also glimpse Murray from his point of view: shrewish, petty, practically philistine. But she keeps her cool.

After the abdication, the war, Diana, the alleged colostomy - the fun starts at around 11 minutes in:

JM: One of the other things she was criticised for was her profligate lifestyle, and she seems to have almost gaily announced that she might go bankrupt. Why did she live in such splendour?
WS: Because she enjoyed it. Because she grew up to that. She was one of the last of generations of people, of aristocrats, who weren't ashamed of their birth and the concept of noblesse oblige, she wasn't ashamed of giving employment to lots of people and having a jolly good life. And she enjoyed it, she could afford it, and she certainly lived better than you and I do. And why not?
JM: Could she afford it?
WS: She gave a huge amount of pleasure -
JM: She did have an overdraft
WS: Of course. Have you never had an overdraft?
JM: (Pause) I'm not the Queen Mum.
WS: I've had overdrafts. I couldn't live without an overdraft. (laughs) Always begging the bank manager not to come down too heavy on me
JM: But she had thirty three staff and she had -
WS: (interrupting) Why do you go on about this?
JM: - she had - Because it's fascinating -
WS: It's so silly, Jenni, this is an incredibly important woman, who epitomised this country through the whole of the second world war. She held the country together after the abdication, she created - she enabled her husband who was a hesitant, but adorable man, whom she was devoted to, she enabled him to take over the throne in very difficult circumstances, when a lot of people thought the monarchy was finished in 1936. She personified and symbolised this country. Churchill won the war for us but she and the King sustained the British people through six years of terror and horror, and that's what matters, and you go on about her staff. It's pathetic actually,
JM: - it -
WS: that doesn't really matter, I'm really surprised at you.
JM: - if she -
WS: You're one of the, you're the Queen Mother of Broadcasting and all you can think about is her staff and her illnesses. (fiercely) It's very very funny -
JM: I think people would be fascinated if they thought I had my menus hand-written in French every night, don't you?
WS: No - I well, they might well be fascinated if you do but why shouldn't she?
JM: You met her didn't you -
WS: Yes
JM: - on a couple of occasions and you clearly adored her.
WS: Yes I do adore her! And everyone adored her! Her staff stayed with her for thirty years. Nobody wanted to leave her. One of her pages who'd been with her for twenty five, twenty six years, um, on her hundredth birthday, he was very very ill, he stayed with her till her hundredth birthday so he could take her her morning coffee but went into hospital and died two days later. He kept himself going for her, just to be there for her hundredth birthday. And I hope this is what this book puts over, that she was a woman who was much loved, not just by the millions of people who didn't know her, but even more importantly by the people who worked for her, who knew her well, and I think that's - well, I mean - that's a celebration, something to be celebrated, and I was jolly lucky to be able to have this treasure trove of all her letters of a hundred years.

(Etc.)


...an incredibly important woman... What?
Do listen again before it disappears.

That story of the servant disturbs me. What was his name? Was his loyalty, sense of duty, misplaced? You'd think a sensitive employer would have had him off to the doctor sharpish, but people are not easily or kindly separated from their objects of veneration. He might have been cruelly disappointed if denied the opportunity to serve. Perhaps HMQM was working on that assumption.

By the way, Shawcross and Pan MacMillan are getting a lot of mileage on the BBC today. Nice publicity if you can get it.

William Shawcross is 63.

Councillors pointing at things

Cllr Neil Williams draws attention to a road defect

Glum Councillors:

This blog will doggedly collate images of councillors looking glum whilst pointing at holes in the road, wearing hard hats or presenting oversized cheques. Lets celebrate the work of our local elected representatives! Tweet suggestions to @glumcouncillors

Via.

It's easy to mock. I blame the photographers. Or perhaps the editors. The posed photograph of someone looking glum while pointing at a pothole is a staple of local newspapers. Which come to think of it are under threat not just from the internet, but allegedly from what Roy Greenslade calls the "local Pravdas" produced by, erm, councils. The councils' glossy, clourful, fun-packed magazines are a fast breeding species, full of jolly news of filled potholes, pie-charts, bin collection dates, keep-fit classes and tips on healthy eating. Greenslade may have a point, though it reminds me uncomfortably of the point James Murdoch was making about the BBC. You know, where he was saying that free content on the BBC website was unfair competition for newspapers.

I admit it. It's partly my fault. I rarely buy a local paper.

I didn't go to the pub much either, and look what's happening to them.


[Crap Photo Editions: No Smoking]