News just in: Costa has withdrawn its attempt to barge into Totnes against the will of thousands of residents (though not their local councillors). They'd thought they could use legal threats and cosy cooperation with the planners to override objections. Not that they've always taken the trouble to get planning permission before opening another branch. It's been a hard fight by clever, articulate people; most other communities have had to cave in.
Some may take the view of the spectacularly misguided (but he's still young, bless him) Tom Doran in The Independent (such a hackneyed use of the word "embrace", too) that opposing large-scale capitalism is a Leftist thing. If so, please define politically the 41 independent traders who offer coffee there. Liberty for the individual is not at all the same as liberty for large corporations to engulf and devour in their quest for infinite growth.
You'd think the MSM pseudosophisticates who chorus their support for Big MD dream of retiring to Birmingham city centre. Unlike about a million Brummies.
Let's hear it for Poujadism and "the defense of the common man against the elites" - surely a theme close to the hearts of libertarians.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Reasons to visit Australia 1: The Cigarette Snail
(Pic: Wik)
This little beauty is found in coral reefs and shallow waters in the Indian Ocean, but the beer isn't so good there. So come to Australia, where the last recorded fatal attack on a local was in 1935. Worldwide, only 30 deaths in 300 years, so the odds are in your favour.
The "cigarette" monicker is because it's said to poison you so fast you only have time for a smoke. That's a wild exaggeration: actually you have a few hours. And the creeping paralysis doesn't hurt too much - the stinger injects an analgesic together with the venom.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
How language changes: "Savile row suit"
From the Duden Anglais Encylopedia of Contemporary Language (2020 Edition):
(In this example, the pronunciation has altered because of the substitution of one homonym by another.)
Savile Row Suit [sævɨl roʊ suːt] (archaic): expensive, handmade gentleman's apparel. Savile Row was one of the famous centres of the London garment trade. The work has since been outsourced to China, India and latterly Vietnam, and the street is now best known for its branches of Costa Coffee, TKMaxx and other consumer chain outlets, plus the largest unemployment benefit office in Manche Nord (formerly SEEDA/EMDI, previously "South-East England" (q.v.)).
Savile Row Suit [sævɨl raʊ suːt] (modern): expensive legal action taken to deny contemporary knowledge of, or indirect involvement in, an entertainer's sexual misdeeds. This phrase gained currency in the aftermath of the October 2012 Newsnight/Panorama controversy (current affairs programmes on the now-defunct British Broadcasting Corporation (see "Sky BEEB")) over the late Sir Jimmy Savile.
Its usage then extended to cover the sexual exploitation of "underage" girls by many popular musicians and film- and TV-programme-makers in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The usage is expected to decline in the near future, as the age of consent has since been lowered to 14 and is scheduled (pending Presidential Assent) to be abolished entirely as per old NCCL recommendations. (The NCCL, now known as Liberty, had sometime included among its officers future Labour Government ministers Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman, whose position on these matters may have changed.)
In any case, details of any such alleged past offences are now unpublishable in the EU following the European Privacy Directive of 2019, which incorporates many of the features demanded by the European Privacy Association and chose to go further in the light of scandals involving certain French, Belgian and Italian politicians in the late 2010s.
Among the consequences of that Directive are the "weeding" of newspapers, magazines and other ephemera from libraries (such as the Bodleian) and national collections, to expunge allegations such as the ones that appeared in the scurrilous Spiked magazine in the 1990s concerning a British (see glossary) government minister and a certain North African hotel.
(In this example, the pronunciation has altered because of the substitution of one homonym by another.)
Savile Row Suit [sævɨl roʊ suːt] (archaic): expensive, handmade gentleman's apparel. Savile Row was one of the famous centres of the London garment trade. The work has since been outsourced to China, India and latterly Vietnam, and the street is now best known for its branches of Costa Coffee, TKMaxx and other consumer chain outlets, plus the largest unemployment benefit office in Manche Nord (formerly SEEDA/EMDI, previously "South-East England" (q.v.)).
Savile Row Suit [sævɨl raʊ suːt] (modern): expensive legal action taken to deny contemporary knowledge of, or indirect involvement in, an entertainer's sexual misdeeds. This phrase gained currency in the aftermath of the October 2012 Newsnight/Panorama controversy (current affairs programmes on the now-defunct British Broadcasting Corporation (see "Sky BEEB")) over the late Sir Jimmy Savile.
Its usage then extended to cover the sexual exploitation of "underage" girls by many popular musicians and film- and TV-programme-makers in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The usage is expected to decline in the near future, as the age of consent has since been lowered to 14 and is scheduled (pending Presidential Assent) to be abolished entirely as per old NCCL recommendations. (The NCCL, now known as Liberty, had sometime included among its officers future Labour Government ministers Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman, whose position on these matters may have changed.)
In any case, details of any such alleged past offences are now unpublishable in the EU following the European Privacy Directive of 2019, which incorporates many of the features demanded by the European Privacy Association and chose to go further in the light of scandals involving certain French, Belgian and Italian politicians in the late 2010s.
Among the consequences of that Directive are the "weeding" of newspapers, magazines and other ephemera from libraries (such as the Bodleian) and national collections, to expunge allegations such as the ones that appeared in the scurrilous Spiked magazine in the 1990s concerning a British (see glossary) government minister and a certain North African hotel.
Monday, October 22, 2012
UK more vulnerable to systemic banking tremors than Ireland
That's gross debt, not net debt; but it's the equivalent of balancing two squirming elephants instead of two oranges. Thank you, banks.
Data from: Graham Summers, Phoenix Capital Research.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: Mostly in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), but now planning to build up some reserves of physical gold via regular saving.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
UK more vulnerable to systemic banking tremors than Ireland
That's gross debt, not net debt; but it's the equivalent of balancing two squirming elephants instead of two oranges. Thank you, banks.
Data from: Graham Summers, Phoenix Capital Research.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: Mostly in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), but now planning to build up some reserves of physical gold via regular saving.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Mr Cameron has another vicarious emotion
Hot on the heels of Mr Cameron's vague fantasy of doing something about Europe comes this:
"Tells friends... wants... could... has discussed his views..."
Meaning Cameron has told him to tell him, just like he gave Useless Eustace Grayling's opinion to him (a feeble fire that Ken Clarke has immediately pissed on).
To be vulgar, Cameron and Gove (and Grayling, as discussed yesterday) are cock-teasers. They lift their skirts and what you see is just what you won't get, no matter how many drinks you buy them. The Daily Mail plays along because it knows which side its bread is buttered; it would turn Cameron's fart into a Hallelujah Chorus. Until it switches to sinister clown Boris Johnson.
We now have a political elite composed of overprivileged, useless chinless wonders, fainéants occupying the place of people who might achieve something for somebody apart from themselves.
They are the choking bozone layer above us and it's time we got some fresh air.
"Tells friends... wants... could... has discussed his views..."
Meaning Cameron has told him to tell him, just like he gave Useless Eustace Grayling's opinion to him (a feeble fire that Ken Clarke has immediately pissed on).
To be vulgar, Cameron and Gove (and Grayling, as discussed yesterday) are cock-teasers. They lift their skirts and what you see is just what you won't get, no matter how many drinks you buy them. The Daily Mail plays along because it knows which side its bread is buttered; it would turn Cameron's fart into a Hallelujah Chorus. Until it switches to sinister clown Boris Johnson.
We now have a political elite composed of overprivileged, useless chinless wonders, fainéants occupying the place of people who might achieve something for somebody apart from themselves.
They are the choking bozone layer above us and it's time we got some fresh air.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
The privatisation of crime by Failing Grayling
Householders are now encouraged to enter a fantasyland where they confront and subdue intruders and are authorised to use "disproportionate" force.
1. Force that is "disproportionate" is unjust in common law. You are already entitled to use force according to what seems reasonable in the circumstances, which can mean killing someone else. Should you succeed, some might advise (unofficially) that you should then go totally over the top and make a bloody mess of the perpetrator, as evidence that you were panicking and so didn't kill him in cold blood. One shot, jail; the whole magazine plus pistol-butt-smashing the face to a pulp while screaming like a banshee for ten minutes, walk free - maybe. A knife fight - far messier: they often don't die straight away, which is why deceased knife victims often have many, many wounds. You think you're going to win this?
2. You are likely to be asleep when a burglar comes in. What are the chances that you will wake in time to recognise the threat, and that you will be stronger, fitter and quicker than the intruder who is already fully pumped-up to the extent that (typically) after the break-in he raids your fridge and biscuit tin to replenish his adrenalin-haywired blood-sugar level? And what about his Number Two, who unknown to you is behind you as you are dealing with Number One? Possibly also Three and Four, and a lookout? How about when you're ill, or old, or crippled?
3. If self-defence becomes the norm, don't expect the criminal to come in unarmed.
What this is really about, is the failure of the police and the courts. If police patrolled regularly, checking gates and shop doors, you'd be protected. If first-offence burglary was punished by a stiff prison sentence - as it used to be - your property would be protected. If hanging were still a legal punishment, your life (and the lives of your loved ones) would be protected.
As it is, you're on your own, son.
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