Long or short?

It's my feeling that American readers prefer essays, articles and blogposts to be longer than we like in the UK, where we seem to appreciate brevity and conciseness. I casually explain it to myself as Americans liking to 'get their money's worth' but more seriously wonder if there may be a couple of other factors at work.

1. Although both the UK and the USA are slightly below the international average in literacy rates, those Americans who do read, read more - about 12 books per capita p.a. compared with 10 in Britain.  Also, this infographic places the USA 7th globally in terms of 'literate behaviour characteristics', behind Nordic countries and Switzerland; we rank 17th on the same basis.

2. American attendance at Christian churches is double that in the UK. Maybe they're more used to long sermons - remember Meghan's preacher starting to let himself go at the wedding? On the other hand, the most religious may not be the most well-read.

So is my impression correct and if so, what are the reasons?

Clownworld: the advance of minority rights, by Wiggiatlarge

In the last few years claims from minorities have become a deluge in the advancement of perceived rights that should apply to the majority regardless of the miniscule size of the claimants' groups.

The Equalities Act has a lot to answer for; not for the fact that equality in many areas should be enforced, but in its backing of absurd extensions of what most people would consider not worthy of discussion. let alone the implementation of laws.

Consider the vegan who won a case against his dismissal for saying funds used by the League for Cruel Sports were invested in firms (among others) involved in animal testing, I have no idea to what percentage of the League's funds were used that way but knowing the way they operate it could only have been an oversight, not a deliberate act.

His case was upheld and being an ethical vegan is now philosophy or so the judge in this case has decreed. How he arrived at that is anyone's guess (unless he himself is a vegan !) but surely being a vegan is simply a lifestyle choice.

If it is not challenged it opens yet another Pandora's box for every minority belief to have the same rights as everyone else in banning, refusing, demanding all those items that affect us all.

We already have Pastafarians: the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is awaiting a European Court decision on their being a legitimate religion , and they have already gained the right to wear a colander in their driving licenses and passports. This ‘religion‘ is of course a joke but only to a degree, it was formed to show that those who can claim special rights for their  religion are simply no different or should be to any other group claiming the same. It has to be read to understand where they are going with this…….
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/18/documentary-follows-pastafarians-strain-for-recognition
In the world of minority rights they have a very good point.

Back to the vegan. I have no problem with anyone who wants to eat the way they do, most of us eat vegetarian meals without a thought that they contain no meat, that’s fine. But vegans - and the same goes for them as for Pastafarians - have a lunatic fringe that (like the eco fascists) want to impose constraints on the eating habits of everyone else. And that is where this ruling becomes problematic, as it gives license to believers to change e.g. workplace habits and company trading practices, even when they are in a very small minority - often just one, as in this case.

As can be seen here they have already tried and are trying to have the plastic banknotes removed because a minute amount of tallow is used in the finishing process. Tallow contains beef and pork extract so you have a double whammy there with Muslims wanting a change as well. Will it happen? In our current clownworld climate anything is possible, as no-one in authority these days ever seems to stand up and say enough is enough; apologies and repositioning are the form of the day.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/03/vegans-could-legally-fight-unethical-banknotes-following-landmark/

Yet in nearly all of these legal challenges, such as in the "Christian bakers" case, it is nearly always those on the fringe of these beliefs/fads/lifestyles that want to push for their beliefs to become mainstream regardless of any logic; in fact logic, common sense, listening to valid counter arguments are never ever contemplated, it seems.

The vegan is typical of that group described above. His regaling of his private life and the way he lives it should be a matter for himself, but no, it becomes part of his agenda to promote how serious he is about his beliefs.

The downside for him is that it reveals  he has not thought through what he says. In most arguments one can pick out discrepancies in another's logic, but when you act and talk total cobblers it totally shreds what you are trying to put across, which makes this case even more worrying in the pattern it is setting.

Apparently, as well as wearing clothing that contains no animal by products, he also will not travel on a bus because of the number of insects and birds that are killed by vehicle strikes; taking that to its logical conclusion all forms of transport are bad, including walking as each square meter of land contains on average 2700 insects; and I suppose houses are out for living in because of the number of birds that commit hara kari flying into them. Why does anyone give people like this the time of day? If he and his ilk want to live on a remote island rubbing sticks together to keep warm (though I imagine in their world the fire created is polluting so that is out) then please do so and leave the rest of us out of your plans.

The banknotes case brings more nonsense to the fore, though I should not give extra material to these devotees of the absurd: the tallow involved that is their target for objection is of course used in many other things: as an additive in fuels and lubricants, in salves and ointments, soap candles (think of all those vigils they lit up using evil animal by-products), plastic bags - they are evil anyway, make-up, bike tyres and ‘crayons’; so even Angela Rayner is toxic as well as dim.

What is worrying is that these people continually get traction for their ideas in the press as in this (where else?) Guardian piece, ‘We are all vegans now’ (not really just 1% of the population are vegetarian)...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/04/were-nearly-all-vegan-now-but-lets-still-honour-the-original-radicals

And the politicians love to hang their hats on a perceived new popular trend, especially if it can however tenuously linked to climate change - there's big bucks in climate change.

The current Australian bush fires show how taking notice of Greens can have serious repercussions. Already we are seeing the negative consequences of decisions taken because Greens promoted and pushed forest management measures that ensured fires could start and spread more easily. The fireman who was fined for clearing a fire break round his house against the new laws had the last laugh, as his was the only house in the neighbourhood still standing after a fire swept through it.

We can only hope these fads - for that is what most are - and the misinformation that goes with them do the right thing and die an early death, as one thing's for sure: if all these ‘requirements’ are met, and approved products and food and sustainable energy come to pass, we will become impoverished. The costs are breathtaking and for what? The climate will change if it's going to anyway; culling all the cattle will not make a shred of difference and those that propose we should re-forest all of Britain or try to grow crops on land fit only for those now absent animals are deluded.

The culling of of many of those constantly pushing for these measures would be a better bet and it would reduce the population at the same time, which is a much bigger problem than all their perceived ones.

Still we all have the now obligatory Pride Parades to look forward to as an annual event in a town near you and can gasp in wonderment at the explicit displays and the Police engagement, something that the few gay people I know view with horror and have nothing to do with; anyway, penis socks are ‘so’ last year!

FRIDAY MUSIC: Asturias, by JD

Think of Spanish music and most minds turn immediately to Flamenco, the music of Andalucia. But as we have seen in this series, other regions of Spain have their own very distinct styles of music; Galicia has a very strong connection musically with the music of the Celtic nations.

But the neighbouring province of Asturias also has that same strong connection. Because Asturias is or was the coal mining heartland of Spain there was a parallel musical choral tradition. So enjoy this selection of music from Asturias.

My Job Application To Dominic Cummings

Dear Mr Cummings

I have seen your blog advertisement for corkscrew thinkers and wish to apply for the post.

First, I should like to get a couple of possible objections out of the way. I note that in other categories you want ‘recent’ economics graduates, and ‘VERY clever young people’. I am in my sixties and think that we have had enough of the enthusiastic, brilliant, thrusting types that burdened us with New Labour and have very nearly destroyed our financial system (the silly quants); perhaps it is time they made way for an older man.

Also, you say you ‘don’t want more Oxbridge English graduates who chat about Lacan at dinner parties.’ I did read English at Oxford, it’s true; but before the impenetrable nonsense of post-structuralism hit the subject there. Besides, you yourself read History at Exeter College and as with many other arts graduates (think of Douglas Adams) the wooliness obviously stimulated your interest in science, philosophy and anything else that might actually seek objective truth.

And so, from objections to objectives. Although your advertisement betrays impatience and ruthlessness, it’s still not clear what exactly you wish to achieve. Apart, that is, from a ‘seismic’ shakeup of the civil service and the ‘merry-go-round’ of ministers.

As to the first, the Civil Service is suffering from ‘shaken baby’ syndrome, having been politicised under Mrs Thatcher and then virtually radicalised under Tony Blair - you’ll remember how he used the Privy Council one day after the 1997 General Election result was declared, to give up to three spads executive power over permanent civil servants. Now, when you concentrate the levers of power in that way you have to look carefully at the hands manipulating them. I do hope you don’t plan eye-catching initiatives of the ‘abolish the Lord Chancellor’ type that our British Pol Pot came up with to drive away boredom one weekend in 2003. I’m sure Sir Humphrey can seem maddeningly obstructive sometimes – but maybe there is a need for brakes and steering in even the fastest car?

The revolving-ministers bit I can appreciate. It was fun to see John Nott walk out of Robin Day’s interview in 1982, after the latter had called him ‘a transient, here-today and, if I may say so, gone-tomorrow politician.’



Of course, that may have helped shorten Robin Day’s Newsnight career, just as (imho) Jeremy Paxman was binned for continuing to be too good on the same programme when New Labour got in; never forget where power lies, and don’t speak truth to it too frankly, not to say rudely. But why should ministers give up the best of their lives in relentless work, if not in the hope of further advancement? And isn’t it the role of Cabinet government to set the policy framework for its interconnected ministries, whose continuity and detail work is provided by the Bernards and Humphreys  – or do you have your eyes on a sofa-based inner-Cabinet ‘den’?

And what is all this redesigned machinery going to fix? Will it address a political system in which the majority of people directly in the 2016 Referendum, and indirectly but overwhelmingly via the manifestoes of most MPs who were returned in the General Election that followed, instructed Parliament to recover its own authority from the EU, yet saw three and a half years of delay and subversion instead?

Not that it’s over, necessarily. Minutes after Bojo’s landslide was adumbrated by exit poll results on 12 December, BBC’s Naga Munchetty (or was it our own dear Laura K?) was optimistically spinning it as an opportunity for Boris to ignore the troublesome extreme Brexiteers in his party; and I have a sick feeling that she was right. For the Brexit promise is driven more by deadline than results.

A friend told me he’d voted Conservative ‘for the last time’ (and I think the first) just to get it over with – ‘to make it stop,’ as I suggested and he agreed. Now let’s see what happens to the barely-altered Withdrawal Agreement and still-a-surrender-terms of the Political Declaration that Johnson seems set to push through, bish-bash-bosh. As the Americans say, ‘he could care less,’ meaning he couldn’t. After all, he voted for those landmine-salted agreements in October.

I understand the tone of haste in your advert, perhaps better than you. For unless there is radical systemic action – and I don’t mean tinkering with the bureaucratic gearwheels and oilcan – it will be Labour next time, and the time after that.

I wonder whether you know how much the Conservative Party is hated. A Welsh friend recently told me his father had joined the Tory Party late in life, so that it would lose another supporter when he died. Johnson’s delight at the extent of his victory was mingled with justified surprise. Only the weedy incompetence of Corbyn, Softy Walter to Boris’ Dennis the Menace (that would make you Gnasher, I suppose), drove the Northern Reds to break their wall. This government is on appro, and if the betrayal I fear becomes reality the blowback will be savage.

And structural, which will make sense to you as a systems thinker. For decades, the two major parties have colluded to undermine the working class, the Tories because cheap offshoring and low-wage inward migration suits the blue suits, Labour because the more paupers we have the more the Santas in the red suits can lay dingy benefits under the tree while mortgaging the house to pay for them. But just as differential birthrates in Northern Ireland may eventually see the Province join the Republic, the short-sighted greed of English businessmen may be the demographic death-knell for conservatism. Already 3.4 million Britons have never had a job, and there is a limit to how much further education can paper over the unemployment figures. Add to that the threat to white-collar workers of AI and the arguments of the future will be about the distribution of wealth rather than its creation.

Getting out of the EU is only a battle in a much wider theatre of conflict. Unless we work hard and fast to stem the national outflow of money and the decay of skills, uncontrolled globalism will end with us broke, overpopulated and at each other’s throats. You have an Oxbridge Classicist and Oxford Union talker as your boss; your first task is to give him the Odyssean education for which you have argued so long and eloquently.

That corkscrew enough for ya? I can start Monday.

My latest on The Conservative Woman: 'AV, not PR is the way to vote'

Published on Friday here:

https://conservativewoman.co.uk/av-not-pr-is-the-way-to-vote/

- interesting arguments from commenters about alternative voting systems.

The Dormouse, by Wiggiatlarge

I have often thought that animals which hibernate are onto something. The idea of gorging oneself ! and then going into a semi-conscious state for a few months when the weather is at its worst does have an appeal.

Especially in a winter like this one that has seen, if you can see in the permanent gloom, incessant rain drab skies cold winds and everything to make going outside something to be shunned. Yes, I know that in my youth challenging the elements, standing on the top of an exposed hill in a sixty mile an hour wind with driving rain could loosely be called bracing, even giving one the status of a hardened go anywhere anytime in any condition man, it is good for you etc etc. Luckily today I have a very different view.

As we approach our later years a sense of perspective creeps in, some sanity at the expense of reckless youth, and I would no more want to repeat those times in my youth when such things were commonplace and lose the comforts of warmth and a cosy environment than the Dormouse would. Hibernation does have attractions in the same way as pulling up the bedclothes in the morning after having seen snow falling, or going back to bed with a cup of tea/hazelnut upon seeing how inclement it was outside. 

Why have I mentioned the Dormouse? It is simply that we have a resident one: he has been with us for a few years, a solitary little chap that occasionally makes a foray into the left-over bird seed area and then darts off to the shed where he has exited when I enter. But  his main habitat is in my large compost bins; fortunately the first time I saw him there when removing compost in the early spring he moved so no harm could come to him through not knowing his presence, and now I am wary.

The little nest he built in the compost bin was warm, dry and under the cover of the tarpaulin over it, a perfect little winter retreat; I almost envied him in a sort of Wind in the Willows way. Whether he will be there this spring I have no idea, they live roughly five years and he has been seen here for about four to my knowledge so his life span is nearing its end. They are very solitary, I have never seen another one and they are on the endangered wildlife list; I can only hope the little chap has found a mate and produced some offspring - it would be a shame to lose the line and the presence of a Dormouse now very rare.

Even writing about the Dormouse has a soporific effect, sleep slowly overcomes one...
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

FRIDAY MUSIC: Neil Innes, by JD

Neil Innes 1944 - 2019

We have featured Neil Innes previously in this musical mini series -

He was a founder member of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band in the 60s; worked with Eric Idle in the series Rutland Weekend Television; created (again with Eric Idle) the 'tribute' band The Rutles, an affectionate parody of The Beatles.

But of all the things he did, his best work was undoubtedly in the great British Music hall tradition of the comic song. By using film/video he added a wonderfully surreal visual imagery to the very clever lyrics. For that alone he deserves this second tribute.

https://spinditty.com/industry/British-Music-Hall-Comedy-Songs
https://neilinnes.media