Signs of Ageing in Thwaite

You know you're getting old when the commentators in the Sunday magazines are people you've never heard of before, and you notice the comments are becoming more trivial and lacking in depth, whether emotional, political or intellectual. You simply don't care about their vacuous opinions on Eastenders plots, fashion or celebrities.

The Chairman and Hay are driving to Bath along Lansdowne Road.

Chairman: "Ah, the Blaythwaite Arms - Blaythwaite is a Yorkshire name - you can tell by the Thwaite bit."

Hay: "What's a Thwaite then? Obviously something to do with black pudding racing, clog breeding or whippet manufacturing?"

Christian Country II

Apropos of my post of a few weeks ago regarding Cameron's claim that we are a Christian country, I found the following quote from Lord Justice Munby regarding Christianity and the law, which many are of the opinion is based on Christianity:

"Although historically this country is part of the Christian west, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century. Our society is now pluralistic and largely secular. But one aspect of its pluralism is that we also now live in a multi-cultural community of many faiths. One of the paradoxes of our lives is that we live in a society which has at one and the same time become both increasingly secular but also increasingly diverse in religious affiliation. 

"We sit as secular judges serving a multi-cultural community of many faiths. We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to "do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will." But the laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity, in whatever form. The aphorism that 'Christianity is part of the common law of England' is mere rhetoric; at least since the decision of the House of Lords in Bowman v Secular Society Limited [1917] AC 406 it has been impossible to contend that it is law."

Indeed, I would say that a lot of the legal changes over the last few decades  have been aimed at righting the wrongs caused by the church's influence. To quote Bertrand Russell: "I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."

If one looks at the Ten Commandments, you can only award 3 points out of 10 for aspects of the Big 10 that have any relationship with our legal system - and even then they are the mark of any civilisation, Christian or pagan.

Let's, on Sunday, look at the 10.

1. You shall have no other gods before Me (not codified in UK Law).
2. You shall not make idols (not codified in UK law).
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain (no longer codified in UK law).
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (no longer codified in UK law).
5. Honor your father and your mother (not codified in UK Law).
6. You shall not murder (award 1 point).
7. You shall not commit adultery (not codified in UK Law).
8. You shall not steal (award 1 point).
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour (award 1 point).
10. You shall not covet (not codified in UK Law).

3/10 is hardly a compelling argument that our law is based on the Bible.

OK, you could move to Leviticus, but there's hardly anything in there pertaining to English common or civil law either. It's mainly concerned with dietary rules, ritual, sacrifice and how to treat your slaves - oh, and homosexuality, the law against which was repealed.

We're On the Map

Seems the Google satellite passed over us in summer last year and they've only just updated their satellite view. We're now well and truly on the map (click the image below to enlarge).

We're the cross-shaped building and you can still see the caravan, which has now disappeared.

To the left of our house are Hay's father's and sister's houses. To the right is our field - just ripe for development.

Shalom Shabbat

Back in Blighty!

Overheard at HQ:

Colleague: "I want to get this order into the system today."

Chairman: "Naturally, it's Friday."

Colleague: "No it's not, it's Thursday."

Chairman: "Yes, but it's the equivalent of our Friday - you're weekend starts tonight."

Colleague: "Ah, yes."

I simply can't understand why the Israelis have the working week they have - Sunday to Thursday - which is shared by the countries that surround them, but with which they conduct no business to speak of. Their major trading partners are the US and Europe, and most of them originally hail from these areas and their ancestors adapted to our working week with little problem. It would make infinite sense for them to adopt our working week, even if Friday is a half day - they must lose so much business by having Sunday to Thursday (which is the reason they have to employ me and my staff to run the European operation from the UK).

You always see lots of Hassidim on the El Al flights to and from Israel, with their black suits, black overcoats, black homburg hats and open collar white shirts, but the one thing that stands out in my mind (beyond the obvious fashion faux-pas of an open necked white shirt with a black overcoat - makes the shirt look incredibly grubby somehow) is that they all seem to wear hideously bad shoes.

Was doing my usual sport of browsing the in-flight duty free catalogue and noticed a space pen, which can purportedly write in zero gravity. Just the thing to dash off your will when hurtling to the ground in the plane at terminal velocity. I mean - whenever is the average plane travelling person ever going to get the chance to even experience zero gravity (besides the fun fair, where you're too busy keeping your breakfast down to care about writing).

Inadvertently bought a Gilera DNA 50cc moped for No.1 son while flying to Israel. Left a snipe on it and thought I'd cancelled it, but lack of network connectivity meant the cancellation never took place. Arrived in Tel Aviv to find I won it for £200 (a non-runner needing a modicum for work). The problem is that it was in Houndslow, so I decided to pick it up after landing at Heathrow (it's in the locale), rather than pay some bugger a small fortune to collect it for me. Had no idea whether it would fit into the back of the Golf, but luckily it did and I hurtled down the M4 toward Bristol at 10 o'clock last night with fuel leaking out from the moped into the rear of the Golf and the tailgate tied part-closed with string. Managed to anchor the moped to the passenger seat with a LAN cable I;d filched from HQ to stop it coming out.

Talking Books in Neon

Thought I'd get some talking books for the flight to Israel to save me lugging weighty tomes; however, I found the major drawback. If you fall asleep with a book there's a good chance you'll retain the page you were on; with a talking book it keeps going and going and you have no idea where to go back to. As I tend to fall asleep on planes before take off (and remain asleep for about half an hour), it's a problem.

Looked around Dixon's at Terminal 1. Why do people buy these massive emergency phone chargers at exorbitant prices when all you have to do is buy a couple of spare batteries at a fraction of the cost and weight?

Spotted this attractively illuminated building on the way from Tel Aviv to Netanya:

Potenta Free Polenta Cake on the Grassy Knoll

Rotovator wrestling completed and the ha-ha is ready for grassing over.

It will soon be ready as a grassy knoll for any visiting American president.

Made another lemon drizzle cake yesterday, but mistakenly used plain flour rather than self-raising. It ended up looking more like polenta lemon drizzle, being rather dense, but not at all inedible. Quite nice really.

We are doing a table top sale at the village hall in a couple of weeks for which I will be baking a load of sourdough breads and a few cakes. Hay suggested I sell it at the table-top as polenta-free polenta lemon drizzle - for people with a polenta allergy.

Off to Israel at lunchtime (29 degrees there). Back on Thursday night.

Rotovator Wrestling in the Fire Pit

2 days of rotovating and I feel like I've gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. Aching all over. Never mind - off to Israel again tomorrow till Thursday night.

Remember that washing machine drum I bought to use as a patio fire-pit? Flashed it up last night - works a treat!

Also we had a bit of excitement with a balloon deciding to land on the common.

To Hell With the Shire

Those bloody Hobbits are a barrier to productivity and efficiency, what with their twee lifestyle of organic yurts and free-range tofu.

I'm going to rename the house Minas Morgul and start mechanising Mordor. Hay can do some of her bio-chemistry on Kitty and clone an Orc-kitty slave force.

Also need a John Deere hat (and probably a 3 stringed guitar).

BT Overspill - Again - at The Cross Hands

BT Infinity conked out again at 03:30 Friday morning. Made the usual report to BT India (along with an additional report of 0.17Mb bownload speed for the ordinary BT Broadband connection in Hayley's dad's house) and waited.

Problem was resolved at about 11:00, when Infinity came back on line at full strength (although there's still no proper service in Hay's dad's house).

At 17:30 I got a call from BT India (the call was promised to be between 13:00 and 15:00, but no matter) to tell me that the engineers are working on the problem at the exchange. No matter how many times I said the broadband was working now, the Indian  woman on the other end of the phone was insistent I still had no broadband connection and it would be fixed. She was obviously reading from a script and would not be budged, regardless of the facts.

BT is an Indian company, isn't it?

Glances upward in frustration.

What I like about the internet (and smartphones) is the fact they become memory overspill. Last night I was wracking my brain for a name, but couldn't for the life of me remember it. A quick search on "Women in Love" produced Alan Bates - the name I was looking for.

We went out for dinner en famille at the The Cross Hands last night. For the first time ever, I was asked not to use my electronic cigarette by an embarrassed waiter. Apparently the chain has issued a blanket policy of banning them as they; "May encourage others to light real cigarettes." It's the fallacious slippery slope argument, which leaves rationality behind and fails to demonstrate inevitability. Needless to say, that establishment won't be having my custom again.

Off to collect a rotovator - becoming enamoured with the creation of a garden.

Mango Police

The EU has implemented a ban on Indian mangoes due to consignments being infested with non-indigenous fruit flies. One suspects India will get the ban lifted by a judicious, pre-shipment dusting of DDT, or an organophosphate. That should kill the little blighters.

Crime down by 15%, 20% of crime goes unrecorded - is that an overall 2% rise in crime (no, not 5% - work it out)? I suppose it depends on how long the non-recording of crime has been going on. Lies, damned lies and statistics. You can tell when a politician is lying - he or she opens his or her mouth...