spasticus...

Do you remember the special adverts that were commissioned as part of Channel 4's coverage of the Rio Paralympics? There was an all-signed ad-break during The Last Leg, but there was also a notable series of Maltesers adverts.  Here's a bit from the press release:

"Mars Chocolate UK will launch a new series of adverts for the MALTESERS® brand that champion diversity and disability. They will be broadcast for the first time on Channel 4 during the 2016 Paralympics Games Opening Ceremony tomorrow evening (7th September).

The new ads, created by Mars Chocolate and AMV, are the latest in the MALTESERS® ‘Look on the Light Side’ series and were developed in response to Channel 4’s Superhumans Wanted competition. Mars Chocolate UK and creative agency AMV won £1million of the broadcaster’s commercial airtime for developing a bold, creative idea which puts disability and diversity at the heart of their campaign.

The series comprises three ad creatives, all inspired by real-life stories from disabled people, celebrating universally awkward situations; from embarrassing moments with new boyfriends to behaving badly at a wedding – where the best thing to do is simply look on the light side of life."

New Boyfriend

Dance Floor

Theo's Dog

I loved them.  "New Boyfriend" in particular had me double-taking and then laughing out loud because it was so funny and... well, because it was so filthy. Watch it for yourself.  I thought they were great because they seemed to be doing something that we don't see on television all that often: people with disabilities being shown as normal people who talk about normal things and, instead of having people treating them like they're made of porcelain, we seem them making jokes about themselves and their situation.  American Dad has been doing this for decades, of course, but it seems somehow revolutionary to see it on an ad break on Channel 4... even when these adverts are sandwiching the incredible sporting achievements of the superhumans.

Anyway, a couple of months later, the Guardian has put up a comment piece on these adverts. They're not a fan, at least not unreservedly:

"First, without restraint, a big cheer for the actors. Disabled actors – they exist after all. And are doing a great job here. Three all at once in an ad campaign, coming along just like buses. Out in the shiny mainstream world, Metro positively drools and declares the ad has been “widely lauded”, and quotes a viewer from Twitter: “Best Maltesers advert ever!!”. On the Maltesers YouTube page, the comments range from hilarious, to worried, to downright weird – perhaps presenting a grim equality of sorts.

"It’s bound to get messy. It’s about selling a chocolate product after all – and is it really worth some of us feeling unhappy? It does grate on me given that the advertising industry is part of the capitalist agenda. And sadly, featuring a few disabled actors in an advert isn’t really likely to be a major skirmish in its downfall. Nor is it likely to explode barriers and negative attitudes. Or is it?

"Lisa Hammond, who plays Donna Yates in EastEnders, said: “All of the actors in the ads are great … that they are all women makes me happy. The issue is the fact that every one of the adverts’ focus is impairment, as part of the story. We’ve been banging on about this for years – feels like we are in a perpetual loop! And I’m interested in the deeper story.”

"I know what she means. I’m always interested in a deeper story. But this has parallels with the way that race is always the issue in the representation of BAME people on screen. But I don’t want to be forever a bloody issue – only an issue – even if it’s just an advert."

Hmm.

I'm not disabled - or, at least, I don't consider myself to be disabled - so perhaps I'm not attuned enough to see the problem with these adverts.  I find it very easy to believe that, if this is your life, then your radar is probably a lot more sensitive to these sorts of nuances (...goodness knows I'm sensitive enough to *any* passing mention of MS in the media or on the telly).  To be honest though, these are adverts, and what advert ever made managed - or even tried - to create a rounded picture of someone and their life? I'm inclined to think that the very fact we're having this sort of conversation about these adverts shows how far we've come... we're talking about the sex life of someone in a wheelchair, for goodness sake! (hats off to the advertising agency for getting such an obvious reference to ejaculation into an advert, by the way.  I can't think that I've ever seen something like that in an advert before, able-bodied or otherwise).

We've doubtless got a long way still to go, but we certainly don't lock disabled people away any more because they're not fit to be seen in decent company. Not in this country anyway.  Not at the moment, anyway.  Who knows what will happen after brexit.

As the great Ian Dury sang:

Hello to you out there in Normal Land
You may not comprehend my tale or understand
As I crawl past your window give me lucky looks
You can be my body but you'll never read my books

They played Spasticus Autisticus at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics, actually.  It still makes people gloriously uncomfortable, and there's power in that.

try not to breathe...

When I first heard this story on the news today, my heart sank: someone accused of murder for the "act of mercy" of suffocating her bed-bound father whose MS had become "intolerable" and who no longer wanted to go on.

Claire Darbyshire killed her father as part of an apparent suicide pact, leaving a handwritten note next to the body of her father as she headed to Dover with the intention of throwing herself off the cliffs.

“Dad couldn’t go on any more being bed-bound. He asked me to help him end it. Now I have to end it too as my action is claimed as a crime. If it was an animal then you would stop its suffering, but when it comes to a member of your own species you want to prolong the suffering as long as possible. We have the cheek to call ourselves civilised. Don’t waste your time looking for me. My phone call to the district nurse was my last action.”

Darbyshire was found guilty of murder (not manslaughter or assisting a suicide) and sentenced to four years. As the judge said, “You gave evidence in the case and I accept your evidence that your father did raise the question of ending his own life and he wanted to do that and wanted your help to do so.”... but it was an unlawful killing behind closed doors and there can be no defence to murder under those circumstances.

This isn't an open and shut case, and much (but not all) of the coverage seems to centre around the fact that Claire Darbyshire is pre-operative transgender, which obviously makes the whole thing more interesting to the Daily Mail.  It just makes me sad to think that someone, aged 67, and their daughter who was caring for them, may have both reached a point where their lives no longer seemed worth living.

Can you imagine that?  Just think about it for a moment; suffering so much that death seems like a release.  I don't know about you, but it makes me feel profoundly sad thinking that anyone feels like that, or watches someone they love feeling like that.

I'm reminded of the case of Debbie Purdy, a primary-progressive MS sufferer, who campaigned tirelessly for the right to die and to have her partner protected from the threat of prosecution for helping her, even if that was only to accompany her to Dignitas.  If you remember, the Law Lords eventually ruled in her favour in 2009.  There was a lot of coverage of this at the time, and I wrote about it myself.

As Matthew Parris said at the time:

"I can’t tell you how simple I find these arguments: so simple that I’ve hardly bothered to write about the issue. Suicide is the greatest of human freedoms, underwriting all the others, for it gives us the possibility of defying every thing and every one there is. The possibility of suicide is what makes life voluntary and each new day an act of will. No wonder the faith community gnash their teeth at suicide. God Himself, if He existed, would gnash His teeth at suicide: the supreme act of defiance, the final raspberry. The knowledge that I’m here by choice, that every breath I take I take by choice, injects into my soul a transcendent joy. That we can let go whenever we want is for me the deepest sort of thrill. People should be able to choose. Obviously. And if they choose the end but seek help with the means, they should be able to. Obviously. End of argument."

Assisted suicide, of course, is a complex issue.  What on earth is the law supposed to do when a daughter smothers her father and says it was a mercy killing requested by the victim?

Parris actually went on to say in the same article that he was opposed to legalising assisted suicide - on the grounds that this means that someone has to officially decide who can, and who cannot, die:

"It is one thing for the State to decline, at its discretion, to prosecute someone who has killed without authority. It is quite another thing for the State to issue an authority to kill. We do best, I think, to stay on that first, more limited, ground."

...and so Darbyshire must serve her four years.  A lenient sentence for a murder, perhaps, but a custodial sentence nonetheless.

Debbie Purdy died in 2014.

As someone who has MS - even one who is currently training to run another marathon - I find this quote from her last interview profoundly depressing:

In her final interview with BBC Look North, Ms Purdy said the painful realities of her condition meant her life was "unacceptable". She said: "It's painful and it's uncomfortable and it's frightening and it's not how I want to live. "If somebody could find a cure for MS I would be the first person in line. It's not a matter of wanting to end my life, it's a matter of not wanting my life to be this."

I do my best not to think about what might lie in my future.  That's the path to madness because no one knows what the future holds, whether they have MS or not..... but at the same time, it's impossible for me to read stories like this and not feel a pang about a possible future.  How could you not?

the nameless....

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, perhaps one of the stranger things to happen was when the hacker collective, Anonymous, declared that it was "at war" with ISIS.

“You, the vermin who kill innocent victims, we will hunt you down like we did those who carried out the attacks on Charlie Hebdo"

It seems that they have begun by releasing the details of 900 Twitter accounts they say belong to ISIS and have now all been suspended.  Apparently, they're also leaking the personal information of suspected ISIS members online.

On my Facebook feed at least, this news seems to have been met with glee.  Good.  Hit these bastards wherever you can land a punch.

The thing is though, is this something we should be celebrating?  Are we happy to take the word of an anonymous group of hackers on who is, or is not, a member of ISIS; on who deserves to be exposed and to have their social media presence shut down, with perhaps worse to come?

What if they're wrong?  What if they came for you?  They could easily ruin your life without a backwards thought. Are we okay with that?  Are you comfortable with any potential collateral damage from these attacks? Are we comfortable with the collateral damage of any attack we make on ISIS?

The plain fact of the matter is that Anonymous can't be held accountable for their actions and that makes them dangerous and we should be careful before clapping them on the back and celebrating them as heroes.

When it comes down to it, this approach is scarcely more forensic at tackling the problem than bombings... although at least David Cameron can't start his bombing campaign without the assent of Parliament.  Anonymous have no such scrutiny.  Let's hope that, this time around, Parliament gives a little more thought to the end-game than they have done in the past.  Will bombing Syria stop our own citizens taking up arms against our society? Lop one head of this hyrda, and two more grow back in their place and you had better be ready when they both come back at you harder and faster than before.

Without a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, we shouldn't drop a single damn bomb anywhere.  If we kill innocent civilians in the heat of anger with our bombs, how does that make us different to the Paris gunmen?

This isn't a simple issue and there aren't any simple answers.  Let's not cheer the creation of any more chaos and the propagation of any more hatred.  There's already plenty enough of both.

it's the only thing that there's just too little of...

We live in troubled times. I don’t have any great insight or wisdom to offer on the events of the last few days, but as I watched the unfurling horror of the strikes and counter-strikes, a couple of quotes sprung to mind.

The first is from the film “Independence Day”, of all places.

President Whitmore:I know there is much to learn from each other if we can make a truce. We can find a way to co-exist. can there be a peace between us?
Captured Alien: Peace? NO PEACE!
President Whitmore: What is it you want us to do?
Captured Alien: Die…die…

Brent Spiner wasn't involved in Paris - either in the attacks or in the decision to launch retaliatory airstrikes - but the message was eerily similar.

As our leaders meet to discuss what to do next, a few rather more hopeful words sprang to mind.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.  There are also dozens of quotes from Nelson Mandela saying much the same sort of thing.  Love not hate.

Are airstrikes the answer? Is war the answer? Well, as we all ponder the answer to that one, I’ll leave you with a couple of quotations from Kurt Vonnegut – a man who saw the human impact of war first-hand, and had a wiser appreciation than most of what it means:

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns”.

Now that would make the G20 meeting interesting. Putin in particular might really enjoy that kind of thing (although he does rather like a pair of well-oiled guns....)

swit-swoo.

And finally, some sage advice to the people of this silly, little planet.

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

...God damn it, you’ve got to be kind. We need to hang onto that more now than ever.

not succulent, tasty or kind...

Sad news.

It seems that bacon, ham and sausages may be in the same category of carcinogens as cigarettes, alcohol and arsenic (class 1 carcinogens).  So say the World Health Organisation, anyway.  In fact, they've essentially concluded that red meat is carcinogenic to humans full stop (class 2a carcinogen).

That sounds bad, but they've also said that breathing air is a class 1 carcinogen, so it's difficult to know what exactly we're supposed to do with these conclusions.  It's not as though all that many people are on a 40 sausage-a-day habit, so a direct comparison with smoking also seems a little unfair.

I'm reminded of an article Jeremy Paxman wrote a few years ago where he had been reading the National Dictionary of Biography, and observed that people don't just die in their sleep or of old age any more.  You might be 199 years old, but when you die, we will be able to observe exactly what it was that finally pushed you over the edge.

These observations on what causes these cancers seems to me to fall into the same kind of category; processed meat may well cause cancer, but it's probably been killing us as a species for thousands of years and we've only now been able to determine exactly how.

This is all fairly timely for me.  I had a scan the other day that revealed some abnormalities in my bowel that need to be removed.  They're probably not cancerous, but over the course of the next ten years or so, they're reasonably likely to become cancerous, so they've got to come out.  It's an amazing thing that we can find this out now and do something about it, but it's not very difficult to imagine how, in another time and place, this could easily have gone completely undetected and perhaps carried me off in my seventies.  That's how people used to die, isn't it? At the end of it all, something has to kill you, after all.

When I was having the scan a few weeks ago, I was chatting to the guy supervising the process:
"So, what causes these abnormalities?"
"Well, we can't really say for certain, but it seems likely that they can be caused by eating processed meats like bacon and by drinking beer...."  At this point, I think he must have seen the look on my face as my world was pulled out from under my feet and I contemplated a world without bacon and beer. "....but then again, teetotal vegetarians get them too, so who really knows?"

Who indeed.

the decision....

There's a terrifying statistic going around about how much the UK press has been even more anti-Miliband in this election than it was anti-Kinnock in 1992... the year The Sun ran their lightbulb "last one out of Britain..." headline on election day and "It Was the Sun Wot Won It" the day after.  These people would like you to believe that the most important issue in this election is the fact that the leader of the Labour party looks a bit weird when he eats a bacon sandwich. (Seriously, if you want to learn about the kind of leader Ed Miliband is, then I suggest you read this article. He stood up to Murdoch; spoke out against the abuse of corporate power; he led his party to vote against military intervention in Syria and he led them to vote in favour of the recognition of a Palestinian state.  These are all principled stances where it might have been easier to go the other way but he took the more difficult path.  But, you know... he's a North London geek, isn't he?)

Was anyone really surprised to see the Sun run two different front pages on the same day? The Scottish edition urging people to vote for the SNP, and the English edition warning how a vote for Labour was a vote for a coalition government with Scottish nationalist hellbent on breaking up the Union and interfering on English issues?

You might be forgiven for missing the fact that there are some actual policy differences between these parties, and that it is more than just a beauty contest (although any beauty pageant that has Nigel Farage as a contestant is a very strange kind of contest indeed.  This is a man who described his own party as "a purple rash".....and for that reason, I'm out).

But everyone is giving some serious thought to that kind of stuff already, yeah?

You know what the most important thing is though, don't you?

VOTE.

If you feel that you can, vote for something you believe in and not something you're scared of.  It's good for the soul.

write me back...

Back at the beginning of August, I wrote a letter to my MP. It's not the first time that I've written to Kenneth Clarke: I wrote to him about the Iraq war, and he sent me a splendid, three-page typewritten reply.  This time around, I was moved to write to him by the shocking killings in Palestine.

It took him a fair while to write back.  In fact, I was only thinking this morning that I was a bit disappointed not to hear back from him.  It's his last term in Parliament, having been the MP here since 1970.  Forty-four years service.  Still, he's 74 years old now, so I suppose the poor old boy is due a bit of a rest after a pretty stellar career (although no doubt not quite as stellar as he might have at one point hoped).  I'm not a Conservative voter by any stretch of the imagination, but if you had to pick a Conservative to represent you in Parliament, then I would suggest that you could do an awful lot worse than Ken Clarke.

I should never have doubted him.

In case you can't make that out, here's what he says:

"I am sorry that I have not replied earlier to the email that you sent to me, expressing your distress about the civilians, in particular children, being killed in the violence in Gaza.  I am afraid that I dealt with urgent personal cases in the last few weeks before the House of Commons adjourned and then I went away for a holiday.  I am only now catching up with summer correspondance.

I share all your distress about the bloodshed in Palestine and I have been following events as closely as I could while I was away in France and since I returned. Fortunately, the bloodshed has almost ended for the moment, but the situation remains very dangerous.

I think most people of reasonable sensitivity believe that Hamas should cease to fire rockets at Israel and Israel should cease to take military action that involves huge numbers of civilian casualties.  I very much hope that eventually some serious progress towards a negotiated peace and lasting settlement will take place.  Every outburst of violence polarises opinion and causes both sides and their supporters to become ever more entrenched and outraged by the atrocities of the other side.  I hope that the British Government will acknowledge the strength of feeling on both sides and will do all that it can, within our limited influence, to bring reasonable Palestinian and Israeli leaders to a negotiating table.

Thank you for writing to me and giving me your views, which I share completely, on this quite appalling tragedy.

Yours sincerely,

The Rt. Hon. Kenneth Clarke, QC, MP."

Maybe that's a boilerplate reply, at least in part, but you have to admire the man's style.

I rather fear that this constituency will be a UKIP target at the next election, without a well-established and well-loved MP in place to fight them off.  It's usually Ken first, and everyone else a long way back, with the Lib Dems the nearest.  Well, no one's voting for them next time around, and this constituency voted for UKIP at the European elections, so it's very possible we might be seeing a lot more of Nigel Farage (in spite of his Nottingham egging).  It's all too depressing for words.  I might have to get off my arse and help mobilise people to the polling stations.  If people are disillusioned and don't vote, they might as well be casting a vote for the idiots because they will surely benefit. As Edmund Burke wrote, 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.'

Etc.

(if you want it)

I did this as part of the #GAZANAMES project.  The idea is to remind people that the victims of this war are not merely statistics or collateral damage, they are human beings.  Rezeq Abu Taha was killed in Rafah on Saturday along with three other members of his family in an airstrike.  He was two months old.

I was so moved by a feeling of anger and helplessness whilst reading about the conflict and looking at the images of terribly wounded Palestinian children that I actually took some direct action.  It might not be much, but writing to the British Foreign Minister and Ken Clarke, my own MP, seemed like the very least I could do.  Only once before have I written to Ken, and that was in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

Here's what I sent Ken over the weekend:

Dear Kenneth Clarke,

Like everyone else, I've been appalled by the footage that I've seen from Gaza. The final straw for writing to you is the latest news about the shelling of the UN school. This quote from Pierre Krähenbühl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, really jumped out at me and brought tears to my eyes:

"Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced."

He's right: I feel shocked, ashamed and angry. I've just written to Phillip Hammond, expressing my anger and asking if we as a nation could do more to put an end to this senseless slaughter of innocents, and now I'm writing to you.

You're my local MP, your office is at the end of my street and I frequently see you at Trent Bridge, where I am a member. I wrote to you many years ago expressing similar anger about the war on Iraq, and was very impressed by your full and thoughtful response. I appeal to you as my representative to represent my anger at this slaughter. I know that we're not standing by and doing nothing in the face of this crisis, but I appeal to you to push, asking if there isn't more that we can do.

I'm sure you're as appalled as I am, so I won't go on... but I did want to let you know my feelings and to ask that you represent them in parliament with the government.

Thanks for listening.

Yours sincerely, etc.

You can email your own MP from here, and you can mail the Foreign Office from here.  It only takes a moment and it will add your voice to the press of people calling for our government to do more.  It's got to be better than doing nothing, hasn't it?

I'll leave you with a couple of quotes.

'Empathizing w/ Gaza does NOT make me anti-Semitic, nor pro-Hamas or anti-Israel. It makes me human" David Harris Gershon

UN Chief Ban Ki-moon described the latest attacks on a UN school as a “moral outrage and a criminal act...yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law, which clearly requires protection by both parties of Palestinian civilians, UN staff and UN premises, among other civilian facilities....those responsible [must be] held accountable. It is a moral outrage and a criminal act.”
That's pretty strong for the UN, wouldn't you say?
[although, in fairness, it must be said that Palestinian weapons caches have been found in three of the six schools attacked]

I know that this is a complex issue, with atrocities committed by both sides.  In addition, I'm very aware that much of the public outrage is driven by the coverage we see on our television screens, when other atrocities in the globe are going far less reported.  That said, why do we need to get into the rights and wrongs of who is killing who and for what reason?  Isn't it enough that innocent people - children - are being killed?  The Israeli spokesperson who said that "nearly half" of the 1,800 or so Palestinian dead were combatants was spectacularly missing the point (as well as exaggerating the figures: the UN estimate is closer to 15%).  Even so, that figure still leaves 1,000 or so innocent civilians dead, doesn't it?  How can that ever be justified?  (and before you speak, let me first point you at this excellent blog post too: Everything is justified, because Hamas)

We must do more.

and the mercy seat is waiting....

"You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners" - Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

On Wednesday evening, it took the State of Arizona an hour and fifty-eight minutes to carry out the execution of a prisoner.  As the Guardian reported:

"Joseph Wood took an hour and 58 minutes to die after he was injected with a relatively untested combination of the sedative midazolam and painkiller hydromorphone. The procedure took so long that his lawyers had time to file an emergency court motion in an attempt to have it stopped. For more than an hour, he was seen to be “gasping and snorting”, according to the court filing".

Wood was sentenced to death in 1989 after the double-murder of his girlfriend and her father.  Apparently, after the injection was administered, Wood continued to gasp and snort for over an hour.  An eye-witness to the execution reported that he counted no fewer than 660 gulps and gasps from the condemned man as he lay strapped to a gurney.  The execution began at 1.52pm and Wood was finally declared dead at 3.49pm.  They're using untested cocktails of drugs on human patients to see what works.  The EU actually started to ban the export of these drugs to the USA because it objects to the their use in executions... the ban created shortages (because they are no longer made domestically), and some correctional institutions are now using out of date drugs that they have stockpiled. As the New Statesman reported, "In Oklahoma in January this year, 38-year-old Michael Lee Wilson, convicted of beating a convenience store manager to death in 1995, was executed in what appeared to be considerable distress. His last words, 20 seconds after the execution began, were: “I feel my whole body burning.” It begins to sound like a cruel or unusual punishment"... Cruel and unusual punishment  by the way, is specifically forbidden under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Predictably, the relatives of Joseph Wood's victims were unmoved by the manner of his passing: "What I saw today with him being executed, it is nothing compared to what happened on Aug. 7, 1989," Jeanne Brown, Debra Dietz's sister, told a reporter after the execution. "What's excruciating is seeing your father lying there in a pool of blood, seeing your sister lying in a pool of blood."

I suppose you can understand that view.  But at the same time, how can anyone call this a civilised response? What does it say about a society that treats a human being -- whatever he might have been guilty of -- in this way?  Eye for an eye?  Well, that was specifically refuted by big JC himself, wasn't it?
(Matthew 5:38, if you're interested. I'm an atheist myself, but if you're going to go around slinging the Bible at people....)

Funny how the sanctity of human life can be such a selectively applied principle, eh?  Look around the world: Gaza, Ukraine, Death Row.... life seems pretty cheap to me.

smoke.

Apparently, my office is preparing to ban e-cigarettes.  Or they might already have banned them.  As someone who isn't addicted to nicotine in any form, I'm a little fuzzy on the details.  The new policy will treat them in exactly the same way as analogue cigarettes, meaning that you can't just sit at your desk having a quiet puff, but you'll have to go outside to the smoking sheds with everyone else.

Apparently, this is a policy that lots of other places already have.  New York and Chicago have both banned them in public places, for starters.  The thinking is that these bans are aimed at preventing the re-acceptance of smoking as a societal norm, particularly amongst younger people and that smoking e-cigarettes may be some kind of "gateway" drug to smoking the real thing.

Really?  Is that the best we could come up with?

Look.  I realise that there are all sorts of unknowns about e-cigarettes and what their long-term impact on health is.... but doesn't a ban like this just stink of people banning something they feel vaguely uncomfortable with?

As a non-smoker, I find that the smoking ban has generally made a night out that much more pleasurable.  Did anyone - even smokers - really enjoy coming home at the end of the night stinking of fags?  Nevermind the health benefits, isn't it just much nicer for everyone to be in an environment where someone else can inflict their second-hand smoke onto you?  But what's the objection with an e-cigarette? Is it just that you now find it a bit weird seeing someone sitting indoors puffing out smoke?  If that's the reason, then it's a shit reason for banning them in enclosed public places.

I've read some nonsense about how it makes it much harder to identify when someone is actually smoking indoors, but again, that's feeble.  Worried about passive smoking?  Well, you do know that it's not actually smoke that they're breathing out, right?  You might just as well ban kettles.  And don't even get started on the everyday pollution spewed out of cars that we breath in every day with barely a second thought.  You reckon the vapour from an e-cigarette is likely to be anywhere near as harmful as that?

The objections are laughable.  Whilst it might be true that e-cigarettes turn out to be bad for the individuals using them (and nicotine is, let's not forget, a neurotoxin.... just like alcohol and just like caffeine), then that's still not a good enough reason for banning them either.  That's personal choice, just like alcohol and caffeine. Analogue fags are bad for the people around them who haven't chosen to smoke them.... but that simply isn't the case with digital fags, is it?

So why the rush to ban and the delay to carry out proper testing? Might it have anything to do with the billions of pounds spent on traditional aids to giving up smoking: patches, gum and the like?  Could it have anything to do with the billions of pounds raised in taxation through people buying cigarettes rather than than the much cheaper vapourisers?  If the government might be better off in the long-term as more people give up smoking and enjoy better health (traded off against the cost of their longer lives), could they stomach the short-term loss in revenue?  Tobacco companies are hedging their bets by throwing themselves into the e-cigarette market, that's for sure.... although you can't help but wonder if they've made a mistake with the name.  I can see how they would want to encourage smokers to buy their tobacco replacement product, but the very use of the word "cigarette" and the initial packaging that saw vapourisers made to look like traditional cigarettes has surely provoked the banning instinct.

At dinner the other day, I'll admit it was a bit weird to watch someone pulling out their vapouriser and have a discreet puff between courses... but when I thought about it, I realised how groundless my objection was: the vapour doesn't smell of anything and it's not disruptive to me in any way.  From my point of view, it's nothing like as disgusting as an old-school cigarette, and if it was helping the lady using it to give up smoking tobacco and all the various evils associated with that, then what grounds do I have to complain?

There might turn out to be perfectly good reasons to ban e-cigarettes, but until we can identify them, then any move to ban is just ludicrous.  I can't put it any better than a comment I read below an article in the Guardian today, so I'll leave you with that.  Over to you, MrEurope!

"The very idea that there is a "debate" about whether e-cigarettes are better than normal cigarettes in an insult to human intelligence, and it has truly made me question just how intelligent our species really is. I have been vaping for the past 20 months or so, and you would have to be ignorant to the point of medieval to not immediately realize that e-smokes is the by far lesser of two evils.
Just to name a few quite obvious advantages:
- It does not contain carcinogens (and if it does, in such minute trace amounts as to genuinely be neglible)
- There is no combustion happening (and thus all related problems do not exist)
- It does not contain carbon-monoxide
- It does not stink (or, only disperses a sweet-ish smell from the flavor one vapes)
- It does not burn/make smoke/vapor while not being used (unlike a cigarette)
- It is just about harmless to bystanders
- It does not stink up your clothes, car, house, carpets, breath
- It does not make you smell like an ashtray
- You can use it while eating (even in a restaurant) with no ill effects for the enjoyment of one's food or that of others

And that's just from the top of my head. Not to mention, it's up to 75% cheaper than smoking. The very fact we are talking about them on an equal footing with cigarettes is absurd. I suppose that the manufacturers of the devices gave themselves a real problem by naming them electronic cigarettes, and by making the first devices look like one. I can see why they did it, but now this is turning out to be a major issue.
To talk about regulating these things like one would regulate tobacco products is to be completely devoid of even the most basic information about how the devices work.
Honestly, if there has been one "Debate" that has seriously made me question just how advanced and rational humans are - this is it. The truth is that employers ought to be giving these things away for free to their employees, and require they stop smoking actual tobacco. Just the saving in useless smoking breaks would save billions, not to mention the health-benefits to employees.
And how paradoxical it is, too, that in the Information Age, where one would imagine we are very well informed with facts and detailed information, we still can be actually SO ignorant on something THIS obvious. A shame on humanity, and a stark reminder how irrational, tribal and backward we actually still are."

gut feeling....

At some point, late in 2002, I contracted a nasty bout of bacterial food poisoning. I’ve rarely felt so ill in my life: I was wracked by stomach cramps, cold sweats and was pretty much delirious. In the course of about a week, I lost more than a stone in weight, and I don’t think my insides have ever been quite the same since. I’m fairly sure that the way that I digest food was compromised in some way, and I’ve been steadily losing weight ever since. I found out after the event, thanks to a stool sample delivered to the doctor (and have you ever tried crapping in a sample bottle when you have the shits?) that I had campylobacter

The Public Health authority sent me an incredibly detailed questionannaire to try and track down where I picked up the infection. I wasn’t 100% sure, but it probably tracked back to a pretty nice restaurant in Nottingham that has now – perhaps coincidentally – closed down and become a Caffé Nero.

Campylobacter is linked with Guillain–Barré, a disease that affects the peripheral nervous system

As wiki says, “the disorder is characterized by symmetrical weakness that usually affects the lower limbs first, and rapidly progresses in an ascending fashion. Patients generally notice weakness in their legs, manifesting as "rubbery legs" or legs that tend to buckle, with or without dysesthesias (numbness or tingling).”

Hmmm.  Sounds familiar.  Not surprisingly then, when I first began to exhibit the symptoms of MS in 2005, my neurologists were very interested indeed in my bout of food poisoning, and keen to carry out all sorts of blood tests.

I thought of this when I read this article on the BBC today.

Apparently, a food poisoning bacterium may be implicated in MS.

“Lab tests in mice by the team from Weill Cornell Medical College revealed a toxin made by a rare strain of Clostridium perfringens caused MS-like damage in the brain....earlier work by the same team, published in PLoS ONE, identified the toxin-producing strain of C. perfringens in a young woman with MS….C. perfringens, found in soil and contaminated undercooked meat, comes in different strains. Most cases of human infection occur as food poisoning - diarrhoea and stomach cramps that usually resolve within a day or so. More rarely, the bacterium can cause gas gangrene. And a particular strain of C. perfringens, Type B, which the Weill team says it identified in a human for the first time, makes a toxin that can travel through blood to the brain. In their lab studies on rodents the researchers found that the toxin, called epsilon, crossed the blood-brain barrier and killed myelin-producing cells - the typical damage seen in MS. Lead investigator Jennifer Linden said the findings are important because if it can be confirmed that epsilon toxin is a trigger of MS, a vaccine or antibody against the toxin might be able to halt or prevent this debilitating disease.”

Clearly, this is a different bacterium to campylobacter, but isn’t that interesting? The decline of pirates and the increase in global temperatures has taught us that correlation does not imply causation*, but just maybe it is more than coincidence that my first MS symptoms arrived relatively soon after my bout of food poisoning.  Maybe something nasty did jump across the blood-brain barrier and take up residence.  Who knows?

Nobody knows the underlying cause of MS (which, in any case, may well be an umbrella term for a number of completely different illnesses). Identifying that cause/causes – and this news could be a step in the right direction - would surely be a giant step towards understanding how we might be able to prevent, treat and perhaps even reverse the damage caused by the condition.

Ultimately, whether the food poisoning triggered my MS or not doesn’t really matter very much now.  I've got what I've got now, and at the risk of sounding excessively stoical, it is what it is…. but if we can learn how to stop this happening to anyone else…well, that would be just dandy, wouldn’t it?

* As the original open letter from Bobby Henderson to the Kansas School Board that ultimately kickstarted the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster says, “You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.”  Correlation, my friends, does not imply causation.  Arr lad.  That it don't.

weatherman complaining, predicted sun, it's raining...

Something fairly remarkable happened the other day: a British soldier - Sergeant Alexander Blackman - was convicted of a murder committed on a battlefield whilst on service overseas in a foreign conflict zone.  He was named, discharged with disgrace from the Royal Marines and sentenced to serve at least ten years in prison.  This seems to be the first time that anyone can remember something like this happening to a British soldier in modern history, and it's truly remarkable.  Just consider that for a moment: a soldier on a battlefield during a conflict convicted of murdering one of his enemies.  What an extraordinary thing.

The murder of the injured Taliban insurgent took place in Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2011.  The insurgent had been wounded in a helicopter attack, and was shot in the chest by Sergeant Blackman after some debate with another pair of marines.  There's audio footage of this event, and you can listen to it here.  It's pretty shocking.  The pistol shot to the helpless man's chest can be clearly heard – followed by Sergeant Blackman telling the man: "Shuffle off this mortal coil, you cunt," and instructing his fellow marines: "Obviously this doesn't go anywhere, fellas … I've just broken the Geneva convention."

He knew what he was doing was wrong, and he deserved to be found guilty, right?

An article published in the Daily Telegraph was quoted by the defence counsel during the trial.  The article was written by the film-maker and anthropologist Chris Terrill, who spent time embedded with the marines in the area and is well worth a read. Here are some excerpts:

"The British outpost – a patrol base – was effectively behind enemy lines. Nicknamed “Rorke’s Drift”, it was manned, at any one time, by about 35 Marines pretty much cut off from the outside world. Their job was to keep the enemy busy so that bomb disposal and important development work could take place in a village barely a mile to the north".

"It was always hot, about 50 degrees, and the chances of ambush were always high – but not as high as the prospect of stepping on an IED, an improvised explosive device. The number-one killer of Nato troops in Helmand and this place was riddled with them. The lads dubbed it “IED Central”.
The fields we had to cross had probably been freshly mined overnight and the tree lines separating the fields would have been thick with explosives. Some IEDs were triggered by a hidden insurgent but the vast majority, concealed under a layer of earth or sand, needed only someone to step on a hair-trigger pressure plate. As indiscriminate as they were deadly, they could be detonated by the heavy combat boot of a Marine, the sandalled foot of a working farmer or the bare, scampering foot of an innocent child. These were the ultimate killing fields".

"These time-consuming and exhausting patrols were sent out every day, twice a day – and every time the Marines would edge forward in their long, snaking line, each man knowing that the next step could be his last. It was a deadly lottery and patrolling was called “Afghan Roulette”. If an IED did not kill, it would maim horribly – loss of limbs and genitalia have been the signature injuries of the Afghan conflict".

"While the physical risk was undoubtedly enormous, the psychological threat was just as fearsome. The Taliban have never been averse to hanging the body parts of dead soldiers in the branches of trees – to taunt, to provoke, to goad. Often it was legs and almost always they were booby-trapped. There was also the knowledge that capture was a guarantee of torture – probably skinning followed by beheading....It came as no surprise to me that the Marines were ever eager to track down, confront and neutralise this unforgiving enemy. I was not even a combatant, I shot with a camera not a gun, but I was soon consumed by that same sense of anger and loss – especially after I started to suffer personal grief for those men, killed or terribly injured, whom I had counted as friends."

Now, I don't think that any of this excuses what Blackman did that day, and I'm not trying to defend his actions, but I do think that understanding the environment he was in helps to explain his behaviour.  Soldiers are put into impossible positions and asked to make impossible choices every single day.  Are we really meant to believe that they live in a world of black and white, or right and wrong?  That there aren't any shades of grey?  They're only human beings.  Captain America isn't real, you know.

In some ways I'm proud to live in a country where we will hold someone in this position to account over what they did, when it would probably have been all too easy to cover this up and to just make it go away.  Facing into it was the harder path to take, and it's the path that we took (although who knows how many cases there are like this that never see the light of day?).

To be honest though, this whole affair highlights a bigger absurdity: the idea that there can somehow be rules for war; guidelines for acceptable behaviour on a battlefield.  You take these young men, you train them how to be killers and you send them out to a warzone.  You ask them to watch their friends and comrades being shot, blown apart and tortured, and you then ask them to somehow be able to control themselves when they are face to face with the enemy?

What exactly do you think war is?

Newflash!  Horrible things happen in a war!  It may be news to some people, but not everyone who serves in our armed forces is a hero, and even those who are can't possibly be heroes all of the time.  No one can be.  That's just not how being a human being works.  It's not how war works, either.  If you don't like what happens in a war, then don't fight wars.  It's simple.

You can dress it up how you like, but war is about being prepared to kill as many people as it takes to get your own way.  You can apply as many rules and codes of conduct to it as you like, but a monkey in silk is still a monkey.  The scorpion stings the frog every time, so why are we still playing this game?

killing me softly....

I know that, at this time of the week, I usually write about the songs that have been floating around the inside of my head.  Well, no earworms this week.  Instead I'm going to talk about something far more important: Facebook.  Well, indirectly.

I'm sure you noticed the news this week that two victims of "Locked-In Syndrome" have been denied in court the right to die with medical assistance.  As the Guardian reported:

"Tony Nicklinson, 58, who had sought to end his "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable" life after he was left paralysed below the neck following a stroke seven years ago, wept uncontrollably after the judgment and said it meant his anguish would continue.....judges said that while the cases were deeply moving and deserved the most careful and sympathetic consideration, the questions they raised were too significant to be decided upon in a court, and could only be answered by parliament.  Lord Justice Toulson said that allowing the two men to be helped to end their lives would have implications far beyond their cases, and a ruling in Nicklinson's case in particular would have amounted to a major change in murder laws which exceeded the powers of the courts."

You would surely need to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the plight of these men.  Just watch the video on that link above of Nicklinson reacting to the judgement with uncontrollable sobs.  Heart-breaking.

Mind you, they may have been bitterly disappointed by the ruling, but neither man could have been surprised by the decision.  You remember Debbie Purdy?   Purdy has Primary Progressive MS and has fought a long battle to seek assurances from the law that her partner will not be prosecuted as an accessory to suicide simply for helping her travel to Dignitas in Switzerland.  It is still not clear whether even helping someone to travel to a clinic to end their life is a crime, even if ultimately that person dies entirely by their own hand.

Yesterday's cases are significantly different: once at Dignitas, Purdy - or indeed any other potential customer of the clinic - must be well enough to administer the lethal medication for themselves.  They cannot be helped by anyone else; they are choosing to die and are ending their lives in as dignified a fashion as they can.  Nicklinson and 'Martin', the other man presenting a case yesterday, are unable to kill themselves and would require assistance.

That's a clear difference, and one that I think is easily missed.

So where does Facebook come in?  Well, this appeared in a friend's timeline yesterday evening, alongside a link to the news story (and apologies if he's reading this here):

"If you haven't got the freedom to walk away from your own life on your own terms, you've got no freedom at all."

Now, this I agree with... broadly.  What riled me slightly were some of the comments.  Here are a couple of them:

"if those pious bastards are so concerned with his welfare let them dedicate the rest of their lives to wiping his arse, feeding and trying to make his hellish existence a little more tolerable rather than lecturing him on what he should or shouldn't be able to do with his own existence."

"Thinking about this man's predicament, I cant begin to imagine the emotional horror of it. Please put him out of his undoubted and literal misery....."

"YOU MUST LIVE.. LIVE ON.. YOU MUST.. Life at the pinnacle of medicine.. Miserable state of affairs".

"ERROR: We cannot let a single tax payer escape the system!
ERROR: We cannot let a single tax payer escape the system!
ERROR: We cannot let a single tax payer escape the system!"

Look.  I get where they are coming from, I really do (well, apart from the tax guy)... but I think they're missing the point.  I know that pro-life campaigners will be celebrating these decisions, but I think they're missing the point too.  This isn't about the sanctity of life or protecting the vulnerable who may feel pressured into killing themselves.  Neither is it simply the refusal of the state to allow someone to kill themselves.  It's a much more complicated ethical, moral and legal dilemma: if someone wants to kill themselves but they can't do it themselves, then what can we do?  How do you go about ending someone's life?  Who pushes the button?  What qualifies them to do so?  What gives them the right? What guidelines would need to be in place to make such a thing 'safe'?

The court decision may leave Nicklinson, and people like him, facing up to the unpleasant choice of either continuing to live or attempting to starve themselves to a long, drawn-out and ultimately undignified end.  But what other decision could the court make?  Yes, we may routinely choose to euthanise animals to prevent suffering, but surely we can all agree that it's not quite the same for human beings?  You can't just sit down with the doctor and agree that your mother has had a good innings and it's just her time, before quietly putting her to sleep.....

I've quoted this before, but Matthew Parris wrote about the distinction between the right to die and assisted suicide in The Times back in 2009, talking about the Purdy case:

"I can’t tell you how simple I find these arguments: so simple that I’ve hardly bothered to write about the issue. Suicide is the greatest of human freedoms, underwriting all the others, for it gives us the possibility of defying every thing and every one there is. The possibility of suicide is what makes life voluntary and each new day an act of will. No wonder the faith community gnash their teeth at suicide. God Himself, if He existed, would gnash His teeth at suicide: the supreme act of defiance, the final raspberry. The knowledge that I’m here by choice, that every breath I take I take by choice, injects into my soul a transcendent joy. That we can let go whenever we want is for me the deepest sort of thrill. People should be able to choose. Obviously. And if they choose the end but seek help with the means, they should be able to. Obviously. End of argument."

However, Parris goes on to say that he is opposed to legalising assisted suicide - on the grounds that this means that someone has to officially decide who can, and who cannot, die:

"It is one thing for the State to decline, at its discretion, to prosecute someone who has killed without authority. It is quite another thing for the State to issue an authority to kill. We do best, I think, to stay on that first, more limited, ground."

I don't have any answers, and my heart goes out to anyone facing this situation, but this is not a trivial issue with an obvious solution, and anyone who thinks it is clearly hasn't thought it through.

find out what it means to me...

It's Remembrance Weekend. A quick look back through my archives reveals that I usually have something to say about this (the last couple of years can be found here and here).  I get quite emotional when I think about the sacrifices made by ordinary people during the two World Wars, and as a result, I tend to get quite annoyed when I see how people seize and manipulate that sacrifice and the names of the fallen for their own petty outrages and political point-scoring.  It's happened again this year, and Poppy fascism has been all over the press again.  There's nothing new here, only the same phoney outrage and indignation, so rather than rehash my own tired old counter-arguments and frustrations again, I'm just going to literally re-publish something I wrote two years ago as it is still directly relevant today.

Plus I get to quote Joseph Heller again, which is always a good thing.

This is a cross-posting with the excellent football blog, Cheer Up Alan Shearer. 

I originally published this post here back in November 2009, talking about the crusade to try to shame all Premier League clubs into attaching a poppy to their playing shirts, but the current furore around FIFA's refusal to make an exception and allow the English football team to display the same emblem on their shirts in this week's international match against Spain is essentially the same argument being repeated again.  The reaction to this "refusal" (actually a refusal to break a rule that applies to ALL emblems - a more commercially motivated version of what we might call the Jon Snow defence) has been widespread, including the Prime Minister and Prince William as well as the luminaries and reknowned patriots of the English Defence League.

It is an entirely predictable outrage, and we have the same tired old reaction around the poppy every year with tedious regularity... and in fact, the outrage itself really proves FIFA's point that the poppy clearly IS a political symbol.

The FA might have now reached a compromise with FIFA that enables the team to wear poppies on black armbands, but the whole incident does nobody any credit and certainly does not indicate to me any greater respect for Our Brave Troops.

Anyway, here's my rant again.  Still sadly apt.  I fully expect more tiresome and predictable criticism of Jon Snow for his refusal to bow to "poppy fascism" and wear one as he reads the news.  You can set your watch by it.

Anyway.  Here's the 2009 post.

---

There's a bit in Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" where Captain Black runs something he calls the "Glorious Loyalty Oath Campaign", where everyone in the squadron finds themselves forced to sign oaths pledging their loyalty in order to get absolutely anything or everything:

"Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it. He had really hit on something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed. They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay from the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers. To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day to keep one step ahead. He would stand second to none in his devotion to country. When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced the pledge of allegiance, and after that "The Star-Spangled Banner," one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses. Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them scornfully for their failure to follow his example. Each time they followed his example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again"

Of course, anyone refusing to sign one of these oaths is immediately branded as somehow being disloyal to their country, to their flag and to their cause:

"Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to."

Captain Black's rival, Major Major, is actively prevented from signing any of these oaths, even if he wanted to:

"What makes you so sure Major Major is a Communist?"

"You never heard him denying it until we began accusing him, did you? And you don't see him signing any of our loyalty oaths."

"You aren't letting him sign any."

"Of course not," Captain Black explained. "That would defeat the whole purpose of our crusade".

Thus does Joseph Heller neatly skewer empty patriotism.

I was reminded of this when reading about the Daily Mail's latest campaign to try and get every Premier League football club to display a poppy on their matchday shirts during November.

[did you notice that most Premier League clubs - but not all - had poppies in place on the shirts last weekend, in the last round of fixtures before Remembrance Day 2011? In the Blackburn v Chelsea game, the home side had poppies and the away side did not... although there was a wreath and a solemn silence and apparently that was enough to avoid comment.  Perhaps people were saving all their anger for the International game?]

As a result of their bullying, there are now only three of the twenty clubs holding out: Liverpool, Manchester United and Bolton Wanderers [Bolton ended up wearing poppies in 2009, and as you'll notice from the picture of Super Kev above, taken last weekend, they didn't bother putting up a fight at all this year]. As a spokesman for Manchester Utd not unreasonably said:

"We don’t think it’s particularly necessary. We sell poppies around the ground and all our officials wear them and we work with Armed Forces charities in a lot of other ways throughout the year."

Not good enough, apparently, and the Mail is continuing to try to bully them into changing their minds. Obviously, their readers are full of considered opinions on the subject. Here's lazzruss:

"Yes Yes Yes!!! It is beyond my capacity to put into words how this 'government' has ruined our once Great Britain by sytematically [sic] attacking our spiritual and historical heritage and culture and we have had enough! Banning poppies is the final insult to our nation as this shows a complete disregard and contempt for our Glorious Dead who gave everything including their very lives for the sake of the future of our Nation and every football team owes them their success and privileges - to display a simple poppy proudly on their shirts should be a moral imperative for anyone who loves our Country and what we (not the inept and shameful Labour Government) stand for."

Let's leave aside the fact that the majority of the players in the Premier League aren't even English, eh? Why let that get in the way of a good rant about WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?

Um, perhaps it's a statement of the obvious, but if you try to force people to wear a poppy, aren't you restricting our freedom to choose not to wear one? Isn't that the same freedom that "Our Glorious Dead' (note the capitalisation) fought for? Like it or not, that's the same freedom that allows a student to get so paralytically drunk that he urinated on a war memorial in Sheffield. Not very nice, for sure, but surely more a story about binge drinking than it is about any calculated disrespect for the dead, whatever the Daily Mail try to make of the story (flogging too good for him, naturally).

This "Poppy fascism" seems to be everywhere at the moment. Apparently the BBC are under pressure because the dancers on "Strictly..." weren't wearing poppies last week. All of the judges were, but none of the dancers. Not good enough, apparently, as everyone on the X-Factor was wearing one.... The BBC initially (and not very bravely) hid behind "Health & Safety issues" as the reason why the dancers weren't wearing poppies, but have now apparently changed their minds in the face of all this public outrage. 

Where does this oneupmanship and assumed moral authority stop? Why are we only displaying our poppies for a couple of weeks of November? Does that mean we're being disrespectful and unpatriotic for the other 50 weeks of the year? Should we all be dyeing our hair red and tattooing poppies onto our cheeks so we can be displaying our gratitude and support for the sacrifices made on our behalf every single day of the year?

Of course, you can trust the good old Guardian for an alternative view, and Marina Hyde today has a good rant about this "phony poppy apoplexy":

"So on Saturday, know that every late challenge, every sending-off, will be in the memory of those who fell in battle. Then accept the fact that media campaigns to foreground the poppies that are not being worn, as opposed to the ones that are, serve not as a memorial to the sacrifices made on our behalf, but as a reminder of our hard-wired one‑upmanship and infinite capacity to find ways to divide ourselves."

The commentators are even more strident:

"Forced wearing of the poppy to commemorate a fight against tyranny? Britain seems to get sillier and sillier, and more and more irrelevant every week."

It seems that the spirit of Captain Black is alive and well and still busily hunting out people who won't sign his loyalty oaths.

"You never heard him denying it until we began accusing him, did you?"

Think on that if you leave your house without a poppy this November.

----

Two years on, and the same tired old arguments and outrage are very much in evidence again.  Depressing, don't you think?  Perhaps we should be spending our weekends on a pilgrimage to the Cenotaph via Royal Wooton Bassett instead of watching a game of football?

Enjoy those armbands on the England side on Saturday, and let's think again on Marina Hyde's words from her 2009 article:

"So on Saturday, know that every late challenge, every sending-off, will be in the memory of those who fell in battle". 

Paul Hayward writes something similar in this year's Guardian:

"You either buy a poppy or you don't, you either wear it or you don't. You can buy one in October if you like, though you shouldn't have to, and if you are occasionally seen without one it doesn't make you a bad person. Because surely the whole strength behind the poppy's symbolism is that it is the most understated of statements. It is a quiet, gentle reminder, not a shouted command. Above all, as a gesture it is personal and private, and ought not to be forced to go public".

If we follow the logic of the poppy fascists further, if it's disrespectful to our brave troops not to wear a poppy, is it not also disrespectful if we don't play a full-strength side and if John Terry doesn't start? An insult to the memory of their sacrifices?  As LB said last night in the pub, what would our reaction be if the game on Saturday was against Argentina and they insisted on wearing a memorial to their Falklands dead?

Quite how this annual farce shows any respect for the people who have sacrificed their lives fighting for their countries is beyond me.  Being seen to show respect is not necessarily the same thing as actually being respectful.

---

As a reminder of how quickly football can change, the first game of Sven Goran Eriksson's reign as England manager was against Spain in February 2001.  A Spanish side including Iker Casillas, Raul and Pep Guardiola lost 3-0 to goals by Nick Barmby, Emile Heskey and Ugo Ehiogu.  The start of the side hailed as a "Golden Generation".

England's line-up that night?

James, Phil Neville, Powell, Butt, Ferdinand, Campbell, Beckham, Scholes, Andy Cole, Owen, Barmby.
Subs: Gary Neville, Martyn, Brown, Ehiogu, Phillips, Sheringham, Fowler, Heskey, Lampard, Carragher, Wright, Ball, McCann.

Spain are, of course, now World and European champions.  England, meanwhile, have won chuff all.

be my, be my baby....

I heard a discussion on the radio this morning about the provision of IVF on the NHS. Apparently, nearly three-quarters of all NHS trusts are failing to follow guidelines and are refusing couples treatment. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) stated in 2004 that couples should be given up to three cycles of IVF on the NHS, where the woman is aged between 23 and 39. Apparently, many PCTs are either refusing treatment entirely, or are imposing other criteria on age, weight, smoking status and whether or not one partner already had a child.

Gareth Johnson, Conservative MP for Dartford and chairman of the APPG on Infertility, said: "IVF is the creation of life and gives hope to thousands of infertile couples across the UK. "IVF treatment was invented in Britain and so, more than any other country, we should be championing its use. As chairman of the APPG on Infertility, I believe that all PCTs should be offering three cycles of treatment as recommended by the Nice guidelines. One in seven couples in the UK suffer from infertility problems, indeed more women attend GP surgeries to obtain advice on infertility than any other issue other than pregnancy. This shows just how big an issue infertility is for so many people."

Now, I think IVF is an amazing thing and I know it has given lots of people the opportunity to become parents….. but should it be seen as a right; as something that we should expect the NHS to pay for? That was the thrust of the discussion I heard, but I’m not sure that I think it should be.

The NHS is constantly under the threat of budget cuts. Even now, the battle lines are being drawn in parliament around the Conservative plans to slash budgets to attempt to save money (although interesting that they seem to think IVF is worth defending)… but even in more optimistic economic climates, the NHS is always operating to a budget and doctors are always going to be asked to make potentially difficult decisions about what treatment and services they can offer, and who should get them and who should not. I know that the nature of NHS funding means that there is something of a postcode lottery around which PCT offer which services, but the fundamental principle is the same: medical decisions are made on the basis of budget. Some drugs are approved for use, other drugs are not. Think of the stink that was kicked up when NICE refused to authorise the use of the “miracle” breast cancer drug Avastin.

If you are suffering from breast cancer or have a relative who is, then it is perfectly understandable that you want to give them the best possible chance. NICE is in the invidious position of having to draw the line of what is in and what is out. They will swear blind that it is not a budget led decision, but budget surely can and surely should be a factor in that decision.

Somewhat closer to home, as a sufferer of MS, I am keen for NICE to approve the NHS to dispense oral therapy so that I can escape from my weekly routine of injections….. not that I should grumble, because my injections cost the NHS something over £1000 a month. Never mind the drugs, I benefit immeasurably from access to the MS Nurses: they’re my first point of contact in the event of a relapse or if I need advice or an appointment or therapy or anything. They brilliant, but they’re also under threat. They’re 50% funded by the MS Society and 50% by the government… and they’ve been marked down as a possible cost saving. Losing them would have a devastating effect on the frontline of the treatment of MS in this country… and I’m sure there are services like them threatened across the board.

IVF costs – on average – about £3,500 an attempt.

In an environment were the treatment and care of critical illnesses is being cut and where people are not receiving the drugs that could possibly save their lives or radically alter their quality of life, how can that be justified? Having a child is no doubt an amazing thing and is a cherished ambition for many… but is it a right that you would expect the government to pay for? Or should it be something that is only available to those who can afford it?

Look, I know it’s not as black and white an issue as that… and my view on this is no doubt slanted by the fact that I’m a 37 year old man with MS and no kids…. But I’m genuinely interested to know what you think.

It’s a thorny one.

And if you can make your mind up about IVF, what about abortion? Lay aside the ethical issues for a moment; do you think that termination should be offered on the NHS? What about facial reconstruction?

And to think I moan about the decisions I make in my job.

haters....

This afternoon, my boss asked me to have a quick look online for an article that was published over the weekend focusing on self-checkout tills in British stores.  Dull subject for a newspaper expose, no?  It's hardly up their with the fake sheikh's finest, is it?  Anyway, it apparently said that ours were the worst in Britain. As we are the team that is responsible for the development of most of the kit we have instore, including the self-checkout tills, we were naturally interested to have a look at this, so I did a quick piece of googling.

I didn't find that article, but I did find another that caught my eye as it mentioned our company and touched on another area that we look after. Apparently, the police have stopped prosecuting shoplifters, and so big companies like ours now have to take alleged offenders through the civil courts to pursue £150 of damages. It wasn't really a very interesting article, and neither was it the one I was looking for, so I was about to move on when the comments caught my eye... the first comment in particular:

"In some ways some countries have the right idea... cut off the hands and make the shame the families....dam we not allowed to that with Human Rights, what about putting them in stocks and us having a fun day humiliating them... dam again Human Rights what about just stopping any benefits and letting them starve....Human Rights? So what about just finding out where they live, and letting the neighbourhood know they have a thief..after alll why stop at shops... the old lady or gentlemen on their own are a equal target to these low life trash...who ar to bloody idle to work for a living like the rest of us...spoilt brats who the earth would be better off without"

Well, thanks for those considered views, Pat in Norfolk (and, amidst all other errors of spelling and punctuation, I love the capitalisation of "Human Rights"). There were 95 other views published too, but as I assumed they were likely more of the same, I left them to boil in their own vitriol.

Have you guessed the newspaper yet?

As someone remarked the other day, if Chris Morris were to invent a newspaper, I'm pretty sure it would look exactly like the Daily Mail.  It's so ridiculous, it must be a satire, right?

driving down the highway through the perfect sunny dream....

Sad news from the world of cinema today: Irvin Kershner has died aged 87 after a long illness.  He was best known, of course, for directing The Empire Strikes Back...... and it's probably worth remembering that it wasn't by accident that, of all the Star Wars films, that's the one that has by far the best performances from the cast.  Kershner had a background in the theatre and he actively encouraged his leads to improvise their lines.  The results, I think, can be clearly seen on the screen.  George Lucas was (and is) obsessed with the mechanics of his films and the need to bring his "vision" to life, usually focusing on the special effects.  Kershner, I think, understood that he could bring the film to life simply by giving the actors room to breathe.

Star Wars had featured some painfully wooden exposition (as an exasperated Harrison Ford majestically complained to George Lucas at the time, "You can write this shit, George, but you sure can't say it....").  The performances in ESB, in contrast, are much more natural, and all the actors seem a great deal more comfortable with each other and with the dialogue.  The most famous example of this, of course, is when Princess Leia tells Han Solo that she loves him and he replies with the immortal line, "I know".  It's the best line in the whole film (and perhaps in all six films) but it's also perhaps the most human.  Yet, if George Lucas had his way, it would have been cut.  As Kershner himself said in an interview with Vanity Fair:

"There was really only one disagreement [with Lucas]. It was the Carbon Freeze scene when Princess Leia says, “I love you.” Han Solo’s response in the script was, “I love you, too.” I shot the line and it just didn’t seem right for the character of Han Solo. So we worked on the scene on the set. We kept trying different things and couldn’t get the right line. We were into the lunch break and I said to Harrison try it again and just do whatever comes to mind. That is when Harrison said the line, “I know.” After the take, I said to my assistant director, David Tomblin, “It’s a wrap.” David looked at me in disbelief and said something like, “Hold on, we just went to overtime. You’re not happy with that, are you?” And I said, yes, it’s the perfect Han Solo remark, and so we went to lunch. George saw the first cut and said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. That’s not the line in the script.” I said ““I love you, too’ was not Han Solo.” Han Solo was a rebel. George felt that the audience would laugh. And I said, that’s wonderful, he is probably going to his death for all they know. We sat in the room and he thought about it. He then asked me, “Did you shoot the line in the script?” I said yes. So we agreed that we would do two preview screenings once the film was cut and set to music with the line in and then with the line out. At the first preview in San Francisco, the house broke up after Han Solo said I know. When the film was over, people came up and said that is the most wonderful line and it worked. So George decided not to have the second screening."

Credit to Lucas for sticking with it in the end, I suppose, but his initial instincts give an inkling into why the Lucas directed Star Wars prequels are so clunkingly poor.

Irving Kershner, 1923-2010.  RIP.

In other sad news from the world of film, it was announced today that Leslie Nielsen has died, aged 84.

He's probably best known by most people as Lt. Frank Drebin from Police Squad! and the Naked Gun films, and as the Doctor in Airplane! ("Yes, and don't call me Shirley"), but he had a long acting career dating back to 1948 (apparently he screen-tested for a leading role in Ben Hur), and it was only really after "Airplane!" in 1980 that he became what Roger Ebert dubbed, "The Olivier of spoofs" .   He could be brilliantly funny, of course, and surely not many peope did deadpan as well, but as time went on, it seemed to me to be a career of diminishing returns.

Perhaps instead of remembering him for "Dracula: Dead and Loving It", we should cast our minds back to 1956 and his role in the legendary science fiction film, "The Forbidden Planet".  Nielsen played it entirely straight in his role as Commander Adams in what was essentially a reworking of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" set in space, but it was an incredibly influential film in the sci-fi genre (catching the eye of Gene Rodenberry, for one) and stands up pretty well, even today.  Better than "2001: A Space Travesty", I'll wager.....

Anyway.  Leslie Nielsen, 1926-2010.  RIP.

Dr. Rumack: You'd better tell the captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine: A hospital? What is it?
Dr. Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.

In very different ways, both contributed to my film education as I was growing up, and the news of their deaths today has prompted me to take a moment to remember them.

As you were.

hemmed in like a boar between arches.....

Don't care about how they met.
Don't care about how he proposed.
Don't care about when the wedding is.
Don't care where the wedding might be.
Don't care how much it costs (austerity wedding, anyone? anyone?)
Don't care what she might wear.
Don't care what he might wear.
Don't care who gets invited.
Don't care what they have for dinner.
Don't care where they live.
Don't care if she might be Queen one day.
Don't care if he might be King one day.
Don't care how middle-class her parents (are or are not).
Don't care what the Queen thinks.
Don't care what Diana might have thought.
Don't care what the press think.
Don't care what the public think.
Don't care what people overseas think.
Don't care what she thinks about joining the Royal Family.

I just don't care. 

Can we move on now?



Her very Lowness with a head in a sling
I'm truly sorry - but it sounds like a wonderful thing....