Zzzz...

A six-minute nap can boost your memory, but 'daytime dozing' can give you a stroke. What to do?!

Non-news

This is a great bit of non-news from Cornwall. The headline reads ‘Man hurt after prince leaves club’ which from a news perspective implies the man was hurt at the same time the prince left – perhaps in a connected way. But of course read literally it means ‘after the prince left the club, a man was hurt (sometime later)'. Which is actually what happened.

An hour and a half after the prince left there was a fight and someone got hit. Unless the prince said something that took an hour and a half to be understood before the men could react, I don’t think the quote of, "We can categorically say neither the prince nor his party were involved” is really that necessary.

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Since I wrote this up earlier more stories about it have been coming up form a variety of papers with more details which make it more of a 'story' - although whether or not the prince's presence in the club had anything to do with the incident is questionable. I would suggest, as an ex-resident of Cornwall, that a 1-pound party night in Newquay yields injuries on a fairly regular basis.

Anything to Declare?

The furore over MPs expenses and the incredible fact they don’t have to produce receipts for any claims under £250 and can claim £400 a month against ‘food’ expenditure (more than the highest state pension over a month) really underlines some of the archaic practices operating within our government. The argument they don’t want people to have a “peephole” into their lives, (the word(s) of Resources Boss Andrew Walker), doesn’t hold weight as what can they be doing as MPs working on ‘our’ behalf that couldn’t be made public?

No business in Britain would run a system where employees could claim expenses of up to £250 without any form of receipt, but for MPs to be able to do so, and get back, effectively, ‘our’ money is so outdated and open to corruption it defies belief.

The Scottish Government now has an online section where you can search for any expenditure in any available category claimed by minsters. If SMPs are doing their jobs and claiming legitimate expenses they incur, then what is the problem? If the Westminster MPs are so ‘honourable’ what have they got to fear?

Some Good News

Arrested Development to return? Let’s hope so. The best comedy of all time? I think so. And with a 9.7 average from over 20,000 votes on IMDB so do a lot of people.

Oh Dear

Cliff Richard's interview with Q sounds like it was an odd affair.

Like many people Cliff Richard has mistaken ‘most’ for ‘best’. Because he sold more records than The Beatles and Elvis he assumes he is ‘better’ than them. This of course ignores the fact his music is more middle of the road than white lines and his audience is that entire strata of the population who have a music bypass in their brains.

He’s even attacked George Harrison’s guitar solos as ‘out-of-tune’. Strange that it took 50 years and the incredible musical talent of Cliff Richard to point this out. You would have thought classically trained musicians, or uber-keen fans, or even fans, or even the band themselves would have noticed this in half a century of listening. But no. Everyone else is an idiot and Cliff is a bloody genius and only he can point these things out.

Why stop there Cliff? Come on, you’ve got all these outlandish opinions let’s hear them. There’s a whole 50 years worth of popular music to slate with ridiculous claims. The Rolling Stones (too loud); Bob Dylan (too wordy); Simon and Garfunkel (too many harmonies) – nothing compared to you Cliff.

I mean this is the man who set the Lord’s Prayer to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. Genius. Cliff is so sure of his own brilliance he calls himself the UPS – Ultimate Pop Star. A term he has coined because no one else has. Odd that.

I Closed My Eyes

There is something unsettling about the fact Andrew Lloyd Webber has admitted he ‘planted’ his next Maria in Hollyoaks three months before she started her role in the West End. It’s just another example of how TV land views its public. First the numerous phone-in scandals, showed utter contempt for the viewer, and the recent show(s) Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper, demonstrated that those in TV think people not only want watch trashy, clichéd ridden soaps, but also how these soaps get made. Lloyd Webber's revelation is another example of TV slapping itself on the back and thinking it's jolly clever.

British television can produce some wonderful stuff – comedy, documentaries, nature shows – and I accept that more ‘lightweight’ programming has its place and its audience. But when you have a show on Channel 4 providing screen time for an actress who will star in a west-end show for a man who has mystifyingly taken over BBC1 with nothing more than jumped-up karaoke shows, and with more to come, it just becomes too much to bear.

The next show Lloyd Webber will be inflicting on to a strangely accepting public will be “I’d Do Anything” for a role in Oliver. An apt title I feel.

Political World

If The Right Honourable Gentlemen Derek Conway MP has come out on record and said, “I have let my family down very badly indeed and no judgement from any quarter could be more harsh than that which I apply to myself” when talking about the payments he made to his son for work it is alleged he hasn’t done then why has Roger Gale MP come out and said this is a “witch hunt” and that, “a man has been told he's guilty until he can prove his innocence. If Derek Conway says his son did the hours which he said he did, I do not doubt his word”?

It’s rare enough to hear a politician ever apologise for anything – he said, “I unreservedly apologise to the House for my administrative shortcomings and the misjudgements I made”, – so for one to do so, about something Mr Gale believes he isn’t guilty of, would be too ridiculous to contemplate. Or perhaps if you are guilty you deny it, and if you aren’t you claim you are?

The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee have said he should pay back the £13,161 he gave his son. Again, sounds like he has been found to be in the wrong to me. Clearly Mr Gale disagrees. While we are at it £13,161 wouldn’t even cover mine, or thousands of other hard-working students’ / recently graduated students’ debts so it’s not exactly a small amount that can be just brushed under the carpet.

What a sorry state of affairs. I don’t really want to vote for Labour or the Conservatives at the moment.

N E 1 4 10 Ice?

This article on the BBC Sport section is so strangely written. It’s just an endless succession of staccato sentences that is entirely unnecessary and makes the whole thing quite unreadable. Which. Is. A. Shame.

The following is just an excerpt from the piece. These are not selected at random; they actually do follow on like this from one another:

“Many years ago these scenes were probably played out night after night within a deep sleep and probably day after day on the practice court.

When Djokovic first picked up a tennis racket, on a court opposite his parent's Pizzeria half-way up a Serbian mountain, this was the dream.

His victory is thoroughly deserved because he won through the hardest section of the draw and dropped just a single set.

Hewitt, Safin, Bagdahtis, Nalbandian, Ferrero and Ferrer were all in his quarter and Federer was the man in the semis."

I just hear a robot talking.

Sick as a Parrot

Ian Holloway’s column is always a fairly daft read, (I must admit I lost some affection for him when he left Plymouth), but to ask him to comment on a news story which dates from February 10, 2005, (not for the faint-hearted), shows that the journalist didn’t really check to see if it was a current story.

Examples of English Football Arrogance # 217

Last night’s Carling Cup Semi Final between Everton and Chelsea. Cut to shot of Fabio Capello in the stands. One of the commentators said (paraphrased), “I bet Fabio Capello has never seen an atmosphere, quite like this.”

This is a man who has managed Real Madrid, won the Champions League with AC Milan, and has also managed Juventus and Roma. And the commentators think the atmosphere at a Carling Cup tie between Everton and Chelsea will be something he has never experienced?

Just Shut Up

The news that the FA has chosen to forego a minute’s silence at the England V Switzerland game because it doesn’t trust the fans to respect the silence is one of the most depressing things I have read. Sadly they are right. The comments on this blog post on the Guardian make for bizarre and ultimately downright sad reading.

If Sir Alex Ferguson and a football club annoys you to the point you want to boo / whistle / talk during a minute's silence for young men who died in the primes of their lives, leaving wives, girlfriends, children, family, friends devastated then you really, and I mean, really, need to sort out your priorities.

We respect those men who died in WWI and WWII without caring which part of the country they came from, or what team they support, but if someone happened to play for a certain team that 'we don't like' it's somehow okay to ruin a memorial to them because they 'annoy us'.

People who actually feel like this, quite vehemently, and even worse seem to feel they are actually justified in this behaviour really need to get more going on in their lives and appreciate that they are alive and well and didn't die in a plane crash aged 22 with their whole lives ahead of them, leaving a grieving family behind.

It makes you wonder why we bother calling ourselves civilised.

Giving Science a Bad Name

Tom Cruise really scares me. It’s the misplaced belief and sense that his conviction seems worryingly ‘extreme’ that gets me the most. And the news about this leaked video just makes everything even more, well, sinister.

Regardless of the fact he is a film-star, celebrity, actor, etc if you just look at him and realise he actually ‘believes’ not only in the idea of Scientology, but also clearly ‘believes’ in his own conviction as a Scientologist, then it’s a bit disturbing.

If a man who seemingly ‘has it all’ can be turned on to something as strange as Scientology what hope can we have for people who are desperate for a direction, any direction, and who might well be susceptible to the weird propaganda or recruiting techniques these people may or may not have.

What price Britney Spears a Scientologist by the end of 2008?

Linking Up

Some more links:

First – I thought the coverage of the US primaries was a bit rubbish after all the banging on about Obama looking set to win New Hampshire and then, oh, wait a moment, Hilary won. Eh? But this is some truly terrible news coverage.

Secondly, I’ve been researching some unsung Cornish heroes for a piece I am writing and came across this woman whose life is nothing short of remarkable. Why she isn’t as well known as Emily Pankhurst or Florence Nightingale is a mystery to me.

Cashing In

Clearly some people will go to extraordinary lengths to get hold of money.

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Somehow the BBC website has converted $355 in to £240. XE.com currency conversion calculator gives the conversion as £180, as The Guardian did. Worrying.