Outbreak

Last Thursday (3rd September) was the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, a conflict that killed 60 million men, women and children, ravaged the face of much of the world, precipitated the downfall of Europe as the centre of world gravity, and which was, to a large extent, caused by the explosion of competing nationalist fervour throughout the world. To commemorate, I bought myself a jumper in Union Jack colours.

 

Weed Is Good For You…

…at least if you’re a binge drinker, which, let’s face it, we all are. According to scientists at the University of California cannabis protects cells that are damaged by alcohol. In support of this someone called Paul Armentano said:

Alcohol and cannabis appear to have contrasting effects on the body…ethanol is clearly toxic to healthy and developing cells whereas cannabinoids appear to be relatively non-toxic and possibly even neuro-protective.

That’s good enough for me.

 

Bandwagonesque

Why is it that, like the proverbial London buses, films seem to come in twos?

There are a whole series of films that came out within a matter of months or even weeks of each other which share oddly similar themes, for example: Dante’s Peak and Volcano [which, incidentally, is graced with the brilliant tag line “The Coast is Toast”]; Deep Impact and Armageddon; Antz and A Bug’s Life; Mission to Mars and Red Planet; The Illusionist and The Prestige; Tombstone and Wyatt Earp; and, one from the old school, Turner & Hooch and K9.

This has to be more than a co-incidence. Whether it is because there is a hot script going round all the studios which gets made by one studio and the others make a similar (but invariably worse) movie, not wanting to miss out, or because they get wind of a rival’s big project, I can’t believe that all these films with similar plots and/or premises just happen to come out in the same year.

 

Shatner does Palin…

This is Shatner’s greatest work: greater than James T Kirk, than TJ Hooker, than even Denny Crane himself.

 

Lookie Likies #1 – probably the first of many

This is a deep lookie-likie because it’s not just skin deep. In fact, it’s barely even about their looks – rather it’s the, like, you know, sort of energy, the inner, like, aura that these girls sort of, like, give off.

New Big Brother housemate, and moonchild, Bea

Jam & Jerusalem's Tash Vine, portrayed by Sally Phillips

If you don’t watch Jam & Jerusalem, you should – new season probably starting soonish. If you don’t watch Big Brother, what do you do Friday nights?

 

Mange-Tout Rodney

My mother tells a funny story about a linguistic mix-up.

A couple she knows were going skiing with some friends and taking their daughter along with her boyfriend. The day before they left, the daughter broke up with the unfortunate chap, but since the holiday had been paid for in its entirety, he came along anyway. Having never skied before, and being on holiday with his now-ex-girlfriend and her parents, he was understandably looking glum while nursing a pint in the bar one evening when one of the family friends came over and commiserated, saying how miserable it must be for him. “Oh well,” he replied, “déjà vu…”

 

Territorial Pissings

There’s no denying it. For the last two summers in this country we’ve been shortchanged by the weather and then some. We’ve stumbled into the meteorological kebab shop at quarter past three on a Friday night and handed over a twenty pound note for a chicken donner only to receive £2.50 in change. During July and August for both 2007 and 2008, as Southern Europe was getting Southern fried, in good old Blighty we were donning life jackets and learning how to swim (or not) as record floods swept the country.

This is not acceptable. The reason it’s such a slap in the face is that I’m a staunch defendant of the weather in this country and the constant cheap shots people take at it offend my blind patriotism.

 

What Price Liberty

Max Hastings, in last Sunday’s Sunday Times, reviewed a book by Cambridge historian Ben Wilson, What Price Liberty. I should say first of all that I have not read the book, although, after reading Mr Hastings’ review I have added it to my to-read list, and it is something in the review itself which I want to address.

 According to the review, the book tackles the thorny issue of the balance between liberty and security, and how the twin assaults on individual liberty, from over-zealous security policy on one hand, and the fussing of the nanny state on the other, has moulded us into a risk-averse big brother state within which the liberty of the subject is eroded bit by bit.

 This question is clearly as important as it is topical, and I have to say that I concur broadly with the Hastings-Wilson-Benjamin Franklin view that he who would sacrifice essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither safety nor liberty.

 The review, however, starts by opining that “One of the most injurious blights to fall upon British society in the 21st century has been that of health and safety”, and it is this with which I want to take issue. Let’s face it, Health and Safety is a pretty easy target. Contempt for it is often bundled together with a distrust of “the nanny state” with its “yuman rights culture”, Euro-sceptic opposition to “meddling” from Brussels and a swiftness to label any and all of the above as “political correctness gone mad”.

 In fact, the concepts behind Health and Safety are nothing new. Indeed, the Health and Safety Act is the direct descendant of the Factory and Mines Acts of the mid Nineteenth Century, the very era lauded by Mr Wilson as a gilded age of individual liberty.

 Similarly, a great majority of the more progressive legislation enacted in this country over the past 50 years (from the Equal Pay legislation to the Human Rights Act, via the Discrimination Acts) has come from or mirrors European Law.

 The erosion of civil liberties is certainly a valid concern, but it seems to me that the risk comes far more from excessive security powers of the state that it does from legislation which is designed, however over-zealously it is enforced, to protect people.

 And slagging off Health and Safety is just lazy journalistic short-hand.

 So, in conclusion, do buy Mr Wilson’s book and read it, but if you should drop it on your foot on your way home, it’s probably nobody else’s fault but your own.

 

Poetry Corner

There is an MP from Westminster,

Who lives like an ascetic spinster,

But when opting to stand,

With her cap in her hand,

‘Twas the perks of the job that convinced her.

 

Welcome

Welcome to Radio Free Puma

 

One Team, One Dream