…did anyone happen to catch the result of the Liverpool–Man Utd match?
Unpukka Cwistmas fakewy
It was 17.5°C in Hebden Bridge on Friday afternoon. I know, because I checked on my car's thermometer. The reason I checked was that the centre of town was covered in snow.
But it turned out that it wasn't snow; it was fake snow. Jamie Oliver was in town filming a Christmas ad for Sainsbury's.
So, when you see the ad, I want you to shout at the telly, "THAT'S NOT REAL SNOW! I KNOW FOR A FACT: I READ IT ON GRUTS!"
My farmer friend and her friend popped into Hebden Bridge shortly after the filming had finished. "What's that dreadful smell?" she asked.
Jamie Oliver's cooking, apparently.
Thou shalt not bear false witness
Here's a totally misleading chart from the BBC website, supposedly showing the relative numbers of Anglicans and Catholics in the UK and Ireland compared to the population as a whole.
Wow! Look at that! The Anglicans are over half-way up the chart when compared with the whole population, and the Catholics over a third of the way up. Not bad!
Until you realise that it is the areas of the semi-circles we should be looking at, not the diameters. The clue's in the figures given in the labels on the chart (which totally misleadingly point to the semi-circles' diameters): 65.6M population, 9.3M Catholics—that's one in seven a Catholic, not one in three. 65.6M population, 26.5M Anglicans—that's 40% Anglicans, not over 50%. But who's going to check the figures when there's a simple, reassuring chart? Apart from me, I mean.
And, to make matters worse, they've overlaid the semicircles. Or have they? How are we supposed to know if it's just the yellow area which represents the proportion of Anglicans, or if it's the total of the yellow and red areas? (I have calculated the areas, so I believe it's the latter.)
Actually, it's even more misleading than that. Think of the chart as being like a Venn diagram: Anglicans are indeed a subset of the entire population of the UK and Ireland, as are Catholics, but Catholics are most definitely not a subset of Anglicans. In fact, you could argue that the exact opposite is true: historically, the original Anglicans were a subset—or, rather, subsect—of the Catholic Church. And some of them might soon be again, according to the BBC article.
Setting aside the question of what counts as a Catholic or Anglican (I am a devout Atheist, but I was christened against my will by the Anglican church, so does that make me an Anglican?), and setting aside the fact that the church membership figures quoted were provided by the Catholic Church and the Church of England (who might be a little bit biased), this chart seems designed to give a misleadingly high impression of the churches' memberships. It would be interesting to know whether the BBC just obtained the figures from the churches, or whether they obtained the chart as well.
I have banged on previously about how 3-D pie charts can be misleading, but I find these overlaid semi-circular charts far more obnoxious. What on earth is wrong with showing a simple, 2-D pie chart?
Rant over.
Rucksack enigma
I just saw an elderly gentleman get out of his car with a rucksack already on his back.
What on Earth was going on there, do you reckon?
I wondered whether he might have accidentally forgotten to remove his rucksack before he got into the car. But that seems unlikely: even if he had forgotten that he was wearing his rucksack, he would surely have noticed it when he sat down. It must have been extremely uncomfortable.
Then I thought that perhaps the elderly gentleman must have had short legs, and couldn't reach the pedals without some sort of padding at his back. But his car was a Vauxhall Corsa, which is a pretty small car, and I'm pretty sure they come with seat adjusters. And, besides, surely some sort of cushion would have made a far more appropriate booster. And, besides some more, I couldn't help noticing that he was about six feet tall, give or take.
When I told Jen about the elderly gentleman I had seen getting out of his car with a rucksack already on his back, she suggested that perhaps his wife had put it on for him, and that he was incapable of getting out of it on his own. If a man were to say such a thing about a woman, elderly or otherwise, he would no doubt be accused of rampant sexism, but us chaps are increasingly expected to put up with this sort of nonsense. I am sure that anyone who could parallel-park a Vauxhall Corsa as well as this elderly gentleman clearly could would be perfectly capable of manoeuvring himself out of a rucksack. It's not exactly rocket science.
Unless, of course, something had gone wrong with the clasp on the rucksack. Perhaps it had jammed. Perhaps the elderly gentleman had been stuck inside the rucksack for weeks, but was too embarrassed to ask for help. Us chaps tend not to like asking for help. The poor fellow! If only it had occurred to me at the time, I might have asked if he needed a hand. Well, to be honest, I probably wouldn't have: us chaps tend not to like offering to help either.
But the whole affair is, I'm sure you'll agree, very intriguing. There's some sort of back story there that we aren't party to. Something that explains the elderly gentleman's apparently odd behaviour. In fact, I'm half tempted to pop back into town to see if he's still there, so I can ask him about it. But I'm not going to.
Sometimes life's little mysteries have to go unresolved.
Go for the prize, keep your eyes on the road ahead…
Fitz has done another one of his homemade Dunlin video things:
Re-engaging the public
BBC: PM agrees to TV election debate
Gordon Brown has confirmed he is willing "in principle" to take part in a TV debate ahead of the election.
Yeah, that's really what we need to re-engage the British public with politics: another platform for our party leaders to say nasty things about each other, while failing to answer any of the perfectly reasonable questions put to them. Pardon me for not watching, but I think the Hairy Bikers might be on the other side. They usually are.
Call me cynical, but this proposed TV debate is not going to interest anyone other than the six people in this country already interested in all this politics crap. The British public doesn't want any more pointless debate amongst its political leaders; it wants action. We don't want to be bored shitless by politicians; we want to be entertained. We want excitement. We want politicians to stop pussy-footing around and get stuck in.
That's right, we want a cage fight.
No, I don't mean a metaphorical cage fight; I mean an actual, no-holds-barred cage fight. In a cage. Stripped to the waist. Last man standing becomes Prime Minister. Be honest now, wouldn't you pay good money to watch that? It would justify the licence fee on its own.
I'll bet Gordon Brown is handy with his fists. And he clearly has weight advantage over his political opponents. But I hear he has a glass jaw—and, indeed, a glass eye. That should even things out a bit, as David 'Baby-Face' Cameron feigns a few left jabs, then unleashes a flailing haymaker from the far right. Meanwhile, Nick 'Kidney-Punch' Clegg (OK, I had to look his name up) is kneeing Ian Paisley in the nuts, while gouging out the eyes of the leader of the BNP (whose name I won't dignify by looking up).
Just think how much more respect our leader would command in the international arena if he had gained his post in a caged one. "Careful what you say to the British Prime Minister, Mr President: they say he killed a man with his bare hands!"
The party leaders spend all of their time these days bragging about how they're going to make deeper cuts than their opponents. Isn't it time we gave them knives and told them to put up or shut up?
Gertcha!
BBC: Pop veterans Chas and Dave split
Music veterans Chas and Dave have split after 35 years together, their agent has announced.
Dave is retiring, but, fear not, I have the perfect solution:
Chaz 'n' Garfunkel
(Remember, you heard it here first.)
Meanwhile, in other news:
Sun: Army bras are com-bust-ible
A female soldiers' rights group has had a major BUST-up with top Army brass—because their BRAS keep falling off. The Swedish women troops have complained that their undies are useless in combat because they come undone too easily and catch fire.
Mum
Thanks to everyone for the kind comments and emails about mum. She really was the best mum in the world. I know I'm biased, but I also happen to be extremely well-informed. Trust me on this.
I couldn't bring myself to speak at the funeral, but the lady curate did an excellent job piecing together a tribute from the reminiscences of my dad, sister, uncle and me. She certainly picked up on the unplanned theme which ran through our memories and choice of music: mum's great love of nature. We spoke of her delight at finding glow-worms as a child on holiday in Anglesey; her self-professed stupidity at school due to her constant day-dreaming about the countryside; her taming of the blackbirds in the garden; her concerns that her birds might not be being fed properly while she was confined to bed.
It was mum who gave me my great love of the natural world. It was mum who bought me all those nature books when I was a boy (and adult), who taught me the names of the birds and flowers, and who took me on all those walks in the countryside. Mum was so excited when Jen and I bought a former farmhouse in the Yorkshire countryside, and delighted in my tales of the wildlife I saw here: the hares and occasional deer in the front field, the rabbits in the garden, the lapwings and curlews on the moors. Mum could never quite understand my enthusiasm for standing in the garden at twilight while the local bats flitted around my head, but she knew that she was totally responsible for the enthusiasm. In recent months, local gossip, curious droppings, and claw marks on our trees have convinced me that badgers are visiting the garden. I have been looking out for them all summer, keeping mum posted, but I still haven't seen any. I was really looking forward to breaking the news of my first badger sighting to mum. I'll keep looking.
Mum and Dad had planned a holiday in her beloved Anglesey earlier this month, but, some months ago, she realised she wouldn't be up to it and asked if Jen and I would like to go instead. We agreed, not realising how little time mum had left. As it turned out, we took our Anglesey holiday the week after mum's funeral. We stayed in a static caravan on the same farm my parents have been going to since I was a child—just three miles down the coast from where mum found those glow-worms over 60 years ago. The place has countless fond memories for me. Early on the first morning of our holiday, I went down to the headland at the bottom of the field and sat on the rocks looking out to sea, reminiscing. After half an hour or so, I spotted a dolphin rounding the point and heading out to sea. Five minutes later, two more followed. In all the hundreds of hours I have sat on that headland over the years, I had never seen dolphins. Mum would have been so excited. I'll post some photographs soon.
Now, if you'll forgive me, I have to go and feed my birds.
Mum
(6th March, 1937 – 23rd August, 2009).
Best mum in the world, basically.
(Normal service will be resumed in a while.)
Plus ça change
No news there, then.