Elfin Safety

To the Manager, Booths Supermarket in the Village


Dear Sir

I popped into your illustrious emporium today to purchase some carburettor parts for my ageing Primera. Reasoning that the bag of peanuts I placed in my trolley was exactly what I was looking for (there was no warning that the package might contain only nuts or traces thereof) I returned home, only to discover to my dismay that the package did indeed only contain nuts.

Surely a warning could be given on packets of peanuts (and for that matter all other products) - "This package does not contain carburettor parts"  to protect the unwary consumer?

Yrs, etc

traditional working class, moi?

I took The Times's social class test yesterday. You can do it too -

click here

you might find it very revealing.

Yesterday I answered all the questions truthfully - and was assigned to Traditional Working Class. I have absolutely no beef with members of the Traditional Working Class, stalwarts all, beavering away in the salt and the coal mines, reading Schopenhauer by the light of the midnight candle to improve themselves; even breaking the mould and sending their daughters to uni. To that extent I have always been one of Them - voting Labour, supporting the miners, that sort of stuff. Why, I was even at the same grammar school as Ken Loach, though a few years behind him. In my last hibernation, and retired on not quite enough pension to do what I would like to do, I spend a lot of time reading and writing - and pondering.

I know a bit about questionnaires, and how difficult it is not to give too much weight to just one of a number of variables, so I took the Times test again today, having spent yesterday evening reading, inter alia, Eco's fable of power and corruption, The Prague Cemetery; Jeanette Winterson's erudite and achingly painful tale of power and wickedness behind the trial of the Lancaster 'witches', The Daylight Gate; David Bellos's adventure into translation, the amazing art of, Is that a Fish in Your Ear?, and Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman (which made me extremely to blush and hope that neither my wife nor my servants will be tempted to read it.) Four books at once? Why not? Thought fertilises thought.

So I tried the questionnaire again this evening, but this time I told a few fibs and changed a couple of variables. I upped my meagre pension somewhat, overstated the value of my house, and increased my savings rather, while keeping all other answers exactly the same. Phew! Now I'm of the Elite, which is about as high as you go social class-wise without actually being the Queen. And all because of money! Screw enough of it out of other people and you too could be one of the Elite (as MPs and investment bankers have already discovered - for theft and gambling are far more rewarding in the social hierarchy than honesty and altruism, providing you don't get caught.)

The message from this mishmash of a questionnaire comes out loud and clear - you stay in your allotted social place. Steelworkers must not like opera. Coal miners must read (or view) only The Sun. Farmworkers should stay with the cowpats. For social class is still all about £££ and how many of them you have got (as Alex would say on Pointless.)

The whole of the methodology of this pseudoscientific nonsense, the weighting given to what the questioners consider to be the key variables, could be inferred if enough of us were prepared to tell repeated and systematic lies and check the results against each other, and then blow the whistle.

There are children out there whom education has not yet finished inoculating against this tripe.

CofE - put the cat out when you close up

Today saw the beginning of the end of the Church of England, in an act of assisted suicide. Today the Church of England moved closer to Islam than to the rest of the Christian community worldwide, and delivered a massive Christmas present to secularism. The Church of England can no longer claim any moral authority. It has made itself a laughing-stock. Despite the overwhelming support of clergy and lay members for women bishops (all but two dioceses in the provinces of Canterbury and York voted overwhelmingly in favour), the House of Laity voted against, and diocesan representatives on General Synod will now have to explain themselves to the diocesan synods that elected them.

Where did the rot start setting in?  With hindsight, that’s an easy one. It started when parishes were asked whether they were in favour of the episcopacy being opened to women. Parishes which had had experience of women clergy were overwhelmingly in favour. A few, which had only ever known the ministry of male clergy, were opposed. In any other circumstances that would have sounded warning signals and questions about methodology. Is a vote from a PCC which had never experienced the ministry of women clergy as valid as a vote from a PCC which had? Did male clergy in these anti parishes allow their PCC to make up their own minds, or was there a bit of gentle nudging?

But the result was what we have today. Enormous efforts have been made over the years to placate what was in reality a small (and possibly ill-informed) minority. Flying bishops were introduced, but that didn’t work. The Church split itself apart grovelling to a few people who preferred their Church to stay in the 1stC AD, when women didn’t have a voice.

Our own Bishop John, Bishop of Burnley, implacably opposed to women clergy, produced a report a few months ago about the future of the Church of England. Declining numbers of stipendiary clergy, closure of churches and merging of parishes, dependence on lay ministry: all the usual sanctimonious guff.  How can the same head hold such violently opposing views, or was he just doing what he was told? His flock are entitled to be told. Heavens above, we’ve managed to incorporate Darwinism into mainstream (as opposed to loony) Christianity despite the diehards and flat-earthers, but it seems we can’t accommodate half of the human population, the ones without penises. It’s against Scripture, see?

A new argument (at least one I hadn’t heard before) was introduced into the debate a few days ago. Apparently God didn’t create the sexes equal, but complementary. Now this is a very dodgy argument indeed, because not only does it wrench theology out of the New Testament and slap it back into Genesis and myth, but it tends to confuse somewhat the ethical – and linguistic – arguments for and against same-sex ‘marriages.’ The Church today lost its way in that argument. Actually it’s far worse than that: the Church lost something else today – the plot.

And today is the first time in my life when I am ashamed to be a member of the church I was brought up in

Police Commissioners? Pure spin

I was one among the 85% or so voters to ignore the much-trumpeted introduction of police commissioners in yesterday's elections. I stayed at home. My main reason for treating the whole unnecessary cock-up with contempt is the abuse of language, the spin, that proponents of this completely nonsensical notion have used in an attempt to have their way. It would be 'more democratic' than present arrangements, they claim. I, for one, would be interested to see what evidence they can produce in support.

Existing police authorities are already made up of elected representatives, with most of them consisting of nine local councillors and eight independent members, at least one of whom should be a magistrate.

How oversight of a police force can be considered  'more democratic' when exercised by one elected person than by nine eludes me, but then 'democracy' is a slippery word that can be given all kinds of spin.

Policy Exchange is a think-tank, one of the bodies supporting the introduction of US-style police commissioners. The quality of its thinking might be suggested by the quality of its language of advocacy in one of today's national newspapers:

Policy Exchange conducted a questionnaire of Chief Constables (half of whom responded) for an upcoming paper, Policing 2020.

In it we asked Chiefs what they thought of the support they received from care homes. Not a single Chief was content with the support they received from them.

One police force had 3,500 missing people in 2009-10, costing them £3.3 million. Over three quarters of this demand came from care homes, with 2.5% of individuals creating 26% of the demand and single care homes being responsible for over 100 missing people reports a year.

Despite the obvious benefits of proactive intervention with the few individuals and care homes that created most of the demand, there was instead an over reliance on the police.

Care homes were calling the police if a child was just 10 minutes late for a meeting and generally negating their responsibilities in loco parentis.

Police and Crime Commissioners should be their police force’s greatest advocate and change this, by using their powerful media and political clout to encourage police partners, wherenecessary, to raise their game.

Clear? If this was part of an essay submitted in an English language exam its author would have been given a fail. Yet this bureaucratic bilge comes from one of the bodies that advises government. It's enough to make you weep, that and the fact that £75m of our money has been wasted on a stupid political stunt.

Coach holidays - the Knowledge

In our household we try to do a couple of coach trips a year. We do self-catering as well, and sometimes we even Go Abroad, but we like coach trips best because they are so educational. 

The last trip was even more educational than usual. At the end of the holiday, before being allowed out of your hotel and while Reception is discreetly checking that you have remembered to pay your colossal bar bill, you have to hand in a completed report form on which you have ticked little boxes in answer to questions such as “Did you find the facilities in your room...excellent?...brilliant?...fantastic?”

We’re not very good at ticking little boxes, which might be why we didn’t make it to university. We prefer narrative reports. So this is what we learned on our last Educational Coach Holiday.

1) the most interesting people are always on the other coach (your coach is full of [see Appendix A])

1a) and you only meet at breakfast and dinner, when you enjoy the maitre d’s special entertainment, sliding the poached egg into the lady’s lap, and

1b) not tasting the wines that have just been run out of.

2) All coach trips, whatever their destination (Braemar, Polperro, Scarborough, the Scilly Isles, Llandudno) always have a visit to a shop that turns heather into feather boas or old flagstones into spectacular swimwear. It is a little-known fact that these shops are actually owned by the coach companies, who have cunningly established them at points exactly halfway between any two holiday destinations, thus giving honest employment to starving people who would otherwise have to become hotel entertainers rather than attempt to scrape a bare living from the stony soil of Glen47milesfromanywhereelse.

3) People who travel on coach trips are deemed to be addicted to a) bingo and b) country & western music, and hotels are obliged to provide both or the coach company won’t use them. The intellectual effort required of participants in a) is exhausting, so an entertainer is always on hand to provide b) until well after closing time. And as people who travel on coach trips are also deemed to be stone-deaf, the entertainment is provided at colossal volume and can be clearly heard several streets away. Indeed, some travellers, denied the solace of sleep because the noise keeps making the wardrobe fall over, take rugs and a thermos flask and camp out several streets away (this does not work in Torquay, of course, because the noise from the entertainment in the hotel several streets away is far, far worse.)

Appendix A

i)  crisp-eaters. The first indication of the presence of a crisp-eater is a rustling sound. Slumbering heaps stir uneasily. Then the pure recirculating air of the coach is invigorated by the initial bag-opening aroma of sweaty socks, followed immediately by an assortment of ponging vapours; of salt and vinegar; prawn cocktail; cheese and onion; sea-salt and mangold-wurzel; goat and cranberry; and dead dog and lavatory cleaner. The second indication, assaulting the ears instead of the olfactory organs, is a sound rather like that of an ice-breaker working its methodical way through a Norwegian fjord in January. At this point the entire coach is awake.

ii) coughers, sneezers and snufflers, working on the principle that a filthy cold shared is a filthy cold halved, or better. ‘You need a holiday’, the doctor said. ‘A change of air will do you the world of good.’ And keep me and my colleagues in business, he mutters under his breath. In the good old days he would have recommended a walk to the end of the pier. And then, similarly sotto voce, jump off.

iii) people who have paid extra for the front seats, the ones with a view of the windscreen wipers or the driver’s sunblind, and insist that their right of occupancy extends to the feeder coaches and the optional tours. This is why you will often see a coach with 16 or 17 people stubbornly occupying the front seats and refusing to budge, even for a comfort stop. Some coaches are provided with a side door to allow the rest of the passengers to disembark without being suspected of waiting to pounce on a potentially vacated front seat and thus risking ritual disembowelling.

iv) people whose wet coats smell of dog

v) hotties and coldies. In general it is hotter at the back of the coach than at the front, where the door is. When the coach is stationary, as it often is for a couple of hours at roadworks, internal temperatures equalise, but the moment the coach starts again all the hot air rushes to the back. And whatever the inside temperature is, it is always a) too hot and b) too cold. Lively discussions ensue when some brave soul asks for the heating to be turned up/down.

Next holiday we’re going to stay at home, play country & western music very loud and lob poached eggs into each other’s lap. Apart from the washing-up it’ll be as good as a coach trip, and a lot less expensive.

Jam Jars - the Musical

The scene – a dusty office in the grandly titled Health & Environment Dept in your local town hall. Walter (49) is an Environmental Health Officer, or EHO. Priscilla (17) is on work experience.

Priscilla           Please, Sir, could you find me something to do? I’m dead bored.

Walter            “Do?” What d’you mean, “do”? You’ve been making the tea. What more do you want?

Priscilla            Well, it’s just that I haven’t learnt anything here, yet. And I’ll be expected to...

Walter             You are on Work Experience, young lady. You are not expected to learn anything, but to Experience Work.

Priscilla           But I haven’t seen any work going on, and I’ll have been here for three months next Tuesday. I mean, aren’t you supposed to be going out and inspecting things? Like premises? I quite fancy inspecting premises. It sounds really, like, cool. I’d like to close something down. That would be a real work experience, closing something down. Like for example Premises. If they, were, you know, a bit dodgy, with people snuffing it all over the place from E-coli thingies, you know.

Walter             First thing, young lady: put that kettle on again. And we don’t have time to go around inspecting premises. Good heavens, do you know how many Premises there are? Probably hundreds. Inspect one and we’d have to inspect all of them, and then where would we be? Masses of paperwork, and most of the time it would be raining.  And talking of paperwork, have you finished the filing? I know the system’s hard to understand, but that’s the whole point. It’s hard work finding anything in the files. It can take days. I go home sometimes and I say to the wife, I say, Hilda, that’s the wife, I say to her, we found that file I was telling you about on Sunday, and she’s as thrilled as I am, bless her.

Priscilla           I think I will put the kettle on. Excuse me.

Walter             Where’s the wretched girl’s file? Heavens, it’s on my desk. That will never do. Still, might as well have a shufti for a refresh. [he reads the file. Stasis, apart from occasional expressions of disbelief, such as ‘bloomin’ Ada’ . Then he reads aloud]

                        Baccalaureate, Sorbonne. Huh, bloody foreigners. Tripos, Cambridge, at 13. Load of tripe, more like. [pause, as he skims through several pages of CV]. What’s this? Summer job at Pizza Parlour? That’s better. Much, much better.

Priscilla           (enters, with tea tray.) I’ve brought you some ginger biccies. They were in the EHO tin in the kitchen. They’re a bit soft, but I’ve rubbed the green furry bits off. Shall I pour?

Walter             Ah! Tea and biccies! Pour away, girl. Excellent!

                        Now then. I’m at conference this afternoon with the mayor. You can’t reach me because the Golf Club don’t allow mobile phones on the links. But when you’ve done the washing-up and the filing you might have a look at this. It’s a bit old, but there might be some juice in it yet. It’s Euro directive 1935/2004...

Anyway, must rush. Lock up when you go, won’t you?

Priscilla goes off to the kitchen for a moment, but returns immediately.

Priscilla (to audience)            

I was really sorry for ‘im, snuffing it like that on the eighteenth. Food poisoning, apparently. Odd, ‘cos he was so busy being busy that he’d only had a ginger biccy all day.

                        Now then. I’d better experience some work. So what’s this? European regulation 1935/2004...

                        [she sits in Walter’s chair, puts on his reading glasses and begins to make copious notes.]

Envoi: Thank heaven for the Wallies and the Prissies who rule our lives with such wisdom from their desks in the town hall

                       

The Great Jam Jar Panic of 2012

Shock horror. Mayday. Sacré bleu. Even the normally staid Church Times raised an eyebrow (5 Oct) at reports that the days of home-made jam, that stalwart of the produce stall at the church fete, could be numbered. Re-using food containers, it seems, could fall foul of European regulation 1935/2004 and/or 2003/2006. Apparently the WI have been bombarding the Food Standards Agency’s switchboard with anxious phone calls, and everybody’s in a right old tizz, including, predictably, the Daily Mail.

So let’s just all calm down a little, and see what all the fuss is about.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that even a bumblecrat would have the sense to look at prime sources before issuing panic edicts, but then you obviously don’t understand the way the bumblecratic mind works, and how it took eight years before somebody read the small print of regulation 1935/2004 and uttered the battlecry of the bumblecrat – “whey-hey guys,  look at this what I have just found. We’re back in business.”

There is absolutely nothing in these regulation to give the WI the wibbly-wobblies and cause the good ladies to fear the end of civilisation as we know it. They were sensible measures introduced as a precaution as new food packaging materials (mainly new forms of plastic) were being introduced. You can read the whole of the regulations here – they’re not secret:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:338:0004:0017:en:PDF

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:384:0075:0078:EN:PDF

But if you are particularly busy, just read this bit, Article 3 of reg 1935/2004 -

(3) The principle underlying this Regulation is that any material or article intended to come into contact directly or indirectly with food must be sufficiently inert to preclude substances from being transferred to food in quantities large enough to endanger human health or to bring about an unacceptable change in the composition of the food or a deterioration in its organoleptic properties.

The significant words here are ‘sufficiently inert’, and certainly not ‘organoleptic properties’, which is scientist-speak for taste or smell, and of these two words ‘sufficiently’ is the one to focus attention on.

This European regulation was introduced to ensure that food packaging manufacturers and food processing companies only used packaging materials which were safe to use with the intended product, because in certain combinations of food and packaging, and some cooking processes, chemicals could migrate from the packaging and contaminate the food, causing people unfortunately to snuff it.

The other regulation, 2003/2006 [sic, 2006], is aimed at the manufacturers of food containers and labels. It was a bit of an afterthought, to make sure that any labels used on food containers didn’t have anything in the ink or adhesive that could migrate to the food, and, once again, cause people unfortunately to snuff it. And  the preamble specifically states that ‘the rules of Good Manufacturing Practice should be applied proportionately to avoid undue burdens for small businesses.’

But nowhere in these regulations will you find any mention of glass. There was no need to mention glass. Glass is about as inert a food containing material as it’s possible to be. About the only thing that can migrate to your WI marmalade is the pong of previous pickled onions, which no amount of sterilisation or cleaning seems to be able to get rid of. You can look at some of the research into the safety of glass as a food container material here:

http://www.feve.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84:scientists-prove-health-and-safety-of-glass&catid=9&Itemid=29

The real danger in this European legislation is not what the legislation actually says, but how it is going to be interpreted by member states, and in the UK our bumblecrats love finding loopholes and exploiting them to the point of absurdity, and then passing the buck of further interpretation down the quango food chain until your local council feels obliged to ban something without really having any idea why it’s doing it, except that it seems like a Good Idea and gives people something to do to occupy the hours between nine and five.

There is, incidentally, a similar absurdity in the regulations governing the performance of recorded music in public places, including small church halls, that followed the imposition of of the PPL licence at the beginning of 2012. The reporting requirements – by volunteers – are beginning to impose a burden which is quite disproportionate to the money involved, which is quite literally pennies.

Legislation which is allowed to produce such ludicrous nonsense by the inexorable application of the principle of reductio ad absurdum by bumblecrats is ipso facto bad legislation, and it needs robust challenge.