Joe asks 'Is it me or what?'

A Step in the Right Direction

I’ve written before about libel tourism and how it’s suppressing freedom of speech, now there’s some good news. Organisations in the US and in the UK are joining to try and change these seemingly outdated and definitely misinterpreted laws.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Center for Democracy both agree, perhaps for the first time they have done so, that something needs to be done. From the UK they are joined by PEN and the Index on Censorship who have put forward suggestions such as a limit of £10,000 damages, cases only to heard in the UK when at least 10% of the copies of the work in question are circulated here and more proof needed that the statements are damaging. I’d like them to add that if the statements are true and are it is in the public’s interest to know them then there is no case to answer. This means that the fact that claims that a well-known pop star is gay is not in the public’s best interest but the fact that a an Arab sheik, for example, funds terrorism certainly is. Needless to say it’s a long way from a change in the law and, if it gets watered down in the same way as the MPs’ expenses reforms seem to be going, perhaps it won’t be ideal, but it’s a start.

Bringing Up Baby

An interesting article about child rearing appeared on the BBC yesterday. It’s probably common sense that a midway approach between the stereotypical Victorian father and the anything goes modern parent is best for the child. The expression the report, from the Demos think tank, used was tough love results in better adjusted children. What really interested me was that it suggested that if this fact was taken into account the differences between well-off families and poorer ones was almost eliminated. This is quite amazing, for years people have said the richer students are more likely to succeed, now it seems that the students background is less important, although there may well be a correlation between income and discipline. The original Demos article can be found here.

Every Cloud

Iceland, the country not the discount frozen food shop, have had a rough time of it recently. Far too many of their banks had far too much invested in dodgy loans and now they’re supposedly bankrupt. Tourism is apparently down and everyone their is having a rough time. But it’s not all bad news, McDonalds have decided it’s too hard to run a profitable business there so they are pulling out of the country, possibly the first time they’ve ever had to carry out such a move.

Now it’s just a question of convincing them that the UK’s in a bad way too.

More Revelations

Many newspapers, including the Metro where I read it, have reported that the area of the brain which processes music tends to be more active in – wait for it – musicians. A startling revelation I’m sure you’ll agree.

Respect, Man

Daniel Walton refuses to stand when his headmaster walks into the room. The head, Kevin Harrison, brought back the traditional courtesy at his school but when Daniel constantly refused, and walked out of detention, he barred him from school for a week. Daniels’s dad cites the overused phrase respect has to be earned and claims his son hasn’t known the head long enough. What rubbish! Of course people can earn your respect but they also should have it because of their position. I respect strangers in the street, I cover my mouth when coughing, move to one side when practical and don’t spit in front of them. They deserve respect because a civilised person treats others as worthy human beings until learning otherwise. Mr. Harrison has a tough job, all heads do, and deserves respect as such until he shows he’s not worthy.

Would it hurt Daniel to stand? - he doesn’t want to, but then we all do things that are not always enjoyable to promote a smoother running society. I hate queuing in shops, but if everyone rushed to the front no-one would get served. At my school we wouldn’t have been barred for not standing, we’d have had a few strokes of the cane, the difference was it wouldn’t have occurred for us not to and if it had my parents would have taken the head’s side. I hope Daniel thinks it’s worth losing out on education just because he can’t be bothered to get to his feet.

Needing Sleep

I just had the good fortune to spend a week in New York. It was actually a gruelling training course organised by my employers, Kaplan, on business and leadership skills (before you ask I failed to exhibit much of either…). Most days we were at it from around eight in the morning to well after ten at night. Even then we often spent time talking over the day’s events so, in the city that never sleeps, I rarely slept. but I did have a couple of free days beforehand to enjoy the sites.

I decided that I didn’t have time to do all the tourist stuff in the time I had available, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Empire State Building etc. So I took the easy way out, a helicopter tour. Some people looked askance when I mentioned it, there had been a crash a few weeks ago, but I decided that they were quite likely to be doubly careful following an accident. It was really good, all the above sites and more and cost about £150 for almost thirty minutes. The ride was quite relaxing, unlike the taxi ride to the heliport, New York cabbies are the most aggressive drivers I’ve ever come across, but they’re considerably cheaper than London ones. Regarding prices in general it’s the most expensive area in the US that I’ve visited but still cheaper than London with a few exceptions. I still find it annoying that sales tax is added to labelled prices whilst you’re at the till, meaning I never have the money ready and that tips on service such as food and drink are verging on 20%. They are also virtually mandatory, waiters will chase and confront you if you give less that 15%, if this is the case why not just add it in to the displayed price on the menu?

Some other sites I saw via more traditional means were China Town and Little Italy, where we had a good meal at Il Cortile, Broadway, Times Square and Central Park, which our office overlooks. On these walks I overheard many people using a word not heard before, choo, which is the second person pronoun of choice for many as in - What’s up with choo?  or I’ve been looking for choo.

One disappointment was the place I stayed. Normally Club Quarters are very good but this one closed the (expensive) bar at ten religiously (so much for the never sleeping part), had staff who barely spoke English (although that’s a problem you get all over London and the rest of the UK too) and had lifts that appeared every other Thursday. This meant meeting at a number of other bars and I can recommend the Heartland Brewery, especially their Pumpkin Ale, Rosie O’Grady’s and the refined Russian Tea Room, one of the best gin martini’s going.

I’d love to back with my family, there is so much to do but it’s very intense, Manhattan being somewhat like a very large version of London’s West End for much of it, but first of all I need to catch up on some sleep.

Aussies Going Soft?

Perhaps in a bid to shake off their heavy drinking image organisers of a motorsport festival in New South Wales, Australia have been warned there’ll be a crackdown on alcohol.

Given that this is Australia though, it’s nowhere near the UK’s recommended limit of 21 units per week for men, the fans are limited to a paltry 24 cans of beer per day, or 36 cans if you’re drinking the girlie light beer. If you prefer a glass of wine instead you’ll have to make do with a maximum of four litres of the stuff, more than five bottles. Predictably there’s already been at outcry at the draconian measures but police and organisers are sticking to their guns.

Poor Thing

One of the gang who tormented a mother and her daughter so much over ten years that she murdered her daughter and killed herself to escape them has himself received death threats since his name came out at the inquest. It’s terrible he is quoted as saying. The police, who did virtually nothing as it was a low level crime, will no doubt be offering round the clock protection to the poor unfortunate yob but my sympathy meter, as well as others I suspect, has failed to register so far.

Wonders Of Science

There’s an old science anecdote about how researchers proved that spiders hear through their legs. Spiders were trained to jump at the sound of a whistle but when their legs were removed they remained stationary. Besides being amusing the story has some important information to convey about cause and effect and whether things are correlated, coincidental or unrelated entirely.

I was reminded of this tale by an article telling how butterflies’ navigation systems are located within their antennae rather than their brain as previously thought. When their antennae are removed (how cruel…) they can’t navigate as well. I’ll admit that these finding carry more weight than the deaf spiders experiment but it still made me smile.

Life Imitating Art?

I have subscribed to Private Eye for many years, as you can imagine it suits me very well even if most of the stories just get my blood boiling.

Glancing through the classifieds section of a recent issue I noticed an unusual ad in the business section. Someone was looking for backers for their venture which was a controversial musical set in Auschwitz and dealing with the terrible events of the holocaust.

Does this remind you of anything?