Order of the Bath

Millions in Britain today must have had their own Groundhog Day shock when, at twenty to seven, the lady on Radio 4 read the summary of today’s papers. Those who were awake, like me, were even more awake by the time she had finished without a faltering word. They sounded very familiar; nay! identical to yesterday; even the same cartoons were described dead-pan. And indeed they were identical as John Humph apologised a few minutes later. But that raises a question—were they recorded or read from a script? I’m sure I could watch the web-cam and find out, but I don’t think I want to know. I always thought that, though they may be not ad-libed, that she at least wrote them herself. This episode will have to join the blunder clips.

Of course I was lucky that I was wide awake today having heard the great news that the Tasmanian miners were safe and up to grass. Now we could get back to teaching them how to pronounce Launceston properly, but most of the English don’t know either.

Like many others, when I need relaxation I turn to crime fiction. In fact there are so many of us that I am surprised that all crime in Oxford has not already been solved by Morse and Kate Ivory between them and that there is any one left in the Midsomer district, the residents all having been murdered or locked up.

What struck me as strange is that when our cases come to court we suddenly cross the bench and abandon the police and investigators who have brought the suspect before the jury. Now our heroes are the defence lawyers. We loved Perry Mason and Kavanagh. I can think of two reasons why this may be.

Assuming that we are innocent, if we are wronged then we would want the trusty PI or PC to find out who done it. However, if for some reason we are accused then it is the lawyer who is on our side to put things right.

Secondly, and what makes for a better story, was highlighted by Michael Connelly (The Lincoln Lawyer Orion:2005 ISBN 0-75287-955-3). He says (paraphrased)

The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. With a guilty client you do your best for them but with an innocent client there is no acceptable verdict but Not Guilty.

And this is the excitement of the story, very much related to our own fears of ending up in this situation, we are hanging on for the truth to be revealed and the accused to walk free.

Of course life is not like that, the innocent are always scarred by crime. Even if acquitted, they have probably lost their job, savings and reputation in the intervening period so we must depend on the investigators to get it right in the first place. By the time the lawyers get involved, it is too late.

Tesco don’t seem to know.

Now this is what technology is all about, making people’s lives easier—and it’s in Cornwall too!

voice-activated handsfree ‘badges’, worn around the neck on a lanyard, which can put any user in touch with another member of staff just by saying their name

When we were clearing out the study a few weeks ago to make way for carpet fitters, one of the things that came to light was all the old Ascii Art pictures I did (and stole) in the ’70s. Lots of Snoopy and the famous one of Raquel for instance. It was a pleasant find today, thanks to a pointer from Inky Circus, that the concept has been “updated” to Ascii Art Videos—Pop Videos with suitably pre-Sinclair quality sound (almost Stylaphone!) As you would expect my favourites are “My Generation”, “Paranoid” and “Purple Haze” with an also-ran for “Gimme All Your Lovin'” Find them at C505.

I will try to keep my remarks polite now that they have passed the ludicrous bill about ID cards. Here are a couple of points to ponder.

The nearest Passport Office to Penzance, a place with which I have some affinity, is Newport, Wales. According to the terms of the bill, you will be required to visit a passport office to be photographed and fingerprinted.

The chances of the Home Office establishing the necessary IT systems to support the National Identity Register by 2008 are virtually zero.

For further thoughts see my old but still valid rant about the idea.

This has long been our favourite tea service since we first found a near complete set of 12’s soon after were were married. After that we never saw any again until by chance some friends found a matching dinner service in Guernsey which they kindly brought back for us. Then another big gap until eBay came along and items appeared on there for what seem to be exorbitant prices. I have long wanted to create a page to display this elegant range and finally “finished” it this weekend. The photographs could be better but I have made it a static page so it can be updated as new information becomes available.