I don’t think there’s any real-world justification for executing people, no matter how vile they may be. I’m not going to pretend I’m sad he’s gone, though. It is at least heartening that the death penalty is condemned in the vast majority of official national responses collected by the BBC.

And in breaking economic news from the BBC:

One out of every three people expects UK house prices to increase by more than 6% in 2007, a survey suggests.

One in three! I love the traditional Christmas -> Hogmanay twilight zone of news.

Some 55% of the 1,500 people polled by financial website Thisismoney said the cost would rise, with one in 10 predicting hikes of at least 11%.

One in four of the respondents forecast a rise of up to 5%, but the same number expected a fall of more than 6%.

Insider tips tell me tomorrow’s headine will concentrate on the length of the Emperor of China’s nose. It all seems rather pointless, but Thisismoney also uses the results to infer a more optimistic market, which seems to make more sense.

I like the six percent who chose 25% or higher. I wonder if these are the people who, when asked ‘what is the name of Postman Pat’s pet’ during an Ask the Audience, select Cringer just so they can say ‘that was me’.

Website polls are inherently problematic. I can prove it, too: earlier this year a poll on this very website revealed that The People are most likely to repel a zombie invasion with chainsaws. This is clearly flawed. Zombie documentary 28 Days Later provided strong evidence for a correlation between bodily-fluid contact and zombification. Chainsaws are inherently messy, and would increase this risk exponentially¹. I would suggest that zombies want you to carve them up with chainsaws². Far more sensible suggestions were records, ninjas and Snakes. On a plane.

1. caveat: ‘exponentially’ is an ad-hoc hypothesis. Further research is needed. [↩]
2. see footnote 1 [↩]

WTF 1:

A court ruling which ordered a gynecologist to pay child support for up to 18 years as compensation for botching a contraceptive implant was condemned by the German media as scandalous on Wednesday.

WTF 2:

Fox plans to broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson in which the former football star discusses “how he would have committed” the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, for which he was acquitted, the network said. The two-part interview, titled “O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened,” will air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29.

WTF 3:

Today’s Daily Star front page reports that ‘Single Celebs’ are ready to ‘Sex Up Jungle’ (in the ITV programme of a similar name). Accompanying the piece is a picture of Dean Gaffney. Sexing something up? Dean Gaffney? Sexing something up? DEAN GAFFNEY?

The last two from the consistently excellent Fisking Central, which has deserved a place in my horribly out-of-date blogroll for a long time now.

Who needs Guitar Hero when there’s an air guitar t-shirt?

The T-shirt has motion sensors built into its elbows that pick up movements and relay them wirelessly to a computer which interprets them as guitar riffs. One arm is interpreted as picking chords while the other strums.

This is very, very exciting. Finally I can add a backing track to my daily life. Walking to the sandwich shop and making witty banter with the staff will be accompanied by a cheeky riff. Sporting events can build in excitement via a 1-4-5 progression. Opening my eyes in dramatic fashion would be linked to power chords. If only somebody invented laughter track shoes my world would be perfect.

“It’s an easy-to-use, virtual instrument that allows real-time music-making - even by players without significant musical or computing skills,” said the research team leader, Richard Helmer.

It’ll be known as The X Factor Shirt.

“It allows you to jump around and the sound generated is just like an original mp3.”

I could jump around? For real?

By customising the software, the team has also tailored the technology to make an air tambourine

An air tambourine? No way should this be allowed to happen. You know how incredibly annoying it is when people say ‘boom-tish’ after you’ve told a joke? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD HAVE TO DIE IF THEY HAD AIR TAMBOURINES?

However, just think of the potential when you link other instruments with this almost innocuous sentence:

The technology, which is adaptable to almost any kind of apparel

I am so getting an air saxophone in my pants. It could rise in pitch when…well, never mind. Maybe an Air String Quartet would be better: think of the subtle romantic ambience at opportune moments!

Britney files for divorce - Do you think every gossip columnist in the world is avoiding his/her editor’s eye right now? I don’t follow this kind of stuff much, but I’m sure I would have heard rumblings if it were on the cards. She was making headlines just this morning with no mention of future announcements.

Pupil describes sex with teacher - Don’t think I need to read that one, thanks.

Suicide-bid sparks punch-up - Some teenagers in the crowd shouted ‘jump’ and were set upon by everyone else. Looks like the person in question was too high up to hear any of it, and happily she was talked down by police.

The Archers celebrates 15,000th episode, with controversial storyline - A woman contemplated having an affair. Really. She didn’t go through with it. Society lives to face another day. ‘One listener wrote to Radio 4’s website, saying: “I thought The Archers was supposed to be a radio series with an agricultural theme, not an audio version of a Jackie Collins novel.”‘ One listener needs a nice tall glass of calm-down juice¹. Didn’t the show have somebody get chopped up by a combine harvester once?

1. © Scrubs [↩]

I can’t believe the BBC missed this opportunity:

The new landlady of a Tyneside pub has spoken of her surprise at discovering that one of the regulars is a horse.

Jackie Gray recently took over the Alexandra Hotel in Jarrow and said she was shocked when carthorse Peggy joined owner Peter Dolan for a pint.

The article neglects to mention her first question: ‘why the long face?’

*dies*

Yesterday Lynsey and I went to a talk by BBC Six O’Clock News-reader George Alagiah. I didn’t know the subject matter beforehand, and found out just before entering that he’d be discussing his book: A Home from Home. It sounded like an autobiography, but turned out to be rather more. At age 11 he was moved from his home in Sri Lanka to a UK boarding school. The book’s subtitle is ‘From Immigrant Boy to English Man’, and he has a particular interest in the idea of what it means to belong to a country. His book’s subject is immigration and multiculturalism in modern Britain. He proved to be a good public speaker and I’m sure tales of his life experiences would have been interesting, but I was happy to find that his talk was more about putting forward his views on race within current society. I like this - I like to hear people who can eloquently articulate their opinions, even if I disagree.

While not quite a polemic, there were nevertheless large gaps between the lines. He suggested that the idea of multiculturalism, while noble in itself, has not been well managed in reality. Schools with classes containing almost all Sri Lankan children from the same province, education policies which teach children their ‘native’ language and reduce English to a secondary subject, or segregated cities with different rules for different cultures, all drew his ire. He sees immigration as a wonderful thing, as he believes everybody can learn something from other cultures, but that the well-intentioned policies of the last 30 years have veered off course.

The talk was peppered with anecdotes from his time as the BBC’s senior foreign correspondent, which were fascinating. I liked that he didn’t temper the language or subject matter for a Saturday afternoon crowd, too. There were a couple of odd moments in which the word ‘pompous’ flashed into my head, but it was an instinctive response rather than an accurate description. GA was discussing his own life and the remarkable achievement of ‘a foreigner’, as he put it, ending up presenting the BBC News. He inevitably trumpeted his achievements at times, and I don’t think it was unreasonable or really avoidable, given the subject matter. It was still surprising, however.

Although not expressly stated, there was an subtext that questioned the idea of nationalism. What does it mean to be British, or Sri Lankan? At one point he said that the only people who ask ‘where do you belong?’ are bigots, which I think startled some of the audience. When you think about it, that’s not an unreasonable point. I think there’s the problem of language - it’s meaningless to ask somebody whether they feel that they are British or Sri Lankan, as it’s just more complicated than that. You can be both. It’s like asking me whether I’m an agnostic or an atheist - those particular words don’t define reality well enough to be useful without further explanation. GA put forward a question that seems to have merit in discussions of whether somebody is ‘part’ of a particular country: what do you contribute to a country’s economy/society? If you do indeed contribute something, are you not a part of that country? Why can’t somebody then ‘belong’ to more than one place?

After he finished speaking the lights came up for a question and answer session. I was fascinated to see what would happen. Although only a vague description, Solihull is frequently described as predominantly white and conservative. Most of the audience were pensioners, and I couldn’t help wondering how many of them would have something contrary to say about immigration. As it turned out, none. GA was asked his opinions on the causes of ‘home-grown’ terrorism, and whether Islam was a major cause of the problems. The former he said was very complex and not his speciality, the second he refuted absolutely (to the possible consternation of the questioner).

As ever with Q & A sessions, a couple of people rambled for a few minutes before finally getting around to their question. One person mentioned The Phrase We Must Never Say Around Pensioners: political correctness. There was an immediate rumble of growly grumble. This made me laugh. I have my doubts as to whether ‘political correctness’ actually means anything at all, but I’ve certainly never heard anything to convince me it’s the horrendous evil some claim it to be. Anyway - I thought the reaction was funny. The question ended up having nothing to do with ‘political correctness’, so GA said nothing about it.

There was a question regarding the role of political journalists as opinion formers rather than simply reporters. GA asked for specific names, and Nick Robinson was mentioned. GA said he felt there was a need for opinion - indeed, that the public seem to clamour for it - but that it should always be labelled as such. He didn’t agree with the Fox News style of biased journalism. There was a related question regarding Barbara Plett, the BBC reporter criticised for crying at Yasser Arafat’s final departure from the West Bank, to which GA said that he felt emotion could be a part of journalism, and, as an aside, that impartiality isn’t always possible - where is the middle ground between the rape victim and the rapist? In hindsight I think there was an interesting further question regarding political journalism arguably concentrating too much on the methods and personalities of politics rather than the policies themselves. I’ve certainly read some Bloggers4Labour who have criticised Nick Robinson in this regard. I didn’t think of it at the time, however, because I was considering asking about another topic.

The penultimate question asked whether he thought foreign policy was linked to terrorist attacks. GA said he couldn’t answer that. As a journalist and representative of the BBC he feels his job is to be impartial with regard to current policy, at least in a public venue. Talk to him one-to-one and he’d reply, he said. Then came the question I’d been wondering whether to ask: given his views on the separating of different cultures, what did he think of faith schools? He said that, again, he didn’t want to answer questions on current policy. But. Given, he said, that we want a society in which different cultures can freely mix in an atmosphere of tolerance, and allow a reasonable exchange of different ideas between people without hostility, does it seem like a good idea to separate children of different faiths at the age of six? He gestured to the audience to reply, and there was a resounding ‘no’. He smiled and said ‘you said it, not me’. I honestly hadn’t known which way he was going when he started the sentence, but I was, unsurprisingly, happy with the result.

It was certainly an interesting 90 minutes, and left me with much to think about. Many thanks to Lynsey for inviting me!

Just seen that Richard Hammond is in critical condition after a crash during filming for Top Gear. I like him. He used to present a show called ‘Should I Worry About…’, and did a decent job of researching his topics and contacting relevant experts. He’s also a big science nut, or at least I got that impression when I heard Jonathan Ross interview him. I’m going to be nervous before checking the news tomorrow morning.

I always say there’s no better way to spend a Saturday morning than to read a lecture given by the Pope. A recent speech has caused something of a fuss by mentioning Mohammed in relation to violence. It is apparently a huge shock that the Pope doesn’t like Islam much. It’s not like he’s head of a Church who think they have the monopoly on the truth and all other religions are wrong, or anything.

The pertinent point about Mohammed is made in setting up the idea of the argument between religion and reason. It’s not really making any statements about Islam, and actually works ok as a point, but let’s not pretend there aren’t thousands of other ways of introducing the idea. No matter what I may suspect about the critical faculties of the Vatican, there’s no way nobody realised that mentioning Islam in this context would cause a stir. It’s hard to see it as anything but deliberate.

Much of the reaction is because of the ‘offensive’ nature of the remarks. As articulated by the Labour Humanist, the demands for an apology are stupid. It’s a point of view; if you disagree you should argue with the idea, not the person’s right to say it. Some are complaining about the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church making comments about violence and religion, but that’s also silly - hypocrisy is always a crap argument as it says nothing about the question itself.

But the rest of the lecture is fascinating to read as an insight into the mind of a high-ranking religious official. Half of it is a description of the philosophical insanity that results from trying to insert unjustified faith into a rational worldview, and then comes a full-on attack on the idea of scientific reasoning. It reads like the ramblings of a madman. How else to explain this kind of thing:

In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos [reason] and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - “8@(46¬ 8″JD,\”", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).¹

During GCSE maths my teacher wrote down a formula and using valid mathematical logic ‘proved’ that 2=3. He asked us to show him why it was wrong, which stumped even the best in the class. It turned out that the initial formula he’d given us was simply incorrect. Garbage in, garbage out. Working from a baseless premise results in the above nonsense. The time and effort put into jumping through philosophical hoops to try to link conjecture with the real world just results in statements that sound profound but in fact mean nothing at all. “between God and us…there exists a real analogy, in which…unlikeliness remains infinitely greater than likeliness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language’. What? What on earth could that possibly mean?

After this we’re off into more standard territory, which really boils down to tantrum.

This gives rise to two principles which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.

Pre-scientific? Anyway, this is followed by:

[I]f science as a whole is this and this alone, then it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by “science”, so understood, and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective “conscience” becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.

Stalin. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. No mention of the entire middle east, where the complete opposite is true. A return to good old-fashioned authoritarian morality is what we need. We can’t have people thinking for themselves, or using levels of human happiness to inform their morality. Far better to be told what to do by an inconsistent, morally-bankrupt-by-any-standards, made-up deity.

And finally, in the conclusion, we come to the throwing-the-toys-out-of-the-pram moment:

Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding.

Hasn’t philosophy been dealing with this for hundreds of years anyway? Hume? Russell? This is really just having a strop that unjustified faith has been rejected by modern philosophy and that the scientific method doesn’t allow people to make shit up and say it’s true. Why aren’t people paying attention to me?! There’s no need for me to provide evidence, because there just isn’t! Anyway, religious tradition = data!

It’s like me demanding the entire idea of empirical evidence be dropped because I can’t prove there’s a dragon in my garage. No matter how broad, ancient or popular the idea, you still have to provide evidence. Science is a truth machine open to all, not a dogmatic cult, and you can’t rewrite the rules just because it suits you.

1. I don’t know what the “8@(46¬ 8″JD,\” is all about. I guess the pdf couldn’t format something properly, unless it’s a way of referencing that I’ve never seen before. [↩]

I can’t believe Steve Irwin died! He was great. I think ITV used to broadcast his show on Saturday afternoons, and I always liked his enthusiasm for the subject. I seem to remember him frequently darting behind rocks when he spotted a wild animal, then making the cameraman squeeze in next to him, which made me laugh. I always wanted to see his film, which is described by the imdb as:

Aussie adventurer Steve Irwin - a.k.a. “The Crocodile Hunter” is out to save a gorgeous croc and relocate him. What The Steve doesn’t know is that the Crocodile has innocently swallowed a top secret U.S. satellite beacon, and some CIA agents sent to retrieve it. Steve mistakes the CIA agents for poachers and sets out to stop them from capturing the Crocodile.

I remember cracking up in the cinema when the trailer showed Steve meeting a fictional US president. He clearly didn’t take himself too seriously.

Apparently he was hit by a Stingray’s barb while filming in Australia. It wasn’t so much the poison in the barb as that it pierced his heart, which is incredibly rare. Sad

Skuds reported earlier this week on nine firefighters who were disciplined after refusing to hand out fire safety leaflets at a gay pride march. According to the BBC:

Some of the firefighters involved had argued it would be embarrassing for them to turn up in uniform to the Pride Scotia event, while others claimed it would contradict their moral beliefs.

At least the ‘moral beliefs’ argument is honest, if stupid. ‘Embarrassing’? What this really means is ‘people might think we’re gay’. The only way it would be embarrassing to turn up in uniform would be if you think there’s something wrong with being homosexual, so let’s just say what this really is: your basic homophobia, bordering on outright bigotry.

It’s entirely correct that the fire service should punish the firefighters involved. If you take a job, you have made an agreement to do whatever that job entails. If you are required to do something with which you disagree, you’re free to argue, but not to opt-out. You’re also free to leave.

Who could possibly disagree with this? Who would dare publicly support the firefighters? What organisation could be so morally bankrupt that they would support such monstrous anti-gay sentiment? Ah yes: the Roman Catholic Church¹. Says Glasgow Archbishop Mario Conti:

“They were asked, while in uniform, to hand out leaflets during a demonstration where they had legitimate concerns about being the subject of taunts and jokes, and in which in some cases, their religious sensibilities would have been grossly offended by people dressed as priests and nuns lampooning the Church.”

We can’t have people’s religious sensibilities being offended, can we? That would mean, um, that people would be offended. And that would mean, um, that, you know, um, it’s just bad, ok? Don’t give me that crap. It’s obvious why they’re wading in, and it’s appalling.

It’s tempting to think that we should all just ignore such bigots and they’ll go away, but I don’t think that’s true. I hope the fire service comes back with a strong statement disagreeing with the church’s position.

1. it is regularly pointed out to me that the RCC only abhors homosexuality, they still respect homosexuals as people. If anybody ever figures out how this makes any sense at all, please let me know [↩]

Tom Cruise has been dropped by Paramount because “his recent conduct has not been acceptable”. There are rumours that he stormed into their offices and locked himself in a cupboard.

Bob Dylan is ranting about modern music being tuneless. Everybody thinks the next generation has no musical taste. Looks like he’s just another bitter old guy - what a shame.

Remember the guy who was mistakenly, and endearingly, interviewed on BBC News? Somebody’s thinking of making a movie about it. Seems rather odd - there’s really enough material there? - but interesting nonetheless.

The BBC has refused to broadcast a radio comedy show because of a sketch involving Rolf Harris painting Mohammed cartoons. The reason given was “anxieties over taste and decency”, not that they’re cowtowing to crazy people.

Madonna and her husband are lobbying the government with a proposal to treat nuclear waste with magical Kaballah water. According to The Times a BNFL spokesman said “the scientific mechanisms and principles were just bollocks, basically”. I have a suspicion that there’ll be real scientific breakthroughs in the dispoal of nuclear waste before too long. There are bacteria capable of breaking down radioactive material, and it seems like we just need to figure out how to use them to our advantage.

Tom and Jerry cartoons are to be edited to remove scenes of smoking, after an Ofcom investigation into a crackpot concerned viewer’s complaint. I think we can all agree that this is pretty stupid.

Somebody released two rattlesnakes at a screening of Snakes on a Plane. Hmmm. Lauren?

And, just because it’s great, cows have regional accents! In Germany they say möö. Scientists, however, are sadly behind the times when it comes to cow knowledge.

News yesterday that 300 soldiers executed during WW1 are to be pardoned. These are people who were shot for cowardice / desertion. A relative of one of those shot said:

We were determined for my mother’ sake because she always said he was no coward, he was a very brave soldier and he fought for his country and he died fighting for his country.

Apparently you should only be pardoned if you weren’t really a coward. The government last looked into this in 1998, but made no decision on blanket pardons:

The reason given was because it said it could not “distinguish between those who deliberately let down their country and their comrades and those who were not guilty of desertion of cowardice”, he said.

Clearly if you ‘let down’ the random patch of land you happen to be born in you deserved to die, rather than just be kicked out of the army.

This time the Defence Secretary said:

I believe it is better to acknowledge that injustices were clearly done in some cases, even if we cannot say which, and to acknowledge that all these men were victims of war

In some cases? People refused to put themselves in a position where they would likely die as nothing more than cannon fodder, so they shot them! How could there possibly be any justice in that?

I hate the word ‘coward’. It’s entirely reasonable not to want to put yourself in harm’s way (not to mention not wanting to kill other people). If you do - fine, you’re either very brave or unaware of the reality of warfare. But there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to do that. I couldn’t be a policeman because the idea of dealing with violent criminals scares the hell out of me. Other people are far better suited to the task. Am I a coward? Why does it make a difference if ‘my country’ is involved?

Can’t we just agree that this was an abhorrent thing to do? Or does that suggest military leaders can be flawed? The Defence Secretary said:

I don’t want to be in a position of second guessing the commanders in the field who were making decisions

Why not? They thought it was ok to kill people who were no threat to them! You can acknowledge that it was a different time and a highly stressful situation, but it’s still reasonable to take the moral high ground.

Even today you can get prison time for refusing to follow orders. Prison time! You should likely lose your job, but prison? Maybe that’s reasonable if your actions directly put other people in danger in a combat situation, but just for refusing to go to Iraq? How can that be reasonable? Something’s messed up. Except you can’t say that, because they’re the military and get special treatment.

We’re all meant to fawn over the armed forces, and it gets in the way of reasonable discussion. For example, from the outside it looks very much like the entire culture of the armed forces is one of bullying and pathetic macho bullshit. Almost all the people from my school who went off to join the army were brainless, violent thugs who thought guns were cool. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that this kind of attitude, coupled with this kind of person, is hardly conducive to producing honourable soldiers. This could well not be the case: it’s possible the people I knew were unrepresentative, or maybe the army training process magically turns them into decent people, or maybe that’s just what’s necessary if you want soldiers willing to put themselves into the path of bullets, but when soldiers commit atrocities in foreign countries even the suggestion that the system churns out anything less than Steve McQueen-figures is met with horror, because ‘they’re incredibly brave and deserve our respect’. They can be both. But even if this is untrue, I want to be able to discuss it without being met with disapproving looks.

Yes, I’m sitting here in my comfortable flat making suggestions about people who routinely put their lives at risk, who defend the way of life I enjoy. What arrogance! How dare I! Of course I don’t deny that soldiers can be entirely decent people, and anybody willing to put themselves in harm’s way is by definition very brave, and has my admiration, but so what? There can still be problems. Being brave doesn’t make you right. As long as you stay polite and reasonable I don’t see why people like me can’t discuss this. The taboo against critical discussion of the military doesn’t help anybody, including the soldiers themselves.

I like the language used in this article.

A £40,000 teddy which used to belong to Elvis Presley was among scores of toy bears destroyed when a dog meant to guard them went on the rampage.

A rampage. A dog went on a rampage against soft toys.

To be fair, rampage is defined as “a course of violent, frenzied behavior or action”. It’s just that you don’t often hear of rampages against soft toys Obviously it’s a shame for the owners of the toys, but it is quite funny.

Is it me, or is everything a bit depressing at the moment?

• MPs and the police are fighting over whether yesterday’s arrest of Lord Levy was ’symbolic’. Reminds me of US police arresting Michael Jackson a few years ago and being forced to defend themselves against accusations of it being a smear campaign against MJ’s latest album. Because the police have nothing better to do than engage in symbolism and smear campaigns. Whichever way, one of the parties must be behaving ridiculously.
• Israel’s doing its thing, and as ever there’s no hope of any kind of reasonable solution because it’s all such an insane historical mess.
• There’s a huge amount of fuss over three bankers being extradited. I’m not saying whether I think it’s ok - I really have no clue - but I do wonder whether there’d be anything like as much fuss if the other party weren’t the US.

Good news? Well, Norway’s killed fewer whales than they intended.

I think I’ll just skip the news websites for the next few days.