Climate Fraud

As the failure of global temperature prediction becomes more protracted and obvious, outright fraud seems to be rearing its ugly head.

Greece - a not so cunning plan

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Government offices are part of a great scheme for the manufacture of the mediocrity necessary for the maintenance of a Feudal System on a pecuniary basis — and money is the foundation of the Social Contract.

Honoré de Balzac - Melmoth Réconcilié (1835)

As we gaze at the EU/Greece debacle it is worth reminding ourselves that this is the kind of thing government planners bring about. Political stooges deliver the narrative but it is superior officials living lives of comfort and security who appear to imagine they have the gift of foresight. As far as one can see, to milk their golden gift it is merely necessary to gather them around a table with coffee and biscuits on hand.

The euro is a planned currency - planned by EU officials. Greek membership of the euro was a planned event - planned by EU officials. The resulting mess wasn’t planned of course, but messes, even humongous messes such as this have the “lessons learned” file already bulging with excuses in time for the next coffee and biscuits session.

That’s the link between economic disaster in Greece and those wind turbines dotted around the landscape. Plan for the future. Your future that is – not the EU planners’ future. Theirs is a life of comfort, coffee, biscuits and planning. Their future is assured.

The ghost of Billy Bunter

As a youngster I read all of the Billy Bunter books, yet decades later I wonder why. Why did they appeal to a lad brought up on a Derby council estate who knew nothing of private boarding schools or the etiquette of wealth?

Perhaps the social gulf was easily bridged by ignoring it, but Bunter was not even a character one could admire or with whom one could identify. According to those inky swots at Wikipedia -

Bunter's defining characteristic is his greediness and dramatically overweight appearance. His character is, in many respects, a highly obnoxious anti-hero. As well as his gluttony, he is also obtuse, lazy, racist, inquisitive, deceitful, slothful, self-important and conceited.

His compatriots at Grefriars School weren’t much better either as far as I recall. The beastly place was crawling with snobs and fearsome beaks such as Mr Quelch. So what was the attraction all those years ago?

Looking back I think the books were straightforward stories with a beginning, middle and end. They were available from the local library and easily spotted in the shelves because of their yellow dust jackets. Bunter was good enough rather than appealing, with the added benefit of being a series so a chap knew what to expect.

Perhaps Billy Bunter brings out the mechanical aspect of reading. Beneath the literary flim flam books are usually something to do, entertainments as Graham Greene called his own output. Something to pass the time on a rainy day or when there isn’t anything else. Holiday reading without being on holiday.

There is a mechanical aspect to all forms of entertainment. It doesn’t have to be uplifting or even entertaining - available and easily digested will do. Eventually we learn to discriminate, to select according to our mood and passing inclinations, to learn, to muse, to delve, laugh, think, agree or disagree, to be angry, indignant or resigned.

Or we don’t.

Primark raid

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The BBC reports

French police are hunting for three armed men who stormed a Primark store in an suspected robbery attempt north of Paris.

The gunmen fled the scene after special forces evacuated 18 people trapped inside the Qwartz shopping centre in Villeneuve-la-Garenne.

None of those released 18 people was injured. The area around the shopping centre has been shut down.

Further reports suggest the raiders got away with a huge truckload of Primark clothing possibly worth in excess of €500.

A diet too far

From the Telegraph we have yet another snippet in the long history of totalitarian creep. Or if you prefer, totalitarian creeps.

Adults and children should be instructed by the Government to halve the amount of sugar they consume and eat almost twice as much pasta, potato and other fibrous foods, an official report is expected to say this week.

The word instructed leaps out like an unwanted spurt from a lanced boil . Here's another word worth noting.

Within months, people could be told by ministers to ensure that no more than 5 per cent of their energy comes from sugars, down from 10 per cent, including those naturally present in honey, fruit juice and other foods.

So people could be told what to eat by ministers? There is no point getting all hot and bothered about this and ministers will deny that they are telling people what to eat anyway, although becoming hot and bothered could help shed an ounce or two.  

Neither is there much to be gained by elaborating on the impertinence of it all, nor the vexed question of dietary science and its unreliability. The problem is government, what it does, what it ought to do and what it should do about hordes of self-seeking loons who grow fat sucking at the teat of the nanny state.

It seems to me that obesity is a symptom of a wider problem connected with personal responsibility. The consequences of our actions, of our decisions and lifestyles have become somewhat remote and diffuse. Much of this loss of responsibility and indifference to remote consequences is down to intrusive governments and perhaps this is the debate we should be having. 

It is not entirely clear why anyone should opt to live an officially healthy life anyway, why we should not enjoy life in our own way and on our own terms. The trouble is that would require some kind of publicly acknowledged limit on what governments do and what they don't do.

This would leave almost everyone in politics with a smaller platform and even worse from their point of view, a more clearly defined platform. For a political culture grown fat and flabby on overindulgence in hyperactive interference it would be a diet too far.

Bemused stare

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We often take Granddaughter to a play centre if the weather isn’t fine enough for zooming around the garden. At least these places gives her a chance to run and climb and use up some energy whatever the weather. Mrs H and I take turns in following her around because there is always a spot of hands and knees work to be done.

At one point there is even a short stretch of commando-type wriggling on the belly using elbows as motive power which certainly takes its toll on oldies who never were commandos. When it is Mrs H’s turn to chase around I buy a coffee and sometimes watch the pop videos on the big TV screen. The sound is turned down low so hardly anyone else watches.

You may be more familiar with them than I am, but modern pop videos are a weird mix of the crudest sexual display with a strange kind of dysfunctional romance in the distant background. Strutting adolescence mingles with disjointed images of cool and the sentiment button-pushing advertisers know so well.

Crude as it is, a dying glimmer of lost romance does seem to shake its shroud in the background. No doubt the glimmer is partly intentional, a touch of the rose-tinted however tawdry and out of place it may be.

Superficially slick, the videos do not come across as well done to my inexpert eye. How much they cost to make I don’t know, but one is left with the entirely obvious impression that these are disposable images not to be taken seriously except by the gullible hormones of adolescence.

The female performers can be quite pretty in a somewhat flaky and excessively blatant way. The males pout, flutter their eyelashes and try to do masculine, apparently without ever having been taught how.

Quite why this depraved yet curiously sad spectacle is deemed suitable for young children I don’t know because none of them pay it the slightest attention. Neither do their phone-struck parents. All I’ve ever seen are a few bemused stares from grandparents.

A big noise in tennis

One of many unattractive trends in professional sport is the rise of grunting in tennis, although it isn't new and with some of the women players it is more of a loud shriek than a grunt. From the BBC we have.

Is grunting louder than a lawn mower a natural part of tennis or is it unsporting behaviour?

Should it be accepted as being part of the game or should rules be introduced to outlaw players from exhaling so loudly when they hit the ball that noise levels exceed 100 decibels?

Grunting became topical again at Wimbledon when Belarusian Victoria Azarenka was forced to defend her on-court noises following a quarter-final loss to Serena Williams - and another 'shrieker', Maria Sharapova, is in semi-final action against Williams on Thursday.

I watched part of the Azarenka / Williams match and from my perspective Azarenka's incessant shrieking made the game unwatchable, but I'm not a fan and fans are wired up differently.

Although grunts and shrieks are supposed to help players hit the ball harder, gamesmanship seems at least as likely. These people are professionals and sporting ideals are not high on the to-do list.

When each player has a retinue of agents, fitness specialists, coaches, diet advisers, psychologists and managers, top tennis has become a business, not a game for individuals. Winning is the name of the game and any legitimate advantage is bound to be used if it actually works.