A Gentleman's Domain

Remember, remember, the fourth of July

In 1605, on the fifth day of November, a group of malcontents led by one Robert Catesby, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London.  They managed to store several large barrels of gunpowder in the cellars beneath the House of  Lords, and they planet to blow them up on a day when King James I would be addressing members of both Houses there.  The plot, however, was betrayed and the conspirators were rounded up. One of them was actually captured in the cellar where he was preparing to light the fuse and retire immediately (There is a very lifelike representation of that occasion in Madame Tussaud’s waxwork museum in London).   He was Guido, or Guy, Fawkes and he is the best remembered of the conspirators.

Since then, the fifth of November has been the day, or rather night, when that deliverance has been commemorated.  It is known variously as Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night or, usually, Guy Fawkes Night.   The occasion is celebrated by the letting off of fireworks and by burning Guy Fawkes in effigy on bonfires – except at Lewes in Sussex where every year the townspeople gather to burn the Pope in effigy, since this was seen, not completely inaccurately, as a Catholic plot.  It can be fun.  I have enjoyed many Guy Fawkes parties, and I like setting off fireworks as much as the next person – my faves are rockets.

What always used to annoy me was people who decided to set their fireworks off just to annoy other people – like at three o’clock in the morning.  If you want to be very, very charitable you could suggest that maybe these were people doing shift work, and who were unable to celebrate the occasion any earlier.  I would be touched by your open mindedness but I would disagree with you.  People who do that are yobs and dickheads.  They get more pleasure from the knowledge that they are making  loud noises in the middle of the night, to disturb people, than they do from the occasion itself.  There was little  that one could do about it though, except wait for it to end.

In the last couple of years, though, I have discovered that the same kind of dickheaddery also attends the celebration of the fourth of July.   For most people, the day is a matter of parties, cookouts, barbecues, get-togethers at the homes of friends or family members, and after dark a firework display, either private or at some civic venue.  And a jolly good time is had by all.   But then, way into the night, when all that can be heard outside are the crickets and the tree frogs (I speak of where I live – I suspect the Sound of the Night is different in, say, Manhattan or Detroit), the firework morons start up.  They have a definite preference for fireworks that go bang – never mind beautiful displays of coloured lights. And they do not confine themselves to the fourth.  The days, or rather nights, leading up to the fourth, and away from it, are equally assailed by their detonations.  I fully expect tonight to be the same.  I am resigned to it, but I must admit that I am hoping for a torrential downpour, to wash them out!
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One Tuesday afternoon, 50 yards from the 3rd palm tree on the left....

A short reflection…   My wife until very recently was using a skin cream she had bought here (Florida). Then she read somewhere on the Internet that it has been banned in the UK because it contains several carcinogens.   When she told me this I declared “Well, you’re not going to use it any more!”  at which she looked pityingly at me, as though she wouldn’t have reached that decision without my having told her, and said that she had already thrown the jar of cream into the rubbish.  But why, I wondered, was that cream on sale here when it allegedly (and the allegation is strong enough for the Dept. of Health in Britain to ban it) gives you cancer?    And that raises the whole knotty problem of protection of the citizen versus corporate freedom.  After all, tobacco gives you cancer but while its use is to some extent regulated, it is still legally manufactured and sold.  I have neither the time nor inclination to go into the whole question of  pressure on governments, corporate bribery lobbying, and all of that.  And I suspect you don’t have the inclination to read it!

However, there is one thing that does make me pause for thought.   Fairly recently, i.e. a few months ago, I discovered that the European Union operates an airline blacklist.  There are 92 airlines from various countries round the world that are forbidden to enter European airspace because their safety records and/or maintenance procedures are suspect.  Flying coffins, in the vernacular. When I saw the list, to be honest, I didn’t recognize more than a few names, and most of them seem to be African  or Asian airlines.  And chances are I will never use them -- I certainly have no plans to book a ticket any time soon with North Korean Air Koryo for example.  One of them, though, I recognized straight away, because I flew with them once, back in the 1980s.  Maybe they weren’t so bad then!

But, why are the airlines on the list that are capable of intercontinental flight banned from Europe but permitted to land in North America?  Is Europe over-cautious, or North America more carefree?  Is there a North American blacklist in the works?  Or is the lack of one a knock-on effect of deregulation? All those questions, but my tired old brain has no answers!
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A shocking story...

From my friend George in Texas...

Pocket Taser Stun Gun, a great gift for the wife. 

A guy who purchased his lovely wife a pocket Taser for their anniversary submitted this:

Last weekend I saw something at Larry's Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest.. The occasion was our 15th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Julie.
What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized Taser. The effects of the Taser were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, which would allow her adequate time to retreat to safety....??

WAY TOO COOL!
Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button.  Nothing! I was disappointed.
I learned, however, that if I pushed the button AND pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I'd get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs.
AWESOME!!!

Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Julie what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two triple-A batteries, right? There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised.

Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and Taser in another.  The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.

All the while I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5' long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and (loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, 'no possible way!'

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best...?

I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked  to one side as to say, 'don't do it dipshit,' reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn't hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one second burst just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and..........

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD . . . WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION    .....WHAT THE HELL!!!.....

I'm pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again.

I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs?

The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.
Note: If you ever feel compelled to 'mug' yourself with a Taser, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative?

SON-OF-A-BITCH, THAT HURT LIKE HELL!!!

A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace.  The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was.  My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching.  My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I had no control over the drooling.

Apparently I shit myself, but was too numb to know for sure and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head which I believe came from my hair. I'm still looking for my nuts and I'm offering a significant reward for their safe return!!

P.S. My wife loved the gift, and now regularly threatens me with it!

       'If you think Education is difficult, try being stupid.'

And as the sun slowly sinks in the West...

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I tore a label off the other day.   Everyone in the USA will know what I mean – anything made with fabric of any kind other than clothing (upholstery, cushions etc.) comes with a label headed “Do not remove, under penalty of law”  and even though that does not apply to the end user, many people still leave them attached.  I unfolded a portable patio chair a few days ago, to relax in the evening sun with a book and a Pepsi, and with a certain devil-may-care I tore off the label.  Even so, in spite of what my rational senses told me, I did feel a frisson of guilt, and for a moment I was expecting a sudden visit from the police label squad.  “We know you’re in there.  Throw out the patio chair and come out with your hands up!”

There was a second label, and I tore that off too.  I was going to use it as a bookmark but then I read what it said and the implications shook me to the core!  Look what it says.  In effect, the government of the state of California is warning that this chair is not non-flammable enough for them to feel easy that its citizens are sitting in it, and it warns them against doing things in the chair that might cause them to burst into flame.  Well, a pat on the back for Arnie and his state’s government. But I live in Florida.  Where is the warning from Governor Crist or one of his minions in Tallahassee?  Don’t they care?  Are they so unworried at the possibility of my sudden immolation that they can’t even be bothered to warn me?  They need to model their technique on that of Sacramento and be a bit more Californian about it. I don’t actually smoke, or wave naked flames about anywhere near this chair, so the prospect of my seated combustion is remote, but even so, this callous indifference has left me shaken.  I’m not angry, but I’m rather disappointed.

Vets can be so blasé cant they!  Our vet provided us with a bottle of liquid medicine and a syringe (sans needle) and told us to give Sam, one of our cats,  2cc of the liquid every day.  The recommended method was to use the syringe to squirt a measured amount of red liquid into his mouth, once a day.  Ha!  Have you ever tried to give medicine to a cat?   I have never forgotten, from my childhood, when we had to give pills to our Siamese cat, Nokomis.   Normally she was the sweetest, most affectionate cat you could ever meet.  But when we tried to give her pills, she transformed into a snarling, hissing, razor wielding wildcat!  It took all four of us (parents, sister, myself) to do it.  We had to wrap Nokomis in a towel and, wearing gardening gloves, to open her mouth and insert the pill.  And then make her swallow it.  Half the time she fooled us into thinking she had done so, only for us to find it on the carpet a little later on.  So it was with not a little world-weary cynicism that I listened to the vet airily telling me to squirt a small measured amount of red liquid from a bottle into Sam’s mouth.  It takes both my wife and me to do it, and we have had to resort to wrapping him in a bedspread and holding him by the scruff of the neck.  Sometimes we are successful.  I suppose we should use reverse psychology and try to convince him that this liquid is something that he absolutely must not drink.  Not allowed!  Then he’d regard it the way he regards most food that we eat and would spare no effort or deception to get at it and polish it off.

If you are looking for a book to read and you want something more challenging than a nag-and-shag  or a formula thriller, please permit me to suggest The Unbreakable Child by Kim Michele Richardson.  This, I should warn you, is not a fluffy, cuddly read.  It is a harrowing account of how the author was sent to an orphanage run by nuns and for seven years she and her fellow inmates were beaten, abused and degraded by these foul Brides of Christ.  The violence was so unceasing and, it seems, administered for both good and bad behaviour, that it almost beggars belief.  You couldn’t get away with a story like this in fiction  – no one would believe it.  You have to be somewhat dysfunctional anyway to be a nun, but that is no excuse for, to take one example, punching an eight-year-old girl in the stomach and making her eat her own vomit. And of course, these women lied to the girls with terrifying stories about burning in hell.  All this, mind you, did not take place in some Third World country, but here in the USA.  And not way back in the twenties or in the Depression, but in the Sixties.  This was the decade of flower power, free love, The Beatles, Woodstock, the Apollo space program.  And while all that was happening in an increasingly enlightened world, nuns were beating up young girls.  The author does have her own happy ending, I’m glad to say. She is now a happy wife and mother, and was able to bring a successful lawsuit against the Catholic Church.  Read her story!

Still on books,  I have for the last couple of months been a member PaperBack Swap, an online club whose members can swap paperback books (hardbacks and audio books too) with each other.  It’s all very simple (which is probably why I can understand it):  after you join (it’s free) you list the books you are making available  and whenever anyone wants one you get a message, with that person’s name and address.  You send the book off by media mail, and you get one point.  Every point you get entitles you to choose a book from the 3.5 million books that have been posted by members.  The only cost to you is the postage for the books you send out, so you end up with a lot of books more or less at half price, and you know that your unwanted books have gone to good homes.  Check it out here.

Back home in the UK, there were local government and European Parliament elections last week, and as usual these were greeted with a barrage of indifference by most people.  However, about 45% of the electorate did turn out to vote. I won’t bother you with the results, some of which were very heartening and a few of which were downright disturbing.  I will briefly mention one thing, that always makes me feel that there still is some fun in British politics.  I refer, of course, to the existence of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, which was inspired by the Silly Party  in a Monty Python sketch.  The Raving Loonies contest local and parliamentary elections, have never won a seat, in all probability never will, but they  do brighten up election coverage as a cheerful alternative to mainstream politicians blethering on about what they will do and how everyone else is rubbish.  So far no one has tried to stop them, though you do once in a while hear some old stick-in-the-mud complaining that the Raving Loonies are cheapening politics.  But no one seems to mind.  How could anyone really object to a political party that fields a candidate who legally changed his name to Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel just before the ballot papers were printed?

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A Thorney Task

I was tagged by my lovely, bewitching friend Thorne to do one of those random facts about me memes  In this case the required number is seven.  I’ve done memes like this before and I’m wondering if I have run out of interesting things to say about myself, but anyway, here goes…

When I was a child I was taught always to wash my hands before eating.  This is something I have brought with me to adulthood, to the extent that I feel uneasy, and even grubby, if I sit down to a meal without washing my hands first.  In fact, I hate the feeling of having grubby hands at any time.

A couple of days ago I uninstalled Second Life from my computer.  I used to be a member (I suppose I still am) but I found it so unutterably boring that after a few uses I hardly ever logged on to it. And yet I know there are people who spend hours there, and for some it constitutes most of their social life.  But I just don’t get it.

I love prunes!  Yes, I know that puts me in the minority, but I love them. When I was at prep school, centuries ago, one of the desserts that was regularly served up to us was stewed prunes and custard. I always asked for a second helping, or even a third.  How come that never shows up on restaurant menus?

Most people I “meet” online seem to use laptops.  I own two laptops, but I much prefer to use my desktop – which I am using to type this.  Apart from anything else, I prefer sitting at a desk, using a substantial keyboard,  with the calculator-style number configuration on the right hand side.  Mind you, I have been using a computer since 1997 and I still have no idea what those three keys at the right hand end of the top row are for. You know: Print Scrn, SysRq, Pause etc etc

I shall be eligible for a postal vote for, I think, up to twenty years after my departure from the United Kingdom, but I keep forgetting  to apply for one.  That means I shall not be able to vote in the June 4 Local Government and European Parliament elections. A pity, because I’d like to take part.

When I go to bed, I can’t go to sleep without reading.  No matter how late it is, no matter how tired I am, I have to read, even if it’s only for a minute or two.

If I won the lottery, one of my extravagances would be to have a get-together for several of the people I have met in blogworld.  I’d fly them in (first class of course) and we’d have a luxurious party, and I’d hope that they wouldn’t be too disappointed to meet the real person behind the words.

Okay, I’m not tagging anyone.  Please do have a go if you like but if you do, please link back to me.
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9 years to complete, 2500 pages long, 2000 victims, 500 guilty men and women

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When I was nineteen or twenty, I worked in the X-ray department of a general hospital in Ladbroke Grove, London.  One of the radiographers there (the people who actually take the see-thru photos, as opposed to the doctors who interpret them, who are called radiologists) was a very nice lady from Ireland, who would have been about forty then. She told me a very interesting story.   She came from a small village in the west of the country, and all her young life, while she was at school, she longed to join a convent.  All she ever wanted was to be a nun.  So after she left school she packed a bag, kissed her family goodbye and went to a local convent to join, as a novice, or whatever girls are called before they become novices – before they take their final oaths.

But she left after a short while.  She told me she enjoyed the devotional side but what she could not tolerate was that every evening, some nuns would come to the girls’ dormitory and get into bed with them and make use of them.  And apparently, abuse was always followed by a prayer and a threat not to tell anyone.  Mary (let’s call her that) stuck it for about 2 weeks and then walked out.  However, accusing nuns of any wrongdoing was unthinkable  and such was the stigma of failing to stay the course, that Mary couldn’t stay in her village.  She had  to go somewhere. So less than 24 hours after leaving the convent she was aboard  a ferry to England, to stay with relatives.  It all worked out for her in  the end, and she ended up with a home and career in London.

Even at the very worldly wise age of nineteen, I wasn’t at all surprised by Mary’s story because on family holidays in Ireland when I was younger I had seen the way the clergy ran the place rather like the mafia.  They controlled everyone’s lives – maybe not in Dublin, but certainly in the countryside, in the Rural Ireland that Eamonn Devalera was so keen to create.   A priest or nun only had to walk into a shop or restaurant and the staff would all drop what they were doing and hurry over to fawn over them, while the grinning objects of their grovelling helped themselves to whatever they wanted, very often without having to pay.  I saw it several times and even as a child I knew enough to be outraged.  No one dared resist – one word of condemnation from the pulpit and a person could become an outcast in their own community.  It was not until the 1990s that Ireland suddenly began to snap out of it and throw off the suffocating influence of the church.

So, I was not at all surprised at this news feature from the BBC, and this one too.  A report has been released by the Child Abuse Commission in Ireland that has taken nine years to compile, and has revealed 2000 victims of sexual and violent abuse by priests, monks and nuns in that country over the last few decades.  Reading other reports on this I see that they can identify over 500 culprits – so the excuse that it’s just a few bad apples won’t apply.  We are talking about a significant minority of the Irish clergy -- and those are only the ones who have been found out.   The experiences related here give just a taste of what boys and girls had to go through. 

Sadly, even though this report has been released, and the state has paid compensation to many hundreds of victims, there does not appear to be any plan to search out and prosecute any of these priests and nuns.  Of course, a great many of them must be dead by now, but there must be hundreds still alive.  The church used to protect them by shielding them, and moving them from one parish to another if there was any hint of scandal – sound familiar?   Some of those people need to do prison time, age and ordination not withstanding, but I am not optimistic.  The church has had centuries of practice of looking after its own perverts.

Meantime, it is worth remembering that apart from convicted sex offenders and pimps, one of the highest risk groups for child sex abuse is the clergy.  Never leave your child alone with one of them.
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Thursday Thirteen #86

There are a great many things I have never done.  I suppose we can all say that.  Anyway, either through choice, lack of opportunity, lethargy or simple good fortune, the following are...

13 Things I Have Never Done

I have never been to Las Vegas.  Well,  I could say that about most places in the world, but Vegas is different, somewhere millions of people do visit, and somewhere I’d like to go.  My wife, however, loathes the very idea of the place, so it looks as though I shall not be going.  It’s not as though I could sneak off there one evening without anyone finding out.

I have never used a Blackberry, iPhone or Mac.  Actually, now I come to think of it, I have seen them in stores, on display but I have never seen one being used.

I have never been in hospital as an adult.  When I was five, I spent one night in hospital with suspected appendicitis.  False alarm.  Never been back.

I have never sung Karaoke.  In fact I have never been anywhere where it was happening.  Seeing “Karaoke Friday Nights!” on a poster outside a bar is a very good reason to wait until Saturday before going there.

I have never watched American Idol.  I don’t really care for people singing songs,  especially those sort of people and those sort of songs, so I have no plans ever to do so.  Also, I have never watched Eastenders,  Coronation Street,  Brookside or  Emmerdale Farm.  Those names will only have significance for Brits.  They are four very popular TV soap opera in the UK, but I never watched any of them in all the years I lived there.  All British soap operas seem to be based on the idea of bums-in-the-slums and I am not interested.

I have never had an espresso coffee.  Cappuccino, yes, in quantity.  The occasional latte. Drip filter coffee of all varieties, including decaf, since I was a youngster.  Ditto instant.  But never espresso.  Come to that, I have never had a Martini. Or a margarita.  Actually there is any number of drinks and cocktails I haven’t tried.  I must be living a very sheltered life.

I have never done jury duty, and probably never will.  I can’t serve here unless I become a US citizen, and when we return to Britain I shall, as a former police officer, be exempt.

I have never been to an Indian restaurant.  In England, these are everywhere, and Indian food is extremely popular, with curry apparently the favourite dish nationally.  I can’t stand the stuff, or any kind of Indian food, which seems to me to bear a passing resemblance to sewage.  So, while almost everyone I knew in England had a favourite Indian restaurant (usually called Taj Mahal  or The Star of Bengal), I have never set foot in one.  They are far easier to avoid here. In the town where I live I believe there are two, but I couldn’t tell you where.

I have never been scuba diving.   I’d like to try, because I love the sea.  I expect I shall one day.

I have never used cruise control on my car, or on any car.  We bought our Ford in 2001 and it is still going very well, never causing problems, and I suspect we’ll have it for some years yet.  There are four buttons on the crossbar of the steering wheel which, I believe, are something to do with cruise control but in 8 years I have never pressed any of them.

I have never played golf.  I know people can get obsessed by the game.  My ex-wife, for example, fell a happy victim to it, but I just do not see the attraction.

I have never changed a tire (or tyre, as I instinctively want to write it).   This is simply a matter of good fortune on my part, never having had to.  I expect I am tempting fate by writing that and will find myself needing to change a tire before the week is out.  I am probably tempting fate with my next “never” but…

I have never broken a bone.  Stupid thing to day!
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A reverse charge?

I don’t care for prank calls very much, but this one is different, because the positions were reversed and the prank was played on the caller.  I try to forget that I worked in telesales for many years, and I enjoy his discomfort.  Shame about the giggling, but do try to ignore it. 
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Thursday Thirteen #85

I’m asking for your help again, friendly TTers!   This week I’m listing some books I have bought or otherwise acquired but haven’t got round to reading yet.  Do any of you know any of these?  Can you recommend any, or warn me against any?   All comments of all kinds will be most gratefully received.

13 Books from my TBR shelf

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It isn't always easy being a pedestrian in Florida!

Each to her own but...

I don’t know about you but I find this story I found at the BBC website rather sad.   We’ve all heard of little girls who want to dress up to look like their mothers.  Okay, nothing wrong with that.  Even not so little girls do it.  But where I can’t help but think it’s a bit creepy is when mothers try to look like their daughters.  For what reason I can not say, one often sees mothers and daughters like that appearing in televised court shows, though I don’t know if there is any connection.  Anyway, I watch this couple and read he accompanying text and I wonder if I am right when I sense more than a little uneasiness in the daughter’s reactions.  The mother seems happy, and if she is then good luck to her.  But…
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Thursday Thirteen #84

13 Strange Words: and a definition to go with each one

Borbazz – An old fashioned type of trombone.

Wourne – A kind of glue used in bookbinding.

Sterr – A general term for all forms of infection of the digestive tract.

Volonalk – A species of giant seaweed, now thought to be extinct.

Outgan – The pledge of loyalty a medieval knight’s wife would make to her husband.

Jobels  – The part of a brass hinge that attaches to the door frame, rather than the door itself.

Gafflers – The name for fragments of perished rubber that flake off when it is handled.

Belat – A salad found in Bulgaria, containing green vegetables mixed with raw eggs.

Fownsupp – An archaic slang word for umbrella.

Pereti – The technical term for the cords that hold together a Venetian blind.

Pitypefi – A derogatory name for quack medicines in fancy bottles.

Oscatord – A short flight of steps made of unseasoned wood.

Hasubber –  The correct term for the excrement of maggots.  

Forcurs –  Cracks that appear in the glaze on old china.

There are two things to note here.  One is that there are more than thirteen words.  The other is that I said there was a definition to go with each one but I never said that those definitions were accurate.  In fact, I made them all up.  All those “words” are actually word verifications that I encountered when commenting at Blogger sites over the last couple of weeks.
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Two Cheers and a Boo!

Imagine a house with fifty front doors.  People come and go freely through forty-nine of them, carrying goods to and fro, and visiting the house for fun.   Someone, though, has barricaded shut the fiftieth door, and is standing in front of it, scowling, arms folded, saying to himself “That’ll show ‘em!”   That is the equivalent of the US blockade on Cuba.   A futile and useless gesture, undertaken to win votes at home from Cuban refugees rather than to have any effect on the island itself.   Only in the US are Cuban cigars, and other goods, illegal – thought it seems that they are easy enough to find if you know where to look.   And Americans are denied the chance to visit the place, while there is a thriving tourist industry, with scheduled flights to Havana leaving every day from airports in South America, Mexico, Canada, and Europe.  So a cheer for President Obama for finally making a move to end this ridiculous situation.

And another cheer for finally admitting that carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases, present a danger to life on our planet.   Gosh, who’d a-thought it?  I’m glad this now seems to be US policy, but it is a bit like Washington announcing that they have reached the conclusion that wheels should be round while the rest of the world has been happily trundling the things about for years.  Still, we no longer have a president who is a front man for the corporate sector and whose environmental policies were a love note to the polluters.  It’s all progress, it’s all good.

But a big boo – or even a what-the-fuck? –  to President Obama for declaring that CIA torturers will be immune from prosecution.  What sort of example does that set?  Apparently it is because they were simply doing what they were ordered to do.  Very glib.  But that issue has been settled, or at least we thought it had.  It was determined in 1946 at Nuremberg, that obeying orders was not a defence.  It saved no one from punishment.  The Nuremberg principles were laid down to govern the conduct of future warfare, and it was declared that an illegal order must not be obeyed.  Men who had obeyed orders to torture and murder were imprisoned, or hanged.  So it is disappointing, to say the least, that the CIA operatives who went round doing what the Gestapo had done – torturing people – will not suffer the consequences of their actions.  “What did you do in the Iraq war, Daddy?”  

It was also declared at Nuremberg that the planning and initiating of an aggressive war was itself a crime.  Several men were hanged for it.  Now, I am against anyone being hanged for anything, but the fact that it is deemed an offence under international law does raise interesting questions about the culpability of Bush, Blair, Cheney and the rest.
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Thursday Thirteen #83

I saw this feature in the Daily Telegraph not long ago.  A number of British travel agents were surveyed and asked what were the stupidest complaints that returning holiday makers had ever made to them.  Here are thirteen of them, all genuine!

"I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite."

A tourist at a top African game lodge overlooking a waterhole, who spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel "inadequate".

"The beach was too sandy."

"We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five euros (about $6.00) from a street trader, only to find out they were fake."

"Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women."

A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she’d been locked in by staff. When in fact, she had mistaken the “do not disturb” sign on the back of the door as a warning to remain in the room.

"The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?"

“No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."

"On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."

“I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller."

A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time.

"My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

"It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England it only took the Americans three hours to get home."

The full list published by the Telegraph is here.

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