Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

In that case, Grant, I would have to withdraw my criticism of Hardy and dump it on the makers of the telly adaptation. But I am still somewhat surprised since the entire force of the book is The Suffering of the Innocent not "Mucky Girls Shall Not Prosper".

However, if you are correct, then I will criticise Hardy for the lunacy of his ending. If Tess is a scheming hussy she is unlikely to want to die for love. She was perfectly free to leave whatsisface for whatsisname without going round killing people.

PS Nobody becomes an Applied Epistemologist by reading the original. The sheer amount of raw data you have to hoover up precludes old-fashioned methods like attending university, reading books and so forth. Television, for instance, has been provided so that you can learn in fifty minutes what previous generations had to spend yonks acquiring. This applies to BBC TV adaptations of English Literature as it does to the Discovery Channel.

[Grant]

And if you have a bit more time, there are always Reader's Digest condensed books.

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

I got through grammar school using Classics Illustrateds. Good grief, you can't be a teenager and read Great Expectations. In university I found the Teach Yourself series could guarantee scraping through with a pass mark.

My greatest coup though was making up a region in Australia and describing it in some detail because I figured no British geography teacher marking the paper would know it didn't exist. I got more than a pass mark on that one.

Isn't it ironic that when my book comes out I shall be the world's most pre-eminent geographer since Tarif Al-Aqsir.

[nemesis8]

Here is a quick question for you. You are walking along a busy British street and chance upon a carrier bag..... being a public spirited sort of citizen you open the bag, only to find a sawn-off shotgun. What would you do?

This case is causing a bit of a storm in the UK

http://constantlyfurious.blogspot.com/2009/11/beyond-belief-really.html apologies for the language in the blog.

[GarethMW]

Do not under any circumstances touch it.

Dial 999 and ask for the police.

Wait for them to arrive.

Expect to have to do a lot of explaining when they get there

[nemesis8]

Let us look on the bright side. Paul Clarke only got 12 months suspended for taking a gun to the police station to hand it in. He could have got 5 years.............

[Ishmael]

Britain is dead.

[Mick Harper]

Encountered a fascinating example of how Quangos rule (ie misrule) the world. As most of you don't know, the present world prosperity is based on the Container Revolution which reduced transport costs from (typically) fifty per cent of the cost of the delivered product to (typically) one per cent. This meant that practically anything could be made practically anywhere and thereby rendered the whole world a single free-ish market.

This container-principle was first offered internally by transportation companies in the USA threatening in the early twentieth century to do to US costs what the canals had done to eighteenth century British costs. But the Interstate Commerce Commission (a federal rate-fixing body set up by the ineffable Grover Cleveland) stepped in and ruled that the transportation cost of the container must be the same as the cost of transporting the most expenive item within the container. Which of course at a stroke meant that the container now actually cost more to ship than just shipping the goods loose, rather than reducing the cost by ninety per cent or whatever.

Nobody could understand this Alice-in-Wonderland ruling until somebody pointed out that containers made everything one price (since it is moving the containers not the contents which counts) and therefore no rate-fixing body would be required any more. The ICC turkeys decided there was to be no Christmas that year or any year until 1995 when it was finally wound up.

[Grant]

I think you are heading at long last towards the right-wing end of the economic spectrum. In Britain today there are millions of people employed by the modern-day equivalents of the ICC, being well paid to perform unnecessary jobs.

[Mick Harper]

As an Applied Epistemologist I am always heading for the right-wing end of the economic spectrum (and in all other directions too). Only a typical right-wing fruitcake of the Ishmaelite tendency would make the routine tabloid accusation that 'millions are employed by ICC equivalents'. A few thousand possibly (or name the millions if you can).

And, Grant, as you will find now that we are ruled by new brooms who have promised to save six billion this year by removing these few thousand, many ICC equivalents are actually doing a thoroughly worthwhile job.

Oh no! I am rapidly heading for the left-wing of the economic spectrum.

[Mick Harper]

The AEL is presently conducting soundings as to what country it is supporting for the World Cup. I will let you know when these have been completed which country that is.

[Mick Harper]

It's England.

[Hatty]

For England, read Holland.

[Mick Harper]

I knew it would be Holland. I was just twitting Keimpe.