The Tom Sawyer Principle (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

Venezuela is resisting American aid because of its Trojan Horse implications. Richard Branson is organising a concert to raise money for Venezuelan aid. This week's competition is Which Trojan Horse Would You Choose?

[Grant]

[Mick Harper]

Incorrect and a misunderstanding of the role of the rich. Branson writes a cheque for Venuzuela Aid. Big deal. Nobody notices, no consequences. Branson organises a charity event for Venezuela Aid, it's big news (it didn't reach you but it was on the CNN streamer). The money (like the aid) is not important in itself.

AE lesson (1): Hating the rich makes you happy but not wise. So stop hating the rich.

AE lesson (2): Bet you can't.

[Mick Harper]

AE lesson (3): Not hating the rich does not preclude action against the rich. If you wish to do so, and AE has no particular position on this, you will find it easier if you do not hate them. As those very wise guys say, "It's strictly business, nothing personal."

[Mick Harper]

I could have been a paedophile but I didn't have the Latin.

[Mick Harper]

For that joke to work you have to be aware of E. L Wisty’s joke “I could have been a judge but I didn’t have the Latin” as well as know that there’s a conference on the subject going on in the Vatican. Paedophilia not E L Wisty. I’m probably the only person reading this who would know this. E L Wisty not the conference. Is a joke still a joke when only the person telling it understands it? I like to think so. Certainly I laughed a lot.

[Grant]

If you have to explain it, it makes it better, like T S Eliot and Jackson Pollock

[Mick Harper]

Not sure about T S Eliot, I have something of a tin ear for poetry, but it is true with all branches of modern art. Presumably because they are intellectualised. Possibly to us what rhetoric was to the Ancients.

[Mick Harper]

If you use Cosa Nostra (Influence Peddling) Inc money to finance your election campaign, you'll be OK but woe betide anyone who uses their own money. It'll be impeachment for you!

[Mick Harper]

Passing The Mandate of Heaven

Monday 13th November, 1908: The Dowager Empress (of China) declares a new heir to the throne in the event of the Emperor's death
Tuesday 14th November, 1908: Emperor dies
Wednesday 15th November, 1908: Dowager Empress dies.

It makes our own office politics here at the AEL seem positively tame.

[Mick Harper]

Fabulous new scandal from America. You pay the lacrosse coach half a million dollars, he gives your kiddie a sports scholarship, kiddie drops lacrosse on day one and goes off to do sociology or whatever. Funnily enough I used to tell people the same dodge was sort of available in the British universities of yesteryear when you only needed opposable thumbs to get in to do mechanical engineering and then, on day one, you switched over to do Eng Lit. Or, if they were oversubscribed, something else that didn't require any work.

But the American scam is important because now universities won't just beggar the younger generation through tuition fees, but the older generation via bribes. Soon nobody will be able to afford to go to university and we can scrap the lot. Except the College of Applied Epistemology. Sorry, but your kids won't get in for love or money so don't even think about asking Hatty who the go-to person is.

[Mick Harper]

Two things never mentioned in the unending problem of fly-tipping
1. That local authorities should not be involved since there is very little correlation between where this (non-standard) rubbish comes from and where it ends up
2. That the cost of dealing with the fly-tipped rubbish is a zillion times more than the cost of disposing of it properly in the first place.

The answer therefore is for the national government to provide so many places for the free (and convenient) disposing of non-standard rubbish that it doesn't pay anyone to do it illegally. This blindingly obvious solution will never be adopted though because people will not see this as a 'problem sorted' but as 'bad people being rewarded'. This is because good people pay to have their non-standard rubbish removed, and there's an end to the matter.

So it will never happen. This is another example of 'righteousness must prevail' that absolutely drives me mad and the country to penury. When are these tossers, probably you tossers, going to understand that morality is just an input like anything else. I don't mind people paying money to feel virtuous -- like I say, it's an input like everything else -- but, please, not over fly-tipping.

[Mick Harper]

Word has come down about the Tory leadership election. Those of you still ambulatory are to go round saying quietly but firmly, "Anyone but Dominic Raab." I don't know why we're backing him, it may be a cash job.

[Mick Harper]

Library News

[Mick Harper]

This popped up on my daily Twitter search (to find things to feed your appetites, it's OK, there's no charge, I enjoy it) https://twitter.com/rhodri/status/1111579324505829377
Apparently there's a thing going round comparing Speaker Bercow with that bloke in Fiddler on the Roof. What wounded me to the quick is that it had not even occurred to me that Speaker Bercow was Jewish. In all these years! His people are taxi drivers, according to Wiki, but that may be cover.